Sojourner, Pt 9

You find yourself back on the road westward in no time at all. Twilight has long since sunk into dusk, and further into the dead of night. All that's above you is inky blackness, and what few stars are visible twinkle weakly amidst it all. Unfortunately, you can't see the moon - it's hidden behind thick, dark clouds. Its dull yellow light just barely peeks through between the gaps, which is the only reason that you know it's up there at all.

Though it has been a few hours since your encounter with the Chimera, you can't help but shake thinking about her.

The fact is, you're growing more and more aware of the different parts inside of you, each with their own soft voices, each telling you which way to turn, which way to go, what to choose. And you can't help but realize that these are splinters of yourself, slowly forming out of the ether.

When you look back on your life, you realize that they've always been there in the back of your mind. Meds and people and regular society helped keep it in check. But now, traveling by yourself, and with powerful psionic energies at your beck and call… Well, that's made your budding splinters more potent. And noisy.

You do acknowledge that you are becoming a better person overall, but a part of you fears that Chimera. Not her in particular, or Chimera in general. No, a part of you fears becoming one yourself. Or something like that, something along the lines of a psionic vampire.

You can see just how easily it could happen, at least over time.

You then second-guess yourself about wanting to be more like Kaja, to follow in her footsteps of being more proactive. It is a good idea, sure, but wouldn't that cause yet another splinter to emerge in you? So should you stop doing that? Or would it help keep you in check?

Your lips purse subconsciously as the thoughts hammer you, over and over as you travel. You feel crippled by them, to some degree. Almost like they hang onto you and weigh you down by your shoulders. The thoughts are quite difficult to shake, even as the hours turn to days. A couple of suns and moons pass by, along with the occasional road eatery or service station.

Although they're temporarily interrupted as you attempt to survive, the same thoughts cycle in your head. They evolve into actual conclusions about yourself as you go along, as you chew into the thoughts and process them.

It takes you time, but you eventually calm your thoughts down. After lengthy sessions ruminating on the Chimera's mental state, you convince yourself you can't get there, not if you're careful. Not unless you give in to all of your splinters, all your voices. The danger is in giving in and not keeping hold.

After all, you are in charge of yourself, and no-one else.

You hold the responsibility of keeping yourself together, no matter what. But doing that, maintaining order in yourself even as you grow slowly more insane… that's going to be tough. You have to be conscious of your own changes in order to know which way to keep going.

You suppose that really isn't anything new. There used to be entire professions that dealt with people managing their personal insanities. It's interesting to you how much you hated them when they were everywhere. And now that they're nowhere, you feel the opposite.

A pity there's none of them left in the apocalypse. You're desperate to get their help.

Since they don't exist, you find that you have to deal with yourself in a different way. Maybe you can turn it into a game? Like, keep tabs on yourself like they're quests? If you have to be more mindful, then you ought to have a constant reminder, right?

Maybe even call it a Quest…

You shake your head at the thought. You find that you seriously dislike the word 'Quest', so no way are you going to refer to it as that. And it wouldn't be a 'Mission' either. You're not some knight errant doing the bidding of some princess, nor are you a mercenary with a kill order from some military.

You're just some person trying to make it in the world.

It takes you some time to think of the word 'Objective'. It feels nicely in your brain, and it settles in easily in the corners. It's strong enough to feel important, but nowhere near as pretentious as 'Mission', or as archaic as 'Quest'.

Okay, great, you figured that out, you tell yourself. Sure took you a while. But what's your Objective to begin with? Not go crazy?

You realize that it's too late for that.

So is it about getting rid of the dreams? Or is it coming to terms with them? Is it to talk about Kaja to her parents? Is it to remove the headaches? Is it to become powerful? Or is it just to survive? Is any of this even achievable? Is all this plain foolishness?

It takes you some time, but you come to the conclusion that what you want are all possible outcomes of your Objective, but none are actually your Objective. You realize that you're simply here doing what you're doing because deep down you need to travel, to take this long, lonely walk, and ultimately change your life.

A word comes to you from out of your memories - Walkabout.

You learned about these Walkabouts long ago, from articles and videos and movies and books. As far as you remember, it's an Australian Aboriginal thing, where members of their community would go out into the wilderness by themselves as a rite of passage. They stayed out there for months in search of the truth of their existence, and to find their purpose in life.

It completely makes sense that you're on your Walkabout now, making your Objective to Find your Purpose. Whatever that may be, and however your feet get you there.

The world around you comes back to the forefront of your mind as you surface from your innermost thoughts. You're not entirely sure how much time has passed since the Chimera, but you're certain it has been many days.

You think back to how many daytime stops you've had since then and count up five… no, six.

A sliver of light pierces through the darkness from behind you. When you turn back to look, you see the sun just barely rising from the horizon.

"We'd better find a spot to sleep today," you say aloud.

Well we passed that cluster of abandoned fast food spots about an hour ago, offers Noir. Could go back.

"Seriously? Well, kinda wish I'd seen it. I think I've only got one or two protein bars left. Running really low… Would'a been good to loot some food places."

I tried to tell you but… you've kinda been in a zone for a few days, thinks Noir. Didn't wanna bother you too much.

You nod in understanding. You've always been like this, after all.

"From now on, you can Interrupt me if you need to," you say. "I need to be a lot more present than I am now… Anyway I can kinda see a sign for a scenic rest stop a couple kilometers down. Let's go for that instead. Maybe there's vending machines in there with food left in 'em."

If that's what you want.

