Tribulation

by Kaz Morran

  They did their best to estimate the blood flow and guessed that owing to the pressure of the boulder it had slowed or even stopped.

  Taiyo shook his head. “Even if we could get that rock off him—”

  “The sudden release of pressure would kill him,” said Kristen. “That’s what this ‘methemoglobin infarction’ section says. Basically, it’s kidney failure.”

  Nel said, “Maybe you should give my phone back so we can save the battery.”

  She did as Nel asked, but then opened the same app her own phone and kept reading. “The same thing is seen in people who get buried alive.”

  “Fun fact,” said Taiyo.

  Kristen kept talking, her voice shaky and perky at the same time, as if battling with herself: optimism versus emotional breakdown. “So, it looks like as long as we leave him where he is, he’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not sure fine is the right word,” Nel said. “Prolonged is probably more fitting.”

  Taiyo had his phone out now, too. “Stable,” he said. “Muscles begin to die off after an hour and release toxins into the blood. But they’ll spread slowly if we don’t move him. For now, he’s stable.”

  Kristen let out a slow breath, almost a whimper. “Well, at least it wasn’t worse. Thank God.”

  “Did you really just say that?” Taiyo asked, hardly hiding his indignation.

  “How long does Walter have?” Nel said, cutting off any potential conflict.

  “After four hours, the risk of kidney failure rises exponentially,” Taiyo said and searched for more details. “But besides that, it only says it’s possible to stay stable for a long time.”

  “Can you quantify that?”

  Taiyo showed her the exact phrase in the medical guide he’d quoted: In this situation, it is possible for a person to remain stable for a long time.

  Walter began to give in to the shakes. They huddled around him for hours, enduring with compassion his wails and moans.

  “It’ll be okay, Walt,” Kristen told him as she stroked his head. “You can stay like this for a long time.”

  Walter screamed at her to fuck off and burn in Hell.

  Hours more passed, and they took hour-long turns at his side offering tokens of sympathy and praise for his courage. He would not drink, and he could not sleep. His cries, which filled the confines of the Asylum, ensured no one else could sleep either.

  When it came time for Taiyo’s first shift alone with Walter, he kept the headlamp off. “Sir, I can’t see you,” said Walter between the screams and wheezing.

  “I’m sorry,” said Taiyo from his seat on the ground. “We have to save batteries.”

  He hoped Walter didn’t take that to mean Because you smashed the crank charger.

  Walter’s voice ground course and broken from all his screaming. During one especially frantic bout of writhing and gut-twisting cries, his tone grew guttural. And he demanded that Taiyo set him free: “Fuck you. You piece of shit. Heartless Jap. Get me out of here … ”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I can’t,” was all Taiyo could say, though it pained him.

  “Take this fucking rock off of me you cock-sucking slant-eyed motherfucker …”

  And then, moments later, in tears: “Please. I’m sorry, bro. Oh, God, please. Please. … Come on, bro. Just help me. … Please.”

  Taiyo could not control his own tears. “I’m sorry.”

  ***

  Back at camp, Taiyo lay on the deck of the raft. He stared up into the night, and the night stared back with callous black eyes. The body of darkness descended upon his chest as the tortured howls of his slow-dying commander raked the canals of his ears.

  What a wretched human being Taiyo was. How long had it been since Walter got stuck? Seven hours? Maybe eight or nine. And yet, already, Taiyo’s once-sincere empathy had turned selfish. He wanted peace. He wanted silence.

  Of course, he knew the demand was absurd, but he wasn’t the only one being driven mad by the endless bouts of primal shrieks.

  Ronin returned from his watch early. His gruff, tired voice interrupted Taiyo’s guilt. “We have to move the raft,” he said.

  Everyone knew without asking that Ronin meant farther from Walter, not closer.

  “Part of his crying is because he’s lonely,” said Nel. “Are we okay with letting him suffer alone?”

  “He’s already alone,” Ronin said flatly. “He can’t see anything. He’s delusional.”

  “He won’t know the difference,” Kristen added.

