Arcene: The Island (19 page)

The History

Occasionally, people arrived at The Island. In the early years of The Lethargy it was rather frequent, lessening until it was a rare and strange occurrence. To begin with they were welcomed with open arms, but it soon became clear to Vorce not all their surprised visitors were nice people. Some were happy to embrace the community, and were accepted, but others were trouble-makers and he dealt with them.

"Accidents" that nobody talked about, the truth known, never acknowledged. The day he visited the mainland and returned to chaos, visitors were rare, many of the eager inhabitants having never known a person not born there apart from the Elders.

As the population became increasingly insular, so their wariness of outsiders grew, although they were always courteous, and let Vorce deal with them how he saw fit.

He cast judgment in private. Those he liked were made welcome, those he didn't were never mentioned again, soon gone. When he returned that fateful day, he rushed topside with the nervous Elders only to find there had been a new arrival. The man had created a very bad impression, so it seemed. He had been rude, taken food without it being offered, and had gone so far as to slap the behind of one of Vorce's own young wives.

It caused instant uproar. The man was stripped naked, bound and beaten, and then somebody had the idea of letting him loose and really teaching him a lesson. Children were armed with sticks, adults with more serious weapons, and all hell broke loose. Bloodlust took over.

Because the man had broken so many rules held sacrosanct, the frenzy built and the man was toyed with, stabbed at, punched, prodded, and chased until exhausted. When Vorce arrived above ground the people were shouting and calling names at the exhausted creature as he crawled on bloodied hands and knees up the steps toward Vorce.

Once he was given an explanation as to why they were behaving like this, Vorce understood human nature had changed little. Wasn't he the same? Did he not hunt, and love the chase when on the mainland? Hunting deer or boar, thrilled by the blood pounding fast and the adrenaline rush? He asked the people what they wanted done with the man, and they wanted him dead, run down and killed like the wild animal he was. This person had no manners, no respect. He was a bad man and they wanted satisfaction.

Who had found him? A man stepped forward. Vorce proclaimed that the rules of the blue applied: finders, keepers. It was his discovery, his right to judge. The man judged the molester of women guilty, punishment death.

Again, the newcomer was chased around the gardens, beaten and punched, kicked and stabbed, finally killed by a small group that banded together, including the parents of Vorce's wife, the death blow given by the man that had judged him.

That day Vorce proclaimed The Hunt a part of their life. When new arrivals came they would be Judged, and as before, the good would be welcome, the bad would be hunted. The person who discovered the newcomer would Judge, the deathblow theirs to give.

The Hunt became official.

It wasn't the be-all and end-all of Island life, just a background to daily existence. It was something that happened on occasion, and became increasingly rare as time passed. But traditions solidified and it progressed from not only outsiders but to their own kind. It was rare, very rare, and Vorce made sure that only in the most serious of circumstances would a Hunt ever be sanctioned.

Theft, murder, the taking of someone against their will, all were valid reason for a Hunt, and the population were seldom keen to accuse anyone unjustly. If it was done out of spite, or there was no proof, then the accuser would be shunned, shown to be a bad person themselves, and often never forgiven by their friends or family.

But it happened. Not often, but it did. The Hunt remained mostly a distraction when outsiders came and refused to conform to their life, the only time that the strict laws were relaxed. New people were often trouble even if they weren't outright rude or hostile, so often a Hunt was the result.

It felt so long ago now. Over a hundred years since an outsider came. Over the years, Vorce became aware of the power of The Hunt on the psyche. It was a communal letting off of steam, a release on an all-encompassing scale that set things back to normal, as if emotions had built and this was the only escape.

As time passed, he had made it an ever grander occasion, but he knew even that wasn't enough. A properly epic distraction was needed, something that would be talked about for years. A way for the people to have something new, unique and different in their lives. They needed an outlet, events, distractions. There had to be something to reminisce over and give everyone something to damn well talk about.

Life, and the lack of outside influence, was, to put it bluntly, rather boring. Every day was the same when you got right down to it, so even if Hunts were few and far between it didn't matter. People talked of Hunts over a century old, never tired of discussing the first one. There were even lessons, studies made of how Hunters had done, how long they lasted and detailed discussions about the final death stroke and how well the Judge had done.

One thing remained a constant for all involved in The Hunt: the person found guilty never survived. Death was always, without fail, the final outcome.

Vorce noticed that, inevitably, the occasion was losing its sparkle. Fewer people were involved, and it wasn't such a talking point. Everything was told second or third hand as most never got to see what actually happened. They began to lose interest. Stories were one thing, but people needed to be immersed in the action to be excited.

Vorce had an idea.

He became a man of truly mythological proportions. Vorce brought cinema back to life.

One day it was just there. He'd collected what he needed over preceding years, and then, when a particularly vile woman had shown up in a huge boat and proceeded to actually laugh in the face of a man who asked what it was like on real solid ground and was it nice, Vorce erected the old cinema screen overnight and did something that was forever marked in history. He took her to the mainland, along with the Judge who had happily proclaimed her guilty, and a number of Elders.

The Hunt was truly born.

After that things got out of hand, but there was no turning back, no escape. It happened every year without fail — any longer and people became restless, quarrels broke out and violence erupted. It was tradition, the community needed its fix, him included. He knew he was as addicted as everyone else, especially as he was involved in every single Hunt. Judges were never told how they got to the mainland, they were drugged and awoke in England — an old name that somehow retained its relevance.

Everyone assumed Vorce could leave because of the power of the Judgment, because of
his
power — that the currents allowed him to sneak away in the dead of night, nobody even thinking he had direct access through a tunnel underneath the sea. That was one secret he would never share; he was too scared that his grand experiment would fail.

