The Remedy Files: Illusion

by Lauren Eckhardt

  ***

  I am running. The slapping of my feet against the wet leaves seems to echo from one tree to the next. The sun’s rays are reflecting the water on the leaves, making the ground look like an endless shimmery brown lake. My feet slip on every other step but I quickly regain my balance and continue to run. My heavy breathing makes white puffs of air appear and disappear in front of me. There’s a murmur of a whistle. Could that be a bird singing? No, it couldn’t be a bird. They left a long time ago. Just in time. Just before they were killed off like everything else. I’m one of the last to survive.

  Run, Evangeline. I have to keep running.

  My legs are beginning to tire but my lungs have strength. I have done this many times before. I know I can do this. I just have to go faster than last time. I run off the path and weave in and out between the trees, making crazy eight figures around several groupings at once. My mind is telling me this will keep me safe. They will have a harder time tracking me. But my heart tells me it doesn’t matter; they’re going to find me no matter what. A part of me wants to believe this is a game; the other part screams that my life is in great danger.

  I hear a faint rumbling sound some distance behind me. In time, the ground begins to vibrate- a tremble at first that almost feels as though the earth is rolling under my feet. Then it grows into a ferocious quake as the rumbling noise grows louder in a wordless battle to drown out the physical sensations. Whistles. There are whistles too. It definitely wasn’t a bird singing earlier. These are now deep, blowing, haunting shrieks.

  Suddenly, the trees all around me disappear as I find myself in an open field. There is nowhere to hide. I can’t turn around. Not now. The clamor is rapidly growing closer and more thunderous with every second. I squat down, struggling to keep balance among the wobbling terrain, and cover my ears to try to contemplate my next move. Think, Evangeline, think.

  Looking up again, I see one lone beautiful tree ahead of me, standing tall and powerful on the rising cliff as though it’s a warrior that’s reaching up to grab the sun from the sky. Even in the distance, the magnitude of its size is noticeable with branches that seem to extend for miles still of luscious green leaves that have yet to turn color or fall. If I can make it there, I can find shelter. The leaves will cover me and protect me, keep me safe until I can figure out what else to do.

  They’ve always told us not to climb; they say we will die. But here they are, now belligerently fighting so hard to kill me. My options are limited. I need to climb that tree and try to hide. It’s my only hope.

  I stand up and begin to run again. My balance becomes a losing battle as the ground shakes even harder than before. The tree. It seems to be swaying, dancing in the wind as though calling out to me, and seducing me to join it. It’s not getting any closer. I am running… I keep running… but the tree in all its glory is not getting any closer.

  I glance behind me and see a large billow of steam rising from the forest I had just run through. The rumbling is replaced with earsplitting crashes and clatters of thick branches snapping in pieces. They aren’t leaving anything to its mercy. They have made it clear that they are out to kill me and anything else that stands in its way.

  When I look ahead again, the immense tree is unexpectedly facing me. This is the first time I’ve made it so close. I should be celebrating but instead I can only look at the leaves and branches that rise to the sky in envy and wonder how I’m ever going to reach them. I want to cry and scream at the steep elevation that’s laughing in my face, preventing me from seeing the trunk let alone reaching the tree at all. My entire body aches and my lungs burn from lack of oxygen. I don’t think I can make it.

  Somehow, I will my arms and legs to pull me up the steep hill step by step. Rocks are slipping under my body, clanging loudly below, making music that seems to be already mourning my death. In that song, I find the determination I need to keep moving. They aren’t going to kill me. I’m not going to let them.

  As I near the top, a thick gnarled finger is pointing in my face. It’s part of a tree root that has pushed through the hill as though a peace offering for all my hard work to get to this point. I gladly accept its assistance and use it as a crutch to swing myself up on even ground once again. And there it is, welcoming me to its home.

  The tree is exquisite, coercing me to stop and stare to take every bit of its magnificence in full admiration. But my life is at stake. I have to keep moving. The whistling is now almost directly below me and deafening as it screeches louder and louder, threatening to rupture my eardrums with each bloodcurdling declaration that they’re out to get me and won’t stop until they succeed.

  A movement in the middle of the tree catches my eyes. I can formulate the outline of a man reaching down from it, his hand stretching out as a silent offer to help me while carefully not drawing attention to himself. His face is shaded by the leaves but his body is lean and strong with muscles and veins popping from his arm as he stretches his hand even further out. I can’t see who it is and the little I can see doesn’t look familiar. What if it’s one of them, tricking me as they’ve done many times before?

  A bright light to my left distracts me. For the very first time, I notice a body of water that the sun is shining down on, almost blinding me by the reflection of the crashing blue waves. It looks like an ocean- an infinite escape route from here so they can never find me again. The waves could carry me anywhere. I don’t care as long as it’s far from here.

  I glance one more time at the tree and the man’s arm that’s still protruding from it. I don’t know if I can climb anymore, but I sure can swim. I make an abrupt decision to detour to the left.

  The ocean is beautiful with crystal clear blue water. It is peaceful and inviting me to come swim. I am running as fast as I can move my fatiguing legs. But the machine’s warning sound is getting so much louder. My ears begin to pop from the vibrations.

  I make the mistake of looking behind me again and that’s when I see it. The cold, callous, shiny steel frame that stretches out for miles behind it; a large circular pipe on the top with the steam rising out; and the plowed, broken down trees from the forest decorating the horizon behind it to add emphasis to its power. They found me.

  The quaking ground is much too powerful now. My running has been broken into slow shaky steps in my final attempt to get to the ocean, my last move of desperation to save my own life. I think the man from the tree is yelling my name but I don’t know him. I can’t trust him. All I can feel is the heat of the machine as it moves in… closer… and closer with the terrorizing squeals now making my mind feel as though it’s going to explode. I muster all my energy for one final move as I leap over the cliff with faith that the ocean will catch me. I stretch out my body and float in the air, the sun basking on my face as I fall and hope that I will still end up alive when I land.

  CHAPTER 3

  I open my eyes to the sun cascading down on me. Groaning, I cover them with my hands and roll over to my side. It’s so bright. But most importantly, I’m not drowning. This time I made it to the tree and saw that there’s an ocean. I’m getting faster. But what if I were to choose the tree? It just seems too risky. I don’t know who that man is and I’m not sure I want to find out.

  Rubbing my eyes to get them to open again, I find myself staring at a pair of worn brown leather shoes, slightly ripped on the sides, the white short laces completely undone. Gavin. I quickly sit up.

  Gavin is looking down at me, the sun’s rays making his blue eyes twinkle, with a sheepish grin slowly stretching across on his face. “Well, hello there. Did I just catch an act punishable by law?”

  Rolling my eyes at him, I stand up, and stretch my arms high above me as I yawn. I can’t believe I fell asleep. Brushing the leaves off my dark blue cargo pants, I say, “I just keep making you proud, huh?” Gavin loves it when I get so comfortable with the outside that I break my own community’s laws in such a subconsciously liberating way. Of course even being out here outside of
Impetus walls was making one of the biggest offenses according to the community law books. In that light, everything else I do becomes somewhat inconsequential.

  Gavin laughs and picks a leaf out of my hair, letting it fall gently to the ground. “You’ve come a long way, Evie. I’ve taught you well.” He winks and zips up his gray hoodie, covering up his light blue t-shirt underneath so we could better blend in the forest. I love that blue shirt. It illuminates his eyes every time he wears it. “Let’s walk.”

  It is a surprisingly foggy day, with us passing through one wall after another of light mist that leaves tiny droplets in Gavin’s shaggy brown hair and closely shaven beard. The leaves are crunching loudly under our feet, causing a cluster of green and brown broken pieces to jut from the ground. Gavin is quietly humming a tune I’ve never heard before and there seems to be a slight hop in his step. Something good must have happened today.

