Up through tunnels of rock and stone, she emerged onto the surface of the world. In the sky above were thousands of dots of light, far away. The world was dark, and the only light besides the stars was her flashlight. She set it on the ground and used her arms to push herself up out of the break in the rocks she'd found.
Getting up on her knees and setting her pack of supplies down beside her, she looked around. There was no one to be seen, no signs of life, and no sun in the sky. The sun was only supposed to be visible through half the day though, she'd studied everything about the surface she could find. Seen all her people's writings, stories, and legends, as well as the videos the caretaker had provided her people that were from the before time, when they used to live here, under this sky. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath of air and smiled to herself. Then, with excitement, she reached over and turned off her light, then got to her feet and looked up into the sky at the stars.
"It's beautiful..." She said softly to herself.
It was warm too, she noticed, and the breeze smelled so... different than the air she was used to. There was nothing of water in it, just dust and dryness. Her heart sank a little. What if she were alone here? What if, besides seeing the stars and the sun for herself, there would be nothing for her up here? No way to survive, nothing to survive for. Then, she would have to go back, wouldn't she? Either that or die of thirst.
It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to go back home, she admitted to herself. She'd known starting out that that was probably what she would have to do - at least, if the stories she'd been told of the surface where true. Still, she hadn't been able to help hoping that she'd find something up here. Something to answer the questions in her, some way to be... free. So she wasn't about to go back - not yet, not until she had to. Not until she'd seen for herself that there really was nothing else in life for her.
She picked up her things, turned on the flashlight, and walked out over the rocks into the night.
Soon, the terrain turned from rocks to sand and she knew this must be the great desert the world had been left as in the before time when disaster had come and the Caretaker had saved her ancestors by secreting them down into the world and building them a place to live - a sanctuary city.
She looked off into the distance and could see nothing but the darkness, stretching on before her. She decided then that it would be best to find a good place to sleep until the sun came and she could truly see the world around her in more than just the glimpses her flashlight afforded her.
She walked around the rocks for a ways, felt the night air start to turn cooler. It would probably get cooler still, without the sun's warmth. She soon found a small rock ledge with a place underneath that looked about her size. She took out her sleeping gear and settled in for the night, taking only a small sip of her water. She had enough food and water with her to last a month, if she were careful. If she couldn't find water or food out here in that time, she'd have to go back.
Her bedding set, she snuggled in for the night and fell off to sleep easily.
Her dreams were peaceful and hopeful. Upon waking, she couldn't remember them clearly, only that Tae had been there with her and they'd been happy. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and sat up and thought about her dream. She drew her legs up to her and felt a few tears come to her eyes. Then lay her head down on her knees and closed her eyes against them, thinking how foolish she still probably was. She'd thought it was possible to have a future with her best friend, and now she still thought it was possible to have a future on the barren surface of her planet. Maybe she was simply setting herself up for disappointment again? Or maybe... maybe her people were right, and those like her were defective in some way after all. She'd never thought so before, but... maybe this was the proof?
It was then that she felt and saw the first rays of the day's sunlight. Her head lifted and she wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. She got to her knees and then, on her hands and knees, crawled a meter or so to emerge out from under the rock ledge she'd been sleeping under. What she saw took her breath away. She sat down on the cool rock then, gathering her blanket around herself, and just watched the sunrise for a while. Before too long, she thought, the sun would rise over the horizon and she would see it for herself with her own two eyes for the first time. A smile welled up from deep inside her at the thought, and, she concluded that, even if her people were right about those like her, that it didn't matter really, that she had to be true to who she was... even if that meant she made choices that would turn out to be foolish ones.
Her hopefulness much refreshed, she went back and went about packing up her things, taking a small drink of water and then putting away the canteen. She emerged from under the rock ledge and got to her feet, standing and looking at the sunrise again. She looked around her in all directions then, and saw only expansive desert and rock formations. It was a beautiful sight, yes, but she saw no signs of life or moisture anywhere.
