Evelyn Earth Part 18

I couldn’t fully enjoy the feeling of sheer power, sheer control over someone else’s life because frankly I was tired.  My energy levels were completely depleted and even walking was becoming a struggle. That small burst of anger had powered me enough to get free of Owen, but without him carrying me I wasn’t sure how far I would get.

Thankfully I could hear voices in the distance. I followed the sounds until I reached the edge of the pier. Everyone from Owen’s shabby group was lined up along its length staring out at the Yarra River and gesticulating madly.

“It can’t be!” Marla’s assertive voice rang over everyone else’s.

“Why not?” Old Mal stubbornly insisted.

“Because it’s not natural!”

“Come on you can’t seriously be debating what’s natural and what’s not, we had black clouds obliterate whole houses for fucks sake” Tod chimed in.

“How do we know this just isn’t another one of those black hole things?”

“I still think it’s breaking down” Old Mal grumbled.

“Shut it old man” Marla turned on him, “from an engineer’s point of view bridges don’t just start to sag for no reason.”

I looked over their heads and took in the scene before me. The Bolte Bridge, which had stood as a permanent fixture of Melbourne since 1999, was visibly beginning to sag. It was the one big connection between Docklands and Port Melbourne. Without it people used to have to drive through congested city traffic just to get to a point that really wasn’t that far away at all.

 I guess if the bridge did collapse it wouldn’t have such a bad impact on our lives in terms of travelling time, but it would fall right on the path of where we crossed from the docks into civilisation. From where we were standing the bridge loomed up on our left and so did the city.  

Before the eruption of the Mother’s anger, the two parts of Docklands and the actual docks were separated by a thin strip of water running off the Yarra River. I had stood on the shore of this mini-river many times watching ancient oriental men try and catch fish with their equally ancient fishing rods.

In most parts the trickle of water was overshadowed by the beams of the bridge that ran directly overhead. Some of the support beams were placed smack bang in the middle of the water creating platforms that allowed you to jump from one side of the river to the other. In the heat of summer though jumping wasn’t even that necessary, the water levels would dry up so much you could just sort of splash through to the other side. Being the beginning of February and the height of Melbourne summer the trickle had mostly evaporated.

In the past few weeks I had crossed over from one side of the dry river bed to the other numerous times. Every one of us had in order to get from the shipping containers where we made our homes to the abandoned buildings that housed forgotten supplies. Before Tod and Jack showed up in their car the only way Owen could get supplies was to manually ferry them from one bank to the other. If the bridge collapsed everyone would all have to rethink our living arrangements because the nearest place to raid for supplies on this side of the river was more than two hours by foot.   

Marla was still arguing her point and I didn’t think anyone noticed my presence. Not until Owen came stumbling out from behind me.

“Evie what the fuck was that!” he yelled while pointing in the direction from which he came. Most of the group turned around except for Old Mal and Marla who looked like they were about to get into a physical altercation.

“What was what?” I played dumb.

“That! One minute your all non-responsive and dangling from my shoulder and the next you…you” he was lost for words. I couldn’t help but smile, for all the positive things about Owen his innocence was the worst placed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re the one who flipped out, one minute we’re walking along and the next you drop me” I paused and decided that I should add a note of sympathy, “are you okay?” His facial expression changed from indignantly confused to seriously confused to blank. It was like watching a slow motion picture of facial features—a twist of the mouth, a raised eye brow and skittish eyes.

“Hey guys I don’t know what the hell is going on in your little domestic, but we’ve got a fucking sagging bridge over here” Tod called out to us. I think that’s when Owen fully took in the scene, while he studied the seemingly decaying bridge I studies his face. It displayed everything that he was feeling, and suddenly I realised why I had been drawn to him—his inner truth was visible for everyone to see, be it confusion, gullibility or loyalty. Even if his nature was at odds with my newfound darkness there was so much that was worth cherishing. I almost reached out my hand and touched him, but something distracted me.

I turned to the bridge and watched intently for the imperceptible change that had caught my inner eye. I slowly drew out the power and let it fill a portion of my irises. Right at the point where the bridge appeared on the horizon I could see tendrils of ebony mist. They were creeping up along the edge of the construction, slowly but surely.

I pulled back my vision and felt my whole body go still. It was the man on the boat. It had to be. I tried to bring up a mental image of my surrounding terrain. I now knew that I was standing on a man-made pier that connected with the mainland through the bank of the small river to my left and past the shipping yard behind me. If he made the bridge collapse I would be effectively cut off from my full supply of power, unless I retreated to solid ground. So if he was doing this on purpose he would have had to know the layout of this area. But of course he would, all he would have to do is look through the ground to see the surrounding geography.

“Fuck” I cursed to myself. What if he was doing this on purpose to cut me off? I shook my head, but that wouldn’t make sense, we would be on equal footing. Equal footing only counted as a equalizer between opponents if they were on par with each other’s abilities. For all I knew he could be way more advanced than me, more powerful, more knowledgeable. I was only just discovering my full capabilities whereas he was probably honing his.

And then it hit me. What if he could take my power away from me? All this time I thought that he was heading for the Williamstown and Altona factories, Fins had regaled us with stories of massive concentrations of liquid darkness in those areas, but if he was heading there all he would have had to do was stay on his boat and dock right on the shore of Williamstown beach. Instead he was coming here, over land and over the bridge.     

“I wonder what could be doing that” Owen mused to himself. I was tempted to blurt it out then and there for everyone to hear, that it was a fellow soldier of Mother Nature, but I realised how stupid it sounded.

“It’s one of your so called black holes” I pointed at the beginning of the bridge where the dark tendrils had crept over to the underside of the construction.

“Oh no” Toya said quietly, “first the townhouses, now the bridge, do you think it will ever stop?” She was standing with her hands wrapped around her waist, almost holding herself together. Toya was by far the most sensitive and caring person out of the group, it made me wonder why she had been left behind with the rest of us. Maybe it was her connection with her sister? I let the thought wash over me, I needed to calm my nerves and allow my brain to function properly. It was only a matter of time before my encounter with the man and I wanted to be calm and collected.

“I think it will continue forever” Marla whispered, “until the whole word is wiped away.”