The two of you continue down the highway for another half hour before you come to the offramp towards the nearest rest stop. But instead of simply dipping down and to the side, it instead winds off and goes up into what looks to be one of the many wooded hills in this area.

You trace it upwards, and realize that it winds up the steepest side of the closest hill, all the way to the top. There, you can see the rest stop itself through the numerous thick trees surrounding the hilltop.

"Oh man, that's gonna take forever," you say under your breath.

Hey, you said to go here, Noir happily reminds you. May as well own your choice…

"Yeah, yeah."

Plus, this is a good spot. You're low on food and you wanna learn how to hunt, right? Well… take a look.

You crane your head slightly in thought before nodding in agreement. This would be a good spot to do that. Your Scan reveals all manner of critters out there, both the unknown weird kind and the regular kind you're used to.

Plenty of small ones too. You don't know exactly what they are, but you assume critters like rabbits and mice and whatnot.

"Alright then, let's do it," you say.

You then put one foot in front of the other and head down towards the scenic rest stop. You head down the long offramp which slowly elevates as you near the steep hill, causing your breaths to get sharper. Noir walks alongside you, seemingly happy at the exercise she's getting.

It gets monumentally harder when you get close to the base, when the road's angle sharpens considerably. Worse, it winds upwards in hairpin turns, lengthening how much road there is to travel in the first place.

Part of you wonders if you should just try to climb up as much as you can instead of walking up the entire length of asphalt. But the sheer angle of the hill deters you outright. You're not exactly fit enough or coordinated enough to try.

Though you skip over the road as much as you can, at least where it's easy to do, you still traverse over the vast majority of its length. As a result, it takes you another good hour or two as you trudge up the hill, along the winding road.

It certainly is quite scenic, though you'd enjoy it more if you had been in a car. As it is, you're sweating profusely and breathing heavily as you go up the hill. Your legs burn from the constant upward hike. And of course, your face is bright red from exertion.

You exhale with utter relief as you reach the top of the hill, as the elevation evens out, and as the ground becomes relatively flat again. Part of you wants to celebrate, hands waving, mouth whooping, the whole corny bit.

But all you can do is lean over yourself with your hands on your knees and catch your breath while sweat drips from your forehead.

Going up that took quite a bit out of you, even with your Temperance on full blast. You can feel your blood drum against your skin as your heart pumps it everywhere up and down your body. Even Noir is visibly exhausted. She stumbles a bit as she walks, and you can hear her wheeze softly as she catches her breath as well.

The day's rising heat certainly didn't help, though you're thankful for all of the trees around you. Without their canopies to provide shade, both of you would have been cooked halfway up.

Once the two of you catch your breaths, you gather yourselves and look around the rest stop's outdoor area. The road itself leads up into a circle in front of the rest stop itself, with all kinds of parking spots along the edge. It loops around then goes down a different winding path back towards the main highway.

It strikes you as odd that there aren't any cars in the spots, abandoned or otherwise. Not only that, but the paint around the road seems relatively pristine. There are numerous wooden benches that line the loop as well, but their wood looks barely weathered.

The trees aren't quite as thick up here, which allows for much of the sun to blast down on the hilltop itself. You can feel the heat practically strike you in the face, but thankfully there's enough shade for you to hide in.

The very center of the loop appears to be some kind of meadow for pet owners to use, so their pets can do their business in one spot. There's a little sign in the center held up by a pole, with a small container filled with pet waste bags halfway up said pole.

Then there's the rest stop's main building itself, which looks relatively modern. It's built over one side of the hill, with panoramic glass windows facing in most directions. As far as you can tell, it seems to be hexagonal or octagonal in shape, with most of its windows looking outward into the forest beyond.

Beside it seems to be a picnic area - just a small clearing in the woods with a few wooden tables and benches. There might also be a grill sticking out of the ground, though you can't tell exactly what.

This is one hell of a scenic rest stop, that's for sure.

The two of you walk into the main building with awe in your eyes. This place is barely dusty. Hell, compared to most of the places you've been, this place is immaculate. There's no grime or dirt or trash on the floor, the windows aren't smashed to pieces, and it's clear that no-one has been here the past three years.

When you look at a rack filled with practically untouched pamphlets and newsletters and maps, you realize that this stop had opened only a few months before the world ended. It never really got a chance to get seen by many travelers, much less appreciated.

But hey, you're here now, and you're more than eager to give this place its due.

You and Noir both walk up to the stop's most prominent feature - its massive windows. Outside, the woods seem to stretch out for quite a while, with numerous hills running alongside yours. You can easily see the tree canopies, since the sun's higher up in the sky now, and is shining down on the woods surrounding you. Part of that light shines into the building itself, of course.

But oddly enough, you don't feel as hot as you should be. In fact, you even feel a very light breeze running through the place.

You look around curiously and find that the hexagonal roof is somewhat separated from the rest of the building, with thin and long gaps between the two. This certainly allows the air to flow in and out, but you also note that there's a fan up in the ceiling as well. It spins, but only as slow or as fast as how much wind gets through the gaps.

The breeze that's flowing in gets pushed down towards you, and without a lick of electricity.

You marvel at everything in front of you. The amazing views, the solitude, the airyness, the cleanliness, everything. A part of you is tempted to turn this into your permanent roost. But another part reminds you that a Walkabout can't be completed while on your rump or on your back.

Still…

"This is definitely a great place to stop," you say after a while. "I'm glad you pushed us both to come here, even if that climb almost killed us."

Same, thinks Noir. I'm glad you thought of it in the first place. Even if you were only thinking about looting broken machines for more gross food.