File 1.0: Tyra
To find her sitting as she is beneath the improvised roof made from the gray tarp she carried on her back for over fifty miles, depending on how well you know her you might be drawn first to the moon kissed hair—so blonde it might as well be white—that falls almost to the ground in a thick and intricate braid still damp from sweat at her back. Or you might be struck by the green of her eyes, drawn to the flashes of light shooting across them every few seconds. Maybe you'd follow her eyes to the source of the light, the polished blade she sharpens as if it's her religion sending sparks shooting into the sky and lighting the tattoo swirling around her arm in words and symbols you may or may not recognize. You'd be struck by the thickness of the design, the impossible density, only to realize how big her arms are—no sign of anything but muscle with each slide up her blade as if she is sharpening stone with stone. When you spot the fur coat that looks more real than it does faux draped across the log she sits on, you realize despite the cool air she wears nothing but a gray tank top that gives you no choice but to trace the muscles of her back with your eyes. Most people are left breathless, in fear and admiration when they take in the smooth waves of muscle rolling across, over, and down.
You might think her peaceful, as she sits as if in deep mediation, the only sound the slick slinking of metal against metal—after all, a knife is just a tool until someone corrupts its purpose. Or you might think her a demon, built to be someone capable only of horrible violence, a panther in the tall grass of the swamp waiting to pounce—the ominous black rifle sitting atop her drying fur coat might prove you're right.
One thing is for certain: you would find her to be either beautiful or horrible. The truth depends on one question: are you a friend or foe?
Perhaps all these things can be true. Is it possible for one person to be beautiful and horrific, peacemaker and warrior, woman and animal? Perhaps that's the wrong question. A better one might be, is it possible not to be just another contradiction in a world that has become nothing but?
With your focus on this woman, either admiring her beauty or fearing it, you haven't noticed the cool air, nor the moisture that hangs frozen within it. Despite the cold, the air is humid, always wet, so much so you swear you can feel its current turn your dry skin damp and raise your hair the moment before you reach a hand into it. The wind is somewhat calm for once, only swaying the overgrown trees and tall grass every so often, rather than trying to tear them from the earth. The once clear pond the woman sits before used to be a pool in someone's backyard but it's inching its way closer to a swamp as the algae overtakes the space and continues to expand. Even if it were daylight, or if the woman had more than the small fire at her feet, you'd spot the faint green glow—not unlike the woman's eyes—coming from the water as if whatever lives inside is begging to be set free.
Whatever you thought of the woman sitting on the log in what used to be someone's backyard that has long since turned wild, you didn't expect the speed of movement in which she throws her coat over arms, lifts her rife in one hand with the knife still in the other, and sprints in the direction of the loud scream that you are only just now hearing behind the rustling leaves that surround you.
If you were to try to follow, she'd already be gone, and you'd never find her. Lucky for you, I have eyes everywhere.
The splash of her boots makes no more than a whisper just like the breath she keeps almost completely to herself as if it's a dark secret she is afraid of ever speaking aloud. I can almost see her ears twitch in search of the sound they heard moments ago while she continues her sprint forward. Her green eyes move in and out of focus, as if zooming in and out on command. Her arms pump like pistons designed for locomotion despite the gun and knife she holds in each hand. Her thighs are the size of tree trunks, vibrate with each powerful step that seems to shake the ground and send rippling leaves across the surface. Somehow, despite all her ferocious power, it's only the leaves that make a sound as if she is a jet and sound chases after her always a few steps behind.
On an unseen dime, just before a ridge that was once a wall of a garden drops off abruptly, she stops and listens. While she does, the overgrown neighborhood around her catches its breath. Somewhere, tangled wind chimes try to ring within suffocating blankets of leaves that the wind pushes its way through. Wooden branches tap against what remains of the plastic-paneled siding guarding crumbling brick houses.
Her body tenses, cords of muscle pulled taught, jaw clenched, eyes squinted. There it is again, a scream, or perhaps the screech of a dying bird. This is the reason she is in these wildlands, this is the hunt she has made her purpose.