She then took a deep breath and picked up her backpack and put it around her shoulders, then started walking, choosing a direction that somehow felt like the right one to her (though she was at a loss to explain why that direction seemed like the one to choose over others).
Her path took her across an open expanse of dry shale and rocks. And, of course, after walking on the uneven ground for a time, the sun came up over the horizon and she smiled to see it, despite that it meant that the temperature would likely increase greatly before the day was done.
And as the day went on, she kept walking on and on, stopping once to have a sparse meal from her dried food provisions and another sip of water. She reminded herself that her supplies were limited and so she would need to ration them to make them last as long as possible. She'd been right, the sun had brought much more heat - but so far it energized her, felt good on her skin.
She got up and set her sights on the far horizon again and kept walking. The longer she walked though, the more that energized feeling started to give way to an uncomfortable feeling instead, like it was too much of a good thing. As the day wore on into the afternoon, she started to sweat and to really feel the effects of so much exposure to the sun. Fatigue began to settle in and, since it was becoming increasingly clear to her that to keep going through heat like this would be a very bad idea, she made the practical decision to change course a little and go over to a rock formation that looked like it might offer shade from the sun.
With relief, she sat down some half hour later in the shade and took off the clothing that had started to feel stifling and heavy. Her head felt light and a little fuzzy, not unlike the time Tae had convinced her to try some wine she'd stolen from her parents, so she took another sip of water and lay down to rest. She hadn't expected to, but, almost the moment she closed her eyes, she fell into a deep sleep.
She dreamt she was in a place full of green, growing things, and there was a spring of fresh, clean water to drink. Tae was there, like she always seemed to be in her dreams. They talked, like they always had, about everything and nothing at all. The world around them started to feel cool again, and, as it got cooler, Tae just seemed to fade away from her. Kes reached out after her, but then remembered herself and opened her eyes.
She sighed and forced down the emotion that she felt inside her yet again. It was irrational to purposefully cause herself such anguish, she knew that... still, she couldn't help wondering, for the thousandth time, what would have happened if she'd told her best friend that she loved her? Loved her, and not as a friend would, but... as much more, and far more deeply.
It was useless though, wasn't it? It mostly just simply hurt... hurt in a way that felt like it wasn't ever going to stop...
The world around her was in twilight, and there was enough light to see by, so she put her clothes back on, picked her things up, and decided to do some more walking while the climate was so temperate.
She walked until it was pitch dark and she was too tired to keep going, and then, because there weren't any better options, she set up her camp right where she was and she went to sleep.
The morning came swiftly, and, thankfully, if she had dreamt of anything that night, she couldn't remember even a wisp of it upon waking. She'd woken with the first rays of sunlight. She took a sip of water and ate two small nuts, then packed up her few possessions and started to walk.
Just as the temperature was getting to the point where she could tell it would be best for her to stop soon (perspiration wasted water that she couldn't afford to waste), she climbed over a rise and saw it - a settlement!
Immediately, her mind was alive with questions. Who were they? How did they live up here? Were they Ocampa, or were they from the stars like the Caretaker? She'd only heard of a few other cases of one of her people coming to the surface, but was it possible some had, generations before her, and made this place to live? And if they weren't her people, then who were they? Would they be welcoming, or would they send her away?
It was still a long walk down there though, one that would have to wait until the sun went down. She'd been making sure to always keep within fairly close walking distance of shade if she could help it, and so she went over to find a place to lay down through the day and wait for the weather to cool again.
