A Cursed Place.

The first sign that something was wrong was the bones we found. They were blackened with age and crushed easily underfoot in a way that was different to the ones we’d grown accustomed to finding elsewhere. We children were no strangers to human remains. All of our years of travelling had turned up old bones in various states of decay, and we ignored them mostly, having no use for them.

We’d ventured further north than we’d ever been before, in the hope of finding a less hostile climate, cleaner water. Maybe hunting would be easier here, in the remote lands. The adults were setting up camp for the night and sent us off to scavenge what wood we could find for a fire, with instructions not to venture too far: we didn’t know what tribes had passed through this area, or who might still be around, watching and waiting.

The trees grew thin and twisted here, and their branches snapped easily. There was plenty to collect from the ground for kindling, at any rate. We’d gathered small bundles in sacks slung over our shoulders, but still we dawdled, not wanting to return to the camp too soon for fear of being assigned further chores.

The daylight was fading and we were about to turn back when we spied the markings. Carved crudely on trees and daubed with a dark pigment, they resembled human skulls. It should have been an unmistakeable warning: danger lies here. But they inspired curiosity more than anything else. We ought to have gone back straight away and warned the adults, but we couldn’t help wanting to know more. So we pressed on, and sure enough our curiosity was rewarded by a glimpse of a structure beyond. Wading through dense nettles and ferns, we came to what appeared to be the remnants of a wall. Once imposing, the relentless march of time and the growth of vegetation had broken it up into hulking great chunks, which were easy enough to scramble up and get a good look at what lay beyond.

It looked like the remains of a city. Similar to the ancient ruins we’d seen further south, the crumbling skeletons of the old buildings stretched into the distance. But here they appeared to be primarily constructed from metal and concrete — materials we could no longer make, of course, which meant they must be ancient. Their roofs had long since caved in, and the walls were only partially intact, but it surprised me that many of them still had their steel supports, albeit rusted and damaged beyond any use. I wondered why these hadn’t been scavenged long ago: metal was a precious commodity. The twisted remnants of what I guessed would have been a fence lay at our feet too, mostly buried by rubble, but with a few still-sharp edges that could cause a nasty cut, meaning we had to watch our footing. We were itching to explore, but by this time we knew we’d ventured too far, been gone too long. The adults would be starting to worry, and who knew what dangers lurked here.

Back at the camp, the adults had already set up the tents and were preparing to cook what little food we’d brought with us. A few were out hunting, but those tasked with gathering wild nuts and berries had turned up empty handed, disappointed. The best they could manage were bunches of nettles from which to make soup.

They were unsettled when we told them what we’d found. They hastily conferred and agreed to send a party to investigate, while a few would remain at the camp to guard our supplies in case of danger — either from wild animals or from other tribes that might still be patrolling the area. We couldn’t see any signs that anyone had claimed this territory for their own, but raids on other tribes’ supplies weren’t unknown when things got desperate. Us children were to accompany the lookouts, who would be stationed at the wall to keep an eye out for threats from either direction. With our young eyes that adjusted easily to the low light, and ability to squeeze into tight spaces and remain hidden, we were up to the task.

Nestled into a gap between concrete boulders, I had a good view of the adults approaching the largest of the nearby buildings with their torches. Sliding aside a rusted metal pane, they entered. No sound punctuated the long darkness, apart from the hoot of an owl, or the occasional rustle of a bird or small mammal in the trees above. With the buildings silhouetted against the starry sky, all I could see were fleeting bursts of torchlight as the explorers passed through the exposed sections of the ruin, which quickly disappeared into the darkness. Finally, when my eyes began to feel heavy, they emerged into my field of vision. They carried nothing with them, but moved at a swift pace, watching their backs, the whites of their eyes in the moonlight betraying their unease.

We quickly made our way back to camp as a unit. By this time I was shivering and glad to get back to the fire. The adults conferred in low voices and posted guards to take turns keeping watch. I fell into bed gratefully, wrapped up in layers of blankets and curled around my siblings for warmth.

It was the next morning that the sickness started. The adults who had been into the building were the first ones. We’d had sickness before, but this was something else. I covered my ears against the sounds coming from the tents, the constant retching until I thought there could be nothing left of them. The other adults, the ones who weren’t sick, sent us children to collect water from the little stream we’d found, and gather nettles, herbs, anything we could find. They wanted us far away, so we wouldn’t catch whatever this was. The ones who had to take care of the sick people wrapped cloths around their faces and stayed out of the tents as much as they could, passing cups of water through the tent flaps, in return receiving full bowls of blood, vomit and worse to empty downstream. But it only seemed to get worse. Later on they moved the sick ones to a larger tent, all together, set back a little way from the camp.

My mother was one of those nursing the sick ones. I worried about her catching the illness, of course I did. I huddled with my siblings in our little tent while she slept some way over, to protect us — when she could sleep, that is. When she wasn’t busy tending the sick, cleaning, cooking, gathering what food there was to find in this lonely, eerie land. Hunting was surprisingly easy — even us kids managed to snare and trap a few small animals. They seemed to have no fear of humans, but the ones we caught were weak and pale-eyed, with little meat on their bones.

None who fell sick got any better. After only two days, death claimed the first of the explorers. The elders wrapped his body in cloth and dug a grave to bury him. Normally we would leave a body to nature, but they said his skin was damaged, oozing. Even in death, he might still spread the sickness. The adults began to grow pallid and listless, their movements slow and languid. I felt it myself. The air felt heavy, and I couldn’t see as clearly as I used to. They whispered about moving on. No one wanted to leave the sick ones behind, but it felt like the disease was in the air, the water and the ground. The place was slowly killing us.

What curse did the ancients leave upon this place? We all knew the tales of how they plundered the earth, scorched the land and poisoned the water in their quest for boundless energy. We’d seen their scars upon the landscape, gradually healing over hundreds of years. We’d heard that the climate had been different before, somehow, that the earth had been abundant until they tamed it for their own ends. We did not know they could leave such a legacy as this: ancient monuments that still radiated sickness, thousands of years after the civilisation that had built them collapsed and died. That their murderous hands still reach through time to strangle their descendants.

We are far, far away from that place now. But we have left the beating heart of our tribe there. The ones too sick to travel, and a few who volunteered to stay behind, to ease their passing. We are few now. Some of us are healing, others are too weak to ever fully recover. All of us have lost. Before we left we carved our own markers around the camp, signs that we can only hope any other tribes that come this way will heed: “Turn back. Do not come here. This is a cursed place.”