Sugar Coated

by Shannen Crane Camp

  “If for some reason Jonah isn’t smart enough to hack the door on the train, I need to have a backup plan,” Brynn thought aloud, finding that the thick mist made her feel alone enough to run through her plans vocally. Talking things through always helped her.

  “So, how could I stop the train without having access to the control panel?” she asked the mist that swirled around her in a thick, heavy sheet. “I probably can’t,” she admitted dully, kicking a pinecone on the path so that it bounced ahead of her, making soft thuds in the earth as it went.

  She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as the temperature dropped the higher into the mountains she went. “Unless I blow a hole in the train wall and jump out, I might need to abandon the whole train idea,” she mumbled, biting her lip in frustration.

  Though she hadn’t made any great breakthroughs in her constant search to find Aywon, she had been feeling closer to finding an answer as of late. With the help of Jonah, she had been able to rule out some of her wilder theories. The frequency of her odd dreams about the Angels had also given her more cause to pursue answers, just to explain where these ideas that were fueling her nightmares were coming from, if nothing else.

  Then there was the voice.

  That was a detail she couldn’t ignore. Brynn didn’t think she was as crazy as her friends seemed to believe, but she could readily admit that her dreams were something she could write off. Those could be the result of an overactive imagination. But to hear the voice from her dreams loud and clear over Amber’s movie making software? That couldn’t have been a coincidence. Not only was it the Angel’s voice, but it was talking about waves. Possibly the same waves that had almost killed Brynn only minutes before.

  No, that couldn’t have been a coincidence. And so, for that reason, Brynn continued her trek through the woods, trying to clear her head enough to find a way back to Aywon. She needed answers, and for once she wasn’t going to stop just because no one seemed to be able to help her.

  * * *

  Around noon Brynn sat on the soft ground, leaning against a tree and taking one of her dehydrated food bars and a water bottle from her bag. She unwrapped the shiny silver wrapping on her bar and ripped a large piece off with her teeth, not realizing until that moment how hungry she was. After all, with the exception of the bar she’d eaten at the start of her hike, she hadn’t eaten since her lavish meal on the train.

  Tilting her head back and closing her eyes in the silent forest, she tried to formulate a new plan of attack for finding Aywon. Trains were the only method of transportation between cities. Even within a city the only way to get around was by bus, and unless she hijacked a bus, there probably wasn’t any way to get one of those out of Seaside. She paused her thoughts briefly, considering for just one moment the possibility of stealing a bus before she quickly pushed that thought from her mind. She wasn’t that crazy.

  If she couldn’t take a bus and she couldn’t take the train, the only other option would be to walk to her destination. Of course, Aywon was at least six hours from Seaside by train, so who knew how long that would take on foot. As she finished off her dehydrated food bar that had hardly made a dent in her hunger, she wondered if she could even carry all of the supplies she’d need to get there. And even if she could, what if she had been wrong and there actually wasn’t a city there? Then she would be stuck in the middle of nowhere without enough supplies to bring her back to Seaside.

  She considered this for a moment. Brynn didn’t think of herself as a helpless girl. She was brave and strong and resourceful. But that didn’t mean she possessed the survival skills to live off of the land long enough to make it back to Seaside if her theory really was wrong.

  “I can learn survival skills from a book,” she said suddenly, not wanting to give up when she had finally come up with a solution to her problem. She didn’t need to rely on the train to bring her to Aywon every month, sitting alone in her compartment hoping that this time it would stop. Instead she’d take control of what she wanted and leave the city on foot to find what she was looking for. Though this presented her with a new problem—how to get out of the city?

  She hadn’t ever actually left the city before unless she was on a train. Back home in Seaside, she had been able to walk past the city limits toward the sea, so technically, she had gotten out of the city on foot. But that hardly counted.

  “Perspective,” she told herself. “That’s what I need.”

  Packing up her food and water, she slung her bag across her chest once more and stood to get a better look at the tree she had been leaning on. It was a tall, sturdy pine tree with tall branches, too high to simply reach out and grab. She lifted her foot to examine the bottom of her boot, glad to see rubbery tread there that would aid in her climb.

  Though the lowest branches on the tall pine tree were far too high for her to grab, the bark on the trunk was full of deep valleys in the old wood, making the surface ideal for climbing. Using her fingertips to find subtle cracks in the bark and relying heavily on the rubber tread at the bottom of her boots, she propelled herself up, her limber fingers frantically scrabbling over the uneven surface of the tree trunk for another hand hold.

  Once her fingers slid into yet another crack, she used her thighs to cling desperately to the thick tree trunk, knowing that she’d need to be calculating if she was going to make it to the lowest branches. She couldn’t just jump and hope her fingers found purchase.

  Tilting her head up to survey what lay ahead, she cautiously released the tree with one hand and let her blind fingertips explore the rough bark. Brynn was surprised at how quickly she was able to make her way up the trunk of the large pine tree before she finally reached the lowest hanging branches. Once she made contact with those it was simply a matter of pulling herself up to perch carefully on the wood, climbing from branch to branch as she made her way toward the top of the tree.

