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22 - Follow My Voice

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Theo

It was so dark in the Thick I hadn’t seen the tree coming. Not that I could see anything in this cursed place.

I groaned as I pulled myself into a sitting position. My hands sunk into the ground. Spongy, wet. It almost felt more like solid packed mud than actual soil.

“Wait up!” I shouted at the others, just ahead. Maybe they’d heard me slam headlong into the tree, or maybe they hadn’t. Hopefully they hadn’t. It was embarrassing, frankly. Officers didn’t make mistakes like that. Maybe Leda should have been promoted instead of me.

“I said wait up, damnit!”

No response. How could they not hear me? I’d only been down a moment. Oblivious, the lot of them.

“I’m coming,” I shouted, focusing on the darkness ahead as I gathered my feet under me. “Just... give me a minute.”

I stood on wobbly legs, then stumbled a step to the side. Ancestors above, but I was shaken. Must have been one hell of a blow.

“Scraped half my face off on the bark, no doubt.” I raised a hand to the wound. The raw, scraped-away skin stung to the touch, but something was wrong. I paused. There was no blood. Or there was, but it was already scabbed over. And my hair was stuck fast to the side of my head, plastered in place. I felt at the wound again. No blood. Just scabs, stretching from my forehead and down to my ear. Why wasn’t I bleeding? I’d only been unconscious for a few moments.

“No. It couldn’t....”

The bottom fell out of my stomach as the realization dawned on me. I hadn’t been down a moment. The tree had knocked me clean out.

“How long? How long!” My breath caught in my throat, shaking. “Hello?” I called out to the darkness around me. Someone had to be near still. How far could the others have gone?

“Hello? Sergeant? Elpida? Someone!” I shouted in the direction they’d gone. Except... had they gone that way? I spun, looking behind me, then to one side, then back to the front. The movement was disorienting and I nearly toppled over, lost in a void of darkness.

“Okay, calm down,” I told myself in a rushed whisper. It was impossible not to hear the panic in my own voice. “Calm down.”

I forced myself to take several long, deep breaths. Then several more.

You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. I made myself repeat it. Made myself believe it.

It took a few more moments before the panic released its grip on my mind and I could think straight again. Figure out where you are, I told myself. That’s step one.

All around me was darkness, void. Black as pitch. Except... I squinted, focusing on something in front of me. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, beginning to show something. A deeper shadow amidst the black. A tree. The tree I’d run into.

“Rotten thing.” I gave it a kick.

Tree properly admonished, I turned to the rest of my surroundings.

I was alone, in the middle of a clearing, maybe. It was hard to see anything farther than a few steps away. Hard to make out anything besides vague outlines. I couldn’t see much, but emperor’s balls, I could hear everything.

Crickets chirped incessantly, their song flowing from all around and mixing together into the rest of the mad chorus around me. Some sort of bird call, warbling and high pitched, shrieking out every few moments. A rustling in the trees above. Some small animal, maybe, scurrying from branch to branch. And then the hoot of an owl. Except deeper. Bigger. Sounded like the thing had to be the size of a bear. All of it blended together into a song. A terrible, mad song.

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“Get ahold of yourself, Theo.” I shook the thoughts from my mind. It wasn’t a terrible song. It wasn’t even a song. It was just the noise of the jungle. I was startled, was all. Was letting my fears get the better of me. But that stopped now. I was better than this jungle.

“Let’s get to it, then,” I told myself, wiping my hands on my pants legs. Now what direction had the others gone? My eyes were finally adjusted to the dark and, as I squinted, the world around me took form. Or some vague suggestion of it, at least.

Brush, on all sides. Real helpful, that was. But I hadn’t gotten too far into the Thick before I’d hit the tree. The way out had to be nearby. Though, the way out wasn’t much help either, was it? The thought stopped me in my tracks. Even if I did get out, I’d be alone. It didn’t take a guidemaster to guess where that would get me. No, I didn’t need to get out, I needed to find the others. But how long had I been unconscious? How far could they have traveled in that time? Surely they’d have realized I was missing by now. Odds were they were already looking for me. I just had to find them, or make enough noise that they found me.