  “It’s not often that I’m left waiting for you.” I observe casually, hoping that maybe he’d tell me what he was doing prior to coming here. When I arrived to our spot today, Gavin was nowhere to be found. This has only happened a few times before but usually he shows up within minutes. Today, it was long enough for me to fall asleep and get a nap in. That’s definitely a new record.

  “So, you were left missing me?” Gavin’s eyes are lit up with amusement.

  “Even if I knew what that was like, I doubt it. I knew you’d show up. You always eventually do.” I shoot him a teasing smile. Then I try again, “Busy day?”

  “Mhmm,” He mumbles, acknowledging my question but stubbornly doesn’t reveal anything else. He never shares many details about what he does when I’m away. As he’s told me before, “I just want to enjoy my time with you. You’re my sanctuary away from everything else so let me have that. I want a few minutes each day where I don’t have to think about what else is happening in my life and instead can concentrate completely on you.” The first time he told me that, I couldn’t bring myself to argue against it and honestly haven’t been able to any time since then either. I like the idea of being his sanctuary. It makes me seem like someone special as opposed to blending into the background as I do with the rest of each day. Yet I still wish he would share more with me.

  After a few moments of silence, Gavin asks, “Evie, if you unearthed thousands of books in one of your digs, how do you think you would feel?”

  I groan. I knew this was going to happen. Anytime we make reference to a word that used to be tied to an emotion, it gets his wheels turning. “Do we have to do this today?”

  Gavin gives me a serious nod. “Yes, it’s important to me.”

  This is a game- the “feelings game” as I have called it- we have played ever since I was six years old when the patterns of my runaway meetings with Gavin started. He was always talking to me about feelings. Apparently he once found a book from The Before where it talked about notions like Happiness, Anger, Excitement, Jealousy and Heartbreak. It also discussed sensory concepts like Soft, Hard, Smooth, Rough, Wet and Dry. Ever since then, Gavin has apparently become a self-proclaimed expert, trying to describe these ideas to me and walk me through what The Before would do to “feel” for special circumstances and what they would “feel” when touching all sort of objects. He was obsessed with the idea that things were not always as reliant on logic and eyesight as they are now. My mistake was playing along when I was younger thinking it was a one-time game; but here we are, almost twelve years later, engaging in it way more often than I’d care to.

  “Well, think about it. You just unearthed thousands of ancient books. How do you think you would have felt?” He repeats as though saying it twice would make me want to play along even more.

  I shrug and respond with, “Happy,” although I know it’s a weak answer. I’m hoping it’ll dissuade the continuation of the game.

  Gavin shakes his head, ignoring my noncommittal attitude. “That’s a good guess but happy wouldn’t quite be accurate enough.”

  I will never understand his fascination with the game. Our favorite joint activity is finding books and reading about The Before. In fact, our love for reading and knowledge is one of the things we’ve always bonded over. Gavin especially is the keeper of the random fact vault-he knows way more than I do about everything.

  I am all for discussing theories, the concepts that we read about and the differences between now and then but why pretend life still exists as it used to when they destroyed themselves? I have never understood the “feeling” part of our history. Feeling was one of the many pointless activities that disappeared with The Before and it is ridiculous of him to think about it as often as he does let alone play these hypothetical games.

  Unfortunately I tend to remember every single detail about these games which then causes me to think about them in depth early in the mornings by myself after a night without sleep as I test myself on what I could possibly feel if I could feel at all. This is why I will never share this secret with him. He would become even more relentless if he knew the actual lasting impact they have on me.

  I sigh. “What would be accurate then?”

  “Try excited. That’s an extreme version of being happy.”

  “How would you be able to tell I am excited verses happy?” For once I think I have him stumped and am already thinking about how to change the topic. But before I can open my mouth, he replies, “Emotions are tied in with actions. It’s not only about the look on your face but what you are doing with the rest of your body as well. For excited, you may jump up and down or wave your hands.”