  One branch cracked under her foot, immediately causing Brynn to freeze in her swift upward progression.

  “High enough,” she said, stepping down to the thicker branch beneath and holding back a shudder as she looked down at the ground far below her.

  She hadn’t ever thought of herself as someone who was afraid of heights, but the only heights she had ever encountered had been seen safely behind the glass of a tall building. Now, with nothing holding her to the tree except her damp, frozen fingers, heights seemed to bother her a lot more.

  Taking a deep, steadying breath, she looked out over the forest, seeing nothing but green pine needles in every direction. She could just skim the tops of the trees that descended back toward the town, but she wasn’t nearly high enough to survey the actual city itself.

  Knowing that she couldn’t go any higher in that particular tree, Brynn made her slow descent back to the ground, taking more care now that she had broken one branch already. If she couldn’t see from that pine, she’d just have to go higher into the mountains to get a better angle on the city.

  Not bothering to cling to the trunk of the tree, but rather throwing herself from the bottom branch toward the ground below, she landed with a soft thud, sending a shooting pain up her ankle that quickly dissipated as she rubbed it, trying to bring warmth back into her skin.

  Brynn walked through the forest toward higher ground, keeping an eye out for an even bigger pine tree that would give her the proper perspective she needed to see the entire city of Central Wildwood.

  After minutes of searching unsuccessfully, she finally came to the one she had been looking for.

  It was perfect—much larger than the pine she had scaled only moments before and up higher on the mountain, meaning there was a good chance she’d be able to locate the city limits. She squinted up at the tree, trying to determine if the branches toward the top seemed sturdier than the one she had just broken on her first pine.

  “One way to find out,” she told herself, using her fingertips and grippy boots as she had on her first climb.

  She shimmied her way up
the trunk uncomfortably, trying to ignore the rough bark that scratched at her pale cheek and the pine sap that was sticking to her clothes, threatening to slow her down. Though the day was damp and a cold chill hung in the air, Brynn began to sweat with the exertion of hoisting herself onto the first low-hanging branch.

  She allowed herself a moment to catch her breath before making her rapid ascent toward the top of the tree, her feet and hands expertly finding purchase on the thinning branches. Brynn didn’t look down once she had reached the last safe branch, not wanting to let the dizzying height get to her head. Instead, she stared out across the tops of the trees below her and smiled, seeing the city of Central Wildwood clearly from her new vantage point.

  The mist that hung in the heavily wooded forest seemed to end where the city began, almost forming a comical city limits line. The city itself looked like a mass of dark buildings interspersed with the foliage that was planted much thicker here than in Seaside.

  Scanning the edges of Central Wildwood, Brynn couldn’t help but notice a definite wall surrounding the city. Not only did it completely encapsulate Central Wildwood, it stretched around to the forest where Brynn currently resided. She couldn’t be sure how far into the forest it went, but she was sure it would be farther than anyone would normally wander on their own.

  “You’re not supposed to realize you’re still in the city,” she thought aloud, furrowing her brow at what this wall meant. “You’re supposed to think you’re in the wilderness out here.”

  She looked behind her, hoping she could catch a glimpse of just how much of the “wild” had been walled in, but she was only met with the upward sloping mountain, covered in trees. Shaking her head to clear the thousands of questions that had begun pouring into her mind in an endless deluge, she turned back toward the city, determined to find a way out.

  The wall surrounded every residential building, rec building, and work building on the outskirts of the city. Though it was difficult to gauge properly from her current position, she could see that the wall was no small fence. It was a tall cement structure that wouldn’t offer the convenient handholds the pine tree did.

  “The train,” she sighed, her eyes finally coming to rest on the tunnel that led out of Central Wildwood. Even with all of her searching, and hope for finding a new way out, she was still led back to the train—her only option for getting completely out of the city.

  “But I can’t get off the train itself, so that’s a dead end,” she said, sighing deeply and resting her head against the bark of the pine tree. “Again.”

  Letting out a grunt of frustration, she looked back down at her only access to the outside world and allowed a dangerous thought to cross her mind.

  “Unless I can make it through the tunnel on foot before the train crushes me.”

  Chapter 13: Bruises

  Brynn sat in her plush maroon armchair on the train, wearing a pair of loose shorts the computer had made her as she examined the dark purple bruises running up and down her legs. She gingerly touched one of the spots and winced at the sharp pain she felt.

  While climbing the trees in Central Wildwood the day before, she hadn’t noticed how tightly she squeezed the trunk with her legs to keep from sliding down toward the ground. Now, sitting in the confines of the gently rocking train, she could see the extent of the damage she had inflicted on her body in the dark lines running down her legs like claw marks.

  Her bare feet propped up on the gold end table and her head tilted back, she stared at the ceiling, pondering over the many discoveries she had made the day before. Not only had she found the entire city of Central Wildwood surrounded by a large wall unwittingly trapping the citizens within, she had also discovered that the wall was impossible to cross.

