Awakening the Mare (Fall of Man Book 1) (13 page)

At the bottom of the staircase was a door.
Next to it a faded yellow sign. “Fallout Shelter?”

“Bunker. Your home for the next week.” Davis
opened the large metal door. Anxious and nervous, I stepped
inside.

Marie stood from behind a desk with a warm,
welcoming smile. “Hello, Vala.”

“Marie will be your teacher,” Davis said.
“Snake will stop by too. I figured since you knew them, they’d be
best.”

“Plus,” Marie said, walking over , “I lived a
decent amount of time before the event, so all of this is stuff I
remember.”

Turning slowly left to right, I took in the
room. The first thing I noticed was the lighting. There were no
candles or lanterns. It was artificial. “How is that possible? It
has no fire?”

Davis smiled. “We use a lot of battery power.
You’ll use lanterns at night. But during the process, this place
gets the juice. It’s needed and we have some good, intelligent
people that figured out batteries and diesel fuel. Stuff you’ll
learn.”

“We don’t want to overwhelm you,” Marie said.
She took my things and placed them on a sofa.

“Will this beat me down?” I asked. “I am
ready.”

“No.” Marie shook her head. “It may scare you
at first, but I promise, we’ll have to drag you out of here by the
end. You’ll enjoy it that much.”

The room was overwhelming. There were shelves
and more shelves of books, large pictures on the walls, toys, and
some objects I didn’t recognize. One corner of the room was set up
like an eating area. One similar to what I had seen in the
forbidden
Soap Opera
magazine.

“The entire idea behind this room is to make
you experience it,” Davis explained, “because you can’t learn it
unless you see it. When I was ten, we moved from a place called New
Jersey to Nashville. I went from speaking one way, to sounding no
less than a country boy in a year’s time. Because I lived that
life, I became a part of it. You would be one lost and confused
girl if we let you learn it on your own.”

“We are going to give you a crash course,”
Marie added.

“You have that time capsule, right? This, in
a sense, is a time bunker. And this is where I leave. Good luck.”
Davis kissed me on the cheek. It was nice and it made me smile.
After giving a squeeze to Marie’s shoulder, Davis left us. The door
closed with a heavy thump.

My stomach flip-flopped.

Marie took my hand and led me across the
room. “This way. I’ll explain the start.”

“Do I need my Bible?”

“No. That’s for you to look at when you
want.” She indicated a chair. “This is where it all takes
place.”

The chair was large and fluffy, and it looked
as if it could hold two people. I sat down and noticed the black
square. It was large and perched eight feet from the edge of the
chair. A picture frame with nothing in it.

“This is called a television,” Marie
explained. “This was an important part of culture and civilization.
People viewed it to be informed, but mostly they did it to be
entertained. It shaped many opinions. There would be things called
television shows, some funny, some scary, and no matter how
outlandish or silly, the shows still depicted how people were. How
we talked, acted, and what life was like before the event. And to
think, we haven’t changed at all, except we don’t have all the
gadgets.”

“How am I different?”

“We stuck to the way of life we knew. The way
of speaking that we knew. You were given and shown an entire new
way of life, new way of speaking. You have no idea about these
things because no one told you. You are like a fish out of
water.”

“Except I do not flop for air.”

“Ah,” Marie held up her finger, “but you do.
In a manner of speaking. You’re flopping around lost and confused
because you don’t know what the heck we’re talking about half the
time.”

“I have my time capsule. Will that help?”

“That will come in handy when we get to the
episodes of
Full House
.”

“Episodes?”

“You’ll see. Like Davis said, the best way to
learn this way of life is to live it. Or, in this case, watch it.
You, my dear, are going be living the pre-event teenager’s perfect
life. You will get to sit and watch television all day.”

“All day?”

Marie nodded.

I looked at the black square. “All day?”

“Yep, from that chair.”

“It does not do much. It is just black. How
can I watch that all day? I will get bored.”

Marie laughed and reached down. Within a
second the black turned to a beautiful blue.

