Chapter 11 Chapter 9 Discovery

As the sun went down behind me, I drove quickly across the junction.Apart from the yellow and white lines on the road surface, and the occasional big green sign pointing me further east, I can hardly see anything else, and now I am a little anxious. I'm not sure exactly why I'm in a hurry, though.I guess, to get away from it all.Run from pain, run from grief, run from lost, hopeless love.Does that mean escape from the body?I can't think of another answer.I still ask my therapist about my problems, but it feels like a decision has been made.A person who runs away halfway, a person who gives up halfway.I mentally validated these two words and wanted to accept them.

If I can find a way, I will save Melanie from the hunters, which will be very difficult.No, it will not be possible. I will give it a try. I assured her of this, but she didn't listen, she was still dreaming.I think it is to give up, since it is too late to give up and choose to seek help. I tried to keep myself away from the red canyon in her mind, but I was there, too.No matter how hard I tried to watch the cars speeding past me, the plane taxiing into port, the few clouds passing overhead, I still couldn't quite tear myself out of her dream.I've memorized Jared's face from a thousand different angles, and I've watched Jamie suddenly grow taller, always scrawny.My arms ached for both of them—no, it was worse than pain, more razor-sharp, more violent.It was unbearable and I had to come out.

I was driving almost blindly down the narrow two-lane highway.The desert is more monotonous, more lifeless, flatter and colorless than before.I'll be in Tucson before dinner.Dinner, I haven't eaten anything today, when I realized this, my stomach growled. The hunter will be there waiting for me.My stomach churns again, and nausea temporarily replaces hunger.My foot automatically releases the gas pedal. I pored over the map in the passenger seat.Before long, I'll arrive at a small coal mining station called "Pikachu Peak."Maybe I'll stop there a little bit and get something to eat.Put off meeting the hunter and enjoy this precious moment.

When I thought of the unfamiliar name—Pikachu Peak—Melanie reacted so strangely and oppressively that I couldn't figure it out.Has she been here before?I searched my mind for a memory, some sort of situation or smell that corresponded to it, but I couldn't find anything.Pikachu mountain, once again Melanie suppressed the surge of interest.What did these words mean to her?She responds to distant memories, yet eludes me. This got me curious, and I drove a little faster, wondering if seeing this place would activate some memory. It was an inaccessible mountain--not very majestic by normal measures, but rising high above the jagged hills that approached me more and more--gradually coming into view, its singular and singular shape .As we drove closer and closer, Melanie watched it become more chiseled and feigned indifference.

She obviously cared, so why pretend she didn't?I was distracted by her strength while trying to figure it out.I couldn't see anything around the old empty wall, which felt thicker than usual, even though I'd thought it had all but disappeared. I tried to ignore her presence, not wanting to think about it - she was getting stronger and stronger.Instead I gazed at the peak, sketching its outline against a pale, hot sky.There's something familiar about it.Something I'm sure I know, even though I'm sure neither of us has ever been here before. As if she was trying to distract me, Melanie fell into a more vivid memory that caught me off guard.

I shivered in my coat, squinting as the sun faded away behind the dense, stunted, hard trees, and the harsh sunlight was no longer so scorching.I told myself it wasn't as cold as I thought it was, my body was just not used to it. The sudden hand on my shoulder didn't frighten me, and although I was worried about the unfamiliar place, I didn't hear him approaching quietly.Their weight is all too familiar. It's easy to sneak up on you. Even now, there was a smile in his voice. I saw you coming before you took the first step. When I said that, I didn't turn around, and I had a pair of eyes on the back of my head.

Warm fingers stroked my temples down to my chin, dragging a fire across my skin. You look like woodland nymphs in the woods—he whispered in my ear, one of them.So beautiful you must be imaginary. We should have planted more trees around the cabins. He smiled softly, and the laughter made me close my eyes, and a smile appeared on my lips. No need, he said, you always look like this. On the eve of their parting, tell the last man on earth to say that to the last woman on earth. The smile on my face disappeared when I spoke, and today the smile doesn't last. He sighed, and his breath brushed against my cheeks, warm, not like the chilly wind in the forest.

