Shatterheart - Chapter 4
Welcome to the fourth chapter of Shatterheart! We rejoin Arya down on the surface of the Shatter where she must begin to overcome the adversity facing her. What does this mysterious new land have in store for our daring survivalist?
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- Chapter 4 -
Deathly Silent
Arya’s eyes fluttered open, a dull ache permeated her skull and her entire body screamed for more rest. Groaning, she rolled onto her side, instantly regretting it as a sharp pain shot through her ribs. Driving the air from her lungs, the ice cold tendrils of agony blossomed inside her. Gritting her teeth, she looked down to find a jagged shard of metal protruding from her survival suit, jutting from her side, just above her hip. Taking a shaky breath, she slowly and carefully eased herself up, trying not to crease the wound. Wincing at the pain, she prodded gently around the wound, trying to gauge just how far the metal was embedded.
She wanted to grab it and pull it out. Every instinct screamed to get the foreign object out of her body as fast as possible, but she had to stay calm, she had to think rationally. Taking a deep, calming breath, she reached down for her hatchet, only to find the holster on her thigh was completely shredded and the hatchet itself was missing.
“Well, that complicates things,” she said to herself, her dry throat cracking painfully.
She glanced around quickly, searching desperately for anything sharp, only to find herself completely out of options at the sight of a forest, a cliff, and a pool of deep, acidic water. She was about to give up and start gnawing off a part of her survival suit when a crazy idea occurred to her. Carefully, she reached down and scraped her thumb on the shard of metal. It was surprisingly sharp and its jagged shape would lend itself to cutting. She would have to work fast, but it might be possible. She didn’t really have a lot of options anyway.
Steeling herself, she gripped the end of the shard and pulled it smoothly at a straight angle from her skin. She choked, dry heaving as the metal left her skin. Had she not already thrown up everything she had during the landing, she probably would have been sick. Panting, she reached up and began sawing on the arm of her survival suit. It was tough, but the shard was working, slowly sawing through the tough threads. She didn’t dare look at the wound, more scared of what she might see than anything.
As the sleeve came off by the shoulder, she wadded it up and shoved it against the wound, gasping as the pain flared up once more. After a moment, she finally looked down, expecting the makeshift rag to be coated in blood. She was pleasantly surprised and the bloodshed seemed minimal. She couldn’t really tell if there was any internal bleeding through the ache that permeated her whole body. In all honesty, there wasn’t much she could do about it anyway if she were bleeding inside.
After a few hours of rest beside the pool spent nursing her wound, the bleeding seemed to slow enough that she felt comfortable staggering to her feet. Carefully, she peeked over the steep edge of the pool. The deep blue abyss gazed back at her, silent and unmoving. There was no sign of her pod nor the creature she had seen lurking far below. She shook her head wearily and paced back into the center of the clearing, trying to get her bearings.
It was only now that the absolute silence hit her. She hadn’t noticed before thanks to the throbbing in her head. There was no birdsong on the breeze, no bugs calling to one another, no squirrels chattering in the trees. The eerie silence was only broken when the trees rustled in the wind, only adding to the unsettled feeling stirring in Arya’s stomach. She stood completely still, straining her ears for even the faintest peep of life. The summery breeze on her skin had lost its warmth, raising goosebumps across her flesh.
Taking a deep breath, she set off into the forest. She would need shelter, then water, and finally food. Given the lack of animals, it seemed she would have to employ some scavenging to find something to eat. As for water, whatever was in the blue pool was undoubtedly unpalatable, so that was going to be a problem as well. She ran over the list in her mind over and over again, trying to focus on the tasks at hand rather than on the absolute peril she was in.
As long as you’re not injured, you’re fine. The moment you get hurt, your survival chances are dramatically reduced.
The teachings of her survival classes floated back to her despite her efforts.
If you can’t find water in the first two days…
“No, no, stop it,” she grumbled to herself, shaking her head angrily. She was going to find David and she was going to find a way back to the station. She survived the descent, which meant he had to have survived as well, he had to.
After several hours of walking, she hadn’t found a single sign of life. Not even an animal print or a dead bug. She also hadn’t found a decent place to make camp, either, the land was strangely flat away from the cliff on which she had landed. She was about to give up and begin setting up a camp near the closest large tree when the forest broke, opening into a small clearing. Near the center was a mound of burnt wood and the tall grass had been matted down in several places and looked to have been eaten away.
Arya rushed to the dead campsite, running her hands over the wood only to find it stone cold. Rather than dwell there, she followed the tracks leading back into the woods. Once out of the tall grass, the tracks, which looked like hoofprints and a wagon trail, became considerably harder to identify. For the next few hours following the tracks she tried to stay on alert despite the hunger growing in her gut and the dull ache that permeated her entire body. She caught herself falling off track several times, jolting back to reality, fear spiking into her heart as she searched for where she lost the trail.
She paused, leaning back to look up at the sky through the branches above. It seemed like it had been midday for hours. In fact, the sun didn’t look like it had budged since she awoke beside the pool. The weather hadn’t changed either, puffy white clouds still scooted across the sky on a soft breeze. She could feel her breathing quickening with panic when a thought occurred to her. Of course the sun wasn’t moving, the Shatter didn’t rotate or move the way other planets did. She was trapped in a permanent daylight, an eternal summer.
Arya shook her head, the weariness she felt suddenly making much more sense. On top of everything, she would need to manage her time to keep from overextending and becoming exhausted.
