The Visionaries

1

I woke up at three a.m. The devil's hour, as my grandmother used to call it. When the bad spirits lingered, craving the essence of those alive, when my biggest fear was simply the monsters under my bed.

Not the monsters who hurt us now. I stare out the window. The skylights are bright and alive with power. The police patrol the street. There's a few women in the corner, smoking. There's stray dogs, fighting over trash.

My phone rings. It's my friend, Daenaera, or Dany for short. I wonder what she wants.

"Yo." I say.

"Yo, I got something for ya. Meet me at the bottom floor." She said.

"Gotcha." I reply. I hang up and get dressed, heading downstairs. We're free to roam inside the building but not outside. I see Daenaera, sitting on the living room couch. She's tall, thin, and pretty with long black hair, dark olive skin, and almond shaped eyes. She's wearing her butterfly earrings.

"So what's up?" I ask, eyeing the front desk clerk who walks away.

Daenaera hands me a note.

Mission tomorrow at six. Idk what we're doing yet.

"Okay." I say.

She nods.

"So how's life treating you?" She asked.

"Bleh." I say. "I wish I was doing better."

"Don't we all?" She leans back. "It's only gonna get worse. They're only getting started."

"You're right." I say. "Sometimes it feels like Creator has abandoned us."

"Don't say that in front of Bree, she'll have a heart attack."

I chuckle.

"Have you ever seen the ancestors in any of your dreams?" She asked.

"A few times. But I can never tell what they're saying." My grandparents, who were fluent in Purépecha, had barely taught me.They thought it might be better if I didn't know.

"Same, honestly. Are we going crazy?" She asked.

"No, we're not." I say. "We're just trying to find comfort in something at this point."

Dany sighs and we hear some noise outside. It's followed by gunshots. The glass shatters and we fall on the ground.

"Fuck." I say. "Another one?" We're curled up, trying to cover our heads and faces with our arms.

A bomb goes off somewhere, causing the ground to shake. Glass vases on the tables fall and shatter.

"To the bomb shelter! To the bomb shelter!" The receptionist motioned us to the staircase. We run there, praying they don't shoot into the building. We enter the dark basement where various staff members of the apartment complex and people are hiding.

The building shakes and someone screams. There's bits of ceiling falling on us. Is this the end? The ceiling shakes and the building starts to give away. All I can hear is screams and the horrified gasps as the building starts to collapse.

I feel something fall on me. Everything goes black. Creator, no, please. I don't want to die. Not like this. Not crushed by rubble. Not a casualty of war. Please. I don't want to die without ever seeing my family again. Or my homeland. The rolling hills, the beautiful mountains, the clear waterfalls, the monarch butterflies.

Suddenly a man in full regalia appears. He is painted red and black. He smiles at me. I don't know him but I know he's an ancestor. His eyes resembled those of my grandfather and he had a kindly face.

He speaks in P'urhe. Somehow I can understand him.

"You won't die." He said. "You are a warrior, blood of the great Pu'rhepecha Kingdom."

I walk closer to him. He takes my hands into his.

"Take this gift. You will need it to protect your people." He hands me a bronze blade. I take it, admiring the work. And suddenly, I'm thrown back into my current situation. I throw the rubble aside like it's nothing. What have I accepted?

They rushed him into the operation room. The nurses quickly hooked him up to oxygen and connected him to the blood pressure monitor. One placed an IV line in his arm.

"This is the best one they could get?" Someone asked, as she was cutting off his uniform.

"Of course. You know why they didn't try to save the other ones." A nurse hooked him up to the pulse oximeter.

"Oxygenation is ninety eight percent and pulse is sixty eight." The other nurse said. "And no, Rosario. It's not because he's white, he was the only one not blown into shreds."

"He ain't white, both of his parents are Native American." The other nurse said. "According to his file anyway."

"Bet she's descended from a Cherokee princess." Rosario said in a nasty tone.

"No, she's listed as Yaqui and Dad is....Lumbee?" She finally cut off his shirt to reveal sharpnel embedded in his chest and stomach. His intestines coming out. She cut off his pants too, revealing sharpnel on his legs and a few minor lacerations.

The nurses got to work slowly removing the sharpnel and covering up the evisceration site. They rolled him to his side, managing to stitch and bandage his wounds. A man walked into the room with two doctors.

"He's the ideal candidate for the procedure, don't you think?" The doctor next to him asked.

The nurses pulled a blanket over the wounded soldier. His eyes slightly opened. His heart rate increases along with his breathing. He started to shake. The nurses quickly inserted an IV drip into his arm.

"Of course." The man looked at him, staring directly at the soldier. "I think you'll do just fine, don't you think? You clearly passed the first part. Now on to the second."

The soldier's fists clenched, eyes narrowed. His blood pressure and heart rate skyrocketed.

"You monster." He said, as he lost consciousness.

Rosario stared at the man. She had no idea who he was or why he seemed to know the soldier personally.

"What do you want us to do?" Rosario asked.

"I want you to strip him bare, clean him, shave all his body hair off, and send him off to Theatre 7. There's much work to be done if we are to complete this mission."

Rosario nodded.