I did not feel the burden of responsibility on my shoulders, or at least, not in the way I once had. It no longer felt like a crushing weight bearing down upon me, but instead more like a comforting blanket. A blessing that I’d been given the life I was living. After all, I’d done the unthinkable. Not only had I been there at the end of the world to see it all go down in flames, but I was also there at the start, to witness its new beginning.
Chidi hefted the fish and clutched it uncertainly in her forearms, her nose wrinkling up in disgust.
“Are we really going to eat this?” she said. A gust of wind curled off the ocean behind her, and I squinted at her as the setting sun cast its orange light across the water.
“Sure thing,” I said. “It’ll be nice, you wait and see.”
“No way,” Atlas said, sitting on the other side of the fire with his arms crossed, his broken limb long healed. “I’m not touching it.”
“Me either,” Loren said.
“Seriously?” I said good-naturedly. “I mean, come on, guys. I’ve been trying to catch one of these things for close to a year now. You’re not going to bail on me after all that work, are you?”
“Well, I don’t eat animals,” Atlas said defiantly. “They’re yucky.”
“You’ve never eaten an animal before,” I said, stirring the coals with a length of metal. “How do you know you don’t like it?”
“Because I do.”
“Mish, back me up, here,” I said. “Fish are tasty, right?”
“Delicious,” the synthetic girl agreed, nodding at the smaller ones. “My favourite.”
“Still not eating it,” Myron said, dumping himself down next to Atlas in a show of solidarity. “Not in ten zillion years.”
“If you don’t eat your fish, you don’t get your strawberries,” I said.
“Not fair!” they shouted in chorus.
I smiled and took the fish from Chidi, placing it down on a rock before me as the children continued to argue their case. As I looked down at it, I realised that I’d never gutted a fish before. It was yet another task I would have to figure out by trial and error. One of many.
As I considered what to do, out of habit my eyes returned to the east.
She strode across the wasteland in a pale jacket and a black vest, a shotgun resting on one shoulder and a lopsided smirk on her face, like some kind of warrior goddess forged out of the stuff of the desert itself. Her figure glowed in the late afternoon sun, and as she pulled back her hood and shook out her hair she sent dust glittering in the sunlight like specks of gold.
“Yo, Cleanskin,” she called, her footsteps sending up puffs of dirt as she strode toward us. “You got room for one more?”
I got to my feet and returned her smile, feeling the corner of my mouth pushing at the scar on my cheek as if it were exploring new territory. I liked the feel of it. It was something I could get used to.
“For you, Malyn, I guess we can manage that.”
Author’s Note
So here we are at the end of the Silent Earth series. Writing this trilogy has been a wonderful experience for me, not only since I learned so much about the craft of writing, but also because I was able to surprise myself time and again throughout the journey. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you.
As an indie author just getting started, I need all the help I can get in spreading the word. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your neighbour, their dog, or any random strangers wandering past your house about the wonders of Mark R. Healy. Failing that, posting a review on Amazon, on your blog, on Goodreads.com, on Facebook, or anywhere else will also help. Those reviews often encourage people who have never heard of me to take a chance on one of my books, so they are worth their weight in gold.
Without giving away too much, there are more books on the way in the near future. Keep an eye on markrhealy.com or join my mailing list at: http://eepurl.com/O2dhT
Until then, all the best, and thanks for coming along for the ride!
About the Author
Mark R. Healy is an author and musician from Brisbane, Australia. He lives with his wife Nic and children Elise and Hayden.
Mark’s Website: markrhealy.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/hibernalband
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/markhealy
Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/O2dhT
You can find more of Mark’s stories through his project ‘Hibernal’. This project features professional voice actors, original music and Mark’s own sci-fi stories to create a cross between audiobooks and movies. The result is an atmospheric, immersive and unique theatrical experience for the listener. This project is available to hear online at http://hibernal.bandcamp.com and can also be purchased through iTunes and Amazon. Just search for ‘Hibernal’.
Contact Mark by email: contact@markrhealy.com
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the following people for helping me to write this series over the past year:
Nic for providing such great feedback throughout the three books and for not complaining when I buried myself in the study for hours on end, week after week.
Pete Turner for adding many great suggestions as a beta reader.
Hayden Wright for finding the errors that no one else could and for providing valuable insights into other elements of the story.
Friends and readers who have given me encouragement and assistance: Saul Caldwell, Shaun Watters, Mike Kershaw, Rohan Healy, John Scullen, Gayle Martin, Jo Keiler, Sharon ‘Pinky’ Pollock, Martin Hutchinson and Matthew Razat.
My editor, Eliza Dee at Clio for providing a great service and quick turnaround.
And thank you to the readers, especially those who have contacted me to tell me they liked the book. That always makes my day!
Mark R. Healy, Feb 24, 2015
Table of Contents
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Part Two
A New War
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Part Three
The Unknown
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
EPILOGUE
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgements