CALEN

  Prodding at the mystery box over the next few minutes yielded some interesting discoveries. Namely that the carvings only glowed when Calen squinted at them. They were otherwise totally inert, even when he smeared dust on them again.

  The second major discovery Calen made was that the symbols were probably numbers of some kind. Each one had an increasing number of lines making up the symbol, and contained the previous symbol, with an addition line added in a semi-regular, angular pattern.

  The big symbol in the middle where Calen had sparked his fingers also had some blackening on the metal at that spot, which wasn't present in the others. So he had probably used it wrong. Wiping the dust off the carvings with his sleeve jostled the empty space in the middle of the circle, and revealed a tiny hatch, with a little nest at the back, covered in the same pale dusty residue as his fingers.

  A nest perfectly sized for one of the 'rocks' in the bag. Which Calen confirmed immediately by testing whether it fit, and pushing the hatch shut.

  "Okay, fuel. Maybe-fuel and maybe-numbers. So what is the rest of this space for?" Calen asked, tapping at the shiny metallic sides of the box.

  The box gave him no answers, not even a hollow ringing, and Calen wasn't about to try lifting it and maybe break their only source of heat in the building.

  He tapped at the numbers hesitantly, from low to high, but nothing happened.

  "Heat. Fire. On."

  Voice commands didn't work either.

  So he tried both. With the smallest number.

  "Please work. Fire." Calen said, pressing the lowest 'number'.

  He felt something tingling, like static electricity, but nothing else happened that he could see. The 'display' fuzzed his vision even through his finger as he squinted at it, wondering what he was doing wrong.

  And then it hit him.

  Of course the lowest number was zero.

  He shifted his finger around the circle, tracing the coppery lines to the next symbol in the chain, and repeated his command.

  "Fire."

  Something jumped from him to the symbol, and heat bloomed.

  His finger went numb, and the rest of the symbols lit, even when jerked away, wide-eyed.

  The finger he had used to poke at the symbols looked odd, when he next reached for them. Like someone had traced hair-thin veins of orange static under his skin.

  An incredibly light buzz of static surrounded the box when he squinted, not fading away or wavering in the slightest, more crawling over the material.

  Some even began to spread up the thin pipe towards the ceiling, but its pace was glacially slow.

  The box was a little warmer though, and so were the staticky sections of the pipe.

  "Maybe we try two next." Calen whispered, staring at his hands.

  Mr. Isaacson and Emma were moving around the downstairs area, and light was starting to glow from the main room, but Calen had his own light already, so he left them undisturbed.

  He wanted to figure this out first, and make sure it was useful before someone decided to call him crazy again.

  Prodding his way up the number wheel, Calen noticed the connecting line between the numbers beginning to glow when he focused, climbing around towards the higher numbers at a decreasing rate even as his pointer finger went numb.

  Resting it for a moment to examine himself, he saw more staticky orange veins had crept through him.

  Testing another finger barely budged the meter, at first. The bar climbed past three, and the glowing in the pipe that was completely invisible if Calen didn't squint at it had almost reached the ceiling, but that was where things stopped.

  Finally, he decided to just press all of his fingers to the weird symbol carved in the center. They went numb just fine, and the bar budged a little, but no orangey veins suffused them.

  "Fire." He whispered, hoping his hands weren't about to spontaneously combust, or turn all the way orange.

  The jolting shock that ran down his hands had him yanking them away, and they went numb past the wrists, like circulation had been cut off. Shaking them didn't seem to make the effect fade any faster, but it was fading.

  And all of his fingers had a little bit of an orangey glow, when he squinted at them.

  Pressing at the symbols on the dial filled the bar at a much better rate, shooting past the fifth, sixth, and seventh symbol before it even slowed. Calen's hands only started to feel numb again around the eight and a half mark, but by that point, the heat from the box was starting to drive him away anyways.

  He was panting, when he stepped out of the room. Whatever it was had winded him.

  Magic. Doing magic had winded him.

  Calen felt giddy. He was right, they weren't on earth, magic was real, and they were going to live.

  "Guess who got the heat on?" He grinned in the lamplight.

  The table, still tipped sideways, had been dragged kiddie-corner with the water barrel. The remainder of the broken furniture was piled against the door to outside, which was now shut, like the door to the tower.

  A smell like rancid bacon filled the room from the burning lamps, but there was light.

