Violet

by Rae Thomas

  When I am fully clothed, the only skin exposed is my hands and a small section of my face from just above my eyebrows to just below the bridge of my nose. Dorian was right; immediately this fabric begins to alleviate the symptoms of sun sickness that I was already feeling after just a short time in the sun. It’s not only heat resistant; it seems that the heat is being drawn out of my body. This is not to say that I do not still feel the heat; it is almost stifling, but I know that this fabric is the difference between life and death. But why? Why would The Sententia send us to die on Earth but give us the tools to survive? After a few moments of thinking, I realize: the crushing heat would send our bodies into shock and we would die quickly. But The Sententia did not send us here to die. They sent us here to suffer. They will save us from the sun, but leave us for each other.

  Fourteen

  It is not long before I begin to worry about David. He should be here by now. It’s possible that he did not escape the bandits at the Traveler. He may be lying among the dead. I make a decision, but it is not without anguish; if David is not here by morning, I’ll go without him to Amara.

  I knew that this would happen; I tried to stop him from following me here, but he would not see reason. Now he may be dead. The last person alive that I love, and he may be dead now along with my father. Along with my mother. I reach into my pack and find my father’s pocket watch. I had it in the pocket of my prisoner’s uniform, but now I tuck it into the fold at my waistband. As angry as I am at my mother, as much as I don’t understand why I wasn’t enough for her to stay, I can’t stop myself from loving her simply because she was my mother. This is all I have left of her or my father. I have nothing left of David.

  No sooner have I had this thought than I hear someone approaching. Sand is a relatively quiet walking surface, but whoever it is, he is breathing heavily. I hear coughing and groaning. I look around the edge of the stone that hides me from view. Three people are approaching, but they are only silhouettes against the setting sun. I cannot see who they are. I don’t want to expose myself until I know if they are friend or foe.

  As they get closer, I see that the two figures on the outside are supporting the one in the middle; he needs help to walk. He is either injured or sun-sick. Now I can see that they are all men. The injured one in the middle stumbles and falls, and the others can no longer support him. They refuse to abandon him. They grab his arms and begin to pull him toward my rock formation, and I can watch no longer. Surely they will not hurt me if I only mean to help.

  I climb down from my notch and walk toward the men. They are less than twenty feet away. I hold up my hands, but they look at me with faces so exhausted that I know they don’t care whether I’m here to hurt them or not. None of the three are wearing their desert clothes; no wonder they’re sick. They’ve been in the sun for hours. I continue to approach, now more quickly. I look down at the man who has collapsed; it’s David.

  In a panic, I call out his name. I shake him, but he does not rouse. I open his pack to retrieve a ration of water and I dribble some into his mouth. I can see him swallow, but he does not respond. I put the water back in the pack and for the first time look into the faces of David’s companions. One of them I recognize; the man from the transport who looks like Eli. He gives me a weary smile and says, “You must be this Violet we’ve been hearing about. I’m Foster.” He gestures to his companion, “And this is Saul.” The other’s appearance is less encouraging. If I had to describe to someone what a criminal looks like, it would be this man. His eyes are cold; he does not smile or even acknowledge that he’s been introduced. His hands are covered in tattoos depicting swirling symbols and I can see more peeking from the collar of his shirt. He sees me looking and puts his hands in his pockets.

  I nod. “Yes, I’m Violet.” I look down at David. I look at both of their exhausted faces. “You’ve got to change into the clothes in your packs. I promise, you’ll feel better.”

  They nod. Without a word, I pick up David’s feet and the two men each grab one of his hands to bring him the rest of the way to the rock formation. I give David more water and let him rest while the men change. David is soon well enough to sit up, and I help him change into his desert clothes. I try not to look, but I can’t help but notice the muscles in his arms and back contracting as he puts his shirt on. I must be blushing.

  Within minutes of donning their heat-resistant clothes, the men and David have visibly improved. We decide to make camp here for the night. We do not want to build a fire for fear of attracting attention, but it may become unavoidable depending on how cold it gets tonight. Though I have not heard him speak a word at all, suddenly Saul clears his throat to get our attention. His voice is gruff, as I would have expected, but it is not as hard as his appearance. Saul says, “It would be better for us to travel at night.” He looks at each of us, and when none of us immediately objects, he continues, “It’s going to get very cold, and as we already discussed, building a fire would draw people to us. If we travel at night, the exertion will help us to stay warm, and we probably won’t run into anyone else on the way. We can rest during the day. This will also help us to conserve water. We should rest as much as possible in the high-heat time of day.” Saul looks at all of us, and then down at the ground.

  David is the first to respond. “That sounds good to me. I don’t know anything about the desert, but all of that seems to make sense. Maybe we should all rest for a few hours now, and then get moving.”

