Chapter 13 Chapter 11 Dehydration

"Okay! You're right, you're right!" I said these words out loud and no one around could hear me. Melanie didn't say "I told you this was going to happen" or anything like that.Not in so many words, but I felt the accusation in her silence. I'm still reluctant to leave the car even though it's useless to me now.After the gasoline ran out, I drove it on with the remaining power until it swooped down a shallow canyon—a creek formed by the last heavy rain.Now I look out the windshield at the vast, empty plain and feel my stomach convulsing with panic. We have to go, rover, it's only going to get hotter.

If I hadn't wasted more than a quarter of the gas in the tank stubbornly pushing towards the bottom of the second landmark - only to find that the third landmark was no longer visible from that vantage point, and then had to Turn around and back—and we'll be farther down this sandy riverbed, closer to our next goal.Thanks to me, we now have to hike. I filled the bag with water, one bottle at a time, taking a deliberate, unnecessary movement, and putting the rest of the granola bars in the same deliberate manner.Melanie was always eager for me to get it done, and her impatience made it hard to think, to focus on anything, like what was about to happen to us.

Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.She yelled repeatedly until I staggered, stiffly and awkwardly out of the car.The pain in my back when I stand upright is from sleeping curled up in the car last night, not from the weight of the pack; when I carry it on my shoulders, it feels less heavy. Now hide the car.She commanded, imagining me removing branches of nearby creosote and greenery to cover the car's silver roof. "why?" Her tone suggested that I was stupid enough not to understand.That way no one will find us. But what if I want to be discovered?What if there was nothing here but heat and dust?There is no way we can go home!

Home?she questioned, flinging the dull image before my eyes: the empty apartment in San Diego, the hunter's most disgusting expression, the point on the map marking Tucson, the more pleasant red canyon that happened to slip out and flashed before my eyes But, where would that be? I turned my back on the car and ignored her advice.I've come too far, and I don't intend to give up all hope of returning