APPLICATIONS -- 2010; 001

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Solara { book of eli } 2/5 idk

[bookof-solara.livejournal.com]

History:

What post-apocalyptic story have you heard started out good?

This is no different. It started with a war. No one’s entirely sure anymore what the war was about. But it’s effects are still felt 30 years later, and the face of the planet drastically morphed into a shell of what it once was. Nuclear weaponry destroyed the lands and when it was all done, tore a hole in the ozone layer that could not be repaired. The initial devastation was catastrophic. Only the people lucky enough to go under were safe from the sun’s damage.

A year came and went, and soon people began to crawl out of their holes in the earth and scramble for some sense of reality once again. While they did find a way to use sunglasses to avoid overexposure to the sun and going blind, nothing could repair the damage to society. People came and went over the next thirty years, and being older than thirty was considered a miracle somehow. Society became hectic and dangerous, and life reverted back to the old ways of ‘survival of the fittest’ in its truest forms. Humans began to eat other humans to survive, the lowest and most despicable form of survival. But it was survival nonetheless.

These humans were given the name ‘Prions’, a name that comes from the Prion disease from too much protein that can drive a person to dementia. But sometimes you can’t see dementia outright, but the hands were a sure way to see Prions a mile away. Check the hands. If they shook, you got out of there fast.

From this mangled mess of society small towns began to emerge wherever possible. They never had names because that was too lasting. You didn’t name a town that only existed for less than 30 years at most. And you certainly didn’t name a town where your control was loose at best.

But Carnegie made a town all the same. He welcomed all stragglers who needed refuge. He hired thugs to keep out the riffraff and the prions. He took control of the only known water supply in miles and rationed it out as he saw fit. He kept all the best things in the world and he made the town into the only refuge for miles around. People lived there, whether they liked it or not.

Solara’s mother was one of these people. She had been alive before the war, but born a blind woman. That’s when Carnegie built his town; she was quick to go with her husband. Whatever became of her husband is unsure, but it’s clear he was no longer in the picture while a young Solara was. Claudia was blind and Solara young, both needed protection, and Carnegie offered it to them. He took them in and treated Claudia well when it served him, and horribly when it didn’t.

Solara grew up in this home, knowing that Carnegie was just and means to an end for Claudia, and not her father. But he kept Solara safe as well. He let her work the bar rather than work the men, keeping Claudia happy for as long as it suited his purposes. It wasn’t the best life, and sometimes Solara had to bite her tongue as Carnegie hurt her mother before her eyes, but at least they had a warm place to sleep and safety and Solara never had to resort to desperate things.

That didn’t mean men didn’t want Solara, though. One man in particular was Redridge, Carnegie’s second in command. Redridge wanted Solara that much was obvious by his constant staring. But he was too much of Carnegie’s lapdog to ever do anything about it, and Carnegie didn’t seem interested in putting Solara to a use. So Redridge was simply a presence in Solara’s life, and Solara had to wonder when he would ask Carnegie for her. Not that Redridge was a bad man; he seemed to genuinely care about her. But he wasn’t her choice, and that was enough for her.

So Solara and Claudia lived their lives. Claudia both spoiled and hurt by Carnegie, and Solara trying to make herself as little of a presence as possible in the town to avoid the day when Carnegie turned on her.

And then the walker came into town.

He was a different man. He wasn’t afraid of anything it seemed, but he wasn’t harsh. He spoke softly and politely and waited patiently on all things. He had only come for the water and to charge his music player at the engineer’s store, but stopping for water in Carnegie’s town changed both their lives.