Prologue

This is the prologue of a book I wrote. Let me know what you think! Takes place in a world damaged by solar flares, where a girl is given a task to find salvation and shelter.

Prologue:
Savior

“Mausa, why must I stay inside all the time?”  A small, curly-haired girl calls out, sliding around broken cement on the tiled floor into different patterns. The girl’s dark brown skin blends in with the lamp lit room while her untamed hair sits bright atop her head, despite the dirt clumped into it. Her Mausa, who was wrapped from head to toe in black dressings and coverings, shakes her head in frustration as she closes the front door and locks it firmly.
The woman then removes the dust covered wrappings from across her mouth and responds solemnly, “Because you will burn, Dauhsa.”
The little girl looks up at her and mimics her mother’s expression of frustration, “Fausa says something else,” The girl crawls on to the tattered couch and peeks through one of the bare openings uncovered on the window. While her back is turned, her Mausa shoots an exasperated look to her husband who quickly begins to pretend he hasn’t been listening to the conversation. She turns back to her daughter and claps her hands together.
“Away from the window, Aerilyn.”
“Yes, Mausa.”
“And don’t listen to your Fausa,” The woman sighs, “I don’t know what he’s told you, but I assure you the world will still be there in a few years when you’re allowed out.”
“A few years, Seyda?” Aerilyn’s Fausa speaks up suddenly, “That’s a while off.”
The woman looks back at her daughter cautiously and then steps to the side, close to her husband, “Daan, we don’t know what will happen. The longer she stays in, the safer she is.”
The man drops his voice to an irritated grumble, “I suppose all the holes in the walls, and the floor, and the windows don’t mean anything then?” Seyda clenches her jaw, hinting that something more was bothering her.
“That’s not the only thing of concern.”
“Mausa?” Aerilyn, noticing her parents bickering, pulls herself off the couch and hesitantly steps forward. Seyda quickly turns away from her husband, feigning a smile, and scoops her daughter off the ground.
“Would you like to hear a story of how we came to be here?” Her Mausa tries to continue smiling, but memories of the past hung on her shoulders like a toxic disease. Still, the little girl’s eyes widen at the thought and she nods swiftly in response. “Then we will start hundreds of years ago, before your Fausa and I were ever here.” Aerilyn clasps her hands together excitedly and waits patiently for her Mausa to continue. “There were once many people spread far and wide across Aus and for many centuries, maybe even since the beginning of time, war separated them all from each other.
“There were constant battles for centuries until eventually the people and all their homes were destroyed. After many lifetimes, there was a short time of peace and rebuilding. Very few provinces left had stable governments that were strong enough to care for their suffering people, and even then the world’s population had diminished into a small fraction of what it had been before.” Seyda pauses for a minute, trying to do the math in her head on the spot, her memory suddenly feeling spotty. Aerilyn watches carefully, but her attention is wavering.
“You try protecting her for her age,” Daan sighs, “And yet when it comes to this, you are so willing to tell her?”  Aerilyn looks to her mother eagerly, hoping that her father’s remarks wouldn’t cut the story short.
“All that is left in this world,” Seyda sighs and gives a brief smile to her daughter, “is Nancha, where the wealthiest of the land sought refuge, and the Sleums, where the less wealthy who were left behind remain. That is where we are, Dauhsa, in the Sleums.”
Aerilyn looks at her Mausa with questioning eyes and doubtful thoughts. So sad, she thought to herself. Her mind reels with her imagination. Even at her young age, the idea of separation between the same people was confusing and illogical, no matter their wealth, but the idea of burning upon going outside was even more unfathomable. From what she could see from the window, there were other people out there, out in the world. Her Mausa and Fausa both come and go as they please. Nevertheless, she had another question that she wanted answered, “But why will I burn?
