Born in Winter
The day you'll come to life you'll realise
Expanding force to life where you belong
And in the winter cold, with opened eyes
You'll find the strength to fight and stand upright
One day you'll walk the world and keep in mind
The heart you've been given in winter time
And through the bitter cold, with opened eyes
You'll find the strength to fight and stand upright.
“Born in Winter” Gojira, 2012
Steam from my breath curled lazily in front of my eyes as I surveyed the bleak, beautiful landscape ahead of me. I took my thick woollen gloves off and, my fingers trembling with the biting cold, managed to open a packet of nuts that I pulled out of my battered rucksack. I wanted to sit and stay a while, perched as I was on a small exposed rock only covered with a light dusting of snow.
For once the sun had decided to break through the clouds, bathing the valley ahead of me in a pale but somehow heartening light. I took a deep breath and admired the view. Just for a second, I thought, gazing at the vista in front of me, just for a second I can forget where I am and why I’m here.
I finished the nuts and shoved the empty packet into one of the multiple pockets on my thick and bulky overcoat. I quickly put my three pairs of woollen gloves back on and stood up, brushing snow from my behind and stamping around to get feeling back in my feet.
I heard footsteps, and I turned to look at the person currently climbing the hill behind me, already fully knowing who it was going to be.
“You’re getting slower,” I noted laconically. “One of these days I might just leave you for good.”
The figure reached me and snorted a quick laugh.
“You wouldn’t leave me,” said a distinctly female voice. “You need me too much.”
She spat and sat down on the exposed rock, swinging her large rucksack around in front of her with a clatter as she did. “Thanks for keeping my seat warm, at least!”
I nodded but didn’t reply. I had met Freya several months back on one of my irregular stops in “The Hub” as it was known, one of the few areas of so called “civilisation” left in this cursed country. I didn’t like The Hub, but even I needed to stop for supplies every now and then. Plus, human contact was becoming increasingly rare and while I was content by myself I often liked to head to one of the bars in The Hub to have a drink, a conversation and occasionally some more intimate company.
Freya changed all that. She was brought into The Hub by Ravagers, a large gang that dwelt somewhere in the wastelands and preyed upon people still living in the husks of the towns and cities that once peppered the countryside. She was dragged in by a chain that was clasped around her neck and she was cast down on the ground in front of the patrons of the bar I happened to be drinking in that time.
The Ravagers had become part of a burgeoning slavery empire that had sprung up not long after the environmental disaster – known as The Event – that ushered in the new ice age we all lived in now. They traded people to places like The Hub in exchange for weapons, food, fuel and other essential survival equipment. I was usually ignored by The Ravagers. I left them to their distasteful work and I got on with my own business, namely survival. I was quite well known in the area and my philosophy was to keep my head down and just make it through life without my head adorning someone else spear.
Quite a sensible philosophy, really.
Freya and some of the other slaves were paraded around the large room of the bar, and the Ravager leader had sat in a large seat next to the roaring fire.
“Some fine specimens!” He had announced to the bar. Most people turned away, a couple of patrons stood up and got closer to the various shivering, frightened looking slaves.
I did what I always did. I stared, searing the faces of the downtrodden and fearful wretches into my memory. They were less than human now, doomed to spend the rest of their short lives being used and then cast away. I wanted to remember them. I was too young to remember life before The Event, but I promised myself that I would remember how low humanity had sunk.
I never did anything to help the poor unfortunates, of course. There was nothing I could do. I merely watched them, turned back to my drink and ignored The Ravagers, who were better armed and better fed than I, as well as there being a lot more of them. It was distasteful, but I had to survive.
That night I noticed Freya. Unlike the other slaves, and indeed most of the people in the bar, she had her long, fiery red hair completely uncovered and it seemed to glisten in the firelight. She glared at the men surrounding her and held that defiance. The leader of The Ravagers barked a laugh and one of his minions slapped her across the face, a rough backhand that knocked her to the floor from her kneeling position.
The other Ravagers also laughed as she struggled up, spitting some blood onto the floor in front of her. The fire in her eyes didn’t die though.
That was unusual. The other prisoners were visibly scared, some quaking and crying, others staring at the floor with vacant, hollow expressions. A couple of them (judging by the smell) had wet themselves. But not Freya. She glared passion and defiance and anger. It hurt to look at, knowing what fate lay in store for her. I sighed, closed my eyes and drank. That night I would not pay for company.
