10

I stare, utterly frozen in shock at metal desk. It’s covered in brown dried blood and bits of dirty bandage, but Deqar is nowhere to be found. “How…”

“Oh my god,” Sekera breaths, her hands over her agape mouth. “No, I swear he was here. He was just here before I went to sleep. He wasn’t responding to me. He was unconscious and breathing. I didn’t… I didn’t know that-”

“Shut up,” I hiss. “We need to find him. He can’t have gone far.”

“Could he move? Like, was he physically able to move?” Lorick asks.

“Well… he shouldn’t have. It might’ve torn open the stitches,” Sekera tries.

“Ok split up,” I instruct, moving forwards without any particular direction. If there was a survivor in the base and they’ve got Deqar, then this fight is far from over.

I weave through the halls, dodging through racks of weapons, mess tables and all other sorts of apparatus that I’m moving too quickly to identify. I leap onto a table, turning in a circle and looking for any sign that he might’ve passed. There. The far door in the corner. A tiny stain of red brown on the handle. It’s still ajar.

I stride from table to table, launch myself towards the door, landing with a perfectly executed roll and fling it open. Before me is a spiral staircase going both up and down. Wild guess time.

I charge up the stairs, moving three at a time. The stairs don’t stop at any of the floors I know to exist between the lower mess hall and ground level. It must be a fire escape.

By the time I reach the end of the stairs, my black nylon t shirt is drenched in sweat and my hair droops over my eyes. I fling the door open and am blasted with a wave of fresh, dusty air. The sun scorches my eyes. I pull my Ray Bands from my pocket and slide them over my face.

I had found them, along with my bloody, torn, dirt caked jeans, Rieka’s hoodie, my grey-black and my pills back in the camp. I’d left the jeans, keeping a pair of dark camo pants, and resorted to tying the hoodie around my waist. I’m not sure why I still have it. Purely practical reasons.

The rows of buggies and rovers that line the parched ground fill my vision. Then I catch a trail of dust, faintly settling in the distance. I catch him from the corner of my eye. A tiny figure, zooming towards the horizon, dust pluming up behind him.

I don’t shout. There’s no point.

I don’t run. There’s no point.

I don’t cry. There’s no point.

But I can’t help myself from wondering, even though there’s no damn point.

It wasn’t my fault. It couldn’t have been. Sure, I’d been more than a dick to him in the past. He’d tried hard to be my friend and I’d barely even acknowledge his existence. But I made up for it, didn’t I? I defended him… or at least tried to. I… left him for Amethyst… and Sekera on multiple occasions. No. It couldn’t have been me. It couldn’t have been Sekera, she was nothing but kind to him. Lorick? Deqar wasn’t that weak. He never would’ve let Lorick and Ficlan get to his head. Deqar was strong… he must’ve been hardened, growing up as a queer. He must’ve been stone strong… like me? Maybe he is like me. Maybe he’s strong to everybody else, but a fickle, tremoring, weaselly soul on the inside. Perhaps he was tormented. Perhaps everybody is internally tormented and I just don’t notice because I think I’m special. Specially agonized by myself, but instead I just fall for the same trick that I pull, which everybody falls for? Are everybody else’s emotional walls as strong and effective as mine? Were Deqar’s?

Lorick stumbles to a panting halt beside me. “Anything?”

I nod. “Bastard’s gone. Took a quadbike. No idea where he’s going.”

Lorick raises a single, wormy eyebrow. “Wasn’t he shot pulped? How the hell did he manage that?”

“No idea. I do know that he’s strong. Stronger than us.”

“Pfft. That guy was as skinny as you? Dainty little queer he was. Glad it was him and not one of us, eh?”

My punch is lightning fast, aimed with near perfection at his pulpy nose. Rather than a satisfying crunch and a small splatter of blood, my arm jolts. Lorick squeezes his hand around my fist, an inch away from his face. “Woah. Chill dude.”

I send another one at his gut, but it’s caught halfway.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demands.

I kick at his knee, but he pivots so I hit his angled thigh, throwing me off balance. He flips me over his shoulder and I land with a thud.

“You’re mental,” he concludes.

I gasp and prop myself up on my elbows. “You’re… a dick. Why the hell… do the people like you always… survive?”

“People like me? You mean people like us?”

I try and roll onto my feet, but his foot rams into my chest, pinning me back to the ground.

“Are you going to try and punch me?” he asks.

I don’t know what to do, so I just go lax. My thick, long hair sprawls around my head, cushioning me from the stones. So this is defeat? Doesn’t feel like remorse… more like deflation.

“Good. Go help your girlfriend, we should take a rover and head back for the city,” he tells me, releasing the pressure. Air floods back into my lungs as I gasp.

I struggle to my feet with spinning vision as Lorick prowls towards the rovers. “Bastard,” I huff.

“Looking for fuel. Hurry up. If you’re not here in half an hour I’m leaving. Not going to think twice.”

“What about rations?” I call. “Food and water.”

“We finished them.”

“How? We’ve been here for like three days.”

“They get fresh supplies delivered every three days. Which means that they’re due any moment.”

“Shit,” I hiss, practically staggering back through the door. I retrace my steps through the base until I nearly crash into Sekera.

She’s halfway up a flight of stairs, sweaty despite the cold underground air and leaning heavily on the banister. Her big eyes look up at me.

“He left.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. He got onto a quadbike and just drove away. I barely saw his dust trail.”

Sekera’s jaw goes slack. “And you didn’t drive after him?”

“Sekera I…”

She hits me in the shoulder. I don’t move. “Kallix what the hell?” she cries pummeling my core with her small fists. My mouth is a thin line against my stone face.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter.

She cries out, falling forwards and ramming her shoulder into my gut. I clench, releasing my grip on the bannister and wrap my arms around her, pulling her into a gruff hug. Tears break free from her eyes as she slumps into me, coiling her thin arms around my midsection. Her shudders reverberate to my spine. I lean painfully against the bannister, holding her tightly. Her hands pull my black nylon shirt, like a child not wanting to be taken away from their father.

This is just so damn… depressing. Why the hell can’t something just go well in my life? Screw up. God damn freaking screw up. Damnit it isn’t your fault, Kallix. Deqar’s just a bastard. Don’t say that. Deqar isn’t a… screw you. Damn god damn freaking hell.

Sekera’s tears disappear in the nylon. I lean forwards, grip her underarms and pull her up to my step so I can hold her head to my shoulder. My damn, bony shoulder. It probably hurts. I guess she’s to hurt emotionally to feel my angular shoulder bone jabbing into her head. Damn. “We need to go,” I whisper into her ear.

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She sniffs and looks up at me with her utterly enormous, teary turquoise eyes.

“Lorick said that the resupply will be arriving hear any moment. It’s not safe. We need to head back to the city. He’s leaving soon and our best chance is to go with him.”

Sekera nods, blinking tears from her eyes and pulls herself away from me. I sling her arm over my shoulder. She’s too emotionally exhausted to protest.

By the time we step back onto the scorched ground, Lorick is maneuvering a rover towards us. She tries not to show it, but I can see the strain in her jaw and the pain in her eyes. I open the back door and help her in, trying to get her as comfortably as possible.

“Hey Lorick, is there any way we can strap her leg in? Stop it from moving when the rover jolts?”

“Dunno.”

I sneer at him and give Sekera a sorry look. She brushes me off and adjusts herself. I vault over the door and land in the shotgun seat, next to Lorick.

“You know there’s a door, right?” he says.

“Start the damn car,” I groan.

He revs the engine and the car lurches forward. We tear towards the horizon as Lorick presses the pedal to the floor. My hair billows behind me and my eyes water from the dust. I relish the feeling.

“You sure this tank will get us to the city?” I ask over the wind.

“I hope,” Lorick mutters. “Got extra in the back, but no promises.”

“And if it doesn’t? If the engine just goes dead?”

“We’re screwed.”

I lean back, prop up my legs and push my shades over my eyes, protecting them from the wind and the cloudless sky. Before I even notice, the rumble of the engine and the rhythmic jolts have lulled me into a shallow, dreamless sleep.

It isn’t long before my head cracks against the metal side of the door, snapping me awake. My tongue is so dry it sticks to the roof of my mouth. Sekera’s dead asleep with her head craned awkwardly out the window, and Lorick’s knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel.

“You want me to take over?” I offer.

He shakes his head. “You smell like a terrible driver.” I see his eyes scan the horizon apprehensively.

“How long’ve we been driving?”

“An hour. Maybe more.”

“We’re halfway there then, aren’t we?”

“Should be. I think.”

“We’re lost,” I suddenly conclude.

“What makes you say that?” Lorick asks. His tone tells me all I need to know.

“Damnit Lorick!” I yell, slamming my fists on the dashboard. “Why wouldn’t you tell us?”

“We’re not lost! It’s just not very easy to navigate when everything looks the god damn same!”

“Lorick I swear…” my words slip from my mind as my heart literally falls into my stomach.

The engine splutters, then comes to a slow, agonizing halt. I let my head fall against the dashboard. “Screw… the world.”

Lorick curses and rattles the steering wheel. He revs the engine again and again, to no avail. “Hold on.” He swings himself out.

“We’re out of fuel?”

“No! I damn told you I brought enough.”

“Not enough for us to drive in circles,” I mutter.

He flips open the hood. Smoke or steam or whatever it is billows out into his face making him erupt into cough. Damn bastard. The sun, sand and his driving overheated it completely!

“What’s going on?” Sekera asks, snapping awake.

“Lorick’s screwed us over,” I say over my shoulder as I slide out as well.

The engine looks like the lungs of a chain smoking robot in the middle of enjoying a tree sized cigar. “So?” I ask.

“No way in hell this thing’s starting,” he mutters, waving away the smoke.

“Military designed desert rovers that overheat after driving them for an hour. How the hell does that make any sense?” I cry, tossing my hands up into the air.

Sekera looks at us, very visibly worried.

I scoop up a handful of sand and fling it away. Half of it blows back into my face. I let out a deep sigh and smack my lips in thirst.

When I turn back to the rover, I see Lorick trudging off. “Hell are you going!” I call.

“This thing isn’t moving. Doesn’t mean I’m not. City’s that way, if my estimate is correct.”

“We have a god damn injured with us!” I holler.

“Not my problem,” he calls back.

Shit.

Sekera’s eyes are wild with anxiety, as if she thinks I’ll do the same. I won’t. I’m not on the same level as Lorick. Not anymore at least. I look up expecting to be hit with her wide eyed look, but instead I see her easing herself out of rover. For a moment I consider breaking off something for her to use as a crutch, then I remember that I’m not an action hero, and things don’t work so easily for me. I sling her arm around my shoulder.

“Thanks,” she breathes.

“Don’t mention it.”

“I’ll be sure to mention it,” she responds. “If I ever get a chance to, you’ll be sure I will. To a whole lot of people, a crowd perhaps. I’ll tell them how much of a hero Kallix Rane is, and how he saved my life. How I owe him everything that somebody can possibly owe.”

Her words are strained. I can tell she’s speaking to keep her mind off the pain as we shamble onwards through the desert. I don’t want her to stop.

“I’ll tell them,” she pants. “How you’re… like a lemon. Most people recoil at first taste, and very few even try to indulge themselves. However, with the right people, people who actually enjoy the zeal and the edginess, and appreciate that they get something different, something raw, something real, unlike the other, human tailored fruits… all the apples, bananas, pears and oranges and whatever.”

With every two steps we take, we slide back one. The Dunes are all I can see for endless reaches in all directions. It’s bigger than the ocean. Sand has filled my shoes to the brim and my shirt is stuck to me like a perfectly drawn outline. My hair falls in wet tangled strands over my eyes, obstructing half my view. Sekera grows heavier with every step and she contributes less and less to our movement. Her eyelids flutter and her breaths have been reduced to sharp hisses of pain. We stop for rests but can’t stay for too long on one point before the sand burns us. Lorick has ceased from a tiny speck in the distance to nothing at all. The sun has gone from scorching straight towards my eyes to bleating at us directly overhead. Our rest breaks grow more and more frequent and last for longer.

“We need water,” she rasps, her head lolling back as she slumps against the shadiest part of the dune we could find.

“Want to drink my piss?” I reply, not entirely sarcastic.

“Starting to think about it,” she says. Her lips twitch, but it doesn’t nearly form a smile. We trek on.

There’s no moisture left in my mouth. She can no longer put any pressure on her bad leg. I’m lightheaded, my strength is beginning to fail, and mirages taunt me in the distance. Still we see no sign of the city in the distance. We’re probably headed the wrong way. We’ve probably already walked past the city thanks to Lorick’s terrible calculations. What a reason to die.