  “We can’t just abandon him,” Taiyo said. The stark imagery of Walter suffering alone in the dark while losing his mind didn’t sit well, though Taiyo’s protest had hardly been sincere.

  “I don't see you jumping up to go be his pal,” said Kristen.

  “It’s not because I don’t care,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

  Kristen raised her voice. “Do you think you’re the only one struggling with this, Taiyo?”

  “Of course not.” He dropped his legs down over the edge of the raft and curled his head and shoulders forward. He didn’t want to say what he was thinking: What if a crocodile really was out there? Surely, it would have picked up the scent of an easy meal. And what would it do to the person sitting next to that meal?

  Taiyo sat up straight and rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands. He needed sleep.

  Bootsteps clunked along the deck of the raft and stopped behind him. A flashlight preyed from above, and his legs tightened against the side of the crate. “What’ll be, hafu? Are we moving this raft or not?”

  Why is it up to me? But slowly, Taiyo nodded his head up and down in his hands. “But we’ll still take shifts with him,” he said. “Okay?”

  Ronin’s flashlight faded, flickered, and went out. He tried to click it back on. “Dead,” Ronin said and dropped it into Taiyo’s lap. “Like your halfwit brain.”

  “So is the crank charger,” Kristen reminded.

  “I know,” Taiyo snapped.

  “I’m just saying,” she added.

  The howls churned the thick air of the chamber into cyclones of misery and despair. As the eye of the storm reeled past, Walter’s words escaped the vortex. “Help … me … please.” But they were hardly words at all, hardly the sounds of a human.

  “Come on,” Ronin told the remaining three. The abrasion in his voice had smoothed, almost into sympathy. “Off the raft so we can move it, then.”

  ***

  Their fading strength and the constant snags the raft met on the way led the AsCans to drop camp less distant from Walter than they’d planned. They made another trip to bring over the hammocks and rebreathers and then remade the perimeter, complete with several inuksuit. They branded the relocated spot Central camp to distinguish it from the first one.

  At the new distance, like stretched wavelengths, the cries impacted with less intensity but permeated far deeper.

  Just as one could sleep on a roaring train, but not if it blew its horn at random intervals, Taiyo might have been able to tune out the screams and pleading if they’d been more rhythmic.

  And there, ossified on the deck, he heard another sound, too. An essence. A pervasive but almost imperceptible ground state locked away in the dungeon of rock that encased the screams and moans. Perhaps it was the resonant acoustics of the planet’s internal dynamo, or the sound of the lithosphere adjusting itself. It wasn’t Walter. In spite of the echoes, Walter’s noises came from one distinct direction. This sound came from everywhere at once.

  It was the sound of neurons being cannibalized, and it was coming from inside Taiyo’s head.

  That explained why he couldn’t think of a way out—not even a framework to develop one. There’d always been a way to engineer himself out of a problem, always a hack or path he could make work if he only put in the time and energy. But not now. And certainly not with all that hollering.

  He ruminated on one thought: Not a thing could be done—not about escape, and not about Walter. He believed th
is until, by chance, one mutated neuron put an asterisk on Taiyo’s defeatism.

  It was time to consider riskier options; plans that were less intuitive.

  “You’re up next, Taiyo.” Kristen prodded him with a flashlight.

  He sat and turned it on. The light sputtered. He turned it on and off, getting the LEDs to light for a moment before they died once more.

  He leaned over and swatted Ronin. “You still got that backup battery?”

  Ronin slid it across the deck, almost dropping it down the gap between crates.

  After giving the flashlight a few minutes to recharge, Taiyo headed out. Alone. Despite the dread in his veins, it felt good to be up and moving with a purpose. He used the flashlight sparingly, only flicking it on for seconds at a time to get a glimpse of the obstacles ahead. He had the light of his phone screen as a backup, but that too would soon die, and the backup battery wouldn’t have the juice to revive it.

  Taiyo let the screams be the beacon to his destination.

  At least—that he even had the thought made him hate himself—it wouldn’t be long until they got Walter’s phone.