  Saul seems to find this acceptable, and Foster and I nod in agreement. We settle at the base of the tall rock to sleep for a while. I am still groggy with sleep when I feel someone grasp me by the ankles and drag me away from the rock. I am confused but still I reach for David. He is gone. The man presses his hand against my mouth so hard that it nearly stops my breath. Even though his face is very close to mine, I can hardly see it; the moonlight here is not as bright as ours on Cerno. Though I cannot see him clearly I can smell his rancid breath as he whispers, “If you scream, I’ll kill you.”

  I nod my head. The man removes his hand from my mouth, but I dare not scream. He uses one of his hands to hold my wrists above my head, and he holds my body down with the weight of his. “Bet you thought you were pretty smart, running like that. I didn’t get you then, but I knew I’d get you sooner or later.” He presses his face into the crook of my neck and inhales deeply, smelling my neck and hair. I try to turn my head away, but he grabs my face with his free hand and forces me to look at him. I still can’t see him clearly. The moon is behind him; his face is just a blur of darkness. His hand moves from my face to my neck, and then to my chest. He moves it slowly down my torso until it reaches the waistband of my pants. He puts one finger inside the waistband, and then jerks his hand in an effort to tear them away. “Now you’re going to get what you deserve.”

  My eyes widen in horror, and I try to rock from side to side to throw his weight off of me. He leaves my pants alone for a moment and picks up his knife from the sand beside me. He holds it to my throat. “You may not care about your own life, but I swear I’ll bleed your boyfriend dry. I’ll make him suffer if you fight me.” Immediately I stop struggling. He’s right; I care about David’s life more than my own. He puts his knife back in the sand and returns his attention to my waistband.

  Before I know what’s happened, someone has jerked the man from on top of me. I have just enough time to sit up and now I can see Saul draw the blade of his knife across my attacker’s throat and let his bleeding body fall to the sand. I stand and right my clothing. I look at Saul. Saul looks at me. He removes the survival pack from the dead man and says, “I think it’s time that we got moving.”

  As Saul and I walk silently back to the area where Foster is undoubtedly still sleeping, I cannot help but wonder why David had not been there when I reached for him. As if on cue, David walks around the edge of the tall rock and quickens his pace when he sees us. “Violet! Violet, what are you doing out here? What’s going on?”


  The concern on his face makes me feel guilty for blaming him. “I—uh… One of the men from the Traveler took me, and he, um, well, Saul came and it’s okay now.”

  David seems crushed. “Oh, Violet, I’m so sorry, I only left for a few minutes… I couldn’t sleep.” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me close, resting his chin on the top of my head. Then he looks at Saul. “Thank you.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it back there, I just—”

  “Just doing what had to be done.” Saul walks around David and me, and we follow him into the campsite. Saul gently nudges Foster with his foot. Foster jolts awake and leaps to his feet while still half asleep. “What? What’s going on?”

  “It’s okay,” Saul says. “We’re fine for now, but we need to move.”

  Foster senses that there is something Saul isn’t saying. “What happened?”

  Saul sighs and gestures to me. “Alexander found us. Took the girl.”

  Any trace of sleep that lingered is now gone. Foster draws his knife and looks around in the darkness. “Where is he?”

  Saul raises the pack and says, “Taken care of. The others are nowhere in sight, but I’m sure they can’t be far.”

  Foster nods. “You’re right, we’ve got to go.”

  There’s not much packing to do. We take a few moments to consult the map and we begin walking in the direction of Amara. We were given a small circular device that supposedly uses magnetism to pinpoint direction, but Foster and Saul don’t need it. Foster says that he knows how to use the sky. It seems that these men, like my mother, came well prepared to survive their banishment.

  We walk for hours, taking short breaks to replenish our fluids. We are all weary, but we want to put as much distance between ourselves and our last campsite as possible, so we walk. As we walk, I take in the landscape around me. Rolling dunes of sparkling sand patterned by the wind. Every once in a while, there’s a rock formation or a clump of desert plants. It’s grown quite cold, and every now and then I see the reflective eyes of some nocturnal creature. I hope that we aren’t being stalked by some predator, but if we are, I suppose there’s not much we can do about it. I hold my knife by my side. The next time I’m attacked, whether it be by human or animal, I’ll be ready.

  By and by we come to what seems to be a ruined village. What were once small houses made of stone are now mostly piles of debris, but we can perceive how the structures once stood. I’d be interested in giving the village a closer look, but Saul reminds us that there are probably other refugees sleeping in there, and we might be dead before we got the chance to tell them that we only wanted to explore. Point taken; we pass silently through the village.

  Not surprisingly, the desert is mostly empty. The cold is the only thing that we encounter, and by the time the sky turns pink, it is beginning to dissipate. I’m sure that sometime around midday we’ll be wishing for it again. We keep walking. We have to. Foster and Saul undoubtedly want to reach Amara for the promise of more comfortable conditions in addition to the fact that we each only have a little more than three days’ worth of rations, if the dead man’s pack is split equally among us. However, my reasoning, as well as David’s, is even more pressing than that. We must get to Amara as soon as possible. We are cutting it close as it is; even if we make it to Amara without losing any time, that still only leaves one day to locate my father’s piece of The Cube and still make it back in time to catch Dorian’s transport.

