Thinking was a distraction.
I took a deep breath and forged on. We could not afford to think.
TWENTY FIVE
We saw it vaguely rising in the distance long before we were able to figure out what it was. A mass of grey, hardly visible through the thick field of trees, that slowly hardened to sharp angles the closer we got.
A building.
A mixture of excitement and dread stirred itself in my stomach.
Could this actually be another nation? Could there really be people out there? Or would it be an empty husk of an abandoned civilisation? Maybe the people there wouldn't even let us stay.
One thing was certain: it was still very far away. I wasn't sure we'd make it. The trees were slowly beginning to thin out around us, but there was a great deal of distance between the tree line and that grey haven I could still just barely make out.
"Was it supposed to be that far away?" My voice rasped as I breathed through the dry air. Gabby shrugged.
"It was hard to tell on the map."
We'd been walking through what was marked as forest for about five days now. Maybe more? Less? I'd once again lost track of time in the battle for survival.
"What was marked after the woods?" Rae asked. There was a crackling sound as he pulled the map from the front pocket of the bag currently on Gabby's back. We'd been taking turns carrying it, each lugging the burden of our survival for one day at a time.
"There's a stretch of blank grass or something. Maybe farmland of some kind?"
There was silence as he searched for what we were looking at.
"It's a military compound."
My first thought was that it was the Xiets. That after all this time we'd almost waltzed right on into the open arms of our greatest threat. But the map assured me that Tikorania was located almost completely on the opposite side of Pallara. This military base belonged to someone else. Someone we didn't know.
Despite the negative connotations we held towards the idea of showing up unannounced outside the fence line of a fully equipped military compound of an unnamed society, we decided our only real option was to follow our line of sight until we cleared the trees. Then we would try to figure out what to do about the compound.
Hopefully there would be a way to get around it without being spotted by any guards or soldiers. Most likely that wasn't a realistic aim, but we wanted nothing more than to arrive in peace. And to be greeted with peace. There was no chance of that happening if we scared the crap out of the military. Not that I thought we'd come across as particularly threatening.
The one thing we knew for sure was that we couldn't stay in the forest indefinitely. As soon as winter came we'd struggle to keep warm, find shelter, or gather any kind of food. We didn't know how to survive out here. Not really.
So we walked on, ignoring the things we couldn't control.
We stopped that afternoon at the edge of the tree line, opting to stay within the wooden boundaries for another night. It offered us a small amount of protection, and gave us the time to come up with a game plan. Or try to at least.
The wide open spaces between us and civilisation would be difficult to breach come morning.
We'd gone through our supplies much slower since arriving in the forest. There was a somewhat consistent supply of water, that we made sure to never stray too far from, and a good amount of edible plant life. That wouldn't be the case once we left our woodland sanctuary.
It was hard to convince my brain to let me sleep that night. To close my mind to the thoughts buzzing like the mosquitos that hovered around us in the darkness.
How long would it take us to get there? That was the question I most wanted an answer to. I couldn't do anything about what would happen once we got there, but I could focus what we were doing now. And right now we were trying to get across the remaining ground that separated us from our one hope of survival.
My gut told me that it could still be days away. Days spent starving and struggling to move forward. But my brain told me that was a lie. As it clouded with overwhelming hope for the future it told me we'd spend maybe one more night out there after this. But not days. It had to be closer if we could see it so clearly. The war in my body made sleeping remarkably difficult.
My stomach grumbled loudly, causing Gabby to stir in her sleep as she lay next to me. I tried not to groan in pain as my stomach tightened with longing. I was beginning to wonder whether or not it was starting to digest itself.
I struggled to turn over onto my side as the howling emptiness screamed for attention. Maybe this would be what killed us. Before we even got there.
I could only do so much to stop myself imagining what would happen upon our arrival. I could see it playing out before my tired eyes.
We'd be standing on one side of a fence while a group of soldiers watched us from the other.
Gabby's skeletal fingers gripped the fencing, jolts of electricity travelling down her arms. Her body stiffened and twitched.
My voice screamed for help in a language those on the other side couldn't understand.
Rae tried to get her off the fence without transferring the shock to his own body.
A gun shot rang out, followed by the sound of Rae hitting the dirt below him.
I wasn't able to get another word out. Grief and hunger were deteriorating my will to live. I fell.
And I welcomed it.
My eyes snapped open with a rough intake of breath.
✽✽✽
Our progress was slow and we were running out of time.
Not just to get there, but to live.
I could see the life running out of us with every exhale. It was pushed out of us as fast as the air from our lungs.
The way we'd been rationing our remaining supplies we'd still have food for another day after this one. If we only ate a couple of bites a day. I think we were all coming to the realisation that it wasn't going to be enough.