  Mr. Isaacson had even put his gun back in his jacket pocket, judging by the weight Calen could see hanging there as the man turned around.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "There ya go kid. Focus on the important stuff. Pull up a chair. Stool. Whatever."

  "Where's Em?" Calen asked, halfway to the stairs already.

  He had to tell her first, or she would never believe-

  "Upstairs, in one of the bunks. Exhausted. Pull up a chair."

  It was a command, this time.

  Calen crossed the room again, a little more hesitantly. There were two high-set, low-backed stools behind the table. It was a barricade facing the door.

  "How'd you get that thing lit? Matches, lighter, electric striker?"

  The easy question was obviously to get him to relax. Calen considered lying for a second, but held up his hands and waggled his fingers instead.

  "Magic hands. See?"

  Mr. Isaacson chuckled a little and leaned forwards, lowering his voice.

  "Ya got your hands dirty and figured it out, I get it. That's good, means you learn fast." His tone shifted. Serious, now. "You're gonna need to, which is what I wanted to talk to you about. That, and your sister."

  Calen heard shuffling upstairs, and squinted. The static buzz from the box had spread in neat little lines through the floor, buzzing even through the wood of the ceiling.

  Em would be fine. Was fine, right now.

  "What do you mean?" he asked. "She can already see again, it wasn't as bad as—"

  "I mean she thinks she's not gonna make it. Says she can feel it starting, and she's just keeping it together for now." Mr. Isaacson said. "Asked me to make sure it's quick, if she stops being able to—"

  "No. No. Absolutely not." Calen raised his voice, so he wouldn't have to hear. "Don't you dare."

  It was practically a threat, by the end. His eyes were locked on the weight hanging in Mr. Isaacson's pocket.

  Sad eyes and open palms shushed him.

  "Shhhhh. Relax. She's fine for now, but her body is gonna start to break down soon, if she's right. I don't know that she is, so we're just talking about maybe, right now. But if she is right, that leaves you in a bad spot, as far as Uncle Sam is concerned."

  Calen connected the dots, and shoved his fists in his pockets. The metal disk from the floor dug into his palm even through the bandage, but the cut didn't bother him any more than it had while he was fiddling with the heating system.

  The pain kept him grounded, too. Made him soften his grip, instead of forming a fist.

  "Because Em's my ticket to a bunker." He said, trying not to grit his teeth. "The reason you're bothering to help either of us."

  "Being useful is your ticket to a bunker." Came the correction. "Can you do... any of the qualifying jobs? Had any of the training? Picked up enough from her that you can fake it?"

  "No. I'm... not that smart. Not the way she is." Calen admitted. "But I think—"

  "Then you need to learn to bluff, fast, and learn to do whatever they need faster than they find out you were bluffing." Mr. Isaacson rode over Calen's protests, keeping his voice down. "My word will get you brought along even without her, if we can make it to a pickup point, but being useful will get you somewhere safe. You don't want to be on the surface if there's a second exchange."

  "Third." Calen bit out. "And we're not leaving Em behind."

  Ten years ago had been the start of everything. The first match to the wick. Everything had changed for the worse, one day at a time.

  But none of that mattered now, if Calen was right.

  "You know what I mean." Mr. Isaacson said. "We gotta win this thing, and that means saving people who will help us win it, or everyone dies anyways. Being someone who can help is your meal ticket, now. Even if she makes it."

  Emma was going to make it. They both were, because Calen had felt that same staticky prickle from his fingers all over his chest, while they were hiking up from the river.

  At the time, he had thought it was just the cold. Now, thinking back to the rush of energy that had driven him up the first half of the hill, he wasn't so sure.

  "What did you do?" He asked, instead of trying to fight about it. One of them was right, and they would find out later. "Why are you so important that they'll just... take us along at your word?"

  Mr. Isaacson stroked his goatee, and scanned the room they were in, like he thought someone was listening. Or like he was considering how much information to give Calen.

  "I manage eggheads for a living, keep them safe, and on task." He finally said. "Like getting your sister to take the damn meds in the kitchen. Half of that is making sure they feel like they've got a choice, and know which one is the right one."

  That last sentence felt like it was pointed at Calen. Whether he was an 'egghead' or not.

  So he made himself clear.