  Scaling the wall in the city proved to be much more difficult than scaling an old pine tree filled with grooves and cracks. This cement wall surrounding the city was smooth and absent of any handholds for her to utilize, and was nearly fifty feet tall.

  Looking down at her scab-covered fingertips in the soft orange light of her train compartment, she wondered what she had been thinking the day before when she jumped up and grasped onto the sheer cement face of the imposing wall, only to slide right back down, cutting her fingertips open in the process.

  It had taken her several attempts before she finally realized that the only thing she was accomplishing was the ruination of her own skin. Abandoning the “jump and grab” approach, she had instead found a section of the wall down a dark abandoned alley near a tall brick building. Though the cement wall was too sheer to scale, the brick wall of the building adjacent to it would be a much easier task to face with its many windows and outcroppings.

  After a trip back to her hotel to order some bandages for her hands, gloves, and some rope, she had returned to the alley, ready to take on the wall. At the top of the sheer cement blockade were metal rods interspersed every five feet or so. They appeared to be satellites or some other form of wireless receptors, probably made to bring messages to and from the city, but to Brynn, they were the perfect target for her rope.

  She had scaled the brick building easily enough, having had more climbing practice than she ever wanted earlier that day in the forest. Once she had reached the top of the building, a mere six feet below the top of the cement wall, she clung to the bricks with one hand and her already sore thighs, willing herself not to look down. Brynn had luckily had the foresight to tie her lasso before she began her climb and simply needed to aim properly to attach it to one of the metal rods sticking up out of the cement.

  Her first few attempts had barely missed, almost making her lose her grip on the bricks she fiercely clung to. Eventually though, she was able to secure her rope around the rod, swinging herself over to the cement wall with a thud. Climbing up the rope, though difficult on her upper body, had been much easier than climbing up a smooth wall. All she had to do was grab and pull over and over again.

  What she had found at the top of the cement barrier shocked Brynn more than the actual discovery of the wall itself. On the other side of the city was a steep drop off, making any attempt to jump over the wall very dangerous, but not impossible. The reason the wall was impossible to cross, however, was the little electric jolt it gave Brynn the second she swung her legs over.

  At first it had been hard to believe what she was feeling. She half suspected that all of the activity from the day was beginning to damage the nerves in her legs, but every time she placed an appendage over the other side of the wall, she’d receive the same electric jolt. She tested it over and over again, until her entire body was buzzing with the feeling of electricity running through it. It was nearly dark by the time Brynn had made her way back down the wall and into the city, trying to sort through her new discoveries.

  Now as she sat in her train compartment, her body bruised and scratched, she considered just what the electricity surrounding the wall meant.

  She wasn’t paranoid. She really couldn’t leave the city if she wanted to. She could only leave under the stipulations of the city itself. She had to use their transportation on the paths they’d set out, and even when on their appointed path, she couldn’t see what she was passing by.

  Brynn suddenly felt as if the compartment of the train was more of a prison than anything. It wasn’t a connection to the outside world as she had once thought. Instead, it was just as much a part of the question she was trying to answer as the Angel or the ocean.

  Brynn didn’t sleep at all on her ride back to Seaside, so once she reached her familiar hometown just as the sun was going down, she took a bus directly to her house and dropped to her bed like a falling rock.

  “Did you have a nice trip?” Charlie asked as Brynn slid in and out of the space between dreams and wakefulness.

  “Very informative,” she mumbled, hoping she had actually uttered those words and not just imagined them as she slipped into a dream-filled sleep.

  * * *

  Brynn knew without ever openin
g her eyes where she was. The way the back of her eyelids glowed a bright pink in the blinding lights of the white facility was enough of a giveaway without having to hear the Angel’s voice.

  “All right Rachel,” the Angel said in a muffled voice, causing Brynn’s eyes to snap open.

  What had she called her? Rachel? This thought was instantly cut off, however, by the more pressing matter of exactly where Brynn was at the moment.

  Every breath she exhaled fogged up the clear glass just inches away from her nose. She could feel the pressure of bands tied around her wrists and ankles, keeping her strapped on her back to some sort of grate. Moving her head from side to side, Brynn could see that she was lying in a glass tube in the bright white room, though the tube was barely bigger than her, giving her no room to move. The space between herself and the glass wasn’t even consequential enough for her to rest her arm over her chest if she wanted to, had her arms not been constrained.

  Suddenly the confines of the tube she lay in seemed to be too much. Even though she knew she was imagining it, Brynn felt as if the small amount of air in the compartment was quickly being depleted. She couldn’t move her elbows without hitting the glass walls and she looked over at the Angel in a panic, begging her wordlessly to let her out of this terrifying place.

  “Are you ready to tell me what you did?” the Angel asked with a smile, her voice as soothing and beautiful as ever, though slightly muffled by the glass. “I really hate to see you in any pain, but honestly my hands are tied,” she said, spreading her hands wide to show her own innocence, while smirking at the fact that Brynn’s hands were actually the ones that were tied. “Resorting to such primitive forms of persuasion is so beneath me.”

  Brynn found that she was unable to respond to the Angel, just as it had been in every other encounter with this woman.