10 | Hope

She was led into a circular room that had a high-rise ceiling. The center of the room sank deeper than the perimeter, and sitting in the center was a stone column that rose to the top of the room. Ally was dragged toward the column. Brandon lets go and walks out of her view. Baxter shoves her up against the column and Baxter returned to bind her hands around the column.

"Now, I have to say I'm disappointed in your performance. We quite obviously take on a lot of strain taking you and the other women in here. To consider anything but total admiration a full and whole betrayal would be putting my true feelings on the matter to shame." Teach entered the room behind them.

Ally didn't say anything in response.

"But I do have to say, I am curious. I understand how you worked out the glitches with our electronics, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how you were able to communicate your plan to young Daisy."

Ally slid her hands down as her shoulder started to ache. She didn't know either, but hell if she was going to give them the satisfaction.

"Silence never looked good on anybody—much less you, my dear."

"Don't call me that," Ally said, trying to be tough, but finding it more difficult by the second.

"Okay, I've given you a chance to lighten your punishment. Baxter, grab the other whip, please."

She could hear his suppressed laughter as he stepped out of her view. She waits for a moment longer until she saw the edge of what looked to be a spike. Her breath catches in her throat and the first lashing tears across her back—sticking and then ripping off. She screams and whips her head back. She catches a glance of the whip that was now coated with her blood.

"You were given your chance," Teach said, and then winds up for another lash.

She hears the crack and she closes her eyes tight...but it doesn't come. She waits, expecting the lashing to come when she least expects it, but it doesn't.

She opens her eyes slowly, and around her she saw Baxter and Brandon lying on top of each other, a pool of blood forming around them. They were stabbed in the chest with...something that was no longer there. She then looked to see Teach pinned to the back wall, a glowing white sword sticking out of his chest.

And standing in front of her was Jace.

It has been three years since she's seen him, tears flood her face as the pain in her back erupts some more, causing her to lean against the pole. In another moment Teach's body falls to the ground and the bindings keeping her tied up are sliced off. She falls forward, but he catches her, picking her up in his arms.

"We're getting out of here."

"Where have you been? I...I missed you."

He started to run—nearly float at how fast he was running.

"Well, that is up to you, Ally, isn't it?"

"I..." she said, more occupied with the speed which they were moving. They cleared the facility in no time flat. It was the first time she'd seen the outside since she was captured. The moon was still wrong—it still had the red glow to it, but it was much better than nothing. She cuddled up in Jace's arms and closed her eyes. "I don't have the strength to write your story. Much less any place where to write it."

"I'm sure we could solve both of those problems. There must be more power out there somewhere."

"I appreciate your sentiment, but I'm not sure if I'm ever going to be strong again."

"You are right now."

She thought on it. And then looked back up to him—his golden hair blowing in the wind. "Are you going to have to leave me again?"

He continues running and his face doesn't change. "I don't want to. I might have to go for a little while, but it won't be for as long as last time, I promise."

"You have to make sure you mean that," Ally said. "I can't go through something like that again without you."

"I promise."

He continues running for a little while longer. When she can feel him grimace she knows that their time together is coming to an end once again. He seems to sense her noticing, and he slows to a stop near a calm grassland. There's a lone tree with colorful fruit among its branches. He walks over and sets her down against the tree and climbs up the trunk. He leaps from the trunk to a low hanging branch and grabbed two of the fruit and lands next to her.

"I'm going to be going, soon. You need to rest here and eat, and when you're rested, you need to keep moving. I wish I could have gotten you all the way to somewhere safe, but I tried my hardest."

"Jace...you're everything."

"And yet it's you in the end, isn't it?"

"You're my only friend."

"That'll change soon enough. Then you'll need me less."

"No," she starts to tear up. "I promise I won't."

He smiled, turning away, she thought to hide his own tears. "That means a lot..."

He faded from the world and the other fruit he had been holding fell to the ground—announcing its finality. She sat back against the tree and started to bawl. She cries until she falls asleep.

~...~

The sounds of crickets harmonizing lulls her awake. She woke up to find bugs have nibbled through portions of the fruit that Jace had been holding. She wasn't sure if she would have been able to eat it anyway. Her thoughts were much too focused on other things — more important fears than something so simple as hunger.

In reality, she knew she couldn't leave thinking like that. It would have eaten her alive more than her stomach would. So, she sat up and reached up high for a low-hanging fruit.

It was a strange orange lump in her hand that looked like a pear. The skin is tough, so she has to pick at it to start peeling.

