'The Nature of Nature'
Walking away from the camp while The Pyro was in charge left a bad taste in Will's mouth, but as they stepped out properly into the untouched forest, it was hard to worry too much.
Will was so busy staring up at the canopy of shifting colours in the leaves that he missed the tree root that snagged hold of his foot and jerked him, sprawling, to the dirt. Alfie made a disapproving sound and strode away, brandishing the vicious piece of scrap metal he had scavenged from the dropship in lieu of a weapon. But in half a heartbeat, Marlow had turned back to help him.
"Thanks, Driftwood," Will said, as he took her outstretched hand.
He had been testing the waters, but she hardly flinched at the nickname. No small wonder, when she'd been carrying it her entire life, he remarked inwardly. He knew the name was supposed to be an insult, some jibe about how she was the Driftwood left behind by her floated parents, but she had worn the name so well and for so long that it was hard to think of her as anything else. She offered him a tight smile, and strode away after Alfie, looking like she might just try to scold him. Better her than me, he thought. Alfie had never been hostile towards Will personally, but he was well known for his aggression. That, and the fact that his councillor parents had practically disowned him upon his incarceration. The kid he was arrested for beating up had to have a metal plate in his jaw. Staring at the back of Alfie's blonde head, Will suppressed a shudder.
"Are you okay?" Sascha fussed almost immediately. "Are you hurt? I can-"
"Sash, I'm fine," he reassured her. He'd skinned his knees as he fell, but they didn't hurt worse than his pride. There was nothing more pathetic than a team member who couldn't carry his own weight, and he was determined not to be that person.
His sister seemed entirely at peace with the dangerous trek to Mount Weather, and her mood only improved as they walked through the beauty of the woods. Her small hands touched every tree they passed, and occasionally she stopped to smell the prettiest of the nearby flowers.
"Wait!" he cried out once, as her face neared a giant purple bloom with a toxic green centre. He grabbed her shoulder, pulling her away to a safe distance. "Some of these plants are poisonous, you've got to be careful."
Sascha shrugged him off, smiling a smile he'd more than missed. "I've been looking after myself for the last two years, Will. I'm fine."
"That was back on the Ark," he countered. "Here there's danger around every shrub."
She actually laughed. Now the fear was wearing off, she was returning to her fiery old self quicker than he had hoped. Returning to Earth had reawakened the real Sascha, and not the young girl harried down by hunger and phobia that he'd come to know. "Oh right, and I guess spending two years on my own in the Sky Box was just daycare," she said. "I'm tougher than you think."
He fell quiet, staring intently at the damp lichen as he picked his way over it, carefully. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you."
"When are you gonna learn your lesson? It was trying to protect me that got you thrown in the cells in the first place."
He was spared trying to think of a rebuttal when he saw Alfie gesturing up ahead. The two of them had fallen far behind, and Will couldn't see what the other boy was getting at, until he ducked suddenly behind a tree. Marlow did the same, dropping to her knees behind a bush. Panicked, Will dragged Sascha down to a crouch.
"Hey!" she protested, and Will put a gentle hand over her mouth. Suddenly she looked afraid again, as afraid as he felt, cowering from an unknown threat in unfamiliar territory. Alfie was the only one with a weapon, as crude as it was, and despite his record of violence, could he really be counted on to protect them?
"What's happening?" Sascha asked in a desperate whisper.
Will was shaking his head in reply when Marlow motioned for them to come closer. Sharing a frightened look with Sascha, both of them crept forward, inch by steady inch. Will's heart was beating at twenty times the pace of their footsteps, and it drummed ever harder as they drew closer to Marlow's hiding place.
"Look," she half-breathed. Her finger, quivering with excitement, pointed out into the clearing before them.
Amidst the tangled foliage, grazing on the tall, swaying grass, was a deer. Will had only ever seen pictures of such a creature, but as with all things, the reality was much more breath-taking. The stag's magnificent antlers were bowed to the ground, and it remained blissfully unaware of their presence.
Alfie edged silently around the tree, and the spell was broken. His weapon was raised.
"What are you doing?" Marlow hissed.
