4

I heard him call for me, but all I wanted to do was continue into my tent. The better part of me convinced myself to turn around, so I walked up to him as he came out. He was hunched over and held the candle in his hand. He lifted it up to get a better look at me. The light danced shadows upon his face, his eyes staring softly. There were hundreds of wrinkles and folds, his skin showing the torment of the years and age. "This way," he croaked, "follow me." He turned and with very slow steps, walked back into his tent. I followed him not feeling like saying any rejections in return. I closed the flap behind me and sat on a old rickety chair he pointed his old shrivled finger at. He set the candle on the small wooden table and sat in another chair opposite me. I simply glanced around and saw a dirty old tent, with nothing special inside. It was identical to most tents, but much smaller then ours which held three people. Jeremiah coughed and hacked, he grasped the table counter and bent over as he continued. I reached over out of my seat but he waved me off, "Are you alright?" I asked. A general question anyone would ask in my position. "I'll live a little longer," he chuckled. the long pause between words made me restless, "Did you need something from me?" I asked, curious why he brought me over. "No, not anything you can do" he weezed. Confused I asked, "Well, then what do you need me for?" "Paitence," he replied. I let out a sigh and sat back into the chair. It was so quiet between us I could hear the murmering of voices near by. As I conncentrated on them, I could make out Jacksons voice speaking in our tent. He must have made it back. After a while his voice became clearer and clearer, and then it dawned on me. You could hear everything we said from in here. Is this why the old man brought me here, was he trying to show me this? That he heard everything we've said? I looked over at him, his old wrinkled face smiling back at me. His smile revealing his yellow rotten teeth. I continued to stare back puzzled. At that moment, the sound of quick footsteps could be heard outside the tent, followed by a huried voice. "It's me," the high-pitched voice softly spoke through the cotten fabric of the tent flap. "You may enter boy," Old man Jeremiah croaked back. The flap was thrown back and a boy no older then seven or eight entered. As he looked up and spotted me he took a breath of surprise and threw a look of worry towards the old man. I was almost as shocked to see him as he was of me, the boy that stood there was one of the sons of John, the man whose tent I had passed earlier. I too looked at Jeremiah in confusion. "Put it on the table here boy and be own your way, you know the rules," Jeremiah scolded him. The boy shoot up straight and carefully placed a small wrapped package he held in his hand on the table between us. Then started walking towards the tent flap. Before he exited he turned and bowed towards Jeremiah, then turned again and jumped out into the night. "Ah, here we are." Jeremiah exclaimed. He turned in his chair and started unfolding the small package. I sat up in mine and looked towards him confused, "Why..." I began to ask until Jeremiah intereupted. "I have a gift for you, something you might find useful in the next few days." I shook my head, "What do you mean," I asked. He ignored me and continued to undo the string around the cloth wrapping. As I watched the cloth fell to reveal a rich yellow stone. athe stone was no bigger then my palm, but it was stunning in its rich color and polished surface. My eyes gazed at it the swirling patterns of dark and light shades. I wanted to reach out and grab it too feel the smooth texture. "Go ahead," Jeremiah chuckled. It was as if he read my mind. My eyes probably said enough for him to understand. I reached out my hand and wrapped my fingers around it. Just as I imagined; smooth and slick but surprisingly the stone was warm. I looked up from its hypnotizing surface and excitedly asked, "What is it?" "Something very hard to get ahold of, which is extremely ironic considering we dig for it everyday," he said. "Valon?" I asked confused. It didn't look anything like Valon. The same color maybe, but Valon was a thick liquid found deep under ground. This was something different. "Valonite," he revealed, "it's originally the very same liquid form you find it in, which we call Valon, but this is its true form; Valonite. It's more of a....mineral now." I was amazed, all these years and I had never once seen Valonite, let alone heard of it. I caressed it in my hands, the candle light reflected off it's surface. Holding it there it felt strange, it didn't feel as if I was holding a stone, but something alive. "There is still alot we don't know about it, other then it's very important to the Alphas. So hold it close, and don't lose it," said Jeremiah. "Why me? If it's so important, why give it to me?" I asked. He chuckled, "I've heard a great deal of things being said from that tent of yours. I admire what you boys are trying to do and think that this could help you. I'm an old man on his last leg, the only thing to do now is help the next generation as much as I can." "I don't even know what to do with this," I said "Have that smart friend of yours with the glasses take a look at it, he might be able to figure out why it's so important to the Alphas," Jeremiah started to have a coughing fit again, "Go....get some sleep. Tomorrow will be.....a great day." I stood up and offered Jeremiah more help, but he waved me aside. I took one more look athe stone before storing away in my pocket and making my leave from the tent. I remembered the small boy as he left the tent, turning around and bowing to Jeremiah. It was out of respect and honor to him. I still didn't know him that well, and I was still confused exactly why he would intrust the Valonite to me, but I could sense something great about him. He gave me a great gift and trusted me with something amazing. I had said thank you once already, but it didn't seem enough. When I opened the flap to walk out into the night, I turned and bowed to the old man Jeremiah, and then headed back to my tent next door.

3

We were walking by the dim light of the lamp posts by the time we made it back to camp. I began to smell the harsh stench as we came closer. It was a foul smell from the ongoing heat and so many bodies living close together. I had gotten use to it, but occasionally it pierced my senses again after returning from the mines. As soon as we got back to the camp, Jackson took off in a different direction. He told me he had someone to visit, so I told him I'd meet him at the tent. The camp was the same as when I had left that afternoon. The rows of tents glowing from candle light as far as I could see. Hundreds of people living with in feet of each other, no privacy, no quiet. Whispers, shouting, crying, all of it was a constant in my mind. At times it would drive me insane, but these conditions are what I had grown up in. After you live in the filth and trash long enough, it became what was normal, and we no longer looked at it the same, but that didn't take away the anger I felt when I knew we deserved so much better. From the edge of the camp our tent was setup near the middle, normaly a twenty minute walk. My boots crunched on the dry dirt, as I stepped over clothes and belongings spewing from a near by tent. I made my way down a row for a few minutes dodging others walking besides me, or avoiding a fist fight that came to a crashing climax, tearing down the tents as it ended. It all seemed normal to me, fighting was a way to relieve the stress, and the mess couldn't be avoided, we lived like animals. As I approached the neighborhood were we lived, I waved and nodded to the many different people that lived near by. Janette was sitting down outside her tent with her husband Bill, or was it Frank? I couldn't ever remember his name. She was a larger woman, while he was skin and bones. He looked as if a strong gust would blow him away. I always wondered how she had gotten to be so big, what in the world was she eating? She wore her flowered dress again today, grey and soiled with dirt and stains. She waved back and smiled reveiling her row of seven teeth, I almost laughed but held it back. Then there was John, a family man with three kids. He was alone though, I was told his wife had died when they made the trip here. A gentle man and good father, raising his kids alone in such a hell. I could see their silhouettes by the candle light, dancing through the thin wall of fabric. I heard the laughter and voices as they sang. I smiled, knowing that some still managed to find joy in such things. I came to the last few tents that surrounded us. Most were filled with darkness, the owners were out on the hoot-owl shift after all, but I noticed one single candle flickered to life in the neighboring tent. The man that lived there was one of the oldest to live in the camp, his name was Jeremiah. I had only a few late night conversations with him before, but he must have heard me approaching. As I passed his tent he threw his flap open and called into the darkness. "Is that you boy!?" he croaked.

2

A stiff wind from the north blew in, blasting up sand and dust in circles forming small tornadoes that followed along the path back to camp. I was exhausted from another day digging and hamering for Valon down in the mines. My shoulders ached and my eyes grew even more heavier as I was trying to oppose the urge to close them. As I dragged my feet along the road, the sun lowered itself in the horizon. What beautiful sunsets in the desert sky, not like I had been accustomed too back in the northern camps. With a quiet buzz the few lamp posts flickered to life, giving light in the envolping darkness. I ran my rough, torn up hand through my head of thick jet-black hair. My fingers caught on the clumps of dirt and rocks knotted in the rats nest. I needed a hair cut sometime soon, it didn't work too well with hair down to my eyes. As I continued down the road I often noded at the opposing workers heading to their shift. Most of them seemed lifeless, shells of any man or woman they once were, by I nodded and gesture a passing hello with a raised finger as they continued on past. I could hear the scuffling of boots hastingly approaching behind me. Someone breathed heavyily as they quickly made their way to my back. I knew right away who it was sneaking behind me. Naturally I began to turn to look, but as I did the man wrapped his arm around my throat and pulled tight under my chin. "Jackson, let go of me before I hurt you," I weeze. "You know, you think you'd have learned by now Elijah," Jackson laughed. Knowing his sincerity for jokes, I don't waste time talking so I swing my right elbow back to nail him in the ribs. He waited for it, dodging as I swung back and released me. I breathe in and turn to face him. "You're really asking for it," I say as I rubbed my neck where he held me. His eyes sparkled with excitement, "You're actually going to take me on today?" I look at him and with a small chuckle I ask, "And what? Embarrass you?" Jackson pointed his thin finger towards me, "I seem to remember you eating dust the last time." "I don't remember it that way," I say. He shrugged his shoulders and threw his arms into the air, "Fine, you lucked out for today!" I laugh and turn to continue walking down the long road back to my tent. Jackson walked up beside me as the both of us kill the time with conversation. I met Jackson when I had first been brought to this camp. I was shipped from the far north, he came from the camp closet to the capitol city in the east. That camp, Jackson had told me was one of the most vicious and murderous in all of the colony. He told me stories of there not only being just one Alpha, but multiple. Punishing every human if they looked in the wrong direction. He had told me he loved it here, down in the wastelands. The crew was mostly ran by Shephards, with the one Alpha being the only one with-in the many miles to the next camp in the north. Jackson leaned his head in a little closer to me as he spoke, "I got it by the way." I glanced at him and then nervously glanced back ahead while lowering my voice, "Good. I skipped on the pills again today as well." He nodded back at me in response. We both knew talking about such things in the open was a bad idea. I had heard of times when miners would turn each other in, to get extra rations or time off. The Alphas and Shephards use this to snuff out many rebellions or personal law breakers, and we couldn't take the chance to let anything set us back.

1

There was never really peace in our history. From what I was taught our people fought over everything. That was our idenity as a culture; proud warriors who fought with each other to earn honor. It remained like this for centuries until a warrior, greater the any other, rose up and brought every clan and every person under one banner. He united a broken people, and created a utopia in which a new age of peace was created, and for half a century our civilazation grew more then it had in the last three hundred years. Advancments in our economy, technology, and education of the world we previously ignored, lead us to our pinnacle point; the Golden Age. For those who can remember those fifty years, they say it was like a dream. Then came the invasion. Our people had grown softer over the time of peace, but it didn't matter if they hadn't. For when the Alphas came across the seas, we could do nothing to stop them. It was the exploration force that crossed first. We made contact with them only to be met in aggression. That day was the bloodiest in the last fifty years. I was told that when the Alphas sailed over the seas, they brought with them one ship, and on it only a handful of the men-like monsters we had named, Alphas. Alphas were frightening in look and power. Their features haven't changed; they stand usually seven to eight feet tall, completely hairless, and their skin semed to be soaked in the sun, its deep yellow hue was bizzare compared to the humans basic range of colors. All of their features were not as strange as the extra pair of arms that made them that much more fearsome and idenitifiable. The four armed monsters marched onto our land that day, ignoring every form of peace we tried to make, and slaughtered every human in their path. It was clear from that day forward that they were here to conquer. In response to their destructuion, we sent our peoples best warriors to stop them, but every attempt ended in death. It wasn't until the same great warrior that united us those years ago, marched with an army and met them outside the capitols gates, that their path of terror ended. That day, with the sacrifice of his life, and many others; they killed the last Alpha that invaded weeks before. That day would forever be known as Omega; the begining of the end . Stripped of our peace and tranquility, our people panicked and feared another force to sail across the seas. With such a small group doing so much destruction, we knew any attempt to fight back would end in our annihilation. So weeks later, when an entire armada of ships sailed again to our shores, we waved the white flag to surrender in hopes of a better outcome. What we recevied was our nightmare coming to reality. An enemy we didn't even know exsisted a month before, completely overpowered and ultimately conquered our entire countries forces within three months. The decision to surrender without a fight, would forever diminish our history of strength and honor as not only were our people enslaved, but most of our history and population were eradicated. Those that were taken into slavery were used for many different tasks, but mainly they were given the job of miners. As months passed by, and more and more of the Alphas came to our shores, we began to find out their objective. Under the surface of the planet was a mystical liquid know as Valon, the blood of Eonnos. This deep rich-colored yellow liquid, we would later find out was the source of life for the Alphas. Much like water was what we drank to continue living, they needed Valon. As the only task they saw us suitable for, they created mines throughout the remenants of our land and used us to harvest Valon. I was born, years later, in one of those camps. Growing up in such a place was all I was use too, but those that were alive during Omega, held such a hate in their hearts. They witnesed the fall of everything they knew, and were completely drained of hope and joy in their exsistence. Because of the ease in which the Alphas destroyed and ruled us, they looked down upon us with such disgust and insignificence. We were nothing more then insects to them, and because of that they used little force to keep us in control. Every encampment had one Alpha who kept charge of the humans and used human traitors known as Shephards, to maintain most human contact. Although we didnt see the Alphas often, the fear they inflicted into every human was enough to maintain the peace. Now in a postion of power with no resistence, the Alphas created a capital city in which they would head their efforts in their new terrority, they named it Altaria. Years passed as they continued expanding their new colony and I grew from a little boy to a young man. My entire life had been spent within the same mining camp until one day, they had decided to expand further south and take with them a handful of us to open a new mining camp. In the south it was desert wasteland, and up until now they deemed to far away for them to put effort in making a camp there. Something made them change their minds, and I was taken along with others from all different camps to work in the wastelands of the south.