  I picture the idea of me jumping and waving my hands over finding a pile of books. “What in the world would that accomplish?”

  “The Before wasn’t just about accomplishing tasks, Evangeline. It was about on how you felt and sometimes what innate actions came from those feelings.”

  I know better than to bring it up with Gavin- especially when he uses my full name- but acting based off of feelings seems irrational and somewhat stupid. If feelings make a person do nonsensical things like jump up and down, why would we want them? We have our minds to determine our actions and that’s good enough for me.

  Instead of making any comment that could make this game go on longer, I try my chance at shifting the subject. “We had a change in teacher today.”

  Gavin hastily stops walking and faces me. “What do you mean?”

  “A Level 17 Teacher we’ve had all year was replaced by a new one today.”

  “Did anyone say where the old Level 17 Teacher went?”

  “Gavin, you know better than that.” We can’t ask those questions. We aren’t even supposed to think them. It is very unlike Impetus to offer any suggestion if something out of the ordinary changes. The teacher positions are usually filled by the Unpaired anyway so no one really gives them much thought. They just kind of exist and will show up when needed. Yet somehow that sort of future still appeals to me. However, the ultimate decision of my future is all up to the Community Board so it doesn’t matter what I think about it anyhow.

  Gavin gives a slight nod of his head and continues walking. “Who was it?”

  “Ms. Mary.” I respond absentmindedly, my mind already thinking about the other things I could share with him today.

  “Kind of strange that she would just suddenly leave a few days before your Level was officially done, huh?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. I guess so.” I didn’t think it was a big deal but know better than to disagree with him because it will only draw out the discussion about it.

  “Was there anything else odd that occurred? Anything different with Ms. Mary that you’ve noticed recently?”

  I bend over and pick up a rock, throwing it up in the air and catching it. “Nope. It’s not a big deal. We just had a different voice teaching us things that she was going to do anyway.” I nudge him with my arm. “Now don’t go obsessing over this.”

  Too late. Gavin isn’t looking at me but rather straight at the ground, his hand subconsc
iously running through his hair, already deep in thought. I immediately know I lost him for the rest of the day. It’s like the feelings game- he spends way too much time thinking about things that have occurred in the past. I always try to get him to be more present-focused but it’s usually a losing battle. Especially when one of his favorite sayings is, “Studying past mistakes can alter your future which determines your present actions.” The first time I heard him say that, my mind reeled trying to understand exactly what he meant. Then I realized I simply completely disagree.

  I’ve tried to argue against that saying of his multiple times before, telling him sometimes it’s okay to start with a clean slate and try new things. “It’s like erasing your memory,” I would say.”You would still wake up one day and move forward with a future in mind. You don’t need a past to be successful in your present and future. The past does not carry any weight.” But of course Gavin disagrees. It’s usually impossible to make him see things in any other way when his mind is set on one view. I still try to challenge him, though.

  “Okay, I should get to work anyway.” I toss a rock up in the air right in front of him. It makes a thud as it drops at his feet but he doesn’t even look at it. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gavin.”

  Still distracted and barely lifting his eyes to look at me, he mumbles, “Bye, Evie.”

  I break off from Gavin and head back out of the woods towards Impetus. As much as I appreciate my time with him, he can be so strange sometimes. I’m always losing him to his own thoughts as he analyzes everything way too much. Jacqueline and my teachers in Impetus tell me I spend too much time in my head and maybe that’s why I like being around Gavin. He does it even more than me, which moves me a little closer to the bell curve, I would think.

  I take out my hair tie and do a quick shake to make sure there are no more leaves stuck in the long, dark blonde strands. I pull it back up in a tighter ponytail as per acceptable standards in Impetus. Then I duck under a short chunky log that I rely on to signify the only entrance and exit I’ve ever used in Impetus and push the thick bush branches out of my way until I end up close to the other side.