It was late Autumn and the room had begun its seasonal change. George could smell the transformation just as clear as he could see the winter sky that hovered above the lighthouse. The wood, the dust, it all met together in a heady aroma of change. It was Georges 14th year in the lighthouse and he rarely ventured outside the boundaries of the surrounding beach. The time he had spent living within such small confines had tuned his senses to any and all atmospheric change within the local surroundings. He could always tell the exact moment autumn turned to winter, the lighthouse would begin to have a different essence, an unexplained oddity that caused a tingle in his spine. This time of year was always a time of reflection for George, a time to think back to the memory of his loved ones. He was always filled with a sense of loss in November, and could never quite understand the moments that had lead up to this point in his life. Sitting alone in that tall tower during the gales of midwinter was always a desolate time. The waves would beat against the brickwork and their salty fingers would slowly pull at the annual paintwork . It was the worst time of the year.
George had been stationed at the lighthouse by the local council. He was a hard worker and thought of himself as an altruistic sole. He would always start the lighthouse when the signal came and put duty before anything else. The local government needed a man of his reliability stationed in one of their most important assets but George always knew he was effectively a prisoner to his job. Each day he would have a few hours of freedom when the tide was out. He used this time to visit the rockpools at the North end of the beach and to imagine the countless generations before him that had moved and dreamt amongst their never changing form. This was his favorite time of day, watching the local fauna go about its business and reveling in the freedom they held onto. He never knew the name of his favorite bird, but it would always make him smile as he saw it wading through the mud and scavenging for any leftover food that had washed ashore. The sea birds were hit hardest by the overfishing of that had been continuing for too many years now, but even they had adapted reasonably well to the lack of their once primary food source. It filled George with a great sense of remorse to see these creatures in such a way. He couldn't help but feel responsible, after all this was his backyard.
As the evening drew closer George sat down with his newspaper and switched on the small electrical light. It was quite a luxury to have electricity pumped into the lighthouse, George considered himself privileged to be only one of a few people who had access to such a thing. He knew that it was mainly for operating the high powered lamp on the lighthouse and he was constantly being sent messages about trying to use less of the council’s power supply. The lamp provided just enough power to read by, and was far better than the candles he had to use the majority of the time. He settled back with the newspaper and squinted his eyes to help focus the text. He glanced at the date at the top, Sunday the 19th, he thought deeply for a moment before remembering it was his birthday. George rested the newspaper on his knee and stared out the window.
“thirty three, thirty three”, he pondered on whether he had the right age for a few seconds.
"That must be right" It has been so long since he had received any kind of card or present
that he had real trouble remembering.
"Time loses much of its meaning when your alone" he sighed.
As George stared through the small window, reminiscing on times long past, he could see there was an odd sunset glowing on the horizon.
"The sun shouldn't be over there at this time of the evening" he whispered confusingly
"The sun shouldn't be over there at all". He pulled himself up from his seat and strode towards the door. Opening the great oak entrance George was greeted by a silence he had never experienced, The seagulls that he would usually hear in the distance often taunting him with their freedom made little sound and he could feel the wind was picking up. One of the windows near the top of the building squeaked with an increasing tempo and there was moisture in the air. somber clouds tumbled in from the west, their dark beauty left George mesmerised for a moment. The shadowy behemoths sailed like monstrous ships , ebbing ever closer to Comal point by the minute. The Clouds slowly enveloped the towns and villages of the zone and created a strange light as they mixed with the sunlight, as if great shards of heaven had been forced down onto the earth. It quickly came to him,
"Those aren't clouds" he spoke with a sudden realisation. There was a smell on the wind and it grew stronger with each passing moment. It was the the smell of industry, of pride and lost hope. Destruction was in the air and heading straight for him.
George quickly turned and made for his lighthouse, shouldering into the great door and then pushing past the clutter of the room he arrived at the window which had a thin layer of dust covering the outside. A fork of light scarred the sky. George recoiled but quickly managed to refocus on the sea, The rain began to fall, slowly at first, a spot of water on the window magnified the orange in the distance but George was none the wiser. Soon the rain was coming from the sky like great arrows of silver light and making the window virtually unusable. George grabbed his coat and ventured outside oncemore and into the approaching storm. he remembered something his father had said.. what was it?
"great rains fall after great battles? or something to that effect anyway". Scanning the sea for any clues he braced himself against the ever increasing wind. The sands were moving in ever more vicious circles so George pulled his coat up as far as he could. There. flashes of light off in the distance, followed by stomach churning rumbles.