The day has now turned from high noon, to swelteringly hot mid-afternoon. Perhaps it’s half a day cooler. I’m glad I’ve got long hair, which protects my neck from sunburn, but the backs of my arms, cheeks and forearms don’t have such a luxury.

Breathing tastes like drinking sand.

Moving feels like there’s smoke within my joints.

Existence is like there’s fire under my skin.

And then Sekera just slips from me.

At first I think that I’ve dropped her, but then I realize that she’s gone completely unconscious. I drop to my knees. “Sekera,” I rasp, rolling her onto her back.

Blood loss? Dehydration? Heat stroke? Probably all three.

“Sekera,” I try again, gently shaking her head. She doesn’t respond. I press two fingers to her neck. She’s alive. Barely. I can’t lose her too. I won’t god damn lose her too.

I try to speak again, to encourage her to push on, but only hoarse wheezes escape my swollen, parched throat. How far are we?

I stand up and am instantly hit by a wave of lightheadedness. It takes me a few moments to blink away the dizziness. How far away am I from collapsing like her? I’m unsure whether I should untie Rieka’s hoodie and drape it over her to protect her from the sun, or if that will just make her overheat more. I trudge, waveringly up the rest of the dune. At first, the horizon seems to be just another in a long serious of repetitive orange brown paintings, except this time there’s something different. A taint in the image. An imperfection in the masterpiece.

In the distance, I can barely make out the figure of what is unmistakably the city. A cry of relieve escapes my throat, though it sounds like a clarinet plaid with a split reed. We’re on the right track. It’s just around a hundred miles ahead of us. And we’ve got no water. And Sekera’s got a head stroke, and blood loss and dehydration. I’m probably about to get the latter two as well.

I skid back down the slope to Sekera, wincing at the sight of her normally pale skin having turned to an ugly red pink. I shake her again. She doesn’t move.

Damnit. How far is it really? Can I make it? I think I could if I moved quickly. I might be able to reach before I pass out. If I drag her? Eventually she would wake up… right? Would we be able to reach it together? Probably not. There’s no way I’m leaving her though. I’ve left enough people in my life. That’s ruled out, I can’t leave her. So how am I supposed to get her there? If I drag her, neither of us will make it. I probably can’t even drag her up this dune. We both die, either way. We die slowly and probably consciously. I’m not giving her quick mercy. No way in hell. Leaving her results in her dying, so that’s not an option. Staying with her results in both of us dying. Not an option either. So I’ve got zero options, not two. Great.

I sit down next to her and give her another shake. To no surprise, she doesn’t respond. A fresh, red blood welts around her bandage. Great. Utterly fantastic. I shake her, more violently this time. Wake the damn hell up you crazy bitch!

No, you know what? Screw this.

I get to my feet, forcing my way through the lightheadedness and grab her by the armpits. I drag. I pull with whatever small shreds of energy I’ve got left, but I barely move. The sand provides little to no traction, so as I pull, sand gives way and I slide back down. Screw that. Just pull harder, damn bastard.

So I do. I pull pour every muscle in my body into pulling her. I drag and scrabble, grunt and heave until I can no longer move any further, and a tsunami of lightheadedness crashes into me. I collapse on my side and slide a meter back down. I haven’t yet reached the top of the dune.

Sekera! Sekera wake the hell up!

I’m back to two options. Neither of them are good. I break it down into simple terms to get my damn primitive brain to understand. In one scenario, both of us die. In the other, one of us dies and one of us possibly lives. That makes the decision easy. Problem is, I’m not leaving her. Never in hell would I be able to live with myself if I left her hear and now.

What is the culmination of evolution? Sharks.

What’s a shark’s number one priority? Survive.

Am I still a shark? Not a very good one.

Is it bad? Am I a bad person if I leave Sekera to die a slow death in the desert? I look up to the baby-blue sky and wonder if there’s a god. If you exist, what do you think? Is it bad? Huh? No response. Alright.

Rather than making a decision, I realize that I’ve got three decisions. I go with the third unconsciously, which results in me waiting on the side of a dune for a real decision to pop into my mind. Every moment I waste, our bodies lose a drop of water. Every passing second, our imminent deaths draw close. The faster I act, the faster I can change it.

Damnit. Screw life. Screw this shit. The facts are straight. I’ve got one choice. It’s a simple one. It’s the only one. I’ve got to do it.

If judgement day arrives then I might just be…no, screw that too.