by Stacey Mac
In the night, the wilderness comes alive, teaming with invisible nocturnal species. I see nothing, but I hear them in the branches above me. I feel the tremble in the ground around me before I hear the leaves rustle. I panic at almost every disruption to the quiet, picturing an ambush of fronters. I have to remind myself that it is just the sounds of animals, scuttling away from the light of the fire. I find it highly unlikely that Galore will bother sending a search party to look for me. What a waste of resources to find just one dispensable traitor?
Finally, uncomfortably, my eyelids droop, and before I slip away, I think: I’m not theirs anymore. Not theirs.
*
When I wake, it is barely dawn. The fire is smouldering gently. My head throbs, badly. I must have ran for hours yesterday, and I was stupid enough to go to sleep before I found drinkable water. The first signs of severe dehydration are already here. My lips a cracked and starting to bleed, my tongue feels dry and sticky, and the small amount of urine I manage to pass is dark in colour.
I have to find water. Quickly. I won’t be able to move any further through the woods without it. Food. I need that too. Water and food.
The old town that became Galore was established in a valley alongside a river. It has to be somewhere. I didn’t cross any water as I was fleeing yesterday, but still, it has to be around. I stamp out the fire and start moving, my legs aching badly. There are blisters on both of my feet, but I’m too scared to look and see how bad they are. Better to keep moving and pretend the pain isn’t so bad. Eventually, after a mile or so of walking in a random direction, I find thinning in the trees, enough that I can see the sun glimpsing over the horizon of a far-off mountain-side. The river runs west of Galore, and continues along the valley. I turn in what I believe is a westerly direction, my back on the sunrise, and start again.
It is only perhaps a half-hour before I hear it: moving water. I run freely towards it, giddy, relieved. The stream is heading steadily downhill, back to Galore. I laugh, impressed with myself. I kneel on the river’s muddy edge and collect handfuls of the frigid water, drinking greedily.
Finally satisfied, I lay down on the river bank. I count the throbs in my temple as they slowly recede, and take stock in the idea that I am still alive.
I’m still alive.
An orphan, a murderer, and a traitor, perhaps. But a living one, and I don’t know what to do next.
I don’t belong to Galore anymore. The only way I’ll be returning is in the grip of Galore fronters. You might think that death would appeal to me in this moment, but it doesn’t. I want to survive. I don’t want to rot, here in no man’s land, alone and afraid. I fear, however, that I may not have a choice if I don’t find supplies. My very clothes are unsuitable for the hostile climate, and without proper shelter, I know I’ll be dead within days from exposure alone. Galore taught me this much.
I can’t go back, though. I’m not a citizen anymore, I’m a runaway. Fuck, maybe I’m a vagrant.
I physically repel from the thought, scratching my icy hands down my face, scrubbing the word away. I can’t be. I don’t know how to be.
On the roof of a train, a thousand hours ago, I talked briefly about this with Dean. He talked of it like it was a good thing at the time, a solution.
Idiot. Vagrancy isn’t anything other than a huge fucking problem.
Dean.
I sit up suddenly, chewing on a new thought. I can’t become a vagrant, but could I become a jumper? Galore is out of the question, but Resolute…? Could I defect to Resolute? I consider the entire proposal quickly. I’ve already made headway in that direction, though I don’t know how much. I can make it, though…perhaps. Dean could vouch for me. I think he would. Dean told me he had loved me in the compound. I think he will help me. God knows, I need it.
There is, however, a mighty big chance that I’d be walking straight into my own execution. At this point, I think my only chance is to take the risk. I have nothing that I need to survive out here. I have to try.
And so I set forth, with my new, shit plan in tow. But I take about two steps before acknowledging how desperately hungry I am, and how weak I’ve made myself for this hike.
I search the bank of the river for a while until I find something edible – and it takes too long. My stomach, already achingly bare, begins to twist sickeningly by the time I find it – taproot. Taproot grows below the ground’s surface close to water, usually in summer, which makes finding it now a damn miracle. I pull the tiny roots from the ground, finding four or five bite-size plants. Ugly, dirty, carrot-shaped things, but they don’t taste so bad. I wash them hastily and chew them raw.
As I take small, careful bites, I look skyward, and then upstream. I only know the general direction of Resolute; North. Having said that, the river is the only main water source on this side of the mountain ranges. I think it is safe to assume that Resolute is a sector positioned close to it. If I follow the river to the North, in the opposite direction of Galore, I should find it eventually.
I scrounge another couple of taproots from the river bank and pocket them. I place my other hand on my pocket, and feel the weight of my pistol, empty and useless inside my jacket, and then I start.
*
It’s slow progress. The shrubs reach out and snare on my clothes every few minutes. I am constantly forced to clamber over rock, or detour around ancient trees whose roots are too twisted for me to negotiate. I keep meandering too close to the river bank and several times I slip on the mossy earth. There is no visible path that has been trekked before me, and it makes me nervous. The Resolutes obviously didn’t hike home along the river’s edge. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the direction I’m travelling in will only lead me to nothing.
I probably would continue to worry about the nothingness that I am or aren’t heading towards, but soon a new concern comes. My stomach groans constantly. That’s all it is at first; just groaning. I assume it’s the taproot. My body hasn’t been nourished in a little while and the taproot didn’t go down easily. The groaning turns to flipping. It is just queasiness, discomfort. My insides turn and turn again. It makes my progress even slower.
I ran in this direction for at least a couple of hours yesterday, so I don’t have much of an idea of how far there is to go. The inconceivability of it, though, terrifies me. My gut is twisting painfully now, enough to concern me. Enough to turn my gait to a limp. I use one hand to apply pressure to my diaphragm, and I trudge on.
At around midday, I know that something is really wrong with me. I’m sick. My gut is in continuous motion; it won’t settle. I’ve already tried to eat a little more, but the taste of the roots made me feel worse and I spat it out. Now, finally, I come to a stop. My body is sweating, not from exertion, but from fever - cold and fierce. I slump down onto a flat rock jutting out over the bank, and curl my torso in two.
I can’t will myself to move any further. Instead, I heave. There is very little that I manage to bring up. Mostly just stomach bile. The vomiting sucks a tremendous amount of energy from my weary body, and I when the retching stops, the convulsions start.
I need water. I’ve been drinking small handfuls on a sort-of-regular basis from the river, but I hadn’t wanted to detour too often and waste the daylight. I pull myself over the rocks now, though, determined to drag myself to the water’s edge if I have to, and I do.
Eventually, I realise it. The moment that my head dangles over the lip of the river shallows, my grimy, dummy face staring back at me.
How many lessons have I had on water purification? The answer: at least nine. One for every year I’ve known and loathed the training compound, and its survival course.
I’ve been drinking contaminated water on a sort-of-regular basis all day. Excellent fucking work, Tessa.
I try to think. Without iodine, water can be purified by boiling it for ten minutes, which obviously I neglected to do. And now, what with my lack of equipment and deteriorated state, I can’t start a fire.
I knew I w
asn’t a vagrant. It’s been perhaps twenty-four hours and I’m already killing myself.
I take a few deep breaths, still cussing, and then force myself to stand. Think. What do you do next?
I eye off the surrounding plants and trees. Rainwater is pure and safe to drink when it is collected in plants. Though my body is wrecked from the hiking and vomiting, my stomach is feeling a little better. Hollow, but not churning at least. I slowly begin searching for something suitable. After a few minutes I find something familiar; a long-stemmed fern species. I snap off the longest stem at its base and inspect its core. The centre of the stem is moist but not milky. Its pulp comes out easily and I smell it. I have no idea if I’m supposed to smell it. I suppose I am hoping that if this plant is actually poisonous, it will smell poisonous.
It smells like a plant.
