The Ward Crucible: Even the strong will be broken

by Grayson Crew

  As fast as it came, the rain leaves. The moon and stars begin to cut their way through the evening light. There’s a grove of thick trees, with roots dangling from the branches, planting into the wet ground.

  “It’s getting dark. We should stop here,” I say.

  We settle into a nook between rigid roots and lay out leaves and petals for each of our beds. Owls and monkeys sing from the mountainside as the night rises.

  “Did you know her?” Ana asks.

  I know she’s asking about Kettle. Part of me wants to say no, because I don’t want to talk about it. But I can’t do that to Kettle.

  “She was in the house you helped me find,” I reply.

  “You found it.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “The family there . . . did they make it out?”

  “ . . . No.” When I say it I feel like the earth has opened, swallowed my heart, then shut again, crushing anything of me that might remain.

  Ana is wiping tears away.

  I go somewhere else--not for real, just in my head--an empty place where the only colors are varying hues of gray. It’s cold, but it’s safe.

  “West,” I hear a muffled voice say, as if underwater. “West,” it repeats. Ana is shaking me, saying my name.

  She brings me back to the present. Looking deep into my eyes, she takes my hand. I look away.

  I need to think about something else, so I let go of her hand, “The settlement?” I ask. “What happened?”

  “The serum stopped working, then the Whispers came in. People started fighting and the place went up in flames. We were forced to evacuate . . .”

  “Your dad? was he at the beach?”

  “I’m sure he was . . . probably still there, firing away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. . ."

  We decide to rest for now, while we’re relatively safe.

  She lays down on her mat of leaves and petals, a flowering dress against flowers, “Good night, West.”

  “Good night.”

  The Milky Way bands across the sky, lighting the night.

  The Grove

  In my dream, I’m in Hiro’s class back in the Facility. Jael comes up to me and starts shaking me, she’s saying to wake up.

  I wake up. Ana is over me, shaking me awake. Her green eyes glow in the moonlight. She puts a finger to her lips and points to the other side of the grove.

  V

  Projection

  Still With Me

  Washed-out holograms--like images from a classroom projector--flash through the grove.

  A projection of Violin flashes into place next to us. She’s kneeling over the fireplace and striking a match.

  “Who’s that?” asks Ana.

  “Violin,” I say.

  Moira’s projection takes her place. “We need to go . . .”

  Cliff cuts in, “We’ll be right behind you.”

  A projection of Jael walks past Ana and toward me. Before reaching me it cuts out, then loops the same thing over and over.

  “We can’t leave her . . . “ says a flickering image of Kettle.

  The auctioneer from the auction house flashes into the scene. “Thirty seconds remaining . . .”

  “We need to go . . .” Moira repeats

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Cliff overlaps.

  “What’s going on?” Ana cries out.

  “Listen to them . . .” says Moira.

  The auctioneer is back, “Three.”

  “Why is he counting down?” Asks Ana.

  “Two,” continues the auctioneer.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We need to go . . .” repeats Moira.

  “We’ll be right behind you,” continues Cliff.

  “One,” says the auctioneer before being replaced by Violin lighting the match.

  Trust

  From the direction of the beach we came from, I see a light at the end of the valley. It’s getting brighter.

  Smoke rises along the horizon, climbing up the sides of the mountains. Then I see the blue and yellow tips of flames rising from explosions that rumble through the ground.

  Within seconds, the entire valley is engulfed in a horseshoe of flames that’s racing toward us.

  We rush out of the grove, feeling the air heat up behind us. I look back long enough to see the field being sucked into a plume of smoke. The fire is rolling toward us faster than we can run.

  “We have to get out of the valley!” I shout after the roar of another explosion.

  A projection of Jael lights in front of us as we race uphill.

  “We can’t leave her . . . ” comes in Kettle, flashing in and out as we run.

  Whispers start to mingle with the blasts of fire.

  “--Listen to them . . . “ Moira loops.

  We push through a wall of brush and plunge into the jungle. The canopy, hundreds of feet above, blocks the starlight. Our only light is coming from the fire behind us.

  “You a good swimmer?” says Cliff.

  I’m beating down brush as hard and fast as I can, but I know it’s not fast enough. The Whispers are a chaos.

  “--Listen to them,” says Moira.

  I try to listen, to piece together words among the clash of the roaring fire and the twisted Whispers that spiral into nonsense. I hear Hiro’s voice rise.