Alfie shrugged. "It's food. Kill it now and the whole camp will be fed for a week."
"No!" Sascha protested a little too loudly. The stag raised its head sharply, its ears pricked for danger. Collectively, they held a breath, waiting to see if it would bolt. After a moment, it ducked its head back to the grass and continued to graze.
"The radiation…" Will said at last. "If animals have survived, Earth must be inhabitable."
"So we won't all die slowly in our sleep," Alfie said, putting his weapon away bitterly. "Excellent news."
"Sascha," Marlow called over, softly. "You ever wanted to meet a deer?"
"Wait, Sash-"
"Don't worry, Will. It won't hurt us," Marlow reassured him, holding out a hand for Sascha to take. She grasped it eagerly, rising slowly to Marlow's side. The two girls stepped out into the clearing together.
Will's heart beat a frantic rhythm against his ribs as they approached the animal on feather-light footsteps. If the deer was alarmed by their presence, it didn't show it. He couldn't see Sascha's face from his position crouched behind a bushel, but he could imagine the wonder lighting up her eyes with startling clarity. The moment was a full one – full of hope for their new yet ancient home, full of all the beauty the young juveniles had yet to discover. Their new world was bright and full of wonder, but most importantly, it was theirs.
Antlers shot up into the air as the deer finally locked eyes with the girls. Marlow stopped, and with a gentle push at her back, urged Sascha forward. The tiny twelve-year old stepped closer, with grace and purpose, her hand softly outstretched. The deer leaned, dipping its head to sniff softly at her fingers. The gesture held for a staggering moment, and Sascha reached out to touch the beast right upon its muzzle.
A whistle of air. Sascha screamed. The deer stumbled and fell to its side with a sickening thud and a screeching cry. Blood spattered Sascha's arms, and Marlow's jacket as she reached out to pull the younger girl away. Both of them turned and ran. Behind them, Will could see the feathered fletch of an arrow poking up from between the stag's ribs.
Alfie was faster, and was on his feet before Will had noticed the second arrow. This time, it shot in their direction. "Let's go!" Alfie called, spurring the girls onwards as the arrow whistled over Marlow's head. "Come on!"
Once Sascha had broken the first line of trees, Will scrambled desperately upright, and as one, the four of them bolted for cover of the trees.
"Who's firing at us?" Will called breathlessly, keeping desperate pace with his sister.
"Not one of ours," Marlow replied, ducking as another arrow whizzed past her shoulder. "We don't have arrows."
"That means there's someone else here?" Will's lungs burned as he shouted, but the panic made him numb to the pain.
"Stop talking about it and run!" Alfie called over his shoulder. He charged ahead with arrows falling at his heels.
The ground was littered with pitfalls – one false step and a tree or root or vine could send them sprawling. A fall meant an arrow in the back, and none of them risked looking over their shoulders for fear of tumbling.
The arrows came thick and fast, despite the cover of the trees, and Will decided that whoever was behind the bow knew the woods well. All the scenery looked the same, every tree, every bush, every pitiful stream of water. He couldn't say if they were running back to the safety of the camp, but he prayed with all his might that they were.
A shout, and Sascha stumbled. Will travelled a few paces before stopping short to pull her up. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder from the manoeuvre, but her safety was more important. She scrambled to her feet before he reached her, and she looked up at him with tears of terror welling in her eyes. She had stopped, and he wanted to urge her on, this wasn't the time to stop – but his words were robbed from him by another stab in his shoulder. He looked down, finally seeing what Sascha was staring at with those huge, scared eyes. The point of an arrow was poking from beneath his collar bone, wearing a grisly coat of his blood and flesh. Glancing back, he saw the feathering of the bolt protruding a handspan out of his shoulder. He wanted to scream but the world felt like water and it drowned out his cry. He pictured blood filling up his lungs and choked desperately on air. Sascha was pulling him, pulling him, but it hurt and he couldn't go on. Marlow was back, even Alfie too. They'd stopped running. Why had they stopped running?
He urged them on, no words forming, so he tried instead with a gesture.
Marlow was gripping his good arm. "The arrows have stopped, Will. But we don't know for how long. I need you to walk – can you do that?"
He tried a step and nearly collapsed. Alfie caught him under his arm and took his weight. With Marlow guiding him on the other side, they began to lead him back through the forest. Sascha was somewhere nearby, sobbing.
Their voices felt like wind beneath all the pain, but he heard them without even trying to.
"We have to get him back to camp," Marlow was saying.
"And lead them right back to our base? I don't think so," Alfie countered.
"Alfie, listen to me. He's losing blood and I'm no medic. If we don't get him back to camp, he's going to die. Do you want that on your conscience?"
Alfie growled with frustration, but he didn't protest any more. Will could do nothing but rest against them, trusting them to guide him home. Or to camp, but weren't they one and the same now? But if this was someone else's home, someone who would fire arrows at them unprovoked, could it really be their home too? His brain felt like it was pressing against his skull, and the vivid greens of the forest span violently round and round. Then he saw the smoke from the cooling dropship, and with a wave of relief, passed out.
2 years ago…
His stomach was growling, but still he pushed his plate away, still laden with food.
"May I be excused?"
He was met with dark looks from both sides of the table. His father actually found it in him to look offended, as though he'd slaved away cooking this meal himself.
"You can wait," Nathaniel Dawson replied. "Eat."
Will picked at his leftovers obediently, turning each morsel over and over on his fork before taking small, reluctant bites. He chewed them relentlessly, each mouthful making him feel all the more guilty. There were fresh vegetables on all of their plates, and meat – precious and expensive stock, these days.
"You were saying, Luther?" The Chancellor gestured to the man sat to his right.
Luther took a long drink of wine before replying. The silence gave Will enough time to wonder why they had to keep having this man over for dinner. "Just that this is a matter we should perhaps pay closer attention to. I can't deny what I saw. These machines don't just throw random numbers into the air for no reason."
"But you're telling me that one of your apprentices discovered this fault," his father replied, his words slurring slightly. "How can you be sure this isn't the kind of mistake one makes during the early days of learning a trade?"
It sounded to Will like his father was looking for any excuse to discredit Luther's story. Whatever that story was – Will had been too distracted to care as the councillor spoke. Everything that came out of Luther's mouth seemed nothing more than sweetly-coated venom. He was determined to poison the Chancellor's thoughts by getting him to ingest all this charmingly-worded hyperbole. And my father's stupid enough to buy it, he thought.
"I have faith in my workers," Luther continued, settling his knife and fork down upon his empty plate. "Not everyone is as woefully unskilled as young Willard here."
Will didn't give them the time to see him blush. "I'll clear the table," he said, jumping up from his chair and gathering the plates as quickly as he could.
He burst into the kitchen with his hands clutching too tightly at the cutlery. There was a murmur of laughter from the dining room, and Will knew his father hadn't leapt to his defence. But there was no time to dwell on that. He had to work quickly.
Folding out a piece of wrapping, he gently began to transfer the scraps of food inside it. His mouth watered as he touched the russet skin of the potatoes. They were his favourite comfort food, and the most frequent product of the agricultural station. But their price was still high, and he handled them like jewels as he folded the wrapping closed. Luther and his father had cleared their plates of course. They ate this luxurious food without a second thought, not even a moment of contemplation for how lucky they were not to be sucking up protein packs for nutrition like the rest of the Ark. He glanced over his shoulder uneasily when he heard someone stir from the table. He jammed the food parcel down his sweater.
Sure it was safe, Will opened the cupboards and stuffed the contents into his pockets. He made some deliberate noise with the faucet so they might think he was actually cleaning.
They were engrossed in their conversation when he slipped back into the main living area, and he thought he might have escaped their notice altogether. He was two steps away from freedom when he heard his father's voice call out, "Is this really the time to be going out, Willard?"
"I still have an hour before curfew."
"And are you going to tell me what you're getting up to on these nightly excursions of yours?"
Will pretended that he hadn't heard, though it was impossible not to. "I'll be back soon," he called as he slipped out of the door. He caught a few condescending words from Luther about how he would have raised his son to respect rules and follow orders – if he had ever had any children.
