Beginning of my Novel

“Do any of you know what happened to the Earth?”

The refugees who had been asked the question looked at one-another in mass-apathy. No one wanted to displease the newcomer by giving him a stupid answer. He had, after all, been their first guest in over forty years of lonely scavenging. A sheepish man (who looked as though he were old enough to have remembered the last guest) shuffled forward reluctantly and chewed a few words off his tongue. When he was finally ready to answer, he sighed a great burden from his chest.

He said, “My parent’s parents would just weep whenever I asked about that place. Earth. They never told me what happened to it. Rumors say it was quite a lovely place, though.”

Ecah Wayland –- the guest –- nodded. His eyes had a distinctly sour look in them. He wasn’t annoyed by the answer the old man had given him, but he was annoyed at how pathetic it all was: an old man and two score others mewing like frightened slaves to a single, well-meaning stranger. Ecah felt like asking, why are you, who are so old and wise, scared of a boy? Ecah was seventeen, and did consider himself a boy. He felt that no boy could ever call himself in a man in a mad world of total fear.

The old man shrugged apologetically. Did he understand Ecah’s frustration?

“I am sorry that I don’t know,” the old man said.

No. He did not understand.

Ecah turned away from the refugees and gazed over the railings of their shanty little barge. All the world was an electric ocean. The land, the water, and the skies were gone. In their place were forests of lightning, waves of aurora light, and breakers of colorful static mists.

The sight reminded Ecah of his curse. He lived with knowledge which most people his age were spared from. He knew that there was once Earth where now there was only electricity. He was privileged -- “chosen” -- to carry the knowledge of its existence for the benefit of a lost cause: the cause of hope. Ecah Wayland was a Waylander: a member of a scientific order dedicated to reclaiming Earth. The order’s origins were as mysterious as the fate of Earth itself, but its legend was not unknown to a single surviving human being on what was left of the world.

Ecah fitted a rubber helmet over his head. His entire body was mummified in the same material, but most of it was scarred, cracked, and burnt from his journeys.
“Goodbye,” his muffled voice said to the old man.

The old man bowed a bit. But then he looked nervously at his fellow refugees and turned red from their pressing stares.

He gave in to the pleading stares and said, “Do you come from a place called Wayland, sir?”

Ecah glanced back, but he didn’t answer. He leapt over the rail and fell to the electric waves below. He landed solidly on a long metal board that was moored and waiting for him. The board was the vehicle of his people.

#

A week later, Ecah rendezvoused with two companions atop a massive geyser of lightning. They drew smiles across their helmeted faces using their pointer fingers. It was the warmest greeting they could manage in such conditions.

He led the pack as they jumped over the edge of the geyser, and slammed their boards onto the lower plane of electric current. They were surfing across the vast ocean of geothermal energy one final time. Their month-long crusade was nearly over. They were on their way home to Wayland Priory.

The final run was the most dangerous of all. Wayland was isolated on a gentle atoll that was curtained by the wrath of a violent, eternal cyclone. As they entered the outer rim of the great storm, the lightning waves intensified. Ecah was flanked by wild lightning bolts, but he dodged them with nimble maneuvers. The electricity swirled and slammed against his board, but he absorbed every hit playfully.

He looked back. His companions were not so lucky. They half-piped between two massive tides of energy that were closing in on them. The tides were swallowing them. Ecah turned away.