She'd be self conscious about it if there was anybody else around, but since she was all alone – a fact she wanted to think of as little as possible – she felt no hesitation about picking the skin off. She did the same thing with other fruit she was more familiar with. There was something about how the skin felt in her mouth that ruined the rest of the fruit. It was an almost bitter sensation that canceled out the sweetness.

She wasn't sure if this fruit was similar in that sense – a lot of what had happened the night before now felt like some sort of fever dream – but she wasn't feeling up to being adventurous with her tastes.

Above her there was a warbling sound that interrupted itself with high pitched chirps. She saw resting on a branch two levels above from where she plucked the fruit was a strange gray-feathered bird. Its beak curved upward in a way that didn't seem like it'd fit well for anything it needed. She stared quizzically at the bird that could barely to even to sing properly. Distorted low grunts interspersed the high chirps.

"So weird…" she said, feeling a moment's confusion at how gruff her own voice had sounded. Her mind flashed back to her time at Nasseu Middle School.

The way the various sounds cut into one another remind her how it felt when Issachar had entered her body – had used her as a mouthpiece. She wonders if anybody else from that time was still alive today.

It was an odd experience. Perhaps one of the only times she thought back to those days and wasn't immediately overtaken with grief. She's sure it's because she's got so much more on her plate now, but it's easy to convince herself that she's making emotional progress.

That was a term that old quack the Fae's brought her to used to say. It was almost funny how little he actually knew about what was going on in her head. Then again, she wasn't very forward with information either, so it wasn't entirely all on him.

When the thoughts started to trend negative she pushed them out of her head and bit down into the fruit. It made her wince the slightest bit as the juice inside was pretty bitter, but there was just enough sweetness in the aftertaste to justify finishing the whole thing. She powered through it and tossed the core up toward the bird above. It eyed the core and opened its mouth quickly, scooping up the fruit in the undercarriage almost like a pelican.

She ripped another of the fruit from the tree and began peeling once more. The sun had started to rise – painting the sky a faded violet hue has the dark reds of the night made way for the more gentle blues. As she finishes the second fruit and tosses it upward for the bird to catch again she starts to stand fully upright.

She knows she must start walking if she expects to make any progress. Staying here will only deplete the food for the bird and whatever else would stop by this area. She has to find other people. She has to find a place to start again. And once she made something of herself, that's when she'll search for Issachar. She owes that much to Jace.

She began walking. She stopped the first time once her legs first start to ache. She hears water nearby and diverts from her path to drink. The water is clear, free of any guck that would make her think twice, and while it still posed a risk, she bent down and scooped several handfuls into her mouth. She has to stop after every few handfuls so she can come up for air. She took in deep breaths that are plagued with coughs as she swallows too quickly. Her eyes begin spinning and she sat down, her palms outstretched.

The sun beats down on her and betrays the winter day it was supposed to be in the old world. She doesn't know what day exactly it is, but she could guess that it must roughly be somewhere between the November to December months...if time still passed as normal in this new world.

Time...normal. The thought hit her like a train. It really didn't quite matter if we orbited the sun faster here, right? Humanity would find a new way to consider this the "normal" and people like me who think too much on these things will get left behind.

Temporally, she believed they were somewhere near their way to a new 2026, however, the environment around her definitely felt closer to an early summer's June. The wind carried softly beside her, the sun shone brightly, and yet, something about the ground felt...cold. Not like any of the two ideas in her head floating around cold, but a sort of unfeeling foreignness that refused to identify itself.

When she satisfied herself she stood back up and continued her journey, attempting to put the idea of when she was out of her mind.

As the sky turned to the blood red of the night she pulled off her trail to find anywhere off to get some sleep. Each night carried the rampant risk of leaving herself exposed as her environment left little opportunity for places to hide from those who would do her harm, but conversely she also got a clear sight of every living creature that roamed the wilderness. These tended to vary from snakes which she made sure to keep well enough away from to small cubs of almost rodent like creatures that were like enlarged guinea pigs. They had fur that shined in the sunlight, but were even more scared of her than she could have been of them.

She found a spot where the ground rose up to enough of a hill that she could bunker up on the crest to at least hide from half of the potential risk. She didn't think any sort of vehicle was going to be coming through this path. Sometimes you just have to take the risk, though.

This is how the next half a week proceeds until she catches sight of a tower in the distance. Hung on it were giant metal letters that spelled out "HOME".

"Hitting the nail a little too close there," she said out loud, but inside it was the one word she needs to see right now.

Perhaps that was the motivation.