I gasped. “It is magic!”

“Wait.” Leaning again, Marie pressed
something else and suddenly the color disappeared and a grey and
white heart appeared. There was music and a man’s voice said, “I
Love Lucy.”

What was happening? I filled with fear when I
saw that inside the black square was a colorless house with a
colorless little person.

“Where is her color?” I asked.

“This is called black and white. We’re
starting at the beginning of television culture.”

“How did she get in there?”

“She’s not in there, Vala. This is an episode
of a televisions show. This is pre-event culture. Moving images
recorded and shown on this box. This is what shaped a lot of our
world, and now, it’ll shape you. Um, I hope.”

“Oh.” I sat back.

“Just study, listen, learn, and be
entertained. Feel free to ask any questions.”

The moving images were similar to the
newspaper images. No color. How advanced man really was at one time
to create such a remarkable thing.

I was seeing people inside the television. It
was like I was a God, monitoring their lives and everyday
events.

There was something exciting about it. They
were not there, but they
were
. While I did not quite
understand how this was going to ‘shape’ me, I did not argue. I
merely sat back quietly and with intrigue, watched this "episode"
called
I Love Lucy
.

By my third day in the bunker, I was in the
flow of things. I absolutely loved watching the old television
people. Laughing at their lives, understanding the wisdom the
parents passed on to the children through lessons. The interaction
between men and women. Something called relationships. Ricky and
Lucy had a funny one. They used sarcasm a lot. Marie explained that
was the show. They fought and made fun, but they loved each
other.

The other family shows were different. The
parents did not insult each other like they did on
Lucy
.
Despite what happened, in the end, there was always a lesson. It
took me a couple of days to realize that. Pay attention, look,
listen... learn.

One thing was abundantly clear, something
that was very different than in Akana. Men and women needed each
other, they worked well together, and there was something natural
about them becoming a team. They were not meant to be separated and
treated as mere dolls.

So many decisions were made based on the
feelings or guidance of the partner.

It was the way in the beginnings, after the
dinosaurs of course.

In the he Bible, Adam listened to his woman
and they got in trouble, but they worked together. In Akana we are
taught that once we realized the opposite sex was different, we
were sinning. They were not to touch us.

Looking back, it made no sense. Especially
since Marie told me the truth about where babies came from. She
drew me disturbing pictures and diagrams that she called
‘technical’ and ‘educational’ and ‘not scaled to size’. After her
explanation, it made sense.

If men and women in Akana did not touch, how
did they produce children?

Marie asked me, “Well, what were
you
told? What did your mother tell you about where babies came
from?”

For a second I drifted off to the dream I had
a few days earlier. What I
told myself
was just a dream. My
mother would never offer me willingly to the Sybaris, especially
for her own benefit.

“Vala?”

“We were told when our bodies and minds were
mature, the Gods would deliver a baby pill. We would swallow it and
then the child grew in our stomachs.”

“That’s not how it’s done!” Marie
exclaimed.

“I know that now.”

“How do you feel about it all?” Marie
asked.

“The soap opera magazines make sense now. I
feel silly.” Then I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Sometimes when
I would look at the pictures, I would see a man and a woman looking
at each other and it would make me sigh. It was beautiful and warm.
I thought it to be a tale, because in Akana men and women do not
look at each other like that. When they wed, they wed because they
are told who to wed.”

“That was the way things were for a long
time, and that isn’t just Akana. Truth be known, Vala, it’s better
to discover your husband or boyfriend by yourself, because that
look is worth it. It makes your heart race, it makes you smile.
Loving someone because you want to, not because you are told to, is
an amazing thing.”

“Did you love?”

“Oh, yes,” Marie placed her hand on her
chest. “Leo and I met when we were eighteen. Your age. I knew I
loved him the moment I met him. When he kissed me, my stomach
fluttered. It fluttered to the day he died.”

I sighed. “That’s beautiful. How did he
die?”