Truth was, he loved The Island. More than anything though, he loved the power. Vorce was corrupted by his own sense of what he believed was right for himself and his people, resulting in a man probably more deserving of being hunted than any of the unfortunate people involved in their tradition.

As he watched the preparations being made for The Judgment, Vorce couldn't help thinking back on all that had led to this macabre part of their otherwise sedate existence. What had started as people turning their pent up anger against a rude and obnoxious stranger had somehow led to defining them as a people.

Once a year, all grievances aired and accusations made in public, Vorce allowed the people to act as judge and jury on those accused — the accuser had the final say as to punishment. Would it be a Hunt? Would the person be shunned by the community, or imprisoned? It was a Hunt more often than not, especially if it had been a long time since the last one.

Vorce, as did everyone else, knew this was no trivial matter. To chase down and kill a human being was an extreme act from an otherwise mild-mannered and mostly pacifist society, but the eagerness was always there in the background. How had it come to this? Because they needed an outlet, that's why. People needed a release of one form or another, and they wanted Justice. If somebody disrupted their peaceful society then they had to pay the price.

He looked at the gathering crowd, the work of the day now put on hold while everything was prepared for this unexpected Judgment. They were good people. He was good, wasn't he? What was worse, imprisonment for a lifetime or to be hunted? At least it meant you got out of your crimes in a way. A day, two, or rarely three, of fear and then death, versus a lifetime locked away knowing you would never see the sky again?

Didn't many countries have the death penalty back when he was busy making money and building houses? Of course, and jails were overcrowded. Crime was commonplace and nobody batted an eyelid. So was this so bad?

Reality TV shows had dominated the screens of billions of people around the world, watched only to feel better about themselves. They watched to witness how badly those so-called celebrities acted. See them bicker and fight, eat bugs and let their every movement and word be recorded. People loved that kind of thing. Voyeurism, the excitement, the anticipation of it all going wrong. Fights, and screaming, and crying.

He'd tried to build a different society, to put the worst of that life away once and for all, but human nature was the same — people needed a release. They needed competition. They needed Justice. They needed, wanted, The Hunt.

It evolved, Vorce made sure of it, morphing it into a non-date-specific but usually at least yearly event. Surprise was good, so it was never a particular day. The anticipation kept everyone excited, craving. Everyone stayed in line as nobody wanted to be hunted, but there was always someone who acted against the rules. And if peace lasted for too long? Well, people got antsy, became disruptive, until, eventually, someone broke and did something wrong. The Hunt always happened in the end.

There was a concern that people would long for their ancestral home now The Hunt was on the mainland, so slowly he imprinted the myth that only those directly involved would be allowed such mysterious passage, and he left it entirely to the communal imagination how this was achieved. People were rather gullible when you got right down to it, and with no better explanation they believed all manner of crazy things. Did they beat the currents of the sea? Or the sea allowed the select few to leave, as it didn't want to let those found guilty remain on the blessed Island?

There were endless myths. Maybe they flew? Was there a machine from before year zero that took them away? Some thought it magic. Vorce told no one the truth, absolutely no one. All apart from him were drugged in his chambers before he took them to the mainland.

This was his secret, one he knew he could never share. There must never be a choice for people. Society would crumble rapidly if they had the option of leaving, he was well aware of that.

Even the Elders never asked. They were people chosen carefully a long time ago, full of themselves yet meek, believing in the ways of The Island. Vorce's subtle manipulations of their minds over the years, through his strength in The Noise, undoubtedly had rather a lot to do with their obedience and lack of questions.

Vorce came out of his reverie, smiled at the expectant faces spread around the lush, if rather rugged gardens. People gathered on the steps, others in small groups below, watching as the preparations for The Judgment were finalized.

The girl stirred, the dog too, its huge feet twitching like it was dreaming of running.

A real warrior to Hunt. This would be interesting.

A Judgement

When Arcene was a little girl, her mother used to tell her off for running around naked, getting dirty, shouting too loud, or doing dangerous things — basically being a child. Arcene knew no other children though, and believed what her mother told her.

Being naked was wrong — she should cover her private parts, why did she think they were called private? Being splattered in mud was terrible — why did she think there was water? Climbing trees wasn't for girls — didn't she know only boys climbed trees? Shouting was intolerable — it was annoying as hell.

It meant that as a small child she always had a sense of shame and guilt about much of what she did, but it never stopped her. Something inside of Arcene rebelled against much of what she was told. She wanted to be naked, feel the grass on her bottom, the bark of the trees on her legs as she climbed. The joy of rolling in the sticky mud after it rained, watching birds fly high as she ran into meadows shouting and screaming about the joy of being alive and having a full belly for the first time in weeks.

There was a bubble of constantly bursting energy inside of Arcene, and it would not, could not, be stopped. She was curious about everything, obsessed over food, becoming even more so once she found herself alone in the world without a clue how to survive.

Frequently, she came close to death through hunger, or her own innate sense of curiosity and utter lack of a sense of danger. Arcene felt invincible when she had enough food, and when she didn't she would go to any lengths, including stealing, to get sustenance.

Clothes were worn because she disliked feeling cold, and there was always that nagging about it being shameful, so she wore them even when warm because it was apparently what you should do.

As she got older, and her body developed in ways she found highly irritating and inconvenient, she understood she was becoming a woman, and would stare for hours in the mirror at her still-narrow hips, her flat waist, and her tiny breasts that were often sore as they grew. But the shame she was supposed to feel about her own body was long gone. Everyone had one and hers was nothing special. Rather boyish and lithe, pale, freckled in places, marred only by the scars of one adventure or another — until she Awoke and then could heal even serious injuries without having to consciously think of it.