“Wonderful,” she sighed, shaking her head.
The tracks would have to wait, she needed sleep. She set about collecting leaves, creating a kind of nest under a particularly large oak tree, nestled snugly in a pocket between roots. It wasn’t the best option available, but it would have to do in a pinch. She settled in, covering herself with the leaves, once again finding a notable lack of insect life. Content that she was hidden, she closed her eyes.
She awoke to a soft rustling hours later. She wasn’t sure how long she slept, but the fogginess that enveloped her mind seemed to have faded a bit. She immediately switch to high alert. She couldn’t move without making noise, so she stayed in place, hidden under her leaves, straining her ears for any identifiable sounds. It sounded like the dull clunk of footsteps. Slowly, it grew in volume until she could distinguish two sets of footsteps, possibly from horses, and the constant rumble of a wagon or trailer of some sort.
As whoever it was approached, she slowly shifted the leaves off, easing herself to her feet. Almost instantly the noise stopped and she froze in place, crouched behind the tree. The silence dragged on for what felt like an eternity, her knees and calves began to burn, and the injury on her side ached and itched. She was about to peek around the tree when a voice spoke up behind her.
“Oh my, my. An organic,” it crooned, directly behind her, as if whispering into her ear. She squeaked loudly and spun around, losing her footing on the loose leaves.
“What- who are you?” she asked, her eyes wide, peering up at the figure.
They were tall, seven feet at least, and garbed in a long dark purple robe. Under the hood, shaded from the sun, was a smooth metallic mask, a cluster of circular glowing green lights at its middle. Slowly and purposefully, as if to keep from startling her, they extended a hand to her. From under the sleeve appeared a strange combination of flesh and metal. The arm was pale, with metal plates set into the flesh in places, several glowing green lights underneath the skin itself. Two of their fingers were missing as well, replaced by shiny skeletal mechanical bones.
“It’s okay little organic, I won’t hurt you,” the strange cyborg said softly. His voice was a cross between a text to speech program and a human man. Some of the words were fine, but others had a strange inflection to them.
“Who are you?” Arya asked, edging back away from its hand.
“I am The Trader,” he responded, hand still extended. They stayed like that for a while, The Trader staring down at her, “And, you?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“A-Arya,” she stuttered her response.
“A-Arya,” he mimicked her stutter, “An interesting name. What culture are you from?”
“No, just Arya,” she replied.
“Oh, your nervousness caused a temporary speech impediment, then?” he nodded knowingly.
“I suppose?” the creature, man, cyborg, whatever, was clearly intelligent. Analytical, if not strange. “I’m a human,” she continued, answering his second question.
“A human!” he said enthusiastically, “I know of the humans. They were once the dominant species here. Many, many years ago.”
“How long ago? Are there any still around? Are you a human?” Arya let loose a barrage of questions, hauling herself to her feet.
“Many thousands of years. I have not seen a human in… seven hundred, sixty two… years,” a strange, mechanical voice took over halfway through the sentence, as if responding to a call for data, “I am not human. I am The Trader.”
“Were you… built by the humans?” Arya asked awkwardly.
“The humans designed me, but I built myself,” he responded, looking down and flexing his fingers, “Before they left.”
“They left?” she pressed.
“I will tell you more, but we must move,” he changed topics, turning abruptly and walking away.
Surprised, Arya followed him. They walked around the tree and back onto the path she was following. Parked there was a covered wagon made of a combination of simple wood and metal. Some of the metal looked to be spacecraft material and she could see blinking lights through the window. Pulling the wagon were two headless horse creatures. They were mechanical, it seemed, with a sloppily crafted fur body to resemble a real horse, but they were far too lumpy and metal bits protruded from them.
“Please, climb up,” he instructed, motioning to the driver’s seat.
Hesitantly, she obliged, hauling herself up to sit comfortably on the cushion. Despite the pain in her side, she still had some mobility and didn’t struggle much. The robot creature climbed up after her, settling in on his side of the bench. Without a word or movement, the robotic horses set off back up the trail.
“Why are you in a hurry?” Arya asked after a moment of silence, the robot turning its head back to her.
“Staying in one place for too long will draw the synth to our location,” he warned.
“The… synth? Like synthetics?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“You’ve heard of them?” he replied, audibly excited.
“Back on earth they were working on cloning. The animals and things they created were called synthetic life. Synths for short,” Arya explained, “Is it the same here?”
“Yes, yes,” he nodded, “Fearsome creatures that feed on Organics like you. They can smell you from many miles and come to leech your energy to sustain themselves.”
“So they need living energy to survive?” Arya began to connect the dots, painting a morbid picture indeed.
“Simply put, yes,” he nodded again.
“How do they survive when there aren’t any animals left?” her barrage of questions continued.
“One Organic may last a synth hundreds of years, there is high competition for them and the synth numbers dwindle. Those that remain are the fiercest and most terrifying,” he answered her, seemingly enjoying the conversation.
“Are you… a synth?” the horrible thought crossed her mind.
“I am The Trader, not a synth, silly,” he said, making a strange, rattling, rasping noise that sounded vaguely like a laugh.
She wasn’t entirely satisfied, but it didn’t seem like she was in immediate danger. She felt there were details her new friend was leaving out, but she was scared to push the issue in case she asked a question he didn’t want to answer. Not knowing would have to suffice for now. For the time being, though, it seemed she was moderately safe.