A small girl winces against a cold, steady breeze. Strands of her ivory hair flow over her eyes as she squints out to an endless field of snow. A thin scar rests over her cheek, and she wipes the snow lying over it that had been carried by a heavy breeze. She holds her arms around her chest as she steps weakly through the white blanket beneath her.
Pulling her silver coat tighter around her, she looks behind her to observe the trail she created over hills and frozen rivers. On the horizon, the clouds have turned to smoke. The skyscrapers of a gorgeous city send rumbles across the skies as they tear from the violence of war. The screams of the people are distant memories, but the little girl still hears them echoing through the freezing walls of her mind.
Although she is alone in her escape from a violent attack, the soft fur of a plush bear keeps her company. Out in the perfect white, she releases desperate calls for the one who gave it to her. Her voice drowns in the wind, but she stays determined to find the warmth of her sister again.
She nears a mountain of snow. A dark, frosted mouth of the mountain invites the little girl from afar. Guarded by a dozen deep slices of ice in the earth around it, the cave is the closest thing to shelter the girl will find for hours. Squinting out to the landmark, she keeps her faltering path over the snow continuous. She calls out to her sister again. And then again.
She listens closely as a faint buzz responds to her screams. Expecting to hear silence as she always had, the girl whips her head around to locate the noise. At first, the hum fades in and out of her eardrums. The wind could be clashing against her face, or the city may still be crying for help. She turns her back on the mountain, squints again, and listens to the noise as it grows louder. The hum fades out again.
The little girl shakes her head. She places her foot down to turn again, but the hum returns with force. It revs and roars, the horizon no longer holding it back, and it moves through the fields of snow rapidly. The child stares at the blurry collection of shapes that race across the blanket of white. After studying the noise, she recognizes the figures as they rush closer to her. Counting with her fingers as they release from the plush, she makes out five fleeting vehicles charging violently in her direction. Their metal exterior gleams against the falling sun, the front of their bumpers prepared to crash into icicles at any moment, and the weaponry attached to the doors shows their preparation to clear more than snow from the field. The attack is now coming for her.
The girl releases a blood-curdling scream. She grips her bear tighter and dashes for the cave in fear, moving toward the blue crevices around it, and cries as the ghosts of her family come to haunt her. The noise only grows louder like an avalanche eager to crush her. They fly over hills of snow, their wheels crushing ice beneath them, and they continue their path straight for the mountain. The child runs for her life. She calls out to the ghosts for mercy, but no one hears her pleas. She meets a crevice, pausing to consider moving around it, but knows there is no time. She steps back, closes her eyes, and runs to the fracture. She jumps, her body now flying over an endless crater in the earth, the bottom forever hidden from the steady beams of the rigid sun. The child rolls in the snow as she lands on the other side. She looks to her bear as it dips its left half in the white, and she whispers to it as she brushes it off. Standing weakly to continue her path, she looks to find the vehicles meeting her shadow. Racing with intensity, they plan to jump the fissure too.
The child screams and runs as the vehicles fly shortly over the aperture. As they hit the ground again, the drivers lose traction from their vehicles, and they drift into the child's surroundings. Their brakes screech in agony, and their vehicles slide to a ragged halt. They encircle the child in their drifts and send a wave of snow to rush out from the bottom of their wheels. The child stays frozen in the cold, her knees ready to collapse in fear, and she watches each of the vehicles as they surround her. She steps back and watches the turrets on the rooftops to see if they move. She shivers in another tide of dread.
She stares at the symbol over the vehicles. Outlined in white over the metallic doors, the emblem of a maple leaf rests in bold. The insignia bears the identity of the tyrant who brought dozens of violent attacks upon the child's homeland. In the distance, this tyrant roars an uprising that will not cease until all is under their control. The city they claim had once been an ally to them, but a new goal has reigned in their nation. Soon, the symbol will blanket the world in condemned, undying domination.
The nation moving this rebellion holds an alias named after its ruler -- the people feared her so much that speaking her name was forsaken. At first, she was a lost researcher. Then, she became a criminal known for creating experiments that altered the human mind. Once she was released, she hid in the cities, slowly building a new society that pleaded for more of her research. Now, her name is associated with thousands of dead innocents -- including the parents of the child standing before her allies. The child whimpers the tyrant's name as she watches soldiers in black and orange crawl out from the shadows of their vehicles.
"Autumn, mercy."
A soldier in white steps out from the center vehicle, leaving the driver's seat behind and staring at the child through a thick helmet with an orange visor. The soldiers surrounding her hold their guard and freeze from a distance, aiming their weapons to the ground. This threat is insignificant.
The white-suited soldier steps carefully to the little girl, calling out through the helmet, and approaches as if there weren't a half dozen armored military vehicles behind her.
