Silence in the Shadows (1)

 

Silence in the Shadows ~ 1

“You’ve already been exposed to excessively high radiation levels,” Yerik stated matter of factually. “Any further exposure… it’s too dangerous. You’re not going.”

Yelena* rounded on him angrily, a growl in every breath.

“You should have told me!”  He continued, ignoring her furious protests and the wolf flaring in her eyes. “How long did you think you could hide the truth from us? No one knows the exact amount you were exposed to – do they?!! Nothing was ever recorded. An inconvenient, dark secret those concerned were paid to forget. I do not wish for you to die in the land of wolves!

- If you walk in the land of wolves you may not be able to return…if the contamination is too great there would be no choice but to leave you there. It is too high a price to pay for walking in the land of wolves.”

“I am not afraid to die in the land of wolves!! And I have no intentions of doing so, so you have nothing to fear!”

* (The light of the Sun)

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Cutting-edge Geiger Counters rattled incessantly clicking with increasing rapidity in the irradiated silence that marked the desolate aftermath of the nuclear war zone – painfully evident in the silent ghost cities; uninhabited but otherwise undamaged, surrounded by dead zones and lines of black skeletal trees. Sludge-ridden radioactive rivers flanked the route that led to the N-plant, a tall silent sentinel standing eerily against the sky line; the Land of Wolves. Yelena walked quietly listening to the silence; a strange, unearthly stimulant, chillingly unnatural.

The sheer alien, otherworldliness of the Zone sent shivers of something tingling through bones and spirits unsettling even the most hardened amongst the accompanying Astro-Biological Research Team. Stalked ever by the invisible radioactive enemy they gathered their data quickly, ever mindful of the Geiger counters warning of rising radiation levels – dangerous miliseiverts, as they made wary progress deep into the contaminated heart of the Zone of Exclusion.

---

Halting for a moment outside an abandoned security building entrance, Yelena gazed upwards at the imposing tinted glass walls and the pyramid-dome entrance, absorbing the unnerving, empty calm it exuded in the alien sun. Dark, distorted shadows flitted uneasily high on the smoked glass windowed building overlooking the ghost cities of the exclusion zone.

A tainted wind breezing gently, brooding alien skies off-setting dark clouds roiling on the horizon; in the distance dead satellite monitors, looking out over the rusting rails of deserted office buildings from lofty heights.

Once a tall tastefully designed modern building, state-of-the-art, now a deserted, sightless reflection where the sunlight was a strange mirror-image in darkened, dusty glass windows.

Yelena gazed up at its sunlit front disquieted, at the roof-top tracking probes lying idle and silent. They would never work again – ever. There should have been life here but there was none. Activity, but the building was sealed, locked in time, its inhabitants long gone, and the silent tracking probes still and lifeless, and on closer inspection corrupted by corrosion. No birds would sing here, no chitter of unseen insect life. No calls. No cries. Just a still, empty silence where there should have been life, and the shivering of the wind.

Copyright: Europa’s Icewolf 2012 ~ All Rights Reserved.

About these ads