Chapter Two
'The Fifty Meter Wall, Part Two'
Never leave the safety of the group; an age old rule. You leave the group; there is a chance the group will leave you. The safety and security once there, just gone in an instant. I don't know if I can give that up. While I may not like Oku Pono, I care far too much for my own safety, and my sister's, to leave the tribe. If I left, and got caught, I would be thrown out for sure. My sister would want to follow me, putting both our lives at risk. There is no way I could do that it good conscience.
"Shut up," I say, before turning my back to Thales.
"You cannot tell me you don't have a single urge to see it," says Thales.
There is a little impulse I had to see if he was telling the truth or not, but my fear well overwhelmed my desire.
"I said shut up," I repeat.
"You are my friend, right Vesa?" Thales asks.
I turn back around and catch him in the eye. That question never leads to anything good.
"Yeah," I say, raising an eyebrow in response.
"Well, you wouldn't want me to get caught outside the tribe, right?" he asks. "Because you're such a good friend."
Thales is my only true friend, other than my sister. We had been close for ten years now. He was an orphan, found by one of the elders. He apparently lost his parents to Titans, but has always refused to tell the story of how they truly died. I never push him, but a lot of people were eerie at first about his past. With his social personality, a lot of them had changed their minds about him. But there are still a few not too sure about him. I however have stayed close to him for what feels like forever now.
Him asking this, I know he is playing on my sense of loyalty. I can only guess to where this was leading. What I didn't see at first was him slowly starting to back up on the branch where he was standing. It wasn't until he took off in the opposite direction of the group did I realize truly what he was planning.
"Shit," I mutter, looking at the direction of the group.
No one is in sight. They are well ahead. Now would be my only time to go after him. I can only hope that if someone notices we're not there, that Amisi covers for us somehow.
With my faith given to my sister, I give chase to Thales. He has a head start on me, but we are both evenly matched when it comes to agility. I manage to keep up with him, though there is still space between and I cannot seem to catch up with him.
"Almost there," I manage to hear Thales call out.
"He's completely lost it," I think aloud.
After about three and a half kilometers, and an elapsed time of about a quarter hour, Thales finally begins to slow down. I don't know if he's just tired, but I know I tuckered out. And I have to do it again on the way, and possibly even more length depending how far the tribe has gone away from us.
"Past this tree," mutters Thales as I close in on him.
His pace has slowed down completely as he walks along the branches. He seems to be acting very carefully. I don't know why, but it never hurts to be cautious. I walk a little bit faster than him, only a little, as I try to carefully close the space between us. I manage to reach him, just as he reaches the tip of the finally branch. Only leaves lay between us and what was outside the forest.
"Seriously Thales," I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. "We need to go back now. If we're lucky, no one has noticed we're not there."
He ignores me however, as he grabs a group of leafs and pushes them aside. What is left is a single, small window-like hole in the wall of leafs.
"No seriously," I go to say, but stop myself before I can say anything else.
I catch a peak through the window and what I see astounds me. Thales looks back over his shoulder, but I do not notice him, instead my eyes are stuck on the subject outside the forest.
"I told you," he purely says.
"Is that what I think it is?" I ask.
A grey, long structure towers well over the forest. Our trees grow about thirty meters or so in height, meaning the foreign structure is taller than that. I didn't know such a thing to be possible. The structure is only a mere kilometer or so away from us.
"It's the wall," he says.
"How can that be? Who made it?" I ask. "I thought all major civilizations were wiped out."
"That's what Oku Pono claims," Thales answers. "But we both know Oku Pono…"
We pause.
"How tall do you think it is?" I ask.
"Obviously well over thirty meters," Thales says.
"Obviously," I say.
"I'm thinking about fifty or so meters," Thales continues. "And there must still be humans nearby because it is well taken care of."
The news of humans, large groups of them, throws me for a loop. I had known that there were small groups, much like the tribe. That was no secret, but the amount of people it took to build this wall was something I never thought of. I guess I just thought that large groups wouldn't have been able to survive the Titans. I remain silent as my jaw drops at this revelation.
"How many do you think there is? I think hundreds," asks Thales, breaking the long-standing silence.
I look to both directions. The wall seems to go on forever and ever.
"Well over that," I say. "This wall it huge and who knows how long it goes on for and how it ends. There is bound to be a lot more people that larger the wall it. I'm guessing thousands, if not millions."
My own words are catching me by surprise, but I guess the image of the wall before me is allowing me to think outside my small box.
After many silent minutes of just staring at the wall, I finally snap back.
"We need to get back," I say.
"What? Get back?" Thales parrots.
"We saw this wall, okay than. But we need to get back to the tribe. We cannot afford to get into trouble," I say.
Thales lets go of the leaves, closing the window opening. He stands up straight and turns to face me. A pure state of anger is present on his face.
"What do you mean, get back?!" he snaps. "We just found out they have been lying to us! Why should we go back?"
"I understand they have been lying to us, but I'm not about to abandon my sister and all I have to just live where exactly?!" I snap back. "I highly doubt whoever is on the other side of that wall would just let us stroll in. They might even kill us if they saw us."
"You don't know that they would," Thales argues.
"You don't know that they wouldn't," I argue back.
The rage inside of me is building. I want to head back, I want to leave Thales to his delusions, but the little voice inside of me is refusing to leave my friend behind.
"Come on," I say.
I turn around and wave for Thales to follow me. I can hear him let out a sigh and begin to step forward. Suddenly all sounds he is making stop. It seems like every sound stops. Even I can feel myself go mute for some strange reason. But it is all only for a second, because after that second, all silence is replaced by a large, earth-shattering bang. The ground shakes causing the tree we were in to move along with the others. Thankfully it is strongly rooted, so there is no chance of it falling, but there is a chance we might. We both fall to the branch we're on and hang on for dear life as the earth quakes. The shaking comes to a stop slowly, but not before a Titan's cry can be heard.
That is it for this chapter. I bet you can guess what will happen in the next chapter. I'm sorry for the late update. If you don't know, I'm currently in a hotel (for the past two months now) and I am currently looking for a place to rent. It is tiring and time consuming, so I don't have much time recently for updates. As soon as I find a place to rent, I suspect I'll have more time to update both of my profiles. Remember to review, thank-you! ;)