IGNATIUS The Colors of Rage

Chapter a Judgment

Inside of the main house that is protected by the three walls, the evening continued much in the same lonely way for Iggy and Nansen. But then, in the late hours of the morning, the emergency phone rang and Nansen hopped out of his bedside chair and bolted downstairs to answer it. Holding the receiver tight to his ear, he listened as Amare reported, “Baine just crossed the outer wall. The mission was a success.” 

Alone in all ways, Iggy took the opportunity. He crept out of his bed and pulled the window curtains open. Finding the latch on the window still unhinged, he cranked it open and gazed down at the rocks of blurry shadows down below. They were about three stories down if he considered the dip in the land, and if he fell directly on his head from that distance, it could kill him. He’d never been swimming before, but he’d seen enough short films of diving to get this one right. He positioned himself on the windowsill and tilted his chin toward his chest. He leant forward, head first, ready to fall.

Nansen returned and exclaimed with his hands in the air, “they’re back!”

Iggy didn’t turn to pretend to look back at him. He couldn’t. Just as his legs bent and he jumped, Nansen raced light across the room and whipped Iggy back inside by the arm. Iggy pulled the side of the bed to get himself up and out of the window again, but Nansen’s grip on him was impeccable. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” he told him.

The first thing Iggy experienced was anger. The anger of being totally out of control, not able to decide what to do with himself, or what was done to him, or how to end himself. His naked skin flushed red and he scratched at Nansen’s long forearms to break free. “Let me go!” he raged.

“That will kill you!” Nansen hollered, shaken.

“I know! I know it will!”

Gaining a tone of seriousness above the fright, Nansen asked, “what would happen to me if you did that?” Iggy stopped clawing at him and gave an ear. “Regardless of the fact that I’m your brother, and I’ve cared for you for thousands of nights, they’d murder me for negligence. Your future is of utmost importance, so much so that you can’t even fathom it.” Nansen adjusted his hold and glared directly in Iggy’s unseeing eyes. “Iggy, you are the New Generation, but you aren’t Baine’s heir, or mine. You are our father’s, Firmin Fenderson.” Firmin was a legend to most, but more of a phantom to Iggy. His brothers, Baine and Nansen who were many years older, both knew him well. 

“I don’t care about that guy!” Iggy screamed, working himself back into a fit. “I have nothing to do with him! Just a stranger who I’ve heard too much about.”

Nansen shook his head. “Let me explain something to you…”

Relentless, Iggy weakened and his palms hovered over his eyes. “I can’t wait any longer…” he crowed. “Look at me, I’m destroyed. There’s nothing left of me…”

“You just have to wait until-”

He gripped his hands into fists and shuddered. “Until I become like you? Is that my last chance? I don’t know how the virus is transmitted; I don't know what it's going to be like. All I know is that the others waited until their late twenties and early thirties…-” he clenched his fists tighter “-and I won’t make it that long! I don’t even want to try! I just want to die.”

Nansen swiped the hair out of his face and pet his head. It always seemed to calm Iggy down, even without him realizing. “Be a bit more optimistic,” he encouraged him. “The demand for people is increasing by the year. So, it could be sooner than you think.” 

Iggy peeked up at him, a habit that he’d need to break, he straightened his neck and focused hard. Nansen was so close, yet so blurry. “I heard a rumor that you are the youngest person ever to be infected.”

Nansen nodded, grazing his cheek with his thumb. “I was nineteen years old and recruited as a replacement for another member of high rank: a royal rank.” His voice dove low and calm, like a whisper. “Right now, you’re the important one.” His arms squeezed tight and Iggy felt himself lifted off of the floor. The mattress was still warm when he laid back into it. “You are the New Generation,” Nansen reminded him, “and you have nothing except for miracles ahead of you.” 

Underneath the floor, the house members trailed inside in a great inward flow. The house was enlivening, and with the return of energy Iggy felt even more defeated. “I lost my chance,” he grumbled. “I couldn’t even get out of the window. I’m so useless.”

Nansen’s fingertip mushed against his lips. “Shhh… there’s something else you need to know-” 

But before he could say, the door swung open and Baine stood at the threshold with a pale young woman standing next to him with her chin hanging low. There was a sunken look in her large blue eyes as she watched everything around her distrustfully. Her pin needle straight hair was white, yet snarly and long down her back. Her eyebrows were set high on her forehead, and although she had a hard expression, she looked more surprised than she probably was.