  By now, the sun is high—I estimate it to be late morning. I look at my comrades and realize that we are all dragging considerably. As if reading my thoughts, Foster says, “How about we stop at the next place we find cover to rest for a while?” We all nod, but without much emotion; we’re too tired for that.

  It feels like we’re saved when, just over the next dune, we see a place that offers cover. Another rock formation, but this one looks as if it has somehow slid down the side of the dune. Rather than standing pillars of rock, these have fallen sideways on top of one another, creating a system of cracks, crevices, and small caves. The bottommost rock has fallen on top of another rock, leaving a significant gap between it and the ground. Several people could comfortably stand beneath it.

  Suddenly rejuvenated at the prospect of rest, we make it to the rock in what seems like minutes but, judging by the distance, is probably at least an hour. We decide to take shifts; at least one of us will be awake at all times. We don’t want a repeat of last night’s events. Foster, who got the most sleep though not by much, volunteers to take the first shift and no one argues. He takes a seat on the sand at the edge of the rock but still within its shade. Saul, David, and I lie down closer to the interior of the shelter near where the rock meets the sand. Saul turns away from us, resting his head on his pack. David and I take a cue from him and do the same. David holds me tightly to him; I know that he blames himself for what Alexander almost did to me last night. I feel reassured by David’s protection, but still, I sleep with my blade drawn.

  My sleep is not deep, but it is dreamless, and for this I am grateful. I am slightly roused when Foster comes to wake David to take his shift, but I fall quickly back to sleep. However, I awake with a start when I hear Saul cry out. We all jump and move to his aid, unsure of what’s going on.

  “Saul, what happened?” It’s Foster.

  Saul sits up and, turning to us, holds up the blade of his knife. Impaled on the tip is the wriggling body of a still-living reptile about the size of both of my hands side-by-side.

  “This bit me.” Saul holds up his other hand, showing us the clearly visible bite mark. It’s on the outer edge of his hand, near the small finger. The bite is half-moon shaped and the animal must have lots of needle-like teeth, because the bite mark is defined by what looks like at least a hundred holes oozing tiny drops of blood. Finally dead, the creature stops wiggling, and Saul gingerly pushes it off the end of his knife, tossing its body out into the sun.

  David is the next to speak. “Do you know what it is?”

  Saul shrugs. “Some type of lizard. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  Saul shrugs again. “Nothing to do. We don’t have any medical aid supplies.”

  “Maybe we should suck out the poison,” Foster adds.

  Saul rolls his eyes. “We don’t know that it had any poison. It’s probably just a bite. I’ll rinse it with some water and it will probably just heal and go away on its own.”

  We rotate shifts for the rest of the day and when night falls, we begin walking again. Each of us is watching Saul and it seems that he was right; there do not appear to be any adverse reactions stemming from his lizard bite.

  Walking is more difficult today than it was yesterday. David tells me that the only way he can keep going is to know that tomorrow it will be over. Again, we walk until late morning and then begin looking for a place to camp. Unfortunately, one is not as readily available today as it was yesterday and we have to keep walking until well past midday. When we finally find shelter, none of us has the strength to stay awake. We all sleep facing outward with our blades drawn. This situation is not ideal, but it will have to do.

  My sleep is fitful, but I do not dream of The Cube itself. Instead, I dream of the jungle in which my father’s shard is hidden. The greenery is thick and lush. In stark contrast to the desert, we will have to fight to get through its density. Bright flowers bloom and dangerous serpents twist themselves amongst branches. The floor of this area teems with insect life. There is no place that is not in motion. Another area of Amara is grassy plain, not unlike the grass that I so admired in Eligo. How will I know where to find the shard?

  I am awake now, still wondering how I will find the Cube piece within such an expansive area. I look out to the horizon. The sun hangs low in the sky. It is almost time for us to continue our journey; we must arrive tomorrow morning or risk missing the transport back to Cerno. For a long time, I lie watching the horizon, wondering what it woul
d be like if I had not been found by The Vox. Certainly, my father would be alive, but would I be content? I know that the answer is no. This is the only path I could have taken. I needed answers that my father was not willing to give.

  The others begin to stir and I know that it is time to get up. I rouse myself and replace my pack on my shoulders. As Saul stands, I see him falter for a moment. He stumbles. At first I think that he is only disoriented from sleep, but when he turns, I see that his condition has taken a turn for the worse. His left arm hangs limply at his side, and I notice that the half-moon shaped bite is now black with decay. The color fades to purple, but continues up his forearm. His eyes look glassy and yellow. He is sweating so profusely that his clothes are soaked and plastered to his body. I rush to his aid, but I can see in his eyes that he knows it is futile.