“Well,” Seyda begins, frowning, “Shortly after Nancha had built their powerful shield around themselves and contained the Sleums with a towering wall, about when I was fifteen years old,” She pauses thoughtfully, “There was a very bright and windy day. Waves of heat fell from the sky, and everything in its path was burned and destroyed. All of the plants and all of the animals, as well as any slummik who was out begging that day, died. Very soon after this happened, blackened birds unlike I had ever seen rose from Nancha and left. Those of us who survived in the Sleums must cover our bodies and faces or else we will burn up and become sick from the heat.” Her Mausa did not want to tell her of the men in white who came in the trucks to take away the sick, with their metallic voices and terrifying weapons, as she felt that was too graphic for her young daughter’s ears.
“Can’t we go and live in Nancha where it’s safe?” Aerilyn jumps off her Mausa’s knee and runs over to the covered window, peeling away the tape once more. She peeks one of her eyes through the triangular crack and looks out at the barren street before her. A few hairless, feral dogs were fighting over scraps in an alleyway across the way, whilst two wandering slummiks stood on the corners begging. Everything was the same as always, a sea of charred destruction, but having no knowledge of anything else, it all seemed perfectly fine to her. The few houses she could see from her position surrounding hers seemed to be in the same state as her own, slowly crumbling into itself over time. The one directly across from their house was abandoned and she often saw her Fausa break the walls down for their own home’s repairs and cooking.
“No, Aerilyn,” Seyda says affectionately, “There is no place for us there. We don’t belong there. Maybe one day you will be able to vadame, but we will have to be patient and wait for the Gods to give us their direction.” Aerilyn hears the word from the Old Language, but only looks back curiously.
“Seyda,” Daan warns, “She doesn’t need to hear all of this. Not yet.”
But her mother ignores her husband instead and pulls her daughter onto her lap, away from the window once more, “You will understand it all in time, Aerilyn, but until then you will be stuck with your poor, old Mausa.” The young girl laughs in response and pulls away her Mausa’s head coverings, revealing her graying hair.
“One day, Mausa,” The girl giggles and darts away around her Fausa, “I will run from here so far away that you’ll never catch me!” Seyda chases her around briefly, recovering her wrappings, and she grabs her daughter firmly on her shoulders.
“Listen to me now, Aerilyn,” Seyda says, “You don’t understand now, but one day many years from now, you will have to run.” Daan tries interrupting once more, the concern spreading fast across his face, but she continues, “It won’t be a game like this. I won’t be able to chase you, you won’t be able to see me, but you will have to keep running and never turn back.” Daan steps up now and rests a hand on his wife’s shoulders. Aerilyn only stares back at them with wide, confused eyes. “Our salvation lies on the edge of the Aus and I will not have you perish here with myself and your Fausa.”
“But,” The little girl begins to sniffle loudly in confusion at the sight of her own Mausa’s tears, wanting to take back what she had said, “You have to come with me.”
The woman shakes her head quickly, Daan pulling her back and wiping away the wetness on her face, “No, dauhsa, to save us all you must vadame.”
As Daan shuffles Seyda into one of the bedrooms, Aerilyn is left standing in the middle of the room, lost in thought. Hours pass before she manages to shake herself enough to move, but only the sun setting had signaled that any time had even passed at all.

For weeks after, Aerilyn would peek outside the window, out at the collapsing road and the few shambled homes surrounding her own. She knew there were other families inside a few of them, just as there were in her own, but she never saw any other children. Only burned slummiks graced her view, and so often they would just fall into a pile for an hour before picking themselves up again and wandering off. Occasionally there would be fighting out in the streets, one starved and sick man pitted against another over a slice of bread, and Aerilyn would watch in fascination at the intensity of the fight. Only when things would get especially violent, would her parents or her Anka or Tiya lead her away. Yet every day she would look back out the window, anxious to see something new, but instead the dust in the air outside shielded the rest of the world from her view and this was all she knew.
Aerilyn didn’t have any proper coverings for herself yet, she was only six, but she knew her Tiya Rosa and her Mausa were working on them. They themselves knew Aerilyn wouldn’t stay put inside forever. In fact, this became more apparent as the growing girl bounced around the home in boredom, climbing all of the furniture and all of the family. And so over time, they reluctantly crafted with their aging hands the small dark coverings that would one day protect the only child in their household. The thought of it would sadden the sisters as Aerilyn ran around the house impatiently, but they had a dream for the girl, a vision that needed to succeed despite their own selfish feelings.
