Beyond The Wall - Ashley Berrett (ebook audio reader txt) 📗

A new world, that’s what he told them. In a bright room the six men watched this aging man, his once bright blue eyes faded from many years of hard work, his wrinkled face sagged just a bit. They knew that he had knowledge, they listened intently. 

"If we can save the people of the light the world will be a safer place. The world is filling with darkness, we need to diminish people’s rigid thoughts of war, their inability to see right from wrong. We need to rid of all weapons of war. I have spent my life assembling the many places around the world for the relocation,"

He pulls out a small round item and presses a small button on the surface of it. A map hovers in the air above the object.

" Here... here...here...and here," he says slowly as he points to small red dots on the map. " At this moment the walls are hidden from sight in heavily forested areas. So boys, what do you say we get the ships loaded up and off to their new homes. We'll need to fire up the memory replacement system. You boys have a good one" The man smiles and winks, then he starts out of the dome shaped room.

In the next four days, destruction strikes. Families are torn apart, they are placed with more "suited" matches, and all their memories are replaced with more harmonized ones. Their memories all tell a story of happiness. They tell them that they have lived within these walls their entire lives. They believe there is no other way to live, no weapons or even sharp edges on walls, buildings, anything. In this new place there are no dark color, the light colors Influence happiness and peace. With their new memories they are not even aware there are dark colors.

The ships carry millions of blonde and white haired people with blue eyes to the peaceful utopia hidden safely in the folds of a great curving wall.

As for every one else, the world fell apart. It went into destruction; civilization was not an option anymore.

 I jumped down from my tree around sunrise. The main gangs have just finished marching around my part of the wall. I need to go catch my breakfast. First I pop my finger into my mouth and then put it to the wind, my dark hair falls into my face as the wind whips past me toward the east. If someone tries to sneak up on me from the northwest region, I will quickly catch their scent carried on the wind.

If that happens I'll climb up the nearest tree and blend. I've gotten quite good at climbing. I can climb virtually any tree in this forest. Thanks to my small body structure I can put my full weight on the smallest of branches, that is, if I stay close to the trunk of the tree. I have adapted well to the environment, which is all green or brown, and completely forested. There are small streams dotting the entire area, and they all join into a small slow moving river.

 Nature just seems to be a part of me. I am used to this area now it is very beautiful. There is only one thing out of place; The Wall. It's a tall, rusted, metal wall, just outside of the tree line. Nothing grows, or goes near it. There is about five feet between the tree line and the wall. The only people who go near are the big gangs that crave violence. They stalk the metal wall until they find an unsuspecting animal to prey on. But they don't only kill, they torture.

When you get caught up with them you will never escape. I have seen how they torture animals and people. I know first hand because I used to be one of them. It was a long time ago, I had actually grown up as one of them. They used to be different, nowhere near as violent as they are now, but they knew how to take care of themselves.

When I turned thirteen, I noticed how much everything had changed. When they caught, snibels, a small rabbit like animal with a tough outer shell, they no longer killed it and pulled it out of the shell, now they tortured it and ripped out of the shell so it shrieks as loud as a banshee. They say the meat is tenderer this way, but I had a dark feeling when things changed. So finally when they made a human being scream like this, I was pushed over the edge. I ran away.

Now I stare at the metal wall, there is something different about the spot I am looking at, but I can't put my finger on it. Suddenly, a hollow pain in my stomach tears my eyes away from the wall. I look into the forest in the direction of the river, time to catch me some breakfast, I grin and take off into the woods. 

I'm racing with the wind; my hair whips around my face.  I dodge out of the way of trees, jump into the air and hug my knees to my chest over a stump, duck under a branch, and finally I jerk to a stop. The slow moving river sits in front of me. I purposely came to the shallow part of the river, here you can reach your under the over hang of the bank and rub your hand on the belly of the fish. It calms and stuns the fish, then you can jerk your hand up and catch it.

I have to do this a lot to catch my food, now a days, fish are the easiest prey. I lean over on my stomach, the wet reeds start to soak through my shirt and cool my stomach, which is by now growling like a feral beast. I reach my hand down into the cool water, and under the over hang. My fingers search for the hard bumpy surface of the fish.

Animals have adapted now, there is a hard surface on them, or animals have the ability to change their color to blend with the environment. There are hybrids of the strangest animals. A deer porcupine, with its spines scratching the trees as it rubs up against them, a bird turtle that lives mostly in the water, there are too many to count.

Animals are not the only ones who have had to adapt, human's senses are immensely heightened. I am different than most, most people only have one heightened sense but I have four. I can tell exactly what an animal has eaten recently by tasting its tender meat. When I skim my fingers over a tree trunk I can feel if it’s hollow and what animals live inside of it. I can sniff out a Snibel from seven miles away. I can see in the dark, which also affects my sight in the light of day, but the worst quality I have, that I was just born with, is by far my curiosity. It gets the best of me every time, I just can't help myself.

I return from my daydream when I feel something in the water, something with curved, but sharp edges; it is definitely not a fish, I lean over and look into the water, I look at the place my hand rests, it looks like the regular sandy bottom of the river, but it certainly doesn't feel like it. I move my hand along it until I touch the muddy sand. Then I dig my hand into the sand and underneath the object to pull it out. I rip it from the water, as soon as it leaves the water it turns from the sandy river bottom color to the exact color of the soaking reeds. I need to get a look at it though, so I walk over to a pure black rock. I set it down and it frantically changes color, finally it settles for a navy blue color. It is a mussel, a huge one. I could have some for breakfast and then dry the rest of it for traveling. 

Suddenly, I can feel some ones presence; I raise my head and sniff the wind, nothing. They are standing down wind, I can't tell who it is but I'd say they are about a mile away. I have to check it out. I stick the mussel into A pouch at my side, and run. I look left and right until I turn around a tree, and WHAM!

 I land with a thud on the ground. I look up to see what hit me; lying on the ground in front of me is a boy. He looks about my age; he has light brown hair and a fully sharpened knife at his side. I sit up and lean over his face. A small scar has settled just above his eyebrow. His features are etched so carefully, and then I look down. His arm is covered with white scars. It looks like it has been torn to shreds at one point in time.

Suddenly he starts to stir, I back away and leap behind a tree. The boy sits up and looks around frantically as I watch from my vantage point. All of a sudden our eyes meet, the boy leaps up and I press tightly against the tree. Slowly he creeps around, knife in hand, when finally he reaches where he can look into my eyes. I stand frozen in fear he glares at me and mutters through clenched teeth,

"Who are you and what gang are you from?"

I raise my eyebrows, somehow I recognize this boy, I have seen him, and I have met him before. A memory flashes into my mind, a bloodcurdling scream rattling my bones. My legs go limp and I fall to my knees. My eyes drift to the sky and I fall on my back. The boy leans over me, and then everything goes dark. 

I am engulfed in memory; Images flood close to me but slip away before I can comprehend them. Memories of the old gang I was in, of screams, I see myself running as fast as I can, and the boys face. Why do I see his face? Something was different about him though. Just above his eyebrow where the scar had been now