Jamie would probably hate the insinuation like that. Jamie is a boy, please, please keep him safe. I'll make a deal with you, Jared suggested, you'll keep yourself safe and I'll do my best.Otherwise, there is no deal. It was just a joke, but I couldn't take it lightly.Once we are separated, there is no security.no matter what happens.I insisted. Nothing will happen, don't worry.The words are almost meaningless and futile, but his voice is worth listening to, no matter what the message comes from it. it is good. He turned me to face him, and I rested my head on his chest.I don't know what to compare his taste to.It was his own, like the smell of juniper, or the smell of desert rain.

You and I will never lose each other, he promises, and I will always find you again.That's the way Jared is, he doesn't take more than a heartbeat or two when he's completely serious, no matter how stealthy you hide, I'm unstoppable at hide and seek. Will you allow me to count to ten? No peeking! it has started.I mumbled, trying to hide that my throat had become hoarse with tears. Do not be afraid!you will be fine.You are strong, fast, and smart.He was also trying to convince himself. Why should I leave him?That Sharon was still a human being was such a remote thing. But when her face was in the news, I was so sure.

It was just an ordinary food hunting trip, just one of countless times.As always, if we felt remote enough and safe enough, we would turn on the TV and rummage through the pantry and refrigerator.Just wanted to know the weather forecast, no entertainment at all in the parasites broadcast boring as hell everything was perfect report.It was the hair that caught my eye—the kind of hair a little darker than pink that I'd only seen on one person. Her face, peeking into the camera out of the corner of her eye, is still vivid in my mind.That look says, I'm trying not to be seen, don't see me.She wasn't walking very slowly, trying too hard to maintain a casual pace, eager to blend in.