  "We're still not leaving her behind. You can, but I'm not going anywhere without her." Calen pointed up at the ceiling.

  A sigh told him he had been right.

  "There's only gonna be so much food here, and whichever end times cult built this place and got blood everywhere is gonna come back." Came the perfectly rational reply. "If she can't walk, and we starve by staying, I don't want to put her in the hands of strangers who would set up this shit."

  Calen squeezed the brass disk in his pocket so hard he worried his hand might start bleeding again, and turned away towards the stairs.

  "Then you can leave us both." He said over his shoulder. "I'm not ditching her in the wilderness on a maybe. Even if she gives up. It doesn't matter, because we're both making it."

  A parting shot, almost too low to hear, followed him up wooden stairs that were sticky with someone's drying blood.

  "It's the end of the world kid. Not everyone is gonna make it. Time to grow up."

  Calen set his shoulders straight, lifted his chin, and didn't look back.

  The upstairs section of the building was all one, open floor, with the same curved wall, and a doorway to the tower that was shut. Roughly carved beds with straw-stuffed mattresses lined one wall, and Emma had tucked herself under a brown woolen blanket at the opposite end of the room.

  The rest of the room was trashed, covered in shredded blankets splattered with dried blood, splintered wood, and scattered straw. She had left the lamp at the top of the stairs lit, and the amphora from the closet was by the door to the tower, where another lamp burned low already.

  The whole room smelled just a little stale, over the stench of slowly warming blood. But it was warming, Calen could feel the heat leaking through the floorboards as he paced across the space.

  "Em. Em I know you're awake." Calen whispered, approaching her.

  She didn't roll over.

  "Em I need you to look at something." Calen said.

  Just in case he was going crazy.

  That got her up.

  "Whuuuh?" She mumbled, blinking sleep from her eyes as she sat up.

  Some of the skin was starting to peel off her face, where it had been mottled by burns. The new stuff was a little shiny, but it looked clean, and wasn't oozing anything.

  She had left some hair on the bed behind her, too. Calen tried not to stare at it.

  "C'mon, you can sleep in in the morning. But I need you to tell me what you see." Calen said.

  He held up his open palms.

  "Fresh bandage." Emma mumbled, misunderstanding and pulling his injured hand closer to pick at the knot. "You need a fresh bandage if I take this off. Dunno how sanitary this place is."

  "Yeah, I'll take off another sleeve or something." Calen agreed, willing to take a look anyways. "But I need you to like, narrow your eyes, and pretend you're looking for magic. Like really focus on it."

  Emma was busy peering down at his palm.

  "Calen this is... is this the right hand?" She asked.

  "Yeah. But I need you to—"

  "How?" Emma demanded, sounding wide awake.

  The skin on Calen's palm was clear and clean as it had ever been.

  He held out his other hand too.

  "Would you believe me if I told you I think it's magic, and want you to look for the orange fuzzy stuff on my fingers too?" He asked quietly.

  Emma's head snapped up.

  "No." She bit out. "Not unless you showed me proof."

  Calen waved his no-longer-injured palm up by his face and raised an eyebrow.

  "I was trying, and you got distracted and found more. Look at my fingers, but like, really try, like this." Calen said, and demonstrated with his own eyes.

  Emma's face fuzzed a little when she peered at him, and she gasped.

  "Your eyes." They said together.

  "Now do you believe me?" Calen asked. "I think it's—"

  "Nope. Bedtime. All done. Too much." Emma said.

  And then she rolled over and hid under the blanket.

  Calen shook her by the shoulder a little.

  "Tomorrow," She grumbled at the wall. "If it's still real tomorrow, sure."

  Calen waited, not retreating. She would get curious again. If he was right there, she would have no excuse not to roll over and check.

  The lamp was burning a little lower by the time Emma's breath evened.

  "Unbelievable." he muttered.

  Calen let out a sigh of his own, and blew out the lamp by the door to the tower, plunging most of the room into darkness before he rolled into the bunk next to hers.

  It helped a little, to hide the signs of the fighting as he drifted off.

  No amount of darkness blocked the coppery stench of blood from slithering into his dreams.

  Euthanasia' was first used by the Roman historian Seutonius, to describe Emperor Augustus (The first Roman emperor) 'dying quickly and without apparent suffering in the arms of his wife', though it is debated whether he did so willingly, or was poisoned.