Allakara
High up on a cold, misty mountain with no name,there’s no warmth except for the fireplace at night. The sky is dark and grey, and the ground is always covered in mist. Since the monsters came, the only safe place to be is up on the mountain. They can’t survive up this high. Nobody knows where they came from or how it happened. They stand around 7 feet tall, twisted, broken limbs, distorted flesh, and a long claw coming out of each palm. They communicate through clicking, and their screams sound like a mix of the person they once were and an elk screaming. Up on this mountain lives Vasili, a strong silver man whose only purpose is to survive and protect his granddaughter, Allakara. Allakara is a small girl only about 8 years old. She is very pale with white, fluffy hair almost as long as she is, with sapphire eyes. She wears a faded white nightgown where the sleeves go just past her hands. During the day, she travels the mountain collecting berries, mushrooms, and feathers that she finds. She keeps all of her feathers in a chest at the end of her bed.
She stands by the cliffside every day with her arms spread open, the cold wind in her face making her hair flow. She watches the birds in the sky, wanting nothing more than to fly with them, just free to go wherever. At night, it’s the same thing as it’s always been. They have some stew and play old Soviet records. Her favorite song is Katyusha. She sings along to it every time. After they finish eating, he tucks her in and tells her stories, anywhere from old folklore or plots of old movies he’s seen growing up.
One morning she went out foraging one day and found three huge white feathers and they were almost as long as her arm. She ran back to the cabin excited to show grandpa. Vasili was chopping wood but he was standing there staring at nothing just listening. She runs up to him and before she starts talking he puts his finger to his mouth and she purses her lips and puts the feathers softly on the ground and covers her ears. Vasili listens and can faintly hear yelling echoing from the base of the mountain, then come gunshots and the monster screeching. Vasili closes his eyes and holds his breath, there are more gunshots and one last scream and the sound of monsters screeching in victory. Vasili lets out a breath and rubs the top of Allakara’s head and she uncovers her ears and picks up the feathers and shows them off to him. He grabs one and looks at it and before he says something about the feather he notices something. “Where are your shoes?”
“It’s not cold today.”
“Do you remember when you cut your foot on those thorns and you were crying?”
She looks at her feet and quietly says yes. He hands her feather back tells her to go put her feathers in her chest and get her shoes on and go find some mushrooms he’s getting fish tonight.
Her face lights up and she sprints inside and carefully places her feathers on top of the other feathers in her chest and puts on her shoes and grabs her basket and runs outside and into the trees to look for mushrooms. After 20 minutes, she found a few mushrooms and she’s singing Katyusha and she hears a voice and she stops. It’s not grandpa’s but he’s singing the same song as her. The man steps out from behind a tree. He’s wearing a muddy olive drab trench coat and muddy black boots. His brown hair looked wet. His nose was flat and crooked and his eyes were black like grandpa’s. He crouched down and looks at her and tells her “I’ve loved that song since I was a little boy.” She stands there cautiously. She’s never seen another person before. He notices her being alert and he smacks his forehead softly. “Where are my manners? How rude of me. My name is Sacha. I’m from that mountain over there.” He points to a mountain in the distance. She looks at where he’s pointing and looks amazed. “Did you fly here like a bird?” She asked with wonder.
He chuckles. “No, little one. I walked here. I had to be really quiet so none of the monsters would find me or any of the bad people.”
“ Grandpa says the only people down there are all scared because the monsters can attack them. That’s what happened to Mama and Papa.”
“Your grandfather is a smart man, but sometimes, the people are more dangerous than the monsters.”
“Why?”
“Because, little one, everyone knows every monster will kill you, but sometimes a person will pretend to be nice and they will hurt you the second you look away. Have you heard the wolves howling at night?”
Allakara nods her head. Sacha stands back up and says “Even the wolf sounds pretty, but that doesn’t mean he won’t hurt you.”
“But you’re nice. Are you a bad person?”
“I have some bad things, but I would never hurt you or your grandfather. I have no reason to be bad to a little girl and her protector.”
Allakara looks a little confused, and Sacha pulls a large white feather out of his coat sleeve and hands it to her. “You must not tell your grandfather about me, or I will disappear forever, and I won’t be able to bring you all these feathers from my mountain. Do you understand, little bird?”
Allakara nods her head quickly, very excited as he hands her the feather. He smiles and puts a finger to his lips and walks away into the trees singing Katyusha. Allakara watched him as he disappeared into the tree. She stared at her feather for a moment and remembered fish and mushrooms for dinner and went to forage around some more.