  “Hey, Walt. It’s me,” Taiyo said between Walter’s heaving groans. He set the bottle of water and dish of glow-worms down at Walter’s side; the act felt like visiting a shrine. Walter kicked the offerings over with his one free leg and then lapsed into a fit of howls and cursing.

  Competing instincts tore at Taiyo’s seams, the cries both beckoning and repulsing him. It was too much to endure. But, in the middle of the verbal tirade before Taiyo abandoned his post, Walter uttered something new. “Please …” he began as before, but this time clenched his teeth, lowered his voice, and composed a new line: “Cut me free.”

  Taiyo froze. “Pardon?”

  “I … want …” Walter yanked Taiyo by the wrist and pulled him in face to face. Twitching, sweating, and bearing down to fight the pain that throbbed with every involuntary tick and heartbeat, Walter sucked a breath in through his teeth. His words were sober and coherent. Unambiguous and sincere. “I want you to cut off my leg,” he told Taiyo.

  He released Taiyo’s arm. For the moment Walter remained calm, but the restrained grunts and shakes gave away that he couldn’t keep up appearances long. “Cut me free,” he repeated and then relapsed into a bout of whimpers that soon rose to full screams. “Do it you fucking pussy!”

  Gurgles and wild spats of coughs peppered an assault of rapid screams.

  Taiyo stood and backed away. He had to part his feet to keep balance. A step at a time, he exited the cage of bellows and pleading. The words chased him—Cut me free! Please, Tai, please—and clawed like the fingernails on the wall, vexing Taiyo’s sanity as he back-stepped. Oh, God, please …

  “Taiyo … where are you? Don’t go …”

  “Kill me then! Kill me if you won’t cut me free!”

  Taiyo withered into the bleakness of the Asylum’s shadow, knees to the rocks, fists clenched over his ears.

  Burn in Hell, you son of a bitch coward Jap motherfucker! Kill me or cut me free!

  The words lost distinction and turned into shrieks.

  Taiyo got to his feet, ashamed but ready to run. Before he could, a light beam and a hand on his shoulder startled him. Nel. She’d come to relieve him and check that he and Walter were okay.

  She gave him a minute to get composed, and then he yelled to her over the howls, “We need to talk about Walter.”

  ***

  Day seven in the Asylum—the day the isolation had been set to end—had come and gone. They were still trapped, still hungry, still exhausted, and still blind to what lurked in the dark.

  Taiyo lay back in his hammock, wondering if Walter’s cries had scared the crocodile—or monitor lizard—into a corner. More likely, the thing had found a way out and was up above the cave looking down through a crack, mocking them like some sadistic reptilian overlord.

  “Tai,” Nel called softly. “You awake?”

  “Right here.”

  Then closer, “You didn’t come to dinner.”

  They’d called him over, and he’d said he’d join them shortly but never did. Too bad, Nel noted, because a nearby rubble pile had made for a fine dining table and chairs.

  “But how were the ambiance and service?”

  “Not bad, but they took the noir trend a little far, and the menu is rather limited.”

  She gave him one of the last unopened bottles of water.

  “We don’t need to save it for Walter’s wounds?” he asked

  “No,” was all she said.

  Walter hadn’t taken food or water since before the accident.

  The screams kept coming, reverberating off the walls, floor, and ceiling. It was remarkable how long and how persistent a person’s suffering could last. The worst part, for Taiyo, was witnessing how, as his crewmate’s demise progressed, his own empathy decayed into pity, then irritation, and resentment and loathing. He could also thank Walter’s god, and curse his devil, for feeling relieved that Kristen’s shift with Walter had now come, and not his.

  “Thank you,” Taiyo told Nel for the water and the visit.

  He tapped the hammock-side crate so she'd know where to sit.

  Her hand opened one of his, and in it, she placed the body of a glow-worm. Communal meals were important for team spirit. Even meals comprised entirely of decomposing insects.