“Sergeant!” I yelled, cupping my hands to my mouth. The only response came from the Thick itself. All around, the sounds of the jungle went quiet. Left me with only a deafening silence and the pounding of my heart.

All the better for me. If anyone was listening, they’d be able to hear me more clearly.

“Sergeant! Senesio! Anyone? Can you hear me?”

Silence was the only answer. Silence, and then the crashing of brush.

Someone was coming!

“Hello? I’m over here! Where are you?”

“—hold tight. I’m coming,” a distant voice called back. Leda! It was Leda!

“Leda, over here!”

The crashing drew closer and then all at once she came stumbling out of the foliage, breathing heavy.

“The hell did you go?” she said soon as she could stand upright. “You were there one minute, then gone the next.”

“I... ” The words died in my throat. What was I going to say? That I’d been promoted over her only to knock myself out on a tree? What kind of officer did that? “I... tripped, hit my head,” I said quietly.

Leda huffed and her exasperation was apparent.

“Whatever. We’ll talk about it later. Right now we have to get back to the others. Come on, this way.” She hesitated. “Or, actually... ” She turned a bit. “Was it... ?”

“Hold up, did you hear that?” I turned an ear in the direction I thought it’d come from. There it was again. A voice! Distant, but a voice nonetheless. The others were coming back for us!

“Over here!” I shouted, walking to the edge of the clearing, then pausing a moment.

“Five days if we go around,” the voice said, distorted and faint, too far away to hear clearly. It sounded like Elpida, but I couldn’t be sure. What was she saying?

“Elpida? Is that you?” Leda shouted.

“Keep your voices down.”

What? I looked at Leda, then frowned. It was Elpida, alright, but what was she on about?

“I’m coming to you, Elpida,” Leda called. “Can you move toward me? Follow my voice.”

Silence in response. Either she hadn’t heard or was messing around. Just like these frontier types to screw about in a situation as dangerous as this, I grumbled to myself as I followed Leda through the brush ahead.

Hands held out in front, she moved forward, swatting away spider webs and long beards of soft moss. I followed, roots pulling at my feet, branches at my ankles, and something that felt too much like hands grasping at my legs and hips. Just plants, I told myself as I stumbled past, brushing off the clinging foliage of the Thick.

A branch snapped off to our right and we stopped; turned towards the noise.

“Elpida, where are you?” Leda asked.

“Look, I don’t like it either.” Kyriakos’ voice this time.

“Sergeant? Sergeant!” Leda moved towards the sound, almost tripped, but kept going. “Where are you? I’m headed your way.”

“We have to make it to the outpost.” The sergeant’s voice again. Funny, I couldn’t hear him moving through the brush. Compared to the crashing cacophony Leda had been as she approached, he was completely silent.

“Not to mention, we’ve run ourselves ragged.” The sergeant said, right in front of us now.

Why was he repeating himself? I paused mid step.

“Leda!” I hissed. Something didn’t feel right. “Leda, slow down!”

Something pushed through the foliage right in front of her.

“Sergeant?” she asked.

Squinting, I could just make out his figure in the darkness. Tall and slender, with arms that reached down to his knees. Looked like he was holding a bunch of knives in his hands, too, as he reached for her.

“Sergeant? What are y—”

A blur of movement and then hot blood sprayed across my cheek. Leda gurgled once, then dropped to the ground.

“Leda!” I lunged toward her—or would have, but my legs weren’t responding. “Leda?”

She gurgled again, wet and low, then reached one shaking hand toward me. As she did, the figure in front of us splayed its arms wide and unleashed a piercing shriek. And then there was no more thinking. My legs unfroze all at once, and I was running back the way we’d come.