Out in the corridor, he faced a new problem: the guards. Not that they ever had much reason to stop the Chancellor's son, but if they caught him now, the game would surely be up. They could search him for whatever they wanted on his return journey, but he could not afford to let that happen now.
He tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as he passed the stern guards that were always posted at the end of their corridor. The Chancellor's Honour Guard, some had taken to calling them. Perhaps if his father focused on making more popular choices for the people he wouldn't need protecting from them.
One of the guards nodded to Will as he passed, and he breathed a sigh of relief once he'd rounded the corner and was safely away from their intrusive staring. Then he broke into a brisk stride. He didn't have long to get to the other side of the Ark, but he knew the shortcuts well. He had been making this journey night after night for some time now. He only wished he could make it more often.
His destination was always the same – a little-used corridor near the agricultural zone, on the outskirts of the sectors recently declared as poverty-stricken. He touched the wrapped potatoes in his pocket, battling with a sense of irony. The potatoes had been grown here and whisked away from the mouths of the poor, right before their eyes, to land instead on his plate. And here he was, returning them. If he could somehow bring back all the food that left this place, he would. But for now, there was only one person who he could afford to worry about.
She waited for him where she always did. The room was small, probably once a store for tools, but it stood empty these days. Will slipped inside. It took his eyes a moment to acclimatise to the low lighting, and for a moment he was blind.
A little voice came from the darkness, and saved him the trouble. "Will."
He smiled in greeting as Sascha's small, gaunt frame drew up beside him. "Sorry I took so long. Did anyone see you come?"
"They never do." Whenever Sascha smiled, it didn't quite reach her eyes. He stared at her for a long time as her body came into focus. Her wrists were looking thinner – was that even possible since yesterday? Her legs were like two strings, and he could see her cheekbones when she turned her head. She shuffled uncomfortably under his gaze. "Um, I'm sorry to rush you, but…"
"Oh, right!" Will exclaimed, remembering himself. He shuffled in his pockets for the food parcel. No sooner had he given it to her than she had sank to the floor, unwrapping it with shaking hands.
"Potatoes," she said, dreamily. Her amazement didn't last long when stacked up against her hunger. She ate in handfuls, sucking the remnants of potato from underneath her fingernails between each bite. Will's stomach growled obviously as he watched her.
She looked up at him with surprise at the noise, and gestured towards him. "Here. They're your favourite, aren't they?"
"Yes, but… no, Sascha. I've had enough. Eat, please."
"Just one. It can even be the smallest one. Go on."
He had learned quickly that the pleading look in his sister's eyes was hard to resist. He sat down carefully beside her, trying not to move too fast in case the lower oxygen levels caused him to falter. Gratefully, he took the smallest potato from the parcel. "Thank you."
They ate in companionable silence, in the darkness of the old room. Will savoured his food as best as he could. Splitting all his meals in half was taking its toll on him too, but he was older, stronger. He could deal with the effects better than little Sascha could. On her worse days, he had seen her sway on her feet, light-headed from hunger. A little gnawing in his stomach was nothing compared to that.
Without warning, she suddenly started wrapping the food back up, unfinished.
"What are you doing? You should eat more."
"I'm taking them back for my mom," Sascha explained, though she looked grudging in her compassion. "She fainted again yesterday. I don't know if it was the air or the hunger, but she needs to eat."
"Finish the potatoes," Will said, sternly. Sascha looked as though she might try to argue, until he turned his pockets inside out, littering the floor with stolen ration packs. "I brought these for your mother. Neither of you are going to go hungry while I'm around."
Sascha's smile spread slowly across her face as she looked over the collection of food at her feet. For a second, Will was sure he even saw a glint of happiness in her eyes. She reopened the potatoes without a word, and ate again. Will could feel in himself the warmth that filled her with each bite. He found himself wishing he could somehow reverse their positions. But even if he could, would he? Sascha might be hungry but at least she had her mother. If food were love, he would be famished. Though they shared the same father, Will couldn't wish him upon her, not truly.
He was woken from his reverie when Sascha rested her head against his shoulder, the empty wrapping clutched tight in her fist. "I know no one else has a big brother, but if they did… you would still be the best one."