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Zeiss pulled off his greased stained singlet and draped it on the back of a wooden chair in his bedroom. He had spent the whole day pulling parts from a train carriage without any results. They were rusted and needed to soak in solvent for weeks. It was hard work.
He needed to rest. She would have given him hell for dirtying the sheets with his filth when they had so little. He lay there in silence. He stretched his hand out searching for hers. There was a warmth across his palm and a squeeze…
“Wake up… Wake up… I need your help,” Rayon crouched over his body, squeezing his hand. Her crystal pink eyes gleamed in the dawn light. He was taken aback and hit his head on the tree trunk he slept on. It wasn’t her.
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Zeiss washed his face in the river and then drank handfuls. She watched and copied, although in a rather dramatic way. She had told him an incredulous tale of being from another world in a far galaxy. She wouldn’t shut up about it. She had no idea how she woke up in that crater.
“My world was at war Zeiss… I escaped… And I do not know what has become of my family….” Rayon urged him.
“What do you expect me to do? Fight in your war? Avenge your dead family?” Zeiss said.
Rayon stomped her foot in the water angrily, “My family is not dead… I need to find a way to contact them… do you know what it is like to be alone?”
Zeiss hated that he was stuck with this woman. He hated himself for entertaining her story. She had devastated that labour camp. Hundreds of men and women had been killed in her meteor strike. Strictly speaking the labourers were not allowed to collude, but he knew a few of them; they were good honest folks.
“What did you do to my eye?” Zeiss said.
“I healed it… That power though… It is not of my people,” Rayon said.
“Bullshit…” Zeiss said, spitting into the grass.
Zeiss remembered a flash of lightning erupting from his socket and a headless burnt corpse falling to the ground. He was burning with rage.
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The forest began to thin out into grassy plains and soon enough they were in farmlands. The crops here were weary and grey. Another famine was coming. Children would die.
There was a gnarly cough in the distance. Rayon immediately ran after the noise.
“Hey. Wait—“ Zeiss said, “Damn it…”
The people here were not used to strangers, let alone other-worldly beings. They would report her to the state soldiers. Zeiss had business and couldn’t afford to be sent back to a labour camp.
Zeiss followed after her and found her kneeling beside an old man in the weeds. He lay there in a coughing fit with blood around his mouth.
“Dear girl… Are you an angel to take me above… or a demon to take me below?” He croaked.
Rayon put her hands on his chest and spoke in a foreign tongue. She was healing him.
She winced and put her hands on her face, “It’s not working! Why!”
Zeiss put his hand on her shoulder, “Hey… It’s okay.”
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They carried the dying old man to his farm house. The paint was chipping and wood was rotting, but out here away from the constant surveillance of the state, it was a haven.
“Hello? Anyone here?” Zeiss said, entering the house.
“It smells amazing,” Rayon said, “There must be food.”
It smelt like cigarettes and rotting meat. Zeiss lost balance as he stepped on an empty liquor bottle, but caught himself. There were bottles everywhere and the place was a mess.
“My wife… The bedroom… to my wife…” the old man coughed - blood getting on Zeiss’ forearm.
Zeiss carried him to the bedroom and found where the smell was coming from. There was a dead woman lying on the bed. She was mummified; her face was a yellow translucent; the teeth could be seen beneath her lips, and her eyes were cloudy and grey like a dried fish.
Zeiss grimaced and put the old man with his wife. The old man wept and shivered, but managed to catch his wife’s hand. Soon he was too tired to breathe and stopped altogether.
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Zeiss buried the bodies. They were together. The farmer and his wife had nothing but each other. Zeiss remembered that feeling, but it seemed so long ago and felt like an echo.
Rayon was picking at worms in the soil and eating them. She sure was strange. Zeiss doubted anyone would help her. She would be all alone.
“Put some clothes on from the house,” Zeiss said, “You can come with me… but I need to find my daughter first.”
“Really?” Rayon beamed. “Thank you!” She ran at him and hugged his knees.
“Get off me,” Zeiss sighed.
Rayon wore an old brown dress which had a hood. Zeiss showered and washed away years of dirt and dressed in inconspicuous commoner clothes.
They sat around a fire in the yard. Zeiss gulped down a warm beer, whilst Rayon roasted a chicken they had butchered earlier.
“What is your daughter's name?” Rayon asked.
“Semira,” Zeiss said.
“What separated you?” Rayon asked.
Zeiss was silent and didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry…” Rayon said looking down at the ground, then she quickly remembered the chicken, “Here! Eat this.”
Zeiss smiled and took the food. He hadn’t had meat in years.
“This world…. It’s cruel… It’s sick… but I refuse to let it fuck me,” Zeiss said.
“Maybe we can change it,” Rayon said, placing her hand on his forearm.
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A helicopter, clad with machine guns, hovered overhead. It shone a bright light on the pair.
“Freeze! This is the State!" A woman with short blonde hair and a visor yelled.
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