"We need to eat more. Then we can move faster. It shouldn't take us too long to get there then." Even past my harsh breathing I could hear the pleading in my voice. My gaze flicked between the grey building, that was slowly inching its way closer, and the backpack hanging from one of Rae's shoulders as he walked ahead of me.
"She's right. A person cannot function on what we've been intaking," his voice complied, floating over and wrapping itself around my neck. The cracked words offered more hope than I was ready to accept.
There wasn't much I wouldn't have been willing to do to get to the food still in that bag.
Gabby turned from her position in front to face us, forcing a halt.
"And what? Do you suggest we eat the remains of our supplies now and starve to death throughout the rest of our journey?"
"Take a look at yourself. At me. Look at your baby sister. We already are." The truth in those words seemed to hit a bad note with her.
"We have to make it," she muttered, more to herself than to the rest of us.
"Then we have to eat," I countered, tugging on the bag, trying to get it to move from Rae's shoulder.
The hunger I felt was a constant living thing, and it fought with everything it had to destroy me. Only after seeing Gabby nod did Rae let the bag come free with my grip.
We'd finished the rice while we were still traveling through the bush, though the small metal bowl we'd been using to heat it was still with us. Despite what we'd managed to find in terms of food in the wilderness we had to cook the rice when we'd access to wood for fire, and water.
So now all that we had left was just under half a can of meat and some chunks of mixed vegetables in the bottom of another. There wasn't enough for even one person to be satisfied let alone full, and the idea of splitting it into thirds made me want to cry.
But I couldn't be selfish.
Not if I wanted the only two people left in my life to stay alive with me.
I handed everything over to Rae and watched intently as he tried his best to divide it equally by three. It was a tas
k I didn't envy as my stomach urged me to leap forward and ingest everything.
Almost before he'd moved his hands away Gabby and I reached out to snatch our shares, shoving the food into our mouths so fast we were barely even able to chew. Not that there was much to chew anyway.
We were just so hungry.
The gnawing hunger in my stomach spasmed at the intrusion of food before settling back into a sharp ache.
It wasn't nearly enough.
It was all we had.
Within a few seconds we'd eaten, swallowed a few gulps of water each and started walking again. The knowledge that we didn't have any food left in our bag at all had me even more on edge.
Maybe we shouldn't have done that.
What if we couldn't get there for longer than we estimated? What if there was no one even there? Or they didn't let us in and we slowly starved to nothing outside? Though it didn't seem like that would take all that long anymore.
I wanted to chase these thoughts away but there was nothing else to think about. My head felt like it was full of gel.
We were all strangely quiet as we travelled. None of us really had the energy to hold a conversation anymore, let alone talk aimlessly about things that weren't pressing matters.
My head pounded with every step. I didn't have the strength to press my fingers against my temples, to give myself even that level of relief. No matter how much I knew it would help.
Dehydration was beginning to set in.
We weren't going to die from that though.
We were still drinking, if only a few mouthfuls here and there. We still had enough water to last a few more days if we went at that rate. But we wouldn't be able to do much soon. Not without food.
The only sounds I could hear were those made by the three of us struggling to breathe through our exertion, though it was all background noise to me.
The dryness of my lips begged for some kind of relief. If they so much as twitched I would feel the warm wetness of my blood dripping down my chin.
I couldn't afford to bleed now.
My eyes were focused, unwavering, on the compound getting closer and closer to us.
Slowly.
So slowly.
✽✽✽
Gabby collapsed to the ground in front of me.
And she wasn't getting up.
A shock of adrenaline burst through my veins at the slight and I dived down next to her, ignoring the weight of the backpack.
In my mind I saw the image of her collapsing into the dirt, a strange boy approaching.
"Gabby," I croaked, reaching a hand out to shake her. The bones of her shoulder stabbed into my palm. She was so thin.
Brother, mother, and now sister.
I had seen them all like this.
Please. Just please let her be alive.
My face contorted in an effort to cry, and blood dripped down from my cracked lips, though I hardly noticed. Rae knelt slowly on her other side. The effort of the movement alone caused him to wince. He reached his arm forward and his fingers felt at her neck. Checked for a pulse. He took one of her wrists to do the same. Placed his fingers as gently as he could against her crusted lips.
"I can't feel any pulse or breathing," he said eventually. He leaned back, away from my sister. Away from the corpse.
A strangled noise escaped my throat, scratching its way up like sandpaper. Not her.
Not her.
Not her.
Not her.
My sister couldn't be gone too.
Not her.
Not her.
No, no, no, no, no.
Rae came around to join me where I sat gripping the lifeless hand of my sister.
I wasn't sure how long he let me sit there, his arm around me, my hand locked onto Gabby's.
I didn't have any tears left to cry. Only a burning sensation in the back of my throat signified the pain I was in.
Eventually Rae moved to pour some water into my mouth, being careful to avoid the new split in my lip.