"A little far from home, kid," the soldier bites against the wind. Their voice is rough and feminine. The child steps back, keeping a steady distance between herself and the threat.
"Get away from me!" the child screams. The armored woman stops digging her boots into the cold, white sands and reaches for her helmet. She clicks two latches under her jaw, holding the helmet from beneath, and lifts it off to stare deeply into the eyes of the child. The little girl looks back to the face of the tyrant herself. She stares into eyes more frozen than the ice beneath her feet and finds burnt orange strands of hair flowing freely with the wind. It's a gentle reminder of the flames above her home when they did the same thing.
"What are you doing so far from the city? We can help give you a ride," Autumn tells the child assuringly. She steps forward again, and the child continues to step back. They tread together against the wind.
"You can't help me with anything," the child bites back, "You killed my family and many more."
The soldier looks back to her followers and sighs. She kneels before the child, not moving another step further, and looks down with a false shame.
"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not sure I had done that, though," the tyrant says gently.
The child shivers. "I saw that symbol on the arms of those soldiers that did it. They took everything from me. You told them to do that."
"I promise, I didn't," the tyrant jerks her head up, gazing with eyes of revived passion. "My soldiers may have been under my command, but I didn't ask for your parents to die. I wouldn't have hurt them if they didn't try to harm my soldiers first. I'm an enforcer, not a tormentor."
The child clutches her bear. "I don't believe you."
Autumn reaches out her hand and wraps her fingers over her palm. Holding out her pinky in her gloves, she tries to calm the storm.
"I promise," she says with an alluring voice, "I pinky promise."
The girl remains firm, staring at the tyrant, unsure of what to think.
"How can I trust you?" the child asks. The tyrant lowers her arm and lays it over her knee.
"You're out here by yourself in the piercing cold. If you find a way over that mountain, you're just going to find another dozen miles of snow. Whatever you're looking for, whether it's food, water, or warmth, you're not going to find it here. I can help you find what you want. I can bring you to safety," Autumn assures. The child looks to her plush, asking for an opinion, and the black beads over the face of the bear stare back.
"I'm looking for my sister," the child calls back.
"Your sister," the tyrant repeats.
"Yes, I want to find her. She fled the city, too," the child explains. Autumn stands again, planting her boots firmly into the snow and stepping closer to the child. The girl backs away, trembling away from the soldier, but Autumn walks past her with a glance.
"I think you're already close on that search, little one," Autumn says, staring out to the shadowed mouth of the mountain. "If your sister went anywhere in these fields worth hiding in, it's going to be this cave."
The child meets Autumn's side, tracing her path more carefully as the snow turns to ice, and stares into the abyss before them.
"You think she is?" The child asks.
The tyrant holds her shoulder carefully, expecting to find resistance. The child only turns her head in confusion.
"I think so. Listen closely. Do you hear that?" The tyrant asks the girl, kneeling to meet her eye level. She tilts her head to listen to the sound emitting from the cave, holding the child's cheek, who tries to hear it herself.
The child doesn't hear much at first. She squints her eyes, trying to sharpen her focus to the sound, and it begins to echo softly. A gentle thump rolls out from the cave. When listening closer, the thump turns into a reverbing beat -- and it only grows louder the longer they listen.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
The cave pounds a heartbeat through the wind. When Autumn and the child snap their heads to look at each other, the noise fades off into a quiet, undying knock. They meet their gazes, aware they heard the same thing, and Autumn smiles widely.
"What was that?" The child asks shyly.
"I think I heard your sister," Autumn answers.
The child looks back to the cave as it swallows the light of the outside world into a bleak void. Even if all her fears lurk within, the child will stop at nothing to find her sister again. It's the last of her family she has.
"Will you help me find her?" the child quivers.
"Oh, kid, that's far too scary for me. I know I drive these big, scary cars and hold scary things, but it's all for show. You're stronger than me, aren't you?" The tyrant responds, rubbing the shoulders of the girl. "Here, how about we make a deal. If you can go into that cave and bring your sister out, I'll give you a nice, warm place to stay with all the food I can find. Does that sound nice?"
The child looks out to the unmoved soldiers standing in front of the headlights of their vehicles. She looks to the tyrant again and nods.
"You'll be waiting for me?" the child asks.
The tyrant stands, nudging the little girl and her plush companion forward, and squints her eyes as the wind brushes her hair into her face.
"I will," Autumn assures. The child looks to the abyss, approaching it with a cower, and looks back to the fortress of metal and glass surrounding her. She steps forward again, hearing her sister's thumping heart faintly within the cave, and faces her fears in the frigid wasteland. Entering the mouth of the peak, the child searches for another phantom roaming within the wind.