Break Out
“From the Beginning Times after the Fall there is a tale.” Penemue spoke, rubbing his ancient chin, his heavy-lidded eyes casting out to the thick of listeners gathered in the shadows of the Great Mother’s Rock, “Long I have been assigned by my fellows to relay the events of the breakout, before we returned once more to our home.” Penemue gestured to the people looking up at him in the half light of the cavern. On his knee was a child, Lucy, sitting proudly, her back straight, her thin arms and legs still with anticipation at the story of her folk, a story she and the others had heard many times, but the ritual ending of the cycle of work required them to listen at this appointed hour.
“In the weeks before, nothing had changed for generations. We had lived a life as a random selection of upright creatures underground. None of us had seen the light, nor did we remember anyone who had. Our space was wide, an underground cavern where meagre resources could be harnessed to our needs but at the edges of our existence we felt a rumble, like a steady hum that could be heard from behind the rocks, and flickering red eyes that seemed to watch us. We made discoveries, old machine parts wheel-less trucks, discarded or broken pieces of metal, we found ways of measuring mechanical time.
“Amongst our number where the children of those who had been scientists, writers, guards, fruit-pickers. Some were religious, some were dreamers, lazy, diligent, thoughtful, philosophical, angry, somehow all of humanity could be found in the dust of our past, now manifested in the few around us. Our identities had become confused, some felt were we more like creatures than humans, but as we found no literature amongst the shadows, we had nothing to compare but our memories of ourselves and our forbears. We remembered names – Moloch, Belial, Gadreel, Mulciber – but shrugged for more details and agreed what we should call each other.
“One certainty though was the presence of a pregnant woman amongst the original people abandoned in this place. In fact, she was the only woman. Fifteen men and one pregnant woman presented humanity on a thread. And she bore twins, girls. As they grew to maturity the hungry eyes of violence and possession fell upon them.
“None of the men were related, but the Next-Times were intense and violent. Soon, only nine of the men were left, and two women. Perhaps some sanity survived for a moment at least because the fighting amongst the men subsided.
“I want to tell it now.” Lucy, sitting patiently on Penemue knee, looked up. “Or perhaps we could tell it together?” Her ebony face was round, unblemished by fear or loss. Penemue smiled, and nodded.
“My mother said that when she was born, her own mother’s mother had been the leader of the people since she was young.”
“She was a wise woman, the best of us all, she was the Great Mother, know to some as Behe.” Penemue’s head sank slightly, at the memory of his childhood friend.
“She had many children, the Great Mother, and she decided who could become mothers and fathers together. Her word was law, even those who disagreed with her would obey her, because her children always did what she wanted, and protected her.
The Penumue continued, “It’s true that her actions led to a great swelling of the people, so that by the time of your own mother’s arrival we had trebled our numbers, and a more healthy balance of genders allowed us to be more careful about who would be allowed to mate.” He peered down at Lucy, willing her not to grimace.
Lucy now continued, “But jealousy stalked within them, and some became angry with each other. It was a terrible time, more blood was spilled than we had ever known.” She paused, for effect. “How *did* we come here?” The little girl looked up at Penemue.
He lifted an eyebrow at the girl, knowing this was her way of reminding him. “The first among us woke up in this cavern, with only memories of destruction in their minds, their heads shattered and misshapen, their bodies broken, as though discarded, a rough-hewn hole in the distant roof of the cavern where perhaps they had fallen through.” The audience shifted uncomfortably, looking at each other from the corners of their eyes, noting the familiar faces, distorted by the phosphorescent glow in the walls of the cavern.
Penemue returned to the story. “The fighting continued, and the Great Mother tried to intervene, but she was old, when she was struck by Moloch, she tripped and fell to her death, her dry bones tumbling into a crevice at the base of which was an undiscovered door. From that moment pandemonium ruled. The shouting and the fighting grew further as the frustration of living became unbearable without the charms and calm adjudication of the Great Mother.
Lucy spoke again, “One of the men, Gadreel, found his way down to the door, and shouted for his friends. Behind the solid frame an erratic humming could be heard, and they decided they must escape. Over the next few days they tried everything, taking turns to batter at the door with rocks. Eventually, it did give way, and their success brought everyone behind Gadreel and Moloch, as they burst from their long-home into a dusty corridor, with broken metal humans splayed out across the floor. At the end was another door which Gadreel, Moloch and Belial, enflamed by their discoveries managed to break through too.
“Two more corridors,” Penemue continued, “led to a strange room, with many flat, silver surfaces and, between them all, a huge door. As everyone flooded in they saw, slumped in chairs, more of the metal humans, their purpose either abandoned, or their lives forfeit. Gadreel and his friends were in a frenzy and tore the metal creatures into yet more pieces.
“In their exhausted fury, they then began to attack the door. But as they did so the largest of the silver surfaces flickered, and moving images flittered across.
“A voice unfurled from the walls.
“This door may be the final barrier between you and the what lies beyond. Eventually you will find a way to get out of this place. We, people from your past, urge you not to go further. We urge you to view the videos, to watch the fate of the world you or your ancestors left behind.”
“Moloch’s fierce band watched as scenes of devastation broke across the silver surface. The other smaller screens showed similar images. Hundreds of scenes of protests, and murder, people shouting from bully pulpits, lynchings, rows of miserable people standing with guards and guns around them, people in cages, forests burning, oceans swelling with garbage, polar icecaps sliding into the sea, the sun burning very brighter, the land arid, people fighting in the cities, nations fighting for better land, bombs. Destruction.
Lucy spoke up, “Our forbears looked at each other, sweating and angry, and they hesitated, watching the desire to escape drain from each other’s broken, misshapen faces.
“We did that.”
“Are we like that?”
“They destroyed our world.”
“We destroyed our world.”
“What if we do it again?
They dropped their arms, turned, and walked back through the corridors, to their home, the cavern. While some resealed the door, others gathered up the body of Behe, the Great Mother, and made a place for her amongst the dust and the rocks, a place of peace where now we are all gathered.”
Together Penemue and Lucy closed their eyes and, joined by the whole audience, they stayed silent as the sighs in the rocks of the Great Mother passed across them all.
[end]Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher and more. Also on this blog, These Fantastic Worlds.
Text, image, audio © 2020 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam and Elise Wells, Logic ProX, Sound Studio, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.
More Tales
There are many other great stories in this series, including:
And a carousel of 10 audio stories from the podcast with information about submissions.
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts.