Page 14 of Ablaze

My subconscious takes over, and I begin to weave in and out of dreams. I dream of my parents on the day that I left them. I’m boarding my flight and I turn to wave goodbye to them. They stand there and wave back to me, my mother fighting tears trying to keep them in her eyes. She blows me a kiss and mouths I’ll see you again soon. The memory of the day vanishes, and I’m running in the woods. This is the nightmare that won’t leave me alone. This time in my nightmare, I recognize it’s just that… a nightmare. At the end of it, I keep running and running and finally Jesse is running beside me. He’s screaming at me to get closer. I look over my shoulder and the guards of the Dome are chasing us. Their weapons are drawn and aimed at us, but we keep running away. The noise from their guns rings out into the air, and I begin to scream.

I wake with a jolt, and Jesse has his hand over my mouth. My eyes come into focus, and I can see that he’s leaning over me. His eyes are as big as saucers; something has scared him. When he realizes I’m awake, he slowly moves his hand away from my mouth.

“Are you alright?” he asks me in a whispered tone.

In the same tone, I answered him back, “It was a nightmare. Why are we whispering?”

He looks around before answering, “Because you were scaring me. You started screaming so loud, people for miles could probably hear you.”

I sit up and rub my eyes. My throat is dry, and my clothes are soaked in sweat. The hottest part of the day has passed, and the sky has taken on that glow of many colors as the sun begins to go into hiding for the night. I look at Jesse, and he seems like he’s managed some rest. He goes about what he was doing before I scared him. He’s got all of his bag unpacked, and he’s counting his supplies. I sit there and watch him do his work. I break the comfortable silence between us. “Will we start moving once it gets dark?” I ask.

“He takes his eyes off of his task and looks at me. “We’ll leave before it gets completely dark. If the rest of the path is like what we’ve experienced, we’ll do good to start out with a little light,” he informs me.

I watch him pack the rest of his bag up and start to get myself together to leave our tiny spot. Much to my surprise, Jesse takes off his shirt and stands with his bare chest right in front of me. I know my face blushes because I’ve never seen a man’s bare chest in person. I feel embarrassed and look away. When he sees my embarrassment, he quickly tells me, “I wouldn’t do this otherwise, but I scratched my back on something yesterday, and it’s been bleeding. Can you look at it for me? I need you to look and see if anything is in the cut.”

He turns around, and I can see that the scratch isn’t just a scratch; it’s a large cut at least an inch deep and three inches long. Dirt is caked around it, and the dirt might be the only thing stopping it from oozing blood everywhere. From the little I know from schooling, it needs to be cleaned and stitched up.

I tell him what I think. “This is bad. It needs to be cleaned out, and you need stitches. It’s going to get infected if you leave it like that.”

“We don’t have anything to stitch it up with. Try to clean it with some of my water, but don’t use a lot”

I start to clean the wound and as I’m doing so, it begins to bleed. Jesse takes the shirt he’s just removed and cuts it open on both sides. He’s turned it into one long piece of fabric. He turns around and hands me the fabric. “Help me get this folded over and wrap it around me. We’ll tie it on to me and use the pressure to help keep it closed. When we get to the island, we’ll see how it’s doing then.”

The island. I can’t wait to get there and apparently, neither can he.

Jesse

The cut on my back is killing me. I could hardly get any rest with the heat. I could feel my heart beating in my back. I refuse to let Sadie know how much pain I’m in. I try not to think about it as we scatter our makeshift camp. I want to make sure that we leave no trace of our stay. We dismantle our camp and scatter the branches far enough apart to look natural. By the time we finish that task, the air has become cooler with the sun setting. We still have enough light to see our steps in the woods for a while.