I sigh, frustrated. I squeeze more of the stem’s pulp into my hand, and then, reluctantly, place the pulp on my tongue. I don’t swallow it, though; I suck out the moisture, and spit the pulp onto the ground.
Reeves, the bastard, would be proud.
The good news is that I won’t die from the contaminated water I’ve ingested, and I’ve found an alternative water source. The bad news is that I may die anyway, from a possibly poisonous plant species, or just from exhaustion, or further idiocy, whichever comes first.
I don’t know how far away Dean is. It could be five miles, or it could be twenty. It could be neither, because I’m going the wrong way. I’m definitely going the wrong way, aren’t I?
I am utterly alone, and I’m going to die, lost in the woods. How pathetic. God, I miss him. I miss them. All of them. Anyone. All of the people that have ever made anything feel worthwhile to me. I miss being a grumpy, sullen teenager with shallow problems. I miss feeling like I was better than everyone else because I still had a conscience. Now I don’t have even that. In the literal sense, I have almost nothing. I have boots and pants and a jumper and a smoking gun, and nothing else. And having had so much in my life that I’ve disregarded, I can’t die like this. My dad’s voice sounds in my ear: I might die for something I hate, Tess, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot worth dying for.
I cry again, then I laugh again, and then I yell for a little while. Not super dramatically, but enough to scare some nearby birds. Enough to feel some strength in my lungs, to feel alive. Then, ignoring my raw stomach, the aches and the pains, I keep going.
*
I have completely lost track of time. Maybe I’ve been walking for hours, maybe minutes. Whatever, it feels like forever.
My fever has passed, though I eat nothing. I’m worried that I’ll begin vomiting again and lose more of my body’s water stores. My sides cramp often. When I clasp my hands against the pain, I find that I can feel my ribs protruding. So deteriorated has the training compound left me, with its’ pitiful rations and conditioning. As it turns out, I’m in absolutely no condition to hike through this green maze.
I begin counting to pass the time, like I did in the training compound. I count every second step, and tell myself that when I reach one thousand, I’ll stop and rest. I don’t, though. The woods around me are beginning to blacken, and though I can see very little of the sky, I fear it will be dark soon. If I need to spend another night exposed in here, I may not be able to keep going tomorrow.
Desperate now, I down the remaining taproots in my pockets and will them to energise my slackening, screaming body. Another thousand steps and I’m heading steadily uphill. I hold onto the vain hope that I’ll reach a peak to use as a vantage point.
As bad luck would have it, the further uphill I travel, the harder it becomes to skirt the edge of the river bank. The boulders and tree roots slant at precarious angles that make it too strenuous for me to climb over, and I find myself walking further to the west, keeping a distance between myself and the river, to make walking easier.
Finally, when the darkness encroaches, waiting patiently to cloak my visibility for good, I have to accept the fact that there isn’t an end to this hill. The river is narrowing too often now.
I realise, with immense anguish, that I’ve been following it up the mountain. East, not north.
Immediately, I turn west, desperately trying to correct myself. I guess idiocy will be the one to kill me then. If I wasn’t so dehydrated, I’d cry. Instead I heave great, dry sobs, attacking the forest around me as I struggle through it, downhill. I move faster than I have all day, manic and terrified. The quicker I travel, the more I fall. I’m running from acceptance that I’ve failed. Running awkwardly, and painfully. I run against the night, now upon me. I allow the downhill momentum to carry me, my legs flailing independently, and I don’t stop until I find myself crashing through an opening in the shrubs.
I stumble into the clear, catching myself on all fours and bruising my shins severely.
Uncontrollable pants rip from my throat, as they had yesterday. I hang my head as they slow, allowing my loose hair to sweep against the long grass.
Long grass? A meadow perhaps? I look up unsteadily, but all I see is more of it. A field of it. And then beyond that, more fields, separated by poorly constructed fencing.
Dusk is settling, and though night has not completely swallowed the sun yet, like I’d thought, it is almost impossible to make out anything further away. The dying sun behind the smog has a way of making everything look like a mirage. It makes you blink until you are dizzy.