Then, somehow, and Freya was never forthcoming with details, she escaped that night. I was asleep in a small private room that I had paid a lot of fuel to get. I was dozing fitfully as the fire in my room died when I heard a faint scratching at the door. I immediately grabbed my trusty old revolver and a large service knife I always wore and padded over to the door.
“Who is it?”
“Let me in!”
I opened the door a crack and peered outside. Freya immediately barged in and quickly slammed the door shut behind her. She had picked up more clothes and a couple of weapons from somewhere and had blood stains splashing her cheek.
“You’re taking me out of here. Let’s go!”
And so it was that we left The Hub under the cover of night (fuel rations meant lit torches were few and far between.) We escaped into the forests that spread across the hills above The Hub. If The Ravagers hunted us, we had not seen any sign of it since that time.
I was born into this life. My mother was pregnant when The Event happened: I have never known another life. My survival skills were as instinctive to me as breathing, honed as they were over 20 years of necessity. My father died in the first wave of deaths when The Event occurred, and my mother died not long after I turned 5. I grew up knowing how to look out for only one person, not relying on anyone.
Freya, however, was the complete opposite. She was born into a well-off family of doctors and was about eight when The Event happened. For the first few of years post-event she was kept safe by relatives who also survived, people who banded together to fight against the rapidly oncoming winter and the accompanying disintegration of society. In her early teens, she found herself on her own as more and more of her supporting commune gave in to the devastating cold.
She survived scavenging throughout the ruins of the city that once sprawled across the terrain, teaching herself to fight and subsist through any means necessary. Until The Ravagers picked that city to attack. She, along with others who still stayed in the dubious comfort of the city were rounded up, chained together and force marched through the icy wastelands that used to be pleasant fields and rolling countryside and taken to The Hub.
At first, I resented having someone to babysit, but Freya never once complained. And though I mocked her for being slower than me, she persevered, and we always ended up each day in a place of safety, with a small fire to keep us warm. We had no place to go, no real direction to travel. There were no rumours of “a warmer place” or plans to try and get the world back to how it was. Humans had screwed up the world, and that was it. This was living now. Freya and I, against the elements, against the marauding bands of killers, against the lack of food and the constant pressing need to find safety and shelter.
We kept each other amused by telling stories, singing songs and occasionally making love. We weren’t “In Love” per se, we were merely keeping spirits up, being companions. Surviving. Existing. Trying to retain some of our humanity. We never spoke of our night time activities, they just sort of happened every now and again.
Freya now scanned the view from the top of the hill we rested on.
“It’s quite beautiful, in a weird way,” she breathed, rubbing her aching hands together. “I am so sick of the snow, the ice, the cold. But when we do get sun, it’s just… Wow!”
I nodded, glancing at her. Once again, she had her stunning red hair uncovered and it shone in the weak sunlight, seeming like the only splash of colour in this monochrome world.
In the distance, rising above the thin wispy clouds arose some giant man-made structures, still, eerie and alien against the backdrop of nature reclaiming what belonged to it originally. I stared intently at them, as if by wishing it so, I could bring them to life.
“Wind farms,” Freya said as she moved to stand beside me, her rucksack back in place on her shoulders. “Mankind’s last-ditch attempt to stop the oncoming disaster. Some people knew. Some people cared. It wasn’t enough. Too little, too late.”
She sighed.
I reached out awkwardly and put a hand on her shoulder. I couldn’t think of anything to say and after a moment of us both gazing at the old, strange objects with their metal limbs reaching out imploringly, we set off down towards the valley and what I hoped would still be a place of safety.
We stayed in a small old cottage I knew. The foibles of unchecked natural processes running their course meant that this particular house was well sheltered against the extreme weather and also from the view of any Ravager patrols that might happen to be in the area. It was a little-known area, regardless, away from where the old roads had criss-crossed the landscape. It was about as close a place as any I had called home in my short life. I had been back a number of times and it was the one place I ever felt like I could relax.
“I have never been here with someone,” I said, almost shyly, as we both wearily lay our rucksacks down. “There isn’t a bed as such but there is a fireplace and they left a large stack of coal, and the rugs and blankets have survived remarkably well. They also left a sizeable stash of fairly decent wine, if you want a drink. We should be comfortable here. I hope… I hope you can enjoy yourself a bit tonight. It’s been far too long, really.”
Freya smiled at me and stretched her back out, groaning as it creaked and clicked in protest.