She found herself sitting there, again imagining what her parents' reaction would be to the goodbye message she'd left them. It made her sad to think of what she must be putting them through. She thought of best friend as well. What Tae's reaction would be? ...would she cry? She'd imagined many times what it would have been like if Tae shared her feelings. What it would be like to share a house with her... to share a bed... a life... She knew it was impractical. She knew what her people thought of people like her - that they were genetically defective. What other explanation could there be, they'd say, when a same sex couple couldn't produce a child? It was obviously nature's way of correcting for defects like her... of course, Lona had found out for her that that wasn't strictly true, but still, Kes couldn't completely banish the thought that there might be at least some truth to what the elders said, to what her people believed... when she thought about it logically, didn't it make more sense just to keep her feelings hidden...? To go along and merry Daggin, the boy in her circle of friends who liked her?
She'd considered it of course... After all, Daggin was nice. Fair to look at. They were friends. She liked him, very much. But... she didn't love him. When she tried to picture a life with him - living in the same house, sharing a bed, having a family - all she felt was depression and sadness. She wasn't sure why she felt that way exactly, why she was different, she simply knew that she was - that her heart was telling her that Tae was who she wanted, who she belonged with.
The trouble was of course, that Tae did not want her. It was obvious to see - even though she wished it wasn't. Her eyes lit up when she saw the boy who she was going to marry soon. She talked about him constantly, and about wanting children and how she was looking forward to being a mother. Kes had played along and artfully dodged questions about her own hopes for the future, mostly by talking about her beliefs. About the legends of her people's lost mental abilities, and how they shouldn't depend on the Caretaker, how there had to be more to life. And she believed those things, Tae did too. It was what she and her friends all had in common, that they didn't like the status quo. They'd built a garden outside of the city to show others that there were other things in the world than what the Caretaker provided them - things they could do for themselves.
Tae thought she just had high ideals and big dreams. And that was, in fact, true about her... But being true didn't always mean the same thing as being the truth, and the truth, her truth, was that she would have traded all her high ideals and big dreams to simply have Tae return her feelings.
She wasn't the only Ocampa to have feelings like this for someone of the same gender of course. And some of them, a comparatively small number, did end up marrying. No one stopped them. But mostly, she supposed, if one of her people had feelings like hers, they would simply take the path of least resistance and marry someone they didn't love, just to be accepted. Because those few number of her people who did follow their hearts? They were shunned, one and all. No one talked to them. No one was their friend. All they had were each other, and the small community they'd built for themselves in a part of the city where no one else went. And Kes could have easily lived with that. If everyone she knew turned their backs on her and she'd had to move to that little community where only people like her ever went, she was sure she'd have been very happy with that in fact. Even if her parents and closest friends were among those to shun her, she wouldn't have minded so much.
The simple fact was though, that it was never to be. And so, what she'd been left with were those big dreams and high ideals that Tae thought were so important to her. She smiled a little to herself. Well, they were important... they just didn't make her feel any less heartbroken.
She didn't know what the evening and the coming days would bring - who she would find in the settlement in the valley beyond that was at the foot of the mountains of rock - but if she couldn't have love, then, at least she was about to have adventure.
She felt excited - really, truly, hopeful, for the first time. Her feelings had always been half-hearted before now, but now she'd seen the proof. Proof that there was more to life - the possibility of more, of a life beyond what she knew. A life unknown to her, and so a life that could be full of possibilities. It was proof that something wonderful and unexpected could happen, right around the next corner or over the next hill.
It was also true though, that her dreams, those possibilities she sought, they could turn out to be hollow for all she knew. But maybe they wouldn't. And for now, that 'maybe' was just what she'd needed to lift her spirits and get her to realize that maybe there really could be a life for her, even without Tae in it.
Because... when she'd accidentally seen Tae and the boy she loved kissing that night by the water, she'd just known. She'd known that staying friends with her after that would just be too painful. And she'd known that she couldn't stay, that she had to make a new life for herself somehow.
And now, now it looked like she just might be on the verge of succeeding in that.
At some point, she dozed off and only woke up when the sun had already set. The light was already dimming, and the air already cool. She'd lost around an hour of time when she could have been walking.
to be continued
also, I'm always happy to get comments (even really short ones)