I put my backpack on, and it scrapes the cut on my back. I wince in pain and Sadie eyes me instantly with a worried look. “I’m fine,” I say, trying to reassure her but the shirt tied around me just isn’t enough to dull the pain. I shift my bag, trying to find a more comfortable way to carry it, but it’s no use. I’ll just have to let it rub against the wound. I try to hide the pain on my face. I wait for Sadie to get her bag on her shoulder and then we set out.

I stare up at the fading light from the sky as we walk. I’m hoping that we can make it to the island before the sun comes back up. With each step that we take, I feel like we are getting closer to answers. It’s hard to describe, but it’s just a feeling that I have deep inside me. We take it slow at first, walking side by side. As the light fades from the sky, we go even slower, attempting to make as little noise as possible in the brush. We’ve gone a while without speaking, and the silence begins to weigh on me.

“Is it my turn to ask you some questions?” I ask her casually as we continue forward. She looks at me in surprise and nods her head yes in response.

I try to keep my manners casual and my voice low. Inside, I feel anything but casual. I’ve thought of these questions for months as I’ve travelled across the country, wanting to ask them as soon as I met her. To finally ask them out loud to her feels like an enormous relief.

“How did you know to go to the Island?” I ask her.

Sadie takes her time stepping over a large branch that has fallen recently. Once she gets over it, she looks at me, stops and takes a breath. “I didn’t at first. I mean, I wasn’t told directly to go there.”

“What does that mean?” I ask her. I sure as hell don’t know.

“I just mean that my parents didn’t tell me directly to go there. After the disaster and after I found my letter, which was a complete surprise to me by the way, I started thinking about what to do and where to go. I remembered a recent conversation I had had with my mom, and she mentioned this place out of the blue. It was odd, and it stuck out to me. I think it was her way of telling me where to go.” She shrugs her shoulders to convey her bemusement.

“What if we get there and there’s nothing? What will be next?” I ask her in all seriousness. I have no idea what we’ll do next if that’s the case.

She stops walking and looks at me. “You want the truth? I don’t know. I’m hoping we don’t have to make that decision.” She starts walking again, and I wonder what she’s thinking about. Did I stir something inside of her mind? Is she second-guessing herself? I’ve risked my life coming all this way to get to her. My parents risked their lives to get me on that train. Yeah, they may have had a secret agenda, but they may have given their lives for it. I still don’t know if my parents are okay.

I haven’t been able to get any messages from home. I haven’t risked trying to send one either. Maybe it’s the same with my parents. Maybe it’s too dangerous for them to reach out. It’s not as if they know where I’m at. I’ve been traveling for months. I never stay in the same place for long and for good reason. They wouldn’t even know where to send a message. With my recent brush with the Dome, I’m glad I haven’t sent any messages to them; they could be monitoring everyone’s mail.

Until they came to George’s boarding house and bar, I thought they were just a myth. I didn’t even know for sure that they still existed. “Did you know the Dome guards were still functioning before we saw them in town?”

“No. I haven’t seen any of them until they were at George’s. If I did, I wouldn’t have just walked up to them and said, ‘Oh, hey, what are you doing here? How’s it going on the other side of the continent? What happened that day?’ I don’t think they would take too kindly to that.” She smirks at me.

Sass. I’m getting sassed now. Clearly, her nerves are starting to fray. Maybe I just rub her the wrong way. Either way, I decide to stop asking her any more questions. As time goes on, daylight begins to creep up on us. If we don’t make it before the sun is completely up and out, we will have to find another spot to weather the heat. I suggest to Sadie that we leave the dense brush and go closer to the main path. This will allow us to possibly see if anyone is around us and how far we have to the island. It should be getting very close.

We make our way out of the brush and onto what was once the main road. Like all the other main roads, debris is everywhere. Cars are parked in random places, and loose articles of clothing and items deemed as junk by scavengers, who have undoubtedly searched this area combing for treasures to trade and sell are scattered everywhere. I motion for Sadie to stay low, and we both crouch down between the abandoned cars. We have to be cautious and try to remain unseen. This could easily be a trap.

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