“There’s even an olden style bathtub. I could… I could clean it out for you and use the fire to heat up some water? You could have a bath, if you want?”
A pure, unadulterated smile lit her face up at that. She strode across the room and grabbed my face, kissing me fiercely. I responded to the kiss and wrapped my arms around her, enjoying the warmth. I disentangled a moment later.
“I’ll get on with that then.”
That night, after we were both clean, fed, slightly drunk and in a post-lovemaking glow, we lay in blissful silence. I feel human again, I thought. Whatever happens, I must not forget my humanity. Freya will keep me human. I soon heard Freya’s breathing deepen and I made sure she was covered with a thick fleece blanket before getting up to put more coal on the fire.
I heard a crunch from outside and stiffened, immediately on the alert. Inwardly, I cursed myself for a fool. You let yourself get too relaxed! I glanced across the room to where my weapons were neatly arranged on an old, creaky kitchen table. I started creeping towards them, trying not to awaken and startle Freya. Probably just an animal I told myself, knowing it wasn’t true. Another crunch and a whisper of what were definitely human voices.
“Freya,” I hissed urgently. “Freya, wake up! We’re under attack!”
“Wha…?”
At that moment the door caved in with an almighty crash and three men wielding evil looking clubs charged in. I grabbed my handgun and was able to get a shot off at one of them before his companion clouted me around the head with his cudgel, knocking me down immediately. I heard Freya give off a scream before blackness overtook me.
I awoke naked and with a throbbing headache.
“Freya…” I muttered, my eyes pounding as I spoke aloud. The sticky pool of blood by my head suggested that The Ravagers had assumed I was dead and stripped the cottage of anything of value. I struggled to my feet, staggering around for a second as I did. I coughed up a bit of blood and glared around the room. Nothing was left. The coal store was depleted, the rugs and blankets all taken. Any food or wine that was left had now gone, and my rucksack was also missing.
A large smear of blood heading outside told me that the lucky shot I had managed to fire before being clubbed unceremoniously around the head had hit someone in a place that meant they wouldn’t survive for long. I grimaced, knowing I would likely find a dead, stripped Ravager body not far outside the entrance to the cottage.
Only one hope remained. In all my regular stops I had always taken great pains to conceal small caches of food, clothes and weapons. I prayed quietly that this one wouldn’t have been found. I wrenched the floorboard that I had hidden my cache under and almost cried with relief when I saw it all intact. The Ravagers had obviously been delighted with their loot and not bothered to completely tear the place apart.
I quickly dressed as the cold was becoming unbearable. The clothes weren’t as sturdy or as comfortable as my regular travelling clothes, but they would keep me alive. The food was scant and bland but would stave off starvation.
I’m heading south, I decided. Away from this place, from these memories. Maybe I can find a new group to become part of there.
But the thought of Freya nagged at me. What if I can save her? If I don’t try, I lose my humanity. I become like them. If there is a chance, I should take it.
Decided, I set off, tracking The Ravagers, who hadn’t bothered to hide their movements through the snow. I followed them for a day and a night, not stopping to rest or to eat, saving my rations as best I could. I climbed mountains and traversed frozen rivers in my relentless pursuit of Freya and her captors.
Eventually, I saw signs of an encampment on a ridge up ahead. It was going dark – in this relentless winter, it was never light for long – and I could see that The Ravagers, now about 15 in number, had decided it was a good place to stop. They had built a large bonfire in the middle of a number of thick hide tents that they erected with brutal efficiency.
Always moving, always ready to go The Ravagers didn’t live a life of a settled human, they lived like the hunters and savages of old. “Sub-human scum” I growled to myself.
Once it was dark I crept my way along the valley floor, edging my way painfully slowly towards the ridge, trying to scope the lay of the land. I was freezing cold, hungry, exhausted and had nothing more than a large knife and a makeshift spear for weapons. I wanted to see if I could get Freya out without raising the alarm. I found some rocks to hide behind on the mountain side of the ridge where I had a good view of the encampment.
I heard a muffled scream and I saw them dragging Freya out of one of the tents. She was battered and bleeding and had a real terror in her eyes. I paused, planning my next move, when one of The Ravagers muttered something to his comrades, and the all roared with laughter. The two who were holding her launched her forward suddenly, throwing her off the ridge and into the darkness below with a cry that cut out all too quickly.
A cold, steely calmness settled on me and I stood up from behind the rocks. My last link to my humanity had been cut off. I smiled, suddenly, and stepped towards the fire.
Time to become like them.