Finding Home

Not that way!

Screaming, despite herself, Alice flings her exhausted body towards the voice. Spinning around on the dead grass of what was once a field, she clutches at the silver locket around her neck, lest anyone steal it.

“Who's there,” she demands, breathless and terrified. Silence. Nothing. Same as every other day. So much damned silence, it never ends. Her own labored breathing is all that keeps her company. It's been like this for enough days that they're bleeding together, blurry lines around her consciousness. It's all fog in her brain.

Alice stomps her foot, grunting at the excursion and frustration. She fumbles, fingers clumsy, for the locket, holding it out in front of her. It opens with a snick, flipping to reveal a compass. Her most prized possession. The only piece of her father she has to hold onto. She will never forget the day he pressed it, heart-shaped and over-sized, into her small hand. She was only eight when he told her “ Allie, if it all goes pear shaped and they find us, use this compass. I have one, too. We'll head south, together or apart, no matter what. Walk south until you find the place where two mountains meet in a huge river. I'll find you there.” She looked up at her father, solid and weather worn and so absolutely trustworthy and nodded her little head. “Yes, Papa. I promise.”

Alice shook her head to rid herself of the memories before she dissolved in tears. Too much, it was too much to think about right now. She had managed to lose her direction, and spun on her heel to reorient her path.

Muttering to herself, “I have to keep going, no matter what,” she trudged on, heavy hearted.

That's better. Drink water.

A cold creeping sensation walked up her spine, straightening her. She is likely just hallucinating, but could rule out nothing at this point. She isn't supposed to be here. If they find her alive, she wouldn't be for long. She was supposed to die with the rest of them in the raid. Really, she wasn't surprised when they arrived. Her family and their little community had made it so long in hiding, it was bound to come to an end eventually. Eight long years since her father gave her the locket, nine since they left the city and banded together with other families all seeking safety.

Those years had been good, despite the constant fear of Them. Even amid the hardships that come with hiding, they thrived with good clean spring water, living off the land and planting modest gardens. Everything small, quiet, nothing to garner attention. It was part of The Plan. They were going to live like that as long as they could, until they had to flee further away, disband, and run. They would run if they had to, but never got the chance.

The raid was in the middle of a long Night – the longest so far, in the new Sun Cycle. Crops had all died, people in the community were beginning to turn on each other, depleted of vitamin D and hungry as they were. It was a perfect opportunity They took in a heartbeat.

Candles were extinguished only hours before the lives of so many. It was the night within Night, a time to sleep even when no one was tired. Little heads layed on pillows and parents tried to reconcile from the day's inevitable arguments. Alice slept alone on a cot next to her father's own bed of straw and feather. The deep, silent blackness was interrupted with a sudden whiz-pop that woke her instantly. Heat. And light. Flames. Screaming. The acrid smell of burning wood and fear. The crackle snap of fire. Fire!

Stumbling up out of her blankets, Alice stood, only to be forced to hands and knees by thick, black smoke. She crawled, choking, through the haze and din to the open door of the hut. Sling! Alice whipped her head to the right, blinking hard, to see an arrow in the wall of her hut mere inches from her own head.

In the chaos and death that followed, Alice lost sight of her father, the last words uttered from his lips to her ears were “Allie! Go!” And she ran.

A single tear slips down a teenage Alice's dirty face and she sucks in a sob.

Don't cry, Allie.

“No!” Heart thumping, she is no longer careful to be quiet. “NO! Only Papa calls me that, shut up!”

Crickets. Or, the incredible lack of. Something about this particular Night is sinister, different. Like it may never end. Every other Sun Cycle is just an extension of a Old day or night, but this Night is silent, still. Without creatures large or small, no rain or even wind. The definition of barren, nothing but dead grass and dust beneath her boots. Alice coughs, aware she's nearly out of water in her hip flask and deeply hungry. Fear builds behind her sternum, a lump of anxiety. She really is alone, and she really might die out here. And no one will ever care.

I'll care.

Nostrils flaring, Alice lashes out with her hands, hitting at the empty air around her, trying to hit and hurt whoever is following her. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

Open the locket.

She blinks. Is she supposed to follow orders from a voice, a hallucination her fear addled mind has conjured? Alice takes a deep, if shaky, breath and flips open the locket. “There. Now what?”

Home, Allie.

Crushing the locket closed in her fist, she grinds out “I don't have a home. There is no more home,” before ripping it off her neck and stuffing it deep in her skirt pocket. Alice scoops out a tiny handful of dried blueberries and shoves them in her mouth before slowly walking away. It doesn't matter if she eats all her prized treats now, she might as well enjoy it before They come. Or the Night finally suffocates her like the monster it is becoming. The sweet burst of fruit on her tongue brings back tears for her father and the memory of his lessons on survival.

His hands pressed sun-dried berries wrapped in oak leaves into her hands, in the middle of a long stretch of Day. It was hot and all Alice wanted was to go drink from the bit of river that the heartless sun hadn't taken yet. “I have so little to give you, daughter, but keep these with you, always. They are special, from the high mountains, and they will keep you healthy and strong if we have to run.” She didn't believe him, didn't respect him. She ate them all in a greedy moment later that very afternoon. When her father found out the next day, he poured a new little mountain of the dark blue drops into her hands and Alice promised with wet eyes “Papa, I'll keep them this time, I promise. I promise!”

The tears are falling freely now, anger and fear too much for her fragile mind to handle. “Please, Papa. Please don't leave me.”

It's okay, Allie. Papa's here.