I inquired more about Bear’s sickness and narrowed it down to a parasitic infection from the contaminated water he bathed in. Unfortunately, any medicine I had for that was back home.
My home.
There was no way I was going to bring two strangers back to my safe place. They were mostly harmless, but I didn’t know what the right thing to do was.
Since it was a parasitic infection and I gave Bear an anti-inflammatory and fever reducer, it means we only have a matter of time before the strength of the infection will increase two-fold, essentially speeding up the spread of the disease. Its symptoms would get dire for him.
Damn it.
I wouldn’t feel right leaving knowing I could bring them home, let them stay until Bear was cured, and then send them in the proper direction of whatever they were looking for.
It even was on the way.
My home was North of here and from my house; if they’re headed northwest, it’s a hell of a lot closer than Knotting Hill.
If we were all healthy, it could take us two to five days to get home on foot. However, I doubt we have that much time before Bear gets worse.
Maybe it would be better to leave them here. Levi’s girlfriend was going to get help yesterday. I assume she would be moving quickly under their circumstances, so I’m sure they can bring Bear back to the city in a few days when they inevitably show up and give him something that can help.
Right?
I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy. I want to help more; they don’t deserve to die how they were going to, but I knew I shouldn’t; I knew I couldn’t.
“You look like you’re having an internal battle,” Levi’s gravelly voice jolted me out of my thoughts, but I recollected myself quickly, “Oh, don’t stop now; I just wanted you to know that it’s painfully obvious.”
I narrowed my eyes and then dismissed him with a roll, “It’s just hard for me to fathom why your city sent you on a suicide mission. What’s so important?” He laughed a little, but then it turned into a full-blown chuckle. I raised my eyebrows at him, “What’s so funny?”
He took a drink of the tea I brewed and shrugged, “I mean, you’re right. My parents agreed to send me on a suicide mission without so much as a radio. Just a compass and a see you when the job’s done.”
“You guys have a compass?” I asked. Seeing as they were traveling in the opposite direction, it must not be very accurate.
Levi shook his head, “Well, not anymore; I gave it to Minka to get home with.”
My heart sank, and a lump began to form in my throat. “Have you guys been using that compass the entire time? Have you been following it this way?”
Levi nodded this time, and I bit my lip hard. I had to. That girl was doomed, and from the looks of it, so was Bear. “Why?”
I took a shaky breath, my heart pounding as I tried to find the words, “I don’t—I don’t think we should talk about this with Bear so close.” My voice dropped to a whisper by the end of my sentence, and Levi looked at me questioningly but nodded slowly.
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The two of us stepped outside and began to wander as I searched for the right words to say.
“So? You brought me out here so Bear couldn’t hear. What’s going on?”
The overgrown grass and cracked pavement were all I could see as I spoke. “Knotting Hill, where we are right now, is Southwest. Your compass was wrong and likely still is, so your friend has probably traveled further away from home than toward it. On top of that, the further South you go, the more dangerous the terrain and people get. Even I haven’t made it more than thirty miles past here.”
As I explained, Levi stayed calm and unreactive but pressed when he felt there was something more: “And what of Bear? That's not something he wouldn’t be able to hear; there’s something else.”
“Well, from what I know about his kind of infection, the type of medicines I gave him start by having a positive reaction but then do a complete one-eighty, and he will get worse. Worse than he was before I helped.”
This news was what jolted him, and he stopped in his tracks, “Are you saying he’s going to die because of what you gave him?!”
This was precisely what I wanted to avoid, but I guess that was only hopeful thinking, “Not necessarily die, but he would probably be in a coma-like state until he eventually dies,” Levi rolled his eyes, “Look, I know this isn’t ideal. He needs anti-parasitic medication, but any natural medicines to take care of that are at my house, but it’s too far for us to travel before he inevitably gets too sick.”
He huffed, “So what’re we supposed to do then? Bear can’t die! You don’t understand the pressure we’re under, and he is way too important of a person to die out here!”
His concern about people who didn’t care about him drove me crazy. They gave him a broken compass, horribly expired food, water that wouldn’t last any average person for more than a few months, and medicine that did not affect real-world illnesses and diseases. Their survival knowledge was so little, and it was as if they wanted to send them out as an experiment to see if the dumb kids of the city could survive out in the big, scary unknown of the wasteland.
“Are you just going to stand there looking like an idiot, or will you finally say something useful here?”
His words took me aback, but I just laughed humorlessly, and I could feel an overwhelming feeling of bitterness take over. I was done sparing his feelings as he hasn’t spared mine a second since he met me, so I don’t know why I’ve been doing that for him, “You’re so unbelievably blind; it’s borderline insane. If he’s so important, then why did he get sent on a suicide mission?!” Levi went to say something but stopped himself, but I egged him on, “No, I wanna hear what you have to say, dude; I’m curious.”
“Our parents purposely put the three of us together because we each excelled in school in our respective districts. There was nothing more to it than that, and they had no other choices.”
“So, that’s your explanation? How naive and ignorant can you be? Those people could give less than two fucks who you are or what you did in your shitty school if they sent you out here with nothing but a clean ass and a happy face, Levi!” At this point, I’m not even sure he was listening anymore, so I step closer to him and begin counting the reasons they’re shit, “You can’t even contact them if you need them; you had to break your group up and wait days for help that may never come! You have little to no knowledge of how to clean water. Was there even a whisper about a backup plan? What if you lost your backpack? Ran into raiders or gang members? Did they expect you to fare well out here and come back unscathed? Please tell me, Levi, because you seem like a guy well within his wits, but you’re letting these people play you for a fool!”
He shook his head before making eye contact with me; it scared me a little, the look in his eyes. They were full of blind rage, “You don’t know ANYTHING! You met us yesterday, Alvina! You live on the outside, you’ll never be where I’ve been or see the things I’ve seen, and I see now that you are nothing but dirty scum like the rest of the lowlifes out here. You’ve been acting like you’re better than us this whole time, treating us like we’re stupid and know nothing! You know nothing.” He pointed a firm finger at me, “Figure out how to help him, or I will kill you. You fucked us. Badly.”
He began to storm off, but before he got too far, he spun on his heel and walked back until he was inches from my face. “You fix this, or I will hunt you down. Survival knowledge or not, I know how to pull a trigger.”
Levi stalked away, leaving me in the middle of the road, the sun shining directly above us in the sky.
Unbelievable.
I’m at a loss as I think and take in my surroundings.
How the fuck am I supposed to fix this?
In the distance, I could see the top of the building that housed the clinical hospital, and like a puzzle piece clicked into place, I remembered the reason I came here and knew exactly where I was going to start.