I stand and try to concentrate, my legs quaking. I appear to be on the forest’s edge, looking down a gentle slope of grassland. I can definitely make out fence posts from here, but nothing else.
I stumble forwards, hope ablaze and feet blistering. A few yards out from the fence I find something even better; a road. And never before has it felt so good to walk alone down a desolate dirt lane to nowhere.
Chapter Twenty-six
Relief, as strong as I’ve ever felt, washes through me. I laugh involuntarily, but it sounds raspy and wrong.
The wall stretches out before me. Not big and impressive, or even solid. It is only a fence, enclosing its occupants between the trees on either side. The dirt road has lead me to the place that I think is Resolute.
If I’m wrong, then I’m dead.
There isn’t a gate or anything like it. I see lanterns flickering around a huge gap in the centre of the fence and I walk towards it, unfearing, hazy, stupid.
I am perhaps fifty yards away when I notice sudden movement. They rush through the wide open hole in their wall. They are just flickers of passage in my vision – too dark to make out properly, but I know it will be them – Resolute fronters.
I raise my hands above my head and walk slowly, my feet dragging, sight fading.
“Stop,” a voice shouts. “Stop right there!”
I do what it says, blinking furiously. Sheer will keeps me awake.
They solidify before me; several green-clad men, aiming rifles at various places of my body. One of them, the closest to me, shoulders his rifle, and begins to pat me down. I shiver involuntarily as his hands pass over my arms, my waist, my legs and ankles. He finds the empty pistol in my jacket and then says; “all clear.”
“What are you here for?” Another voice asks. This one is deeper, meaner.
I sway where I stand, but my mouth opens and I say: “To join you…if you’ll let me.”
“Scarce?” The man in charge asks, not lowering his weapon.
Slowly, carefully, I shake my head, breathe deeply, brace myself. “Galore.”
All at once, they advance on me, jerking their weapons onto their shoulders and barking at me to kneel.
I fall forward gratefully, allowing my knees to hit the earth with a thud. “Don’t shoot,” I murmur. “I’m here to jump, and that’s all.”
“Here to spy, more like,” says one.
“And who says we are accepting applicants, kid?” The leader asks.
“Get Dean.” I say. “Dean Mason.” I lean forward, holding myself up by my hands. I hav
e a few minutes left in me, if I’m lucky.
“Did she say Dean?” I hear, and then, “Go. Hurry up. Before she keels over.” And then, “Fuck. Did you walk through a shit storm or somethin’?”
I manage to pull myself back into a sitting position, my knees together. My breathing is still laboured, and I close my eyes to try and steady it.
And then I hear voices, a conversation happening further away. My eyelids slowly peel back, and I again see the shimmers of movement in the dark. There are two people approaching, and I can’t see whether or not it is him.
And I think about how it must be him, how it can’t be anyone else, because if it’s not then that’s everyone gone, and I might as well be gone, too. So I call out: “Dean?” And then I wait to see which it will be.
Silence. And then, “Tess?”
Ah, there it is. I have won. The sound travels over the waves of earth to my feet and it feels like shelter.
I hear heavy footfalls, and then he is there. His hands pressing firmly under my armpits, holding me up, his hair in his eyes, his eyes level with mine spinning wildly.
My mother used to tell me a story about a god named Aeolus, and his daughter; Alcyone. The short story is that Aeolus guarded his beautiful daughter greedily, and sent her to Earth to keep her away from the clutches of all the other hunky gods. But Alcyone fell in love with a mortal man. When Alcyone’s father found out about it, he cast her out of the sky, calling her a whore and whatnot. She thought she was dead, but low and behold, her mortal lover was waiting below, and caught her in his arms, and Alcyone was saved at the exact moment before she was about to become a million pieces of stone.
Alcyone and I, we both know what that feels like; to be caught on the cusp of oblivion. I smile as I see him again, green eyes and frown lines and cracked lips and I think: I won’t ever let you leave me again.
