I gaze around at the trees, searching for any large rocks. The trees look odd—slightly crystalline, like they’re frozen, or fossilized. I touch a branch above me, and it feels cold and brittle. Everything here seems dead, even when it’s still alive.
Back on the other side of the barrier, I can see the sun and the emerald colors of the vivid landscape we left behind. I never thought I’d feel nostalgic for the horrors of the orange sector. But at least I knew what to expect there. I have no clue what awaits us in the gray zone.
I hear Gadya, Markus, and Sinxen still arguing with David.
“I need to pee,” I say suddenly, startling everyone. The truth is, I need a chance to be alone to search for the rocks, but I can’t let them know that. “I’ll be right back.”
“Alenna?” David calls out, probably suspecting what I’m up to. “I’ll come with you!” I’m not sure whether he actually wants to help or if he’s just afraid to be left alone with the others. I ignore him and keep walking, pretending I didn’t hear. I know the others won’t hurt him, at least for now.
I plunge off to my right, into the forest, before anyone can stop me. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. I’m afraid the rocks with “Shawcross” on them are going to turn out to be gravestones, although at least then I’d have some closure. But I’m hoping for more. I’m hoping to find a secret message.
I know I don’t have long until my companions get worried, or suspicious, and come after me. I tromp through the underbrush, staring around. Maybe this is the wrong place entirely.
Then I see an object, partially hidden by dead branches, rising up from the forest floor. It looks like a large rock, and my hopes soar. I rush toward it, excited and elated to have found so quickly what I was seeking.
But when I reach it, my heart sinks. It’s not a rock at all. It’s just the splintered stump of a large fallen tree, half buried in the underbrush, speckled with gray lichens.
I look around. I see more mysterious shapes in the brush, but most of them look like decaying tree trunks or random debris. I start to realize that finding one of these rocks might be much harder than I thought. I expected them to be bigger. More obvious. And David said there were a lot of them.
I start moving again, going deeper, searching desperately for a sign.
I find nothing.
Finally, I just stop walking. I rub my arms. Even with my jacket and gloves, I’m freezing. I don’t want to get lost out here in the cold. I realize I’ll have to return to the others and try to keep searching for the rocks later on. But I know that the farther we move away from the place where we crossed the barrier, the less likely it is that I’ll find them—unless I can get more information out of David.
I turn and head back toward my companions, retracing my route.
It’s only then that I spot something I missed, standing shrouded in the shadows of a cluster of nearby trees.
It’s a granite slab, like a monolith—nearly twice my height and about six feet wide. I stumble toward it rapidly.
But when I get there, I don’t see anything carved on its surface, let alone my last name. The surface is mostly overgrown with icy vines and hanging moss. I shove the vines away with my gloved hand, trying to see if anything is hidden underneath. I find nothing but jagged granite.
Time is running out, and I don’t see any other rocks around anywhere.
Wait—maybe the message is on the other side.
The underbrush is thicker there, but I wade through it, trying to get around the rock, just in case. My breath is as visible as smoke in the frigid air.
As I turn the corner, at first I don’t see anything. But then as I quickly pick my way around it, I see that a flat area has indeed been chiseled onto the surface of the rock.
My heart starts pounding as I swiftly move toward it.
I see letters.
Then the letters coalesce into words.
I stand there in the underbrush, swaying slightly in disbelief.
“Shawcross Rock,” I murmur in shock, reading the letters chiseled into the granite surface.
David was telling the truth.
Underneath are two names, “Thomas & Leah Shawcross.”
The names of my parents.
I fight back tears.
Underneath their names is a date and a dash: “June 16, 2026–”
That’s two months after they got taken!
And underneath that is my own name, just as David said it would be.
I sink to my knees in the brush, feeling light-headed. My parents must have ended up here somehow. But what does that dash mean?
The rock doesn’t seem to be a tombstone, because there’s no second date. No record of their death. It seems more like a marker to signify their presence. Of course, I realize that someone else could have chiseled their names into the stone. Someone who knew them, a friend of theirs. So maybe it doesn’t mean as much as I think it does.
But then I see some lines chiseled next to the names, obscured by vines. I brush the vines back with one hand.
What I see beneath them makes me know once and for all that my parents were actually here. It’s not a message consisting of words. Instead, it’s a pictogram. Probably most of the drones who saw it couldn’t make sense of the image. But I can. In fact, I know exactly what it means.
On the rock face is a primitive carving of a steep hill, with a human being—barely more than a stick figure—pushing a circular object up the sharply angled plane. The figure is smiling.
It’s Sisyphus.
I know that my dad carved this, and that he did it for me. Somehow, as impossible as it sounds, he must have known I would be sent to the wheel one day. Why, or how, or when is a mystery. I take off one of my gloves and push the vines back farther, hoping there are more images, but there is only one:
An arrow, pointing northeast.
Just as I lean in closer, trying to figure out what the arrow means, I hear Gadya bellowing my name in the distance, sounding worried. But I’m not ready to leave yet.
I place my hand flat against the rock face, tracing the chiseled lines of the arrow with my fingertips. It’s some kind of instruction, left years ago by my dad.
I hear Gadya yell my name again, louder, so I push myself off the rock, letting the vines swing back into place. I wipe my eyes. I don’t want to leave, but I have to keep my secret safe. I don’t want anyone—not even Gadya—seeing this rock. It’s too personal. Too painful. I need time to deal with it myself before I show it to anyone else.
With a backward glance at the granite monument, I hurry back through the forest to the clearing. I wish I had time to search for more rocks that might carry other messages for me. My head is flooding with thoughts and images of my parents—their faces, their clothes, their voices. How they smelled. It’s like the rock in the forest is giving me my memories back.
When I reach the group, Gadya is standing up at one edge, peering around. “Took you long enough!” she says when she spots me. “What the hell’s wrong with you, running off like that?”
David is sitting against a low stone, with Markus and Sinxen standing over him like guards.
“Sorry,” I mutter. I sit down on a rock, trying to keep my turbulent emotions to myself. I’m not sure whether I feel like crying or laughing. I don’t want anyone to know what I’ve found. I don’t even know what my discovery means. I try to catch David’s eye, but he’s looking down, seemingly afraid of Markus and Sinxen.
The rock is a sign. A trace of my parents’ existence. Proof that they survived deportation from the UNA and made some kind of life here, at least for a while. I will head in the direction of the arrow, no matter where it leads—even if I have to break away from the group for good.
I gaze around at my companions. Everyone looks so somber in the cold gray light, exhausted and bedraggled.
“We’ve got a long hike ahead of us,” Markus finally says. “Better get started before something bad happens.”
The Monk c
huckles. “Time has no meaning in the gray zone.” He chuckles creepily again, like he knows something we don’t. He doesn’t seem threatened at all by the fact that we outnumber him. What’s going on here exactly?
I stand up, joining the others. “Time still has meaning to me.”
Markus pulls David to his feet.
Rika stays slumped on the grass. “I need longer to rest.”
“Rika, you’re one of the nicest people I know,” Gadya says, “and the best cook around here for sure. But you’re also a wimp. No offense. We have to move.”
Rika looks up at Gadya. A tear runs down her cheek. “I don’t think I can.”
“We’re not leaving you, so you don’t have a choice,” I tell her, thinking about that arrow carved on the rock. “Maybe we’ll find some fruit along the way, despite the cold. Or a hoofer. We can make a meal.”
“There’s nothing edible in this zone,” the Monk says flatly.
We turn to him.
“Nothing at all. No food. Only frozen water. This isn’t a zone that sustains life.”
“Are you serious?” Sinxen asks, stamping his feet for warmth as he scowls. He’s so different now from the frolicking, teasing boy I first met. “Why didn’t you tell us that? We could have brought more food and water with us.”
David steps away from Markus. He opens his coat to reveal two large flasks of water. “Now who isn’t prepared?” he asks.
Markus looks disgusted. Spits on the icy ground in David’s direction. “Figures.”
“I’ll share it with you,” David replies. He holds out a flask to Markus. “See?”
Markus doesn’t take it. “It’s probably poisoned.”
For some reason, this strikes the Monk as humorous, and he chuckles, like he’s enjoying a private joke.
Gadya steps menacingly toward him. “Stop playing games with us.” His drone stands up to protect him. “I can take you!” she snaps, undaunted. “Bring it on!”
The Monk stops chuckling. “I thought you knew about this zone already,” he says. “It’s true we must start moving. Soon they will know that we’re here.”
“‘They’?” I ask.
“The ones who run things. The ones who really control this island.”
I wonder if that’s where the arrow leads, to the city, and the aircrafts we’re already seeking. To the people in control of this terrible place.
All of us are standing now except for Rika. Finally even she pushes herself up, because we haven’t given her much choice.
The drone hoists the Monk onto his back. The Monk wraps his arms around the drone’s neck, like he’s strangling him, but the drone doesn’t seem to care. I see that underneath the drone’s robes is a backpacklike apparatus, with loops of twine sticking through slits in the cloth. The drone reaches around and positions the Monk’s limbs in the apparatus, like a pack animal shouldering its own load. I shudder against the cold air, my teeth chattering.
“We head northeast,” Markus says.
The same direction my father’s arrow pointed.
Now that Liam and Veidman are gone, Markus is the only one left who knows the route, as far as I know. I guess at this point, he should write it down for us, in case he gets killed or taken, but he doesn’t volunteer to do that. Instead he just points. “This way.”
We gather our belongings, preparing for the hike. I pull my scarf up higher and my cap down lower, wishing I had warmer clothes.
“How far?” Sinxen asks Markus.
“Roughly six miles.”
“Yeah, and then we all live happily ever after,” Gadya mutters.
“Not all of us,” Markus replies, eyeing the Monk and David. I suspect Markus has got a nasty plan in store for them, and the Monk probably has one in store for us, too. But for now there is a tense, fragile peace.
“Let’s start walking,” I say loudly, before friction can erupt into outright confrontation. I wish I could go back to the Shawcross rock once more and study it, but there’s no time. I stomp my feet and swing my arms, trying to warm up.
With a final glance back at the barrier, we begin hiking again. Markus takes the lead, prodding David along in front of him.
“Hey, don’t touch me,” David says, turning back, shoving Markus’s hand away.
Markus shoves him right back. “You better keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.”
“I don’t have to do what you say. We’re not in the kennels anymore,” David replies.
“No, we’re someplace worse, which is why you both need to quit it!” Rika admonishes.
But Markus has basically made David his prisoner again, and continues shoving him along roughly, no matter what Rika or I say. I wonder what secrets the gray zone has in store for us, and I desperately hope we can survive them.
I think of my father’s carving of Sisyphus. I know exactly what it means—to keep going at all costs. To never give up. And to find meaning in the journey.
FROZEN
WE MOVE SLOWLY, TRAVELING through a nightmarish landscape that looks like it’s been devastated by aerial bombings. The trees are twisted and stunted. Everything is off-kilter. Even the frigid air smells oddly sterile, antiseptic.
Liam has been through this zone, I tell myself, curling my fingers in my gloves. He explored parts of the gray zone more than any of the other hunters. I try to calm myself and find some familiar trace of him in the landscape to cling to. But I find nothing.
The drone carrying the Monk seems to barely notice his master’s weight. But Rika is having trouble walking. In addition to her injuries, the barrier took something out of her. I feel it too, a numbing exhaustion that saps my strength.
Gadya and I settle into a rhythm, hiking next to each other. I wonder if she’s thinking about Liam too. I’m certain that she is.
There aren’t any paths here, but the trees are so thinly spaced in places that we can walk between them, creating our own trails. Our feet crunch on the icy grass.
“So Markus knows where he’s going?” I ask Gadya.
“He better. Veidman told him the directions as a fail-safe. And Veidman was pretty meticulous.”
“What if something happens to Markus?”
“Then we’re screwed.”
I wonder for a moment if Gadya knows the way too, and just isn’t admitting it. There has to be another fail-safe among us. I think back to Veidman’s strange request that I spy on the others for him. So far, no one has done anything suspicious, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one on this journey with secrets.
We trudge along. The Monk’s drone should be getting tired from carrying him, but it looks like his misguided faith still keeps him going. I wish I had some of that energy. I feel cold, exhausted, and afraid. To keep going without that kind of faith is harder, but it feels more honest to me.
I wonder how cold it’ll get inside this zone, because the temperature keeps dropping the deeper we go. The sky seems grayer too. Not darker, just a deeper shade of gray, as though I’ve stepped inside an old, flickering black-and-white movie. The kind my dad used to watch on contraband videodiscs, late at night.
Our line abruptly comes to a halt, as Markus stops walking. He barks at David to halt as well.
“We got a problem?” Gadya calls out. She’s shivering but trying to hide it.
“No,” Markus replies. He’s looking around, like he’s seeking landmarks to guide him.
“I’m freezing my butt off,” Gadya says. “You better not be lost.”
I realize that the barrier must somehow divide two completely separate ecosystems. The sectors we left behind were all hot, humid, and intensely tropical. But here in the gray zone, everything is cold and dry, as though the water and heat are slowly being leeched out of the air. I have no idea what kind of island geography, or even government technology, could create this effect. It’s completely unnatural. But then again, so is everything about the wheel.
I’m struck by a terrible thought, so I voice it to Gadya softly. “
What if it just keeps getting colder and colder in this zone until we end up freezing to death?”
She turns to me. “You want to go back? Be a big wimp? It’s just cold weather, so bundle up and tough it out.”
“I will. But I also want to be smart and plan ahead.”
A cackle interrupts me. It’s the Monk. He’s heard us talking, and his drone has carried him closer. “Plan ahead?” he rasps.
“Just shut up!” Gadya says to him. “Or I’ll smash your ugly face in. I’ll turn your mask into splinters and use ’em as toothpicks.”
“Gadya!” Markus calls out, ready to start hiking again. “No fighting. Not yet. Let’s go.” He shoves David forward. “Move it!”
Gadya turns away from the Monk and starts heading through the trees. I follow, catching up. I don’t want to talk to the Monk. His drones might have faith in him, but the only thing he has faith in is himself. He even abandoned his own flock.
But the Monk does have an uncanny knack for knowing things. I wonder if he knows that David told me about Shawcross Rock. How long has the Monk even been on this island? Where did he even come from?
I continue hiking, placing one heavy foot in front of the other. We bunch up, the cold driving us together, like a herd of animals. Even the Monk and his drone don’t stray far from us now. There’s no chance to talk to David alone, because Markus keeps guarding him.
In the cold gray landscape, I’ve lost track of time, and of how far we’ve traveled. We could have walked five miles, or we could have walked fifty. I can barely keep my legs moving anymore. The cold has made all of us silent and introspective.
Finally, I see a break in the forest ahead, where the trees inexplicably thin out into nothingness.
“Look!” I yell, my words loud in the silence. The others see it too. Everyone starts walking faster.
“Are we there?” Rika asks, sounding a little dazed.
I reach the opening in the trees and stumble cautiously out of the forest, right behind Markus and David.
For a moment, I’m speechless. Then I feel a wave of dizziness, and I crouch to my knees, wanting to sob. Markus is cursing angrily. David looks confused. The others step out behind us.
The Forsaken (Forsaken - Trilogy) Page 22