No body snatcher needs that. What the hell is Sharon doing walking around as a human in a big city like Chicago?Is there anyone else?Trying to find her didn't even feel like an option, really.If there are more humans out there, we've got to find them if there's any hope. And I'm going solo.Sharon would avoid anyone but me—well, she would avoid me, too, but maybe she would stay for a moment, long enough for me to explain.I'm sure I know where she's hiding. how about you?I asked him with a choked voice, I'm not sure my body can handle such a dangerous farewell, will you be safe? Neither heaven nor hell can separate me from you, Melanie. Without giving me a chance to catch my breath or wipe away the tears that had just welled up, she threw another memory at me. Jamie is curled up in my arms - he doesn't lie down as easily as he used to.He had to bend over, and the outlines of the elongated arms and bent legs were clearly recognizable.His arms had begun to grow muscle and were stiff, but still wobbled at this moment as a child, almost trembling with fear.Jared was loading the car, and Jamie wouldn't be here if he was there.Jamie wants to be brave, like Jared. I'm scared.he said softly. I kissed his dark hair.His hair still smelled of dust and sunshine even when he hid in a resin-oozing spiky bush.He was like a part of me, tearing us apart like the skin that held us together. You'll be fine with Jared.I had to make myself sound brave, whether I felt that way or not. I know that, and I'm afraid for you.I'm afraid you won't come back, just like Dad. I flinched a bit.When Dad didn't come back—even though eventually his body did, trying to bring the hunters to us—it was the scariest, most frightening, most painful thing that ever happened to me.What if I do this to Jamie again? I'll be back, I've been safe all this time. I am afraid.he said again. I had to be brave. I promise everything will be fine and I will be back, I promise.You know I won't break my word, Jamie, and I won't break my word to you. Shake him slowly.He trusts me, he trusts me. And then again. I can hear them downstairs, and they won't find me in minutes or seconds.I scribbled a few words on a scrap of dirty newspaper.They were almost illegible, and if he could find the note he would know: not fast enough.Love you, love Jamie.not going home. Not only did I break their hearts, but I stole their sanctuary.I pictured our home in the log cabin in the small canyon, which must now be forever abandoned.Or, if not deserted, it is a grave.I saw my body draw the hunter into it.I had a smile on my face when we were there to catch them... "Enough," I said aloud, shuddering at the thrashing pain, "enough! You've said the crucial thing! I can't live without them now. Does that make you happy? Because That doesn't leave me with any options, does it? There's only one - get rid of you. Do you want the hunter in you? Ah!" The thought terrified me, as if I'd be the one to ask her to stay . There is another option, Melanie thought softly. "Really?" I asked sarcastically, "Let's hear it." Take a look and you will understand. I still stare at the peak, which towers over the landscape, rock jutting out of flat scrub.Her interest draws my eye to the contours here, following two continuous, undulating ridges. A meandering, rugged curve, then a sharp turn to the north, then a sudden turn in the other direction, wrapping back to the north and stretching farther, then suddenly descending south to another shallow curve horizontally. Not north and south—that was the shape I used to see in fragments of her memory—but up and down. is the outline of the mountain. These lines lead to Jared and Jamie, which is the first line, the starting point. I can find them. We can find them, she corrected me, you don't know all the directions.As in the case of the cabin, I never let you know all about it. "I don't understand, where does it lead? How does this mountain lead us?" Jared was nearby, Jamie was so close—my pulse beat faster when I thought about it. She showed me the answer. They are nothing but lines.Uncle Jeb was just an old nut, a psychopath, like the rest of my dad's family.I managed to get the book out of Jared's hands, but he barely noticed my effort. Psychotic, like Mama Sharon?He retorted, still studying the marks made by the black pencils whose presence had disfigured the back covers of old photo albums, the one thing I hadn't lost on my escape.Even the scribbles that crazy Uncle Jeb left on our house the last time they visited have a sentimental value now. That's right.If Sharon is still alive, it will be because of her mother, the crazy Aunt Meggie, who can compete with the crazy Uncle Jeb for the title of the craziest of the crazy Stryde siblings.My dad was just a little bit of the Stryder madness—he didn't have a secret bunker in the backyard or anything like that.The rest of them, his siblings, Aunt Maggie, Uncle Jeb and Uncle Guy, were some of the most ardent of conspiracy theorists.Even Aunt Meggie and Uncle Jeb scrambled to find signs of intrigue when Uncle Guy died in a car accident during the invasion before everyone else was gone. My father always lovingly called them lunatics.I guess it's time to check out the lunatics.Dad would announce, and then Mom would whine—that's why announcements like this rarely happened. On one of the few occasions I went to Chicago, Sharon smuggled me into her mother's hideout.We've been hit - this woman has traps everywhere.Sharon was given a good reprimand, and though I was sworn to secrecy, I had a feeling Aunt Meggie might be building another asylum. But I remember where the first one was.I'm now imagining that Sharon is there, living Annie in the enemy city?Frank ① life.We had to find her and bring her home. Jared interrupted my recollection: psychopaths are just the kind of people who survive, the kind of people who can see him without Big Brother.People who suspect other people before they become dangerous, people who have prepared a hiding place, Jared grinned, still studying the lines, and then his tone became heavy, like my dad people like that.If he and my brothers hid instead of fighting...well, they'd still be here. My tone softened, hearing the pain in his words: Well, I agree with the theory, but the lines don't make any sense. Tell me again what he said when he drew these. I sigh: they're arguing - Uncle Jeb and my dad.Uncle Jeb tried to convince him that something was wrong, telling him not to trust anyone, and Dad laughed it off.Jeb grabbed the photo album on the coffee table and began...almost penciling the lines into the back cover of the album.Dad was very angry and said my mother would be angry.Jeb said, 'Linda's mom invited your family over, didn't she?Very strange, very sudden?She was a little distressed later when she saw Linda was the only one there, wasn't she?To be honest, Trevor, I don't think Linda will mind anything very much when she gets back.Oh, she might be faking that, but you can tell. ’ It didn’t make sense for him to say that at the time, but what he said really pissed off my dad, and he gave Uncle Jeb an eviction order.Jeb was initially reluctant to leave and kept warning us not to wait until it was too late.He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into his arms. 