Over the next couple of months, she had hoped she would see Sacha every day. He always had something for her, either a feather or some chocolate, but her favorite thing was a raspberry tart he brought a couple of times. He had told her it was kind of stale, but it didn’t matter to her; it was the best thing she had ever tasted. Every time she saw him, he always had a story for her about what it was like before the monsters, how people flew not like birds but in these huge metal machines, and sometimes people from different places would fight each other in them. He didn’t come every day, of course. The longest he was gone was around a week. She thought the monsters had killed him. His reasoning for being gone so long was he needed to find the prettiest feather on his mountain. This time when Sacha leaves, he sings Tjomnaja noch. Allakara hums this as he walks back to the cabin, and it starts to snow. She runs inside to tell Vasili it started snowing, but before she could say anything, she notices a man sitting at the table with Vasili. The man was tall and very thin, with long, greasy blonde hair that reflected the fireplace. His pants are caked in dirt, and his denim jacket is three different colors, slurping on a bowl of broth. Both of the men look at her, and the man wipes his mouth and smiles.
Vasili clears his throat, “This is Anton. He brought us stuff from the surface.”
“What did he bring us?”
Anton grabs his duffel bag and opens it, and there are records, books, a large quilt folded up,some cigars, and stuff not exactly needed for survival on the surface. Allakara looks through the records excitedly and then looks at Vasili. “What do you give him?”
Vasili scratches his beard. “ I give him some of our vegetables and our meat.”
Anton’s voice was quiet and calm, almost like a whisper. “This stuff is useless down on the surface, but your food keeps me alive. So about once a month, I bring you stuff, and I bring the food to my group.” Allakara looks at Vasili, and he nods his head. Vasili goes outside and grabs a basket with vegetables and salted and dried meat. Anton looks at the basket and looks disappointed. “Where’s the rest?”
“Winter is here. We need to ration the rest.”
“Vasili, this will last us a week, if even that.”
“This is the most I can give you. You know how bad the winter can get.”
Anton scoffs. “ So all this stuff I risked my life to get you, and you give me almost nothing.” “
“I think it’s time you leave, take your food, and get out. Anton pulls out a revolver and points it at Vasili. “ I want all of your food, and I’ll leave.”
Vasili gets up and the second hes close enough he tries to take the gun from Anton, they get into a fight Vasili’s hand gripped tight around Antons wrist trying to get it out of his hand they crash into the walls and just about everything in the small cabin. In the middle of the scuffle the gun goes off and ricochets off a pan, Vasili sees a knife on the floor and jams it into Antons ear. Antons eyes widening more than they ever have biting down so hard his teeth break, he goes limp and Vasili stands up and take a deep breath he looks over at Allakara shes standing there holding a photo from a box that got knocked over. She doesn’t notice that shes bleeding profusely from the stomach the adrenaline kicked in immediately. “Grandpa, why do you have a picture of this little boy with sacha?” Vasili’s throat gets caught he knows shes not going to survive theres no doctors and the bullet didn’t have an exit wound. He kneels to her eye level
“That…thats me and my big brother. How do you know his name?”
“He gave me my white feathers and chocolate, he brought me a raspberry tart one day. He calls me little bird”
“That was his favorite fruit… mama used to hit him for eating all the berries before she could bake.”
“Why isn’t he here with you?”
“ He died when I was a little boy. He fought bad men at Stalingrad”
“Grandpa.. im cold can you wrap me up by the fire?”
Vasili grabs the quilt Anton had brought and wraps her up snuggly by the fire and hugs her tightly. “Grandpa… i think i have enough feathers to make my wings now can you help me make them?”
Vasili doing his best to hold back tears “Ill make it tonight while you sleep with wax and sap so you can fly tomorrow after breakfast.”
Allakara smiles weakly “Can you play Katyusha…. Im tired.” Vasili gets up and puts the record on by the time he gets back to her, her eyes were shut and had drawn her last breath. Vasili held her the whole night.
She woke up next morning and heard digging. “Why is grandpa planting seeds?” she thought to herself. She walks outside the blood on her gown was gone the ground didn’t feel cold anymore, she noticed Sacha was standing there smoking a cigarette and ran up and gave him a hug. “You didn’t tell me you were grandpas big brother.”
Sacha flicks his cigarette away “You didn’t ask.” She gives a pouty face and looks at grandpa she looks at what he putting in the hole and she sees herself on a bed of feathers. She looks at Sacha, “ Whats grandpa doing?”
“You died my little bird.”
“Was it the gun?”
“The bullet bounced off a pan and hit you.”
“I thought it would hurt. Like those people on the bottom.”
“Vasili and I are grateful it didn’t hurt you.”
“What about grandpa whats he gonna do?”
“He will continue living carrying our memory.”
Sacha gives her a hug and says “look behind you” Allakara looks behind her and she squeals in excitement all her mismatched feathers have become a set of wings. “Go fly higher than the birds feel the sun on your face go feel the sand in your toes in sunny Italy go be free.”
Allakara asks “Can I see you and grandpa again?”
Sacha smiles warmly“You can come see us at anytime you like.Now go fly”
Allakara flaps her wing and soars high into the sky and above the clouds, she can finally feel the warmth on her face and the wind in her hair eternally elevated..