And one day, two years later, Aerilyn’s Mausa, her Tiya Rosa, and her Anka Mahin came to her and held up the finished coverings proudly to her. Ecstatically, she pulled the loose fabric over her body and face and giggled loudly at her slight vision impairment. All that talk of running from her family had left her mind so long ago and nothing could even begin to dull her excitement at this moment. As all the adults towered around her, she pulled the dark fabric down from around her mouth, but like a flicker of the light, they all rushed to pull it back up, to keep her from being exposed. Now was the time, her Mausa decided, to inform her of some of the more unsettling side effects of the solar flares.
“You mustn’t breathe in the air,” Seyda tells her, “It isn’t clean and you will get very sick quickly if you keep your mouth and nose uncovered.” Aerilyn nods her head and repositions her coverings appropriately, “You see those slummiks out there? They breathed in too much of the air and look at what has happened to them. Do you want that to happen to you?” Aerilyn shakes her head, though a small part of her wants to be smart and say back that no matter how well covered she is, the air would be breathed in regardless. However, she holds her tongue, for fear of postponing the outside world.
“Can I go outside now, Mausa?” Aerilyn asks to distract her thoughts from this sickness. Seyda nods and the girl runs feverishly through the living room towards the door. When she arrives she finds her Fausa standing in front of it, a small grin growing across his face. Aerilyn peers up at him inquisitively, strongly restraining herself from stomping her feet in impatience.
“In a minute, Aerilyn,” Daan says, pulling her aside and away from the door, “Before you go, I have to warn you: You can’t go anywhere you want to go, you hear me? Not yet. You stay within sight of here, where we can watch you. There are slummiks out there who will try to hurt you simply because you are in their sight. I don’t want to find you dead in five minutes, so I’m giving you this,” He hands her a small steel blade, no doubt smuggled out from his factory job, and Seyda steps up nervously, “It’s not much, but as you grow you will carry something stronger, like myself and your Mausa, but until then I’m hoping that you will take care of this how I expect you to and that you won’t use it unless you absolutely need to.” Aerilyn slides her fingers across the steel, avoiding the edges, gazing in wonder, and nods absentmindedly.
“Are you sure she’s old enough?” Seyda asks, anxiously wringing her hands together, “We don’t know what will happen.” But Aerilyn steps up stubbornly, prepared to argue her way out the door.
“If anyone touches me, I’ll kill them!” She yells, brandishing her new knife. The adults nervously laugh as Daan slips the blade into a small protective covering. He hands it back to her where she secures it in her wrappings, but as she stands and waits patiently for the lecturing to be done she finds them all staring at her with apprehensive smiles on their faces. Not missing a beat, she runs to the door and throws it open, the act of it all feeling long overdue.
The first thing she notices is the thickness of the heat, which from further inside the house had not felt all that intimidating, but right here it felt almost like it was suffocating her slowly with its layers. Despite the shock, excitement and adrenaline keep her going forward and soon she finds that there is more to her street than she previously knew. There were houses further than she could see from her obscured place at the window, but they were crumbling all the same and withered away from the smothering weather. The thought of who the people inside of them might be was a thrilling sensation. She could even see down to the corner through the blankets of dust where a store named Ziya stood. Though the streets were mostly abandoned today, she knew this was a place of trade and business for her family.
Aerilyn takes another step towards the unknown, the delight of something new pulsating through her, but she stops short when she spots a suspicious figure lingering in an alleyway between the houses across the street. When she remembers her parent’s words, fear ripples through her stomach and spine. In an instant, she spins on her feet and runs right back inside, where her Mausa and Fausa stand waiting for her.
“Back so soon?” Her Fausa asks, grinning. Aerilyn, feeling defeated, sits on the ground by the door and instead plays with her new knife, digging it into the tiles and testing its strength. One day, she thought, she wouldn't be afraid.