'Don't let them catch you, honey,' he said softly, 'follow the lines.Start at the starting point and follow the lines, Uncle Jeb has a safe place reserved for you. ' That's when Dad pushed Uncle Jeb out the door. Gerald nodded absently, still studying: the beginning... the beginning... there must be something to this. Have it?They're just scribbled lines, Jared.It's not like a map - they're not even connected. There's something interesting about the first one, though.Something familiar, I swear I've seen it somewhere before. I sighed: Maybe he told Aunt Meggie, maybe she could explain it more clearly. maybe.he said, and continued to stare at Uncle Jeb's scribble. She dragged me back in time from a much older memory—the kind that had long escaped her.I was surprised to realize that she had only recently connected these memories, old and new, after I had been here.That's how the lines slipped from her careful grasp, even though they were one of her most cherished memories - because her discoveries were life and death. In this vague first recollection, Melanie is sitting on her father's lap, holding the same photo album -- not so tattered back then -- spread out in her palm.Her hands were small, with long fingers, and it was strange to live in her and remember her as a child. They look at the first page. Do you remember where this is?Dad asked, pointing to the old gray photo at the top of the page.The paper looked a little thinner than the other photos, as if it had been worn out—much thinner, flatter, listless—that was taken by the great-grandfather's father. This is where the Strider family comes from.I replied, repeating what I had learned. Yes, that's the old Stryde Farm.You've been there once, but I bet you don't remember.I think you were eighteen months old at the time, laughed Dad, and it was originally Stryde Park...   Then there is the memory of the photograph itself.It was a photo she had seen a thousand times, but hadn't really understood it.It was a black and white photo, faded to gray.There is a rustic cabin there, away from the desert on the other side; the foreground is a fence separated on both sides; there are several horse-like shapes between the fence and the house.And then, behind it all, the sharp, familiar silhouette with the words, a label, drawn in pencil on the white top of the photo: Stride Farm, in the morning shadows "Pikachu Peak." I am at peace say. He'll find out too, and even if they never find Sharon, I know Jared will make the connections.He was smarter than I was, he had pictures; he might have found the answer before I did, and the thought that he might be so close filled her with yearning and excitement, and the empty wall in my head disappeared completely. Now I understand the whole journey, weeks of seeing her, Jared, and Jamie trudging across the country, always at night in unobtrusive stolen cars.I saw her leave them in the forested sanctuary on the outskirts of the city, a far cry from the empty desert they were used to.Jared and Jamie would hide and wait in this icy forest, which felt safer in some ways—because the branches were dense and hidden, unlike the thin leaves in the desert where it was almost impossible to hide—with its unfamiliar smells and sounds. Also more dangerous. Then came the parting, a memory so painful and frightening that we skipped it together.Then there's the abandoned building where she's hiding, watching the house across the street for her moment.There, hiding in walls or secret basements, she hopes to find Sharon. I shouldn't have let you see this, Melanie thought, and the weakness in her calm voice betrayed that she was exhausted, worn out by waves of memory and persuasion and coercion, and you'd tell them Wherever you find her, you will kill her too. "Yes," I quipped aloud, "I had to do my job." "Why?" she asked softly, almost drowsily, "what pleasure will this give you?" I didn't want to argue with her, so I didn't say anything. The mountains are getting bigger and bigger in front of us, and in a short while, we will come to the foot of the mountain.I could see a small rest stop, and a convenience store, a fast food restaurant bordering a flat concrete patch—that was for a prefab.With the arrival of summer, the intense heat here has made everything inhospitable, and only a few families now live here. What should we do now?I'm curious.Stopping in for a late lunch, or an early dinner?Fill up the gas tank and continue on to Tucson to reveal my new find to the hunters? The thought was so repulsive, my jaw locked tightly on my suddenly hungry stomach.I slammed on the brakes like a conditioned reflex, and stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, making a harsh sound.I was lucky that no car from behind hit me and no driver stopped to offer a helping hand to show concern.At this moment, the highway is deserted.The sun shone brightly on the hard pavement, and then disappeared briefly. The idea of ​​continuing on the right and appropriate course should not feel like a betrayal.My first language, the true language of the soul, spoken only on our ancestral planet, has no word for betrayal or traitor.Not even loyalty—since there's no word to the contrary, the concept simply doesn't make sense. However, just thinking about the hunter brings a deep wave of guilt over me.Tell her what I know will be wrong.Wrong, how to say?I stubbornly refuted my own thoughts.If I stayed here and listened to the demagogic advice of my host, I would truly be a traitor.That is impossible, I am the soul. And yet I know what I want, more intensely and more realistically than anything I've ever wanted in the eight lives I've lived.I blinked at the sun, and the image of Jared's face danced under my eyelids—not Melanie's memory this time, but my memory of hers, and she was imposing nothing on it now. on me.I could barely feel her on my mind as she waited—I guess she was just holding her breath, as if that was possible—waiting for my decision. I can't separate myself from this body's longing.This body is me, more like me than I expected.Is it my desire, or its desire?Now, is it meaningful to distinguish who is who? In my rearview mirror, sunlight bouncing off a car in the distance caught my attention. I put my foot on the accelerator and started to drive slowly towards the little convenience store in the shadow of the mountain, really only one thing to do.