"Rosa, we have to go now. If we want to make it through this, we have to keep moving."
My only response was a blink.
I felt numb.
I couldn't leave my big sister here alone like this.
"Gabby would have wanted you to survive."
I struggled to pull myself back up to my feet.
TWENTY SIX
Everything sounded muted.
I felt like my head had been dunked in a fishbowl.
We were slowly nearing a metal chain link fence.
If no one came and found us we'd die.
I couldn't even cry.
I couldn't make much noise past my laboured breathing.
Was Rae even still here?
I couldn't turn my head to find him.
I stumbled over a loose stone and landed on my side.
The ground hurt.
I curled up against the sound of crunching.
Was that the sound of the world crumbling around me?
Would I be joining my family now?
I missed them.
Why wasn't I with them?
EPILOGUE
"Now Spencer—"
"I know, I know. Don't leave the compound. Don't go near the shooting ranges. Don't interrupt the drills. Don't do anything interesting or fun because it's too dangerous and you'll get hurt."
"There's no need for that. This is serious stuff here. I don't want you getting hurt just because you went into the wrong room."
Spencer sighed. Her dad didn't seem to understand that she didn't want to be there in the first place. When her parents split up the year before she specifically told her mum that when she was with her dad it was meant to be outside of his working hours. Of course she hadn't factored in how many hours he had to work being a lieutenant in the army.
So she'd stupidly compromised after not seeing him for a total of eight months. Now she found herself in an uncomfortable chair in his office, gazing longingly out the window.
Her sketchbook and pencils were in the bag hanging off her shoulder, and she found herself planning how she could sketch the forest and meadows. The ones that stretched out on the other side of the chain link fence bordering the compound.
"Are you even listening to me?"
She sighed.
"Dad, I'm not going to get myself shot. I promise. Now do you have anything against me going and sitting out there to draw?" She asked somewhat bitterly, hand gesturing out the window.
"No. For today the only thing the soldiers are likely to do out there are exercise routines."
Spencer rolled her eyes as she exited the building. Why did he even ask for her to come here if he wasn't going to do anything with her? Or let her do anything by herself? This was going to be a dull three days. But at least she was going to get some interesting scenery into her sketchbook.
Hopefully.
If she actually had a chance to finish any drawings before her dad decided she had to come inside should she be trampled by a training platoon.
She was flicking through her sketchbook, searching for a blank page as she approached the edge of the compound. It was only when she finally looked up to pick a good spot to situate herself that she saw the figures, not too far away, on the other side of the fence.
She dropped her book and lost her breath in one fluid movement.
Shaking herself from her frozen position Spencer stalked towards them, leaving her sketchbook behind.
She stopped as her hand came to rest on the fence.
They were people. That was about all she could tell. Dirty and starved to nothing more than skin and bones. She couldn't even tell if they were alive.
Not knowing what to do to get help Spencer looked around frantically. There were no soldiers outside, as her father had predicted.
She looked back at the two figures, and in a blind moment of panic, she screamed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are so many people you want to thank when something big ha
ppens in your life, so naturally I've got quite the list.
First I want to say thank you to my family. You have all put up with so much from me over the years, from listening to every story idea that popped into my head, to supporting me when I said this was what I wanted to do with my life. You are all so amazing, and I would never have been able to achieve this without you.
Mum, I chose to dedicate this book to you for a reason. Your encouragement from the first time I turned to you, at ten years old, and said "I want to write a book" has always stuck with me. You always knew I could do it, and were eager to read every snippet of fiction I managed to put on paper.
Thank you to my dad, Christina, Alexandrea, Brittany, Harry, Lewis, and even you Jack (even though you showed up out of nowhere and stole one of my character's names). You've all supported me, and I don't know who or where I'd be today if it weren't for all of you. So thank you.
To my nephews and niece; Robbie, Leo, and Ava. I want you three to know that if you work hard, and don't give up, you can make your dreams come true. I love you guys and I will support you in everything that you do.
Thank you as well to all of my friends. If my family had to deal with my writing over the years, you've all probably had it worse. Every new idea, every time I started a new project. You all showed such enthusiasm, even though I know you couldn't have always felt it.
Emma, you've heard it all. And you always wanted more. Thank you for being the best soundboard a creative mind could ask for. And for being my best friend, through thick and then, for almost 18 years. (When did we get so old?)
To all my proofreaders; Mum, Xand, Jess, Angel, Greg. You guys all helped me turn a mess into this fully formed and now published novel. Without your genuine excitement and excellent feedback, this book would not be where it is today.
Jess, thank you again for being my writing buddy. Before meeting you I'd never had a friend who so whole-heartedly understood the insanity that festers in the mind of an author. You helped me get here, and I hope to one day soon repay the favour.
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