Ebbing Light

• Jamie Findley, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2014

The man smiled somewhat sarcastically, his frail hands playing with the tufts of his shirt. "You think hope exists." He laughed, almost maniacally only to be interrupted with a wheeze and cough.
The woman parallel gave a courteous nod, her fingers still wrapped around the hilt of her sword which dug into the dull, grey floorboards. "Of course I do. If we didn't have hope, we'd all be dead." Her voice was defiant, tipped with slight anger against this man's absurd opinion. Hope had to exist, and it did.
He gave another laugh, cutting it off himself this time, to speak. "Who told you this, little girl?" The question came somewhat rhetorically, not giving her any time to answer and derailing the topic. "Hope has never existed in this world, dearie. This is no longer a world, this is simply a ruin. Our grave where we shouldn't be. This is no place for hope believers and the sort; this is for the survivors, waiting to die." The smile on his face broadened as the woman's hand clenched on her sword's hilt tighter, the whiteness of bone beneath her skin showing.
"Hope is the thing which keeps those survivors alive, is it not?" The woman's tone of voice tipped with much anger, glared at the man, tempted to remove him from existence; right here, right now. But something held her back from doing so, as if she wanted to hear what he had to say. As if this was an argument worth fighting for.
"You think that's it? Pathetic." He spat, shifting his hands so they lay in his lap with content. "What keeps us survivors alive is the fear which courses through our veins, the adrenaline which pumps through our body and the faces of our family, hoping that we have some left." He gave an insolent glare, once again not giving her any time to reply, "You won't survive very long in this world, dearie, if that's your attitude. Not long at all, unless you change your opinion."
She took a step back, "You're a stupid, old man. What would you know?" She let out a laugh, giving a shake of her head, trying not to let his words drill in to her, no matter how harsh they were; or how much they frightened her. "I've been surviving here in a much more sufficient way than you. I kill. All you do is just... sit around, selling trinkets."
The man stared at her, leaning forward and propping his head upward with his frail hands, looking into her electric blue eyes and her skinny frame, obviously from a lack of food. "You should go. You have what you bought. I have nothing else to say."
The woman gave a nod, lifting her sword of the ground and slinging the knapsack of supplies over her shoulder. "Thank you for the supplies." With that, she sliced his head clean from his neck and walked off.