The hairs stood up on the back of George's neck, He had heard rumors of naval battles occurring in the southern zones from time to time, maybe every few years or so, but he had never witnessed it himself. The northern zones were usually quite peaceful. Again a flash, followed a few moments after by a formidable crack. Then the ships began to come into view, Two great sails bookmarked the smoke from the cannons. It was clear the most southerly ship was in possession of higher firepower and was making an easy job of the other,
"it must be a council ship" he thought. A chain of light arced out of the southern ship and a sound so great that George almost fell backward. after finally recovering his footing he was greeted with a deathly silence. The two boats looked as if their cannons were no longer in range of each other but slowly something started to happen. The sail on the smaller vessel began to topple northwards, fire spewed from the ship and George could see the black silhouettes of people jumping overboard.
As George glanced around the beach he could see the glow of the red light in the lighthouse coming from the window. Torn between the excitement of the battle and his duty, he eventually relented and began running back to his post, all the time glancing over his shoulder to see what was happening. Just as he was getting to the concrete path He tripped on a piece of drift wood and tumbled face first onto the ground. George's heart beat heavily as he accessed the damage to himself. Only a graze on his arm and chin, he had gotten away lightly. He got to his feet and ran up the walkway to the door.Bursting through it he jumped across the room and slammed his hand on the button to start up the beacon. The mirrors began to turn and George peered up the staircase to make sure the light was on. He was greeted by a dark stairwell. The messages began to come in from the telegraph, It seemed the council weren't best pleased. George's face burnt from the fall and now small droplets of blood were running down his neck and staining his shirt. He rushed to the cupboard and began rootling through the mess until he found his toolbox. "there you are" he shouted through angered teeth after finally finding the box under a broken dustpan, he Grabbed it by its worn handle and began the climb to the roof. As he ran up the stairs he would catch a quick glimpse here and there of the battle out of the northern facing windows.
The smaller vessel was fully ablaze now and the council ship seemed to have dropped anchor. reaching the top he lit the candles around the room and began to assess the situation. "It must be a problem with the coupler" he mused. Cracking open the case to the electrics he began work. The mini-breaker had popped outwards and a smell of singeing wires crept from the base of the edisul unit. This was usually a simple matter of pushing the mini-breaker back into position, but the burning around the unit was causing George some concern. He grabbed a role of wire out of the toolbox and cut a small portion, just the right size to fit into the edisul unit. It was against all his training but it was the only way he could get the circuit fixed in time. he slid open the hatch and pulled out the burnt fuse with his pliers and threw it across the room in impatience. Putting on his gloves he knew that what he was about to do was highly dangerous but could see no other alternative. George took a deep breath and forced the wire into the edison. A great flash of light was the last thing he saw.
an hour past with George lying motionless on the floor. The fire had nearly died out on the burning vessel and wood from the ship was beginning to wash ashore along with several bodies. George began to come round, slowly at first, then he sat upright with a start,"is the light running?" was his first thought. He could see it was. A small pool of blood had collected around him, George checked his body to see if he was harmed. It seemed the blood was from his arm and chin and with that George was quite relieved. he scolded himself "that was really stupid" He knew the shock shouldn't have killed him due to the safety features built into the edison unit, but he wasn't expecting to be knocked out either."the battle" he exclaimed in a moment of excitement. Rushing over to the edge of the lighthouse he could see It was over.
The council ship had docked a few miles down the coast and barely anything was left of the smaller ship, just a faint flicker of burning in the distance. George glanced downwards towards the beach and could see a dark and charred body washing backwards and forwards in the tide. He turned away and covered his mouth. Having never seen a dead body before, he was visibly upset. He sat down in a heap and rubbed his nose. In all the excitement of watching a battle he had forgotten of the obvious casualties. He felt sick to his stomach at having been so excited.
George stared at his fingers as they twitched. A great sadness washed over him. He could feel his eyes begin to well up as he imagined the lives that these people must have left behind "were they rebels?" he thought , "they must have been, even so they didn't deserve to die like this". George knew very little of the rebels, only what was written in the newspapers and transmitted over the telegraph. They were always made out to be evil men with ruthless ideals that were causing the breakup of the remnants of civilisation. He felt it was his duty to help society and this was why he worked for the council, to maintain order and make sure everyone received as much help as possible. He couldn't understand what these rebels were fighting for and why they had such different ideals to himself and the others in the flat areas of the zone. He had heard stories that the rebels lived in the hills and constantly attacked the infrastructure of the Citadel and the town of Rudtha for no good reason other than to cause human casualty. George was strengthened by this thought and began to realise that maybe these rebels actually did deserve the comeuppance that was just served upon them. He gradually got to his feet and walked back to the edge of the lighthouse. Lights were bouncing off the dunes far away in the distance, They danced without rhythm between the sky and the ground, George was sure of nothing other than one thing, those lights were getting closer.
