WIPE

I’ve seen the tower from the beach a million times.

Way out in the sea, impossible to reach.
It rises gray and bare, up and up, and then out of sight. As if the sea gave birth to something meant to connect it to the sky. I’ve never seen the top. Maze says she’s not convinced it has one.

And I’ve always taken its impossible presence for what the Fathers say it is: a relic from before the Wipe. The hubris of pre-Wipe man, and a reminder for us all as to why it is God’s Will that we never return to technology.

But Maze suddenly has it in her head that the tower means something else, something different than the history the Fathers have given us. I think she’s a conspiracy theorist.

Until she shows me the map. Just the word mirror scribbled in red ink, next to a marking, and she expects me to go into the Deadlands with her. As long as I’ve known of her recklessness, and as much of a bad influence as she is on me, I can’t say no. Because while she doesn’t know they exist, I can’t stop my feelings for her.

And I start to realize, when we first pass over the rotting gates, into the ruin that was a city, that it will take something much more than either of us ever knew we had in order to survive the truth.