The Conversation In The Dark
240 Words
Late that night, while the fire burned low, Elara and Kaelen sat by the hearth. Friction lay in the loft above, her head pressed against the floorboards, listening.
"The tattoos are bleeding the future into the stone, Kaelen," Elara’s voice was a ragged whisper. "I’m seeing the grid every time I close my eyes. I see the 7000-series trains. I smell the lake. I... I miss it."
"Elara, don't," Kaelen warned, his voice low and dangerous. "That life is a graveyard. We chose this."
"Did we?" Elara snapped, her voice rising with a year of suppressed longing. "We chose to be farmers in a world where a cold can kill you. Friction is eight, Kaelen. She can move stones with her mind, but she doesn't know what a book is. She belongs in 2026. She belongs in a world where her mind is a gift, not a 'miracle' that will get her burned at the stake."
"She belongs with us! Safe!" Kaelen stood, his silhouette casting a jagged shadow against the wall. "If we go back, the Auditors win. They will take her. I will not trade her soul for a flushing toilet and a clean street."
"She’s a God in a pigpen!" Elara sobbed. "I can't keep her here much longer. The Archive in my skin is going to burst."
Friction, listening above, didn't understand the word "pigpen" or "Auditor," but she understood one thing: She belonged somewhere else.
- Writer