She tightens her grip on her tools; drops from the ridge she is on as if not realizing it's an eight-foot drop and disappears. By the time I find her again in the doorbell camera of a nearby house she is back up and running across the grass covered street heading for the only house with a single light still on. She stops, presses her fur-covered back flat against the vines that have overtaken the front walls of the house and slithers within them—not unlike a snake…if snakes were 6'2 and 195 pounds—until she can peak inside the chipped window.
Inside, a shadow swipes a hand at a second, much smaller shadow. The small shadow falls to the ground, whimpering like a helpless dog.
She doesn't bother with the front door; the window will do just fine. Her pulse at last quickening, more from the thrill than any sort of fear, she taps three times, making sure the sound can't be mistaken for the tapping of a branch. The tall shadow grows larger until it is no longer a shadow at all.
For an extended moment, a well-conditioned beat of her heart, the world seems to pause. The wind stops swirling; the humid air turns electric. The blonde hairs of her arms try to pull themselves free, electric and raw, like the eerie charge in the air before a storm.
With the blunt end of her knife, she smashes through the glass, continuing her swing until she cracks into the man's sternum. Bleeding from the cuts caused by the crashing glass, he falls to his knees with his hands at his chest, as if trying to find the thing stuck there and stopping him from breathing.
Before he can look up, she is halfway through the window, no longer holding her tools—her hands are weapon enough. The surprise at the animal leaping through the window is enough to make him fall completely to the ground, but she wraps a forearm across his neck and pushes with all her strength to help his momentum and silence his screaming, nonetheless.
Following two hard thuds, as if something bounced and returned to hard ground, her voice is somehow both tender and threatening, though the words are nothing but the latter, "Get up, bitch."
The man struggles to move to his feet, as if standing on ice instead of tile. He looks her up and down, attacks without conviction as if resigned to his fate.
She watches his wild swing arc wide, smiling at his dizzy desperation, or his arrogance to think he could bring her down with a punch. Raising her left arm, her tattoos looking like armor, she catches the swing with her capped shoulder, knowing on contact it will leave no more than a faint bruise.
With his unsure stance now exposed, in what looks like one motion she steps a leg through and throws his torso over it. His legs stay in front of hers, while his torso falls to the floor as if she threw him over a table. Not even I am sure if the crack that follows comes from his skull or the tile…probably both.
The woman stands over him, you might have even see his chest rising and falling if you are one who is brave enough, or sick enough, to stare at the gory scene of a dying animal. Her fury under control, the echoes have already died against the large rug in the center of the room that acts as a sponge for the entire scene. Her hard eyes find the girl's and at once turn soft—a silent promise she will not hurt the child before she speaks in a surprisingly flexible crouch in front of the trembling child. "You're safe now. He won't hurt you again." She wraps her fur coat over the thin girl's narrow shoulders. "I'm Tyra. I'll keep you safe until we can get you into the city." Pupils dilated, the girl stares with blank eyes. Tyra smiles an easy and toothy smile, "I like your hair, it's a very pretty color. I wish mine was dark like yours."
The girl, not older than fourteen, runs a shaking hand over the intricate silver weaves of Tyra's braid, trembles just a little less, whispers her name so quiet you'd think only an animal could hear, "I'm Rachel."
As the girl starts to turn her head toward the gruesome scene lying at the base of the back wall, Tyra moves in front of her face, protecting her from seeing. "I'm going to carry you, Rachel. Are you okay with that? I'll keep you safe, I promise."
The girl nods. Folds into the woman's uncovered arms, and whimpers within the promise of safety they provide. Like this, she stays, all the way to the train that runs along the near side of the Mississippi River—the lifeline for those who remain.
When the woman sits her down on one of the many empty seats, Rachel asks her to stay. Tyra prefers the order within the darkness of these wildlands to the chaos of the city's bright lights, but she takes a seat beside her without a word. The girl rests her head against Tyra's shoulder where the bruise from a punch thrown by a man whose life depended on it taking the woman down is just now becoming visible. While Rachel sleeps, two green eyes stare out at the darkness from behind the window of the train.
End of file 1.0