  It felt wrong somehow, almost selfish, that amid all the destruction and suffering, the safe people still needed food or were able to eat at all. With effort, he placed the offering on his tongue, slid it to one side, and began to chew. Before, the bodies had been softer than the heads, but now the whole thing was like soggy bread. The slightly nutty flavor remained, and it still tasted better than Vegemite.

  “You know,” Nel said after she swallowed one herself, “these are delicacies in the North.”

  Taiyo swallowed. “Really?”

  “Not really. But they do turn the THRONE bags into wonderful bioluminescent lanterns.”

  “They do?”

  “No,” she said. “And please don’t try.”

  Taiyo didn’t let himself laugh.

  She asked how he was holding up. Her concern surprised him, and he told her he was fine. They talked for some time about how, when, and if they’d be rescued, and how worried their families must’ve been; and they whispered about Ronin and MONSTAR-X.

  A spike in Walter’s howling laid siege to the nihilism of the cave, making Taiyo recoil and wince. Once the screams peeled back, Nel picked up the conversation as if they were at an outdoor café and a Harley had gone by. She asked if the induced magnetic field of Taiyo’s spacecraft would generate an aurora.

  “I didn’t think of that,” he said. “But, yeah, I guess there would be one. The interaction with the reactor and cosmic radiation …” He trailed off on purpose, wishing he hadn’t sounded so excited. More subdued this time, he said, “We should’ve put an external camera into the design to record it.”

  “You say that like it’s too late.”

  “Well …” Though perhaps not entirely true, he said, “The project is dead. Rejected and put out of its misery.” He regretted his choice of words.

  “And you’re sure you’ve tried every path?”

  A span of erratic wails arose from the south wall. Taiyo used the forced break in their talking to think about how much he should tell her. Maybe it was fatigue, hunger, sensory deprivation, or their imminent demise that made him confess, “Taking other paths is what got me in trouble.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let’s just say the sharing economy hasn’t yet found its niche in Japan.”

  “Does this involve China?”

  He rubbed his tired eyes and gathered his thoughts, and continued by telling her about the Chinese state media’s exposé that had called MONSTAR-X a US-Japan ploy to put nuclear weapons in space.

  “Obviously the article is a load of shit,” he said, “but once that seed is planted …” He counted
the breaths, in and out, as he waited for the wails of a mangled human being to fade back into to the darkness where they could be ignored. “Conspiracy against Japan, they’re calling it,” he said.

  “That’s the charge against you?”

  “If they make the accusation official.”

  “That’s big,” she said. and added, “Especially if not substantiated.”

  “It’s substantiated if you think research collaboration is a subversive criminal act and a betrayal of national security. I don’t know why these old farts can’t see that we don’t live in that world anymore.”

  “Maybe they do, and that’s why they let you come to Australia.”

  “No.” He shook his head, making the hammock frame creak. “They know I won’t run. They know I won’t do anything to blow my shot at space.”

  “And in Japan, astronaut wings are a get-out-of-jail-free card?”

  Taiyo eased out another long, heavy breath. She was forcing him to articulate a sentiment he’d only assumed was rational. He flicked the nail of his middle finger under his thumbnail. He hadn’t clipped his nails since leaving Japan, and he could feel the built-up grime. “I thought maybe it’s like how doctors and lawyers are presumed to be upstanding citizens.”

  “Purely by virtue of their occupation.”

  “Right.”

  “We’re not talking about a co-signer on a car loan here, Tai. This is treason you’re up against.”

  “Even the UN has condemned Japan over these bullshit anti-conspiracy laws.”

  “Who are you trying to convince?”

  He rubbed his palms over his face and then swung his legs over the side of the hammock and slouched. He knew damn well that Japan didn’t give a shit what the UN said.

  Taiyo’s throat tensed at the distant, yet horrifically present, screams of their ailing crewman. Instinct brought Taiyo’s hands to his ears, but he resisted; his own compulsion repulsed him.

  “Keep talking,” Nel said. “Focus on yourself, not on what’s out there.” She meant Walter.

  “It’s a nuclear-powered space telescope,” he said, louder than he’d wanted. “Nuclear power. Nothing about it violates ITAR or the Outer Space Treaty.”