“He died last year. Natural causes, not a
Savage attack, just fell asleep and didn’t wake up. It broke my
heart. I loved him very much.”

Knowing her age, I started to calculate how
long they were together. And before I could speak, something
happened. My eyes… they grew blurry and they welled with tears. It
was not tears of sadness; I had no idea why I wanted to cry. A tear
rolled down my cheek and I swiped it away. “I do not know why that
happened.” I looked at the moisture on my fingers.

“You’re human, Vala, and it’s coming out.
Those tears are showing that you were emotionally touched by
something.” She squeezed my hand. “We are making progress.”

“It sounds wonderful to have that. It makes
sense now, why I felt the way I did at times. I hope one day to be
kissed.”

“You will.” Marie laid her hand on my cheek.
“You’re beautiful, smart, and sweet. You will have lots of kisses
in your lifetime.”

“Just…” I exhaled dramatically, “no babies.
The route to conception sounds traumatic.”

Marie laughed. “You say that now.” Then she
winked.

We talked for a while, one like I never had
with my own mother, and I loved it. Just before bed as I was making
notes in the Bible, Davis stopped by. It was nice to see him; I had
not had contact with him or Tanner in days.

“I got something for you,” Davis said,
sitting in a chair next to my bed. “I see you’re reading.”

“Making notes.”

“In the Bible?”

“Yes, is that wrong?”

“No. Not at all.”

“They speak a lot like me.”

“Yeah, actually they do.” Davis folded his
hands. “Are you, uh, understanding us more now?’

“Oh, yes. Lucy has taught me a lot. Ricky not
so much, he speaks oddly.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Was Moses a Mare?”

“Was Moses a what?”

“A Mare?” I swung my legs over the bed. “I
was reading about him and the kings and queens. He was raised as
one and was thrown out for defending man. He led them away from
bondage and performed great feats. Was he a Mare? It goes along
with the story we are told of how man defeated the Ancients.”

“Moses was chosen by God.”

“So God created Mares?”

“In a sense. He does a lot.”

“Bon Jovi is crafty in many ways.”

Davis smiled. “HE is. And here.” He handed me
a book. “This is from the library. I have been studying day and
night about controlling your sort of telekinesis gift.”

“What is that?”

“Telekinesis is the ability to control things
with your mind. You threw the poison cassette at the Sybaris
because you wanted it to destroy him, and it did. You have that
ability. I’m working on how we can bring that out. This…” he
pointed to the book, “is all on you. I want you to work on
this.”

I glanced down to the title of the book.
“Transporting With Your Mind. How To Have An Out of Body
Experience and Astral Project.”

“That’s an ability you have. Only you can
take it one step further. You can communicate with those around
you. If you go somewhere, you have the ability to be seen if you
want.”

“Davis, I have had this happen twice. I told
you about the one time, but the other night on the beach; I do not
know if it was a dream or if I was there.”

“What happened?”

“I went back to my village and my mother as
giving her blood for payment to Nito. She was promising me to her.
It seemed so real, yet, why would my mother do that? Was it a
dream?”

“I can’t tell you, Vala. Only you know.
You’ll know for sure when you actually try to do it.”

“You knew my mother as a woman, not as a
mother.”

“I did.”

“Would she do something like that?” I asked.
“Would she sell out her own child for her own benefit?”

“Vala, I will not talk negatively about your
mother.”

“Please?”

Davis took a deep breath. “When your mother
sets her sights on something, she does it. Your mother came west
for a better life. When she heard about the Sybaris offering a
better life than what she found, she set her sights on that. She
didn’t want to run, or be hungry. All she wanted was to be safe.
She had a great life before this world went to hell.”

“She did?”

“Oh, yeah. She was rich. Like the Ancients
are. So much money. She was spoiled.”

This news surprised me because I never knew
that about my mother.

“When your mother knew that a child was the
key to getting in, she set out to get pregnant. I begged her not to
go. I followed her and she promised that she wasn’t planning to
sacrifice the child.”