Falling onto the cold soft ground with a gust of wind blowing away from me, I found myself in a corn field. I stayed on the muddy earth for a few minutes, my head still dizzy from the cabin transport. Looking around, after standing up, I couldn’t see any sign of the cabin, but a nearby barn seems to be filled with people. It's possible that they know something about the cabin’s whereabouts and maybe Alex’s location too.
Moving through the field is much more difficult than I imagined, the stalks snagged onto my duster shaking off sand and rocks from the pockets. I wasn’t wearing one of my dusters before entering the cabin, in fact this is not one of mine it’s too dark and worn. The duster is odd enough on its own but upon inspecting the rest of my outfit I noticed that my shoes were replaced by boots, my pants are men’s cargos with various pieces of junk in them and my shirt is torn at the ends. But it’s an issue for later, I need to find Alex.
Approaching the end of the corn field, I see a broken paved road passing by a parking lot in front of the old barn. The parking lot is full of wooden carts, filled with various sacks, and a small stable for horses. In front of the barn’s door stands a pale scrawny man dressed in patchwork shirt and pants, an old, well used, assault rifle strapped across his chest, ready to be used at a moment’s notice. The patchwork man is leaning on the wall of the barn, staying in the shade and staring off into the distance. It is clear that he is thinking about other things as a horse drawn cart enters the clearing.
The wooden cart appears much newer than the other carts by at least a few years or it is maintained more often it is drawn by a large white horse. Driving the cart is a wide pale man with a full pepper beard and he is wearing posh clothing like a Victorian noble. The noble man gets off the cart as a young dark girl and mid aged dark guy take the horse and cart to their respective areas. The noble man approaches the scrawny one, unfortunately my view is blocked but I can tell that the noble man is yelling.
Exiting the field I made my way towards the barn at a brisk walk, kicking up dust as I went. As I passed the horses I noticed that the two young adults were staring at me, completely still with a glimpse of fear in their eyes but it’s too late to walk away. The noble man stops yelling as the dust blows past him and he slowly turns around and gives me a look over.
“You are not from around here, who are you?”
The scrawny man puts his right hand on his gun, looking away from the gun to meet the eyes of the noble man.
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“I’m from the city, I’ve-“
The gun is shakily pointed at me. “W-we doesn’t take k-kindly to city folk!”
“Jesus Frank stand down.” The noble man squeezes his temple between his fingers and Frank lowers his gun but still holds it tight. “Listen, a lot of people here do not like the city. It is a long story, what part of the city are you from exactly?”
They are looking at me cautiously, are they referring to the whole city or just downtown or another district? “I’m from district 2, the research center. I need to return there-“
“Y-you ain’t goin a-anywhere till Mr. Chadwick s-says so.”
Giving Frank no attention, Chadwick focuses on me. “I am not going to let you back to district 2, it is obvious you are not from there, but it does not matter why you want to go. I want to talk more about this later.” Chadwick walks to the barn doors. “Frank take our guest to the holding house.” Chadwick enters the barn and a commotion is heard pouring out.
Frank juts his gun in the direction of a small cart that looks to fit only four people. “G-get in the back of the sm-small cart.” He looks at the boy attending the horses. “Jeremy you drive us there, I have to watch her.”
Jeremy nods and let’s a black horse, with brown spots, out of its pin and leads it to the cart. Meanwhile Frank ties my hands with some sort of natural rope. “Why am I being restrained?”
“To m-make sure you d-don’t run off.”
“What? Do *you* run with your hands or am I the weird one here.”
Frank sighs “j-just get in the back of the c-cart, and stay there.”
I climbed up to one of the two benches on the sides of the cart, Jeremy put the back panel up and in a whisper said, “Listen, I know Frank making this out to be a hostage situation but he is tr-.”
Frank places his hand on Jeremy’s left shoulder and stares at him for a few seconds. With a slow and steady voice Frank says, “Worry about getting us to the holding house then, after I’m done, you can talk to her allll you want, do I make myself clear?” Jeremy nods twice and Frank squeezes his shoulder.
Frank lets go of Jeremy’s shoulder and climbs over the panel into the back of the cart. He takes the seat furthest from me and puts his gun in his lap. Jeremy, with a stiff walk, gets on the front of the cart and drives the horse to the left side of the road.
We traveled for about 10 minutes with the clomping of the horse’s hooves and rumbling of the wooden wheels on a rocky road as the only sounds. I spent the whole time looking out to the fields, the accessional house, tree, or barn doting the distance, unfortunately the city proper is to my back. Eventually Frank spoke up.
“W-What is your g-goal here?” I look towards him and slightly lower my head.
“I don’t know where my son is, he is just a baby and he is alone. I have no lead to his location, I... I need to find him.” My voice cracked at the end but getting emotional isn’t going to help, at least not right now.
Frank stared at me for a minute then looked towards the city. “Family don’t mean shit round here, good luck finding him.”