  Go left, He says.

  I take Ana and pull her to the left with me.

  Move faster, Hiro’s Whisper continues.

  Jael’s projection blasts in front of the massive leaves we’re plowing through. She’s diving.

  Cliff appears, “You a good swimmer?”

  We come to the base of a muddy slope.

  Climb, says Hiro.

  “We need to climb!” I shout, then push Ana in front of me. Clawing furiously through the mud and tangle of roots, we climb higher and higher.

  The heat from the fire is reaching out like claws, scraping at our backs. Finally, the ground levels out. Ana helps pull me up the last part of the slope, then we’re running again.

  “Stop!” screams Ana, holding her arms out. In front of us, the ground ends and drops into blackness. Even the light from the flames doesn’t reach below.

  Jael’s projection is back, diving into the dark.

  “You done this before?” Says Cliff’s image.

  Jump, Hiro Whispers.

  “-Listen to them,” cuts in Moira, her fiery hair bouncing around her face.

  Violin takes Kettle’s hand and races over the edge.

  I take Ana’s hand.

  “We’re going to have to jump.” I say.

  “Into what?!”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cliff interrupts us, “Are you a good swimmer?”

  “Thirty seconds remaining,” cuts in the auctioneer.

  “Please no!” cries Ana.

  I wrap my arm around her. The fire is close enough now that we’re held in a smoky glow.

  “3”

  “You done this before?”

  “2”

  I face Ana, “We’re jumping on 1.”

  She’s shaking her head but saying okay.

  “-Listen to them.”

  “1”

  The projections cut out simultaneously. It’s just us and a wall of flame. Ana’s not moving. There’s no time.

  Scooping her into my arms I take a stumbling leap, casting us forward into nothing.

  My stomach climbs to the back of my throat, my breath cuts short. Suddenly, we’re immersed in cold, peaking waves.

  My feet and palms sting from the impact. We rise with a wave that buries us in whitewater.

  Ana is fighting against the current, but is getting sucked into a churning pool.

  “Swim to the side!” I shout. Mouthful after mouthful of salt water pours in my mouth.

  She swims to the side, just making it out of the current before it sucks her into the churning water. The waves push us toward a sandier cove, with dark sand reflectin
g like crystals in the reflection of the firelight from far above.

  Smoke blacks out the moon and stars. We swim onto the beach and pull ourselves from the tide.

  Ana collapses into the sand. I feel explosions from far away rumble through the ground.

  Lying flat on my back in the wet sand, I look to her. Her eyes are closed and she’s limp, but she’s breathing.

  My lungs are burning and I want to vomit. My muscles feel like they’ve been pounded into jelly.

  The roar of the fire far above and the waves behind us mix into a solid static. I close my eyes. Just for a minute . . . just for one . . . minute.

  The Beach

  I’m startled awake by a wave crashing just behind us. I help Ana move farther up the beach.

  Her eyes are open, unblinking, staring straight back at me. Her lips quiver. “What’s happening?”

  I don’t know . . .

  She sits up. A set of waves crashes, sending fingers of water around us. “We should find a safe spot,” she says.

  Same“I’ll take care of it,” I say.

  Nearby, under a rocky ledge, there’s a spot far enough from the water and far enough from the jungle that it might be safe.

  I wave for Ana to come over. She nestles into a cubby under the ledge, arms wrapped around her knees.

  “Can you still hear the Whispers?” She asks.

  “Just a little. You?”

  “Not right now,” she continues through chattering teeth. A chill goes through me at the same time, creeping through my skin and blood, deep into my bones.

  Some ways down the beach is a patch of brush that must have fallen from the cliff above. It’s still smoking.

  “I’ll try to get us a fire going,” I say. “That’ll warm us up.”

  She starts to get up, but I stop her. “I can get it.”

  “Nonsense,” she replies, “I’m going to help. I’ll pile up some dry brush.”

  I nod. Going down the coast, I see more limbs from the jungle above that have fallen along the rocks and are still burning.

  I drag one of them back to the shelter where Ana has piled up enough brush to keep a decent fire going.

  My clothes are heavy and soaking so I lay them out to dry. Focusing on the fire, I count the fingers of flame.

  I look up for just a moment. Ana’s eyes catch mine.

  “Your eyes are darker,” she says.

  I remember Jael and how her eyes changed when I saw her at the estate.

  Ana sits close to me, her leg brushing mine. Something in my heart moves, like a pot being stirred. The feeling rises and courses through me. Water fills under my eyelids.

  Getting up, I walk closer to the shore and listen to the static of the waves, then, the trickle as the chilly water reaches around my feet.

  I step back but the water still reaches me. Cold. Freezing. Unfeeling.

  “We should sleep,” Ana says.

  “How?” I’m surprised by the sharpness in my voice.

  Ana looks away.

  Something in my brain snaps.

  I drop to my knees, barreling through the sand, tearing it apart as if it’s responsible for all this. The sounds of the waves curl into Whispers--harsh and angry. I listen to them, their anger. Fury. It’s fuel.

  “West” Ana says as she rests her hand on my shoulder.

  I stop and look at her. My face is soaking wet from tears and the spray from the sea. She kneels beside me. I collapse; a house of cards in a hurricane.

  Burying my head into my knees I scream out and swear, punching the sand with my fists.

  The first fingers of dawn reach over the ocean. Not now. I’m trembling and I can feel my cheeks are wet. Not now. Keep me in the dark, where no one can actually see me breaking.

  “You need sleep,” she says. Somehow, despite the scene of ruin around us, her green eyes are still bright: like all the death we’ve been surrounded with wasn’t completely pointless.

  As the tip of the sun breaks over horizon, I see the smoke again. The sky is blanketed with it from the flames that still burn in the jungle. The air is saturated with the smell of cinder, ash, sap and soot.

  At a sandbar not far from us, a hologram flashes in and out midair. Bleeding shades of blue and gray flicker like a classroom projector.

  It’s a projection of Jael. She’s running through an arched gate. Her face is bloody. She collapses. The projection loops the same scene over and over.

  The sun continues to rise, illuminating the gruesomeness of her fall. Her face falls against stone. She cries out for help.

  My stomach rolls as my fists clench. Water wells under my eyes and I race out to the waves, pounding them with my fists, murdering them like the Whispers are murdering her. I scream when she does, but I know she doesn’t hear.

  Worn out, I crash my back against a curling wave. Its power sucks me farther from the shore. Like I care.

  “West!”

  Ana’s shout shakes me, brings me back to where we are: A beach, it’s sunrise.

  Cliff is dead.

  Moira is dead.

  Violin bled to death in my arms.

  Kettle got blown to pieces.

  Little girls.

  My girls.

  My brother.

  My sister.

  Dead.

  Jael is alone and dying or she’s already dead.

  Ana is alive. I’m alive.

  Another wave pounds me under the water, but fight it and use the next wave to ride me into the shore. I lay out on the beach.

  “We have to save her,” I mumble more than say.

  “Who is she?”

  “Jael,” I say.

  “So she’s still . . .”

  “Alive,” I finish for her. “I don’t know. We got separated yesterday.”

  Was it yesterday? The day before? It feels like years.

  Kettle appears beside Ana, “we can’t leave her.”

  The projection is replaced by pillars of whitewater climbing the rocky coast.

  Hold Her

  Ana’s right. We need to sleep or we’ll never make it. I make mats out of leaves and lay them out in a patch of grass amid the sand. Whispers fade in and out.

  I can’t understand them, but at least they’re soft now. Somewhere in the mess is Hiro’s voice. Listening, my heart rate slows. I lay down. The steady crash of rolling waves mixes with the stiff rustling of leaves in the wind.

  “Are you afraid?” She asks.

  “Yeah.”

  She reaches out and takes my hand. I lose a breath.

  “Thank you for saving me,” Ana says.

  I take her hand and wrap it tighter, holding it the way I always dreamed of holding Jael’s.

  She falls asleep. By the time the sun is fully visible, I fall asleep too.

  I’m awakened by the cry of a seagull flying overhead. I try to move my arm without waking her, but it doesn’t work. She jumps up with a cry.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  The sun is straight overhead. “Maybe a few hours.” My throat’s dry, a headache is building and I’m hungry.

  “There’s probably a stream not too far in,” I say, even though it’s just a guess.

  “Yeah.”

  We brush the sand off our clothes and get moving, finding a stream just a few hundred feet away--must be runoff from the rain yesterday. We cup handfuls of water into our mouths until the headache lessens.

  “Where to now?” I ask, because I know we can’t go back to the settlement or the beach.

  “We’ll need to stay by the streams,” Ana says, “That’s where the flowers grow. It should lessen the pain from the Whispers.”