The Six Days of Fire Humans adapt. This is the prerequisite for #life on earth. When civilisation ended in the six days of fire they believed only the cockroaches would survive. They forgot about us; we are the outcasts the freaks, the mutants. In a time when we should have stood together, we were shunned. Black rain streaked down the windshield, as our truck thundered through the ash and rubble. We wore no protection; we needed none. The radiation has re-shaped us. The bio suits that we once hid behind were meaningless now. We glanced at the warped landmarks; they were the remains of a time of peace and prosperity, changed as we were by the days of fire. Here and there, shapes stumbled in the gloom; odd forms clinging to #life, things that made us remember that we were more fortunate than others, in some ways. One of them, a Pure, clad in its glowing suit was hunting; a weapon clutched in its hands, a modified energy cannon. The noise from our truck startled its prey, with a screech and a flurry of dark wings, a carrion bird launched itself into the sky, disappearing into the smog. We sped up to avoid the blast from the Pure’s weapon but felt the force of the explosion rock our vehicle as we raced through the city. How man has fallen, once the top of the food chain, the creator and the destroyer, now little more than a creature scrabbling on the edges of #life and death. It almost seems fitting that his cities now serve as his grave. London was one of the least damaged cities; we travelled through it and marvelled at how the structures had held against the bomb blasts, the infernos and the radiation. There were by no means perfect but they were habitable and there were things that could be scavenged from them. Most of us were garbed in remnants of fabric from crumbling hotels, had worn the #life support and bio system suits located in underground bunkers. Food, that was the hardest thing to come by it was the most expensive and most valued thing in the remains from before, we would see many things during a scout, things that could be edible, or could kill us all. Birds, they were the safest meat, the only creatures not twisted by the radiation below the clouds, they could escape to a place above, where the sun may still shine and it would seem that everything was normal in the world. The truck ground to a halt, skidding through the loose soil. We wordlessly left the armoured vehicle taking care to set pressure mines beneath the driver’s side door and in front of the wheel, therefore if it was commandeered by one of the Pure’s or another of the clans of us, well, they wouldn’t last long. We checked that we weren’t being watched before entering a great shell of a building, its glass ground into a fine dust beneath our feet, it would have been impressive in its heyday, it seemed to stretch forever into the smog, almost disappearing. But a blast had severed the top sections of it and they lay where they had fallen all those years before. One of us broke away concealing herself behind rubble near the exit to watch our back while the rest of us continued through the wreckage. When we came to a large steel door we stopped, pulling out various weapons we shouldered it away bracing ourselves. We waited but nothing emerged, none of the monstrosities that made the darkness their home had found this place, and for that we were thankful. Rushing forward we dug frantically through the bones and debris hoping and praying it was there. There was a collective sigh when the trapdoor was found beneath, with agile fingers we quickly disabled the locks and entered security codes, until finally with a hiss the door swung down into darkness. Scenting the new air we paused, something wasn’t right. Most of these supply stores carried the rank air of a place long forgotten about; this was curiously fresh, unnaturally clean. One of us shone a torch into the inky darkness, and, seeing nothing but a void we chanced it and leapt into the abyss. Though we fell far we landed on all fours and straightened up immediately, there was an odd hum in the blackness almost inaudible but loud enough to raise the hair on the back of our necks. Creeping forward we started when a series of lights snapped on revealing a bunker that stretched on endlessly. The room was flawless; it bore none of the scarring we had come to know as the norm on the surface, and that was somehow wrong. The word alien sprung to mind as we gazed around the room, it was piled to the ceiling with containers. Scanning the tight script embossed on the side of one revealed enough water to last a month. Another held enough dehydrated food to feed us and probably all the creatures in the city. Miraculously the third in the row held medicine, antiviruses to combat the bio engineered diseases that could lay undying on a surface for years. With this we could do more than just survive, we could support others like us. We wandered down the rows of containers noting which pile held what, as we went. At the end of a row there was a vault door set into the wall of stone, it was slightly ajar a streak of pearly light escaping from the gap between it and the wall. The light moved like smoke on the floor, and was a faint shade of blue, the likes of which we hadn’t seen in years. It was also the source of the humming, a distinctive whirr was coming from behind the door, so cautiously we pushed it open and peeked inside. What we saw stopped us in our tracks. Lined up in glass tanks large enough to hold our truck was the rest of our clan. Years ago we had set out to scout for food and water what we found changed our lives forever, in a storage bunker deep below the surface; lay research that suggested that our mutations could be reversed. We argued long and hard about this discovery, half of us believed that this was nonsense a cruel trick played on us by the Pures or worse a tap set for one of the opposing sides from the war. Divided by the promise of having our original forms restored we went our separate ways, though those who left promised to return with the secret to the restoration, or news of their failure. That had been three years ago. Stunned silence reverberating among our group, some wept for those in the tanks, others averted their eyes. Floating above us, were our friends the only family we had, who could accept us for who we were regardless of how we looked. Our hearts went out to them. Far from the expected restoration, they were horrific to look upon. They had been experimented on, their mutations accelerated to the point their bodies couldn’t have coped, some looked ravaged by fire. Others had their limbs removed and replaced by cold steel. They had been lured there, to be tortured and experimented upon. But by whom? Some bolder than others wandered round the lines of tanks, some empty, others filled with other creatures from above. There were cages too, farthest from the door; several held rotting meat and old bones though most held nothing. A pile of rags in the corner of one stirred as we passed and we paused curious about the only thing in the room except ourselves that was strong enough to move. A flash of luminescent eyes caught our attention as the thing in the cage reared up. A familiar scent stirred the air at the same time a soft voice whispered. ‘Noah?’ My heart stopped. As I met the eyes of the creature and a furious anger arose within me. It was her, my whole reason for leaving, not just to seek the clan, but to find her. She gripped the bars of her prison, the soft pads on her hands scratching gently against the metal. I raised my hands to hers touching her as if she may fall apart. Tears were slowly leaking from the corners of her beautiful eyes, ‘You came.’ She breathed. ‘Of course I did.’ I told her, as I reached through the bars to wipe away the tears wetting the soft fur around her eyes. ‘What happened?’ I asked though dreading the answer. ‘We made it here, but he was waiting. He captured us, and did terrible things, they’re dead Noah. All of them.’ ‘How long?’ I queried, fighting back the growl that was building in my chest. ‘A year or more’ she answered quietly. Pulling a small explosive from my pack I pressed it to the lock of the cell, motioning her to stand back I waited for the bang before kicking the door of its hinges. Launching myself into the cell I swept her into my arms, holding her for the first time in years. She was thinner and beneath her fur I could feel a criss-crossing of scars across her back. She wept quietly into my shoulder, while other members of our group pulled food, water and first aid supplies from their packs. Gently lifting her I carried her from that ghastly room and into the main bunker. She pressed her head into the side of my neck as I walked trying to find somewhere comfortable to lay her. Padding silently behind us came the rest of our group, an air of sadness shrouding them. She relaxed in my arms, and I felt the stress that had built up within me the last three years begin to ease, replaced by a burning desire to destroy the one who had done this to our clan, to her. In an alcove created by two rows of containers, I paused and lowered her softly to the ground. She curled instinctively into the corner and I felt my very being cry out with pain at this, that her once fiery persona had been curbed by cruel treatment. I took a small amount of food, offered from others in the clan, and held it out to her. She took it from me scenting the air around it before taking a careful nibble. I growled despite myself and her ears flicked back, alarmed. ‘I’m sorry!’ I said quickly, ‘it’s infuriating to see what has happened to you’ It’s okay; I’m just a little jumpy.’ She sighed, relaxing once more. She finished the meal in a few bites before quenching her thirst with the water from my canteen. When she handed it back it was empty. She shivered, the fur along her back bristling, revealing angry red welts beneath her smooth speckled hide. I cursed inwardly and pulled her into my side, relishing the feeling of having her back. Before long she was asleep, the worry lines on her face were smoothing out and a look of peace entered her sleeping frame. Reluctantly I extracted myself from her, and met the worried gazes of the rest of our clan. ‘Watch her for me’ I told them ‘Where are you going’ Bran asked me this, my closest friend, and the least affected by the radiation. The light scaling on the side of his jaw marked him as one of us and he had been left to die at a young age. ‘To find the ones that did this.’ I answered, determined to leave before she awoke, if she did I knew I wouldn’t be able to go. ‘I’m coming too’ He declared, loyal as ever. Though as he rose, his mate Anna grabbed him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘This is something he has to do alone’ As I stalked through the bunker, images of my dead friends flashed through my mind, fuelling my anger and determination to destroy the ones who did this. I returned to the laboratory room, whispering goodbyes to them as I passed. I looked away as I passed her cell, continuing through doorways and arches we had not explored before. Finally after moving through several rooms full of machinery and lights I entered a modest chamber, decorated richly with rugs and furniture. Sat in the centre of the room with their back to me was a man wearing a modified bio suit, the tell-tale hiss of the oxygen tanks echoed around the room. ‘So you’ve come.’ His muffled voice rasped against my senses and I was instantly wary of this stranger. He didn’t look round, but continued speaking. ‘And not a minute too late. I needed some new subjects.’ I growled, letting instinct and anger take over. He turned slowly, and my hackles rose as I looked upon him. Flat white eyes regarded me from behind large glasses. While his mouth and nose was encased in metal, streaked red with blood and other fluids, I bared my teeth at him, resisting the urge to tear out his throat. I wanted to make him suffer, feel what my clan had felt in their dying moments. Tubing snaked around from the tank on his back joining with the mask on his face, his chest heaved as if unable to draw breath. He gazed at me, cold and calculating. ‘Repulsive isn’t it? But that’s what fire does, it burns!’ he wheezed a laugh. ‘But you, you are a fine specimen aren’t you. They don’t appreciate you on the surface do they? But I would, you may be the thing that saves me!’ he stood. I saw him for what he was now, a remnant from the times before, a soldier. He had been all but destroyed by the days of fire, so had hidden away, stealing what he needed from those above. I could smell my friend’s scents on this man, and realised with horror what he had been doing. He had been taking their limbs for his own. I felt my ears flatten against my skull, and the fur along me spine raise threateningly. A red mist was clouding my vision and my heart thundered in my chest. He laughed. ‘A pity. You won’t co-operate then?’ he shrugged. ‘No matter, I’ll make you scream as she did.’ ‘I’ll kill you!’ I roared as I rushed forwards to attack him. He side stepped my first attack. Sighing as he did so. ‘And you believe that you can succeed where the six days failed. Do you?’I rounded on him, teeth bared and claws unsheathed. He was too slow this time and I raked bloody furrows into his side. He didn’t even flinch. Instead his arm shot out and seized mine and very slowly, very deliberately, he removed a knife from his pocket and sank it into the muscles on my shoulder. I hissed menacingly and he simply released me, wary now I backed off to a safe distance and began to circle him, waiting for an opening, one arm hanging uselessly at my side. ‘Well come on then, DO YOUR WORST!’ he screeched at me, and not taking my eyes off his, I pulled the knife from my shoulder and felt hot blood sheeting down my arm slicking the fur down and making the fabric of my shirt stick uncomfortably to me. I tensed, my muscles coiling like springs. I waited one second then two until he grew inpatient and started moving towards me, then I sprang, throwing myself at him. My momentum carried him off of his feet and we landed heavily, grappling with one another. I hit his head against the floor smiling with satisfaction as fear entered his eyes. Then plunged the knife into the tubing that connected the mask to the tank on his back. He screamed wildly, thrashing on the ground his actions growing more sluggish until he lay almost still. I stood, turned my back on the man and left him to die slowly on the floor. Passing through the laboratory for the final time I drained the tanks of their water, though I couldn’t find a way to remove the bodies within. Knowing I couldn’t leave them there to rot I used some of the lab equipment to start a fire before closing the door on both the bodies of my friends and the creature that killed them, I returned to my clan. It has been ten years since I laid those unlucky few to rest and using the supplies in the bunker our clan has grown considerably, though she still dreams of her ordeal Rowan has moved on from what he did to her. We have accepted the changes that the radiation wrought on us, and no longer chase rumours of cures, we are content. We live peacefully, helping those who need it regardless of whether they’re like us or Pure. Sometimes the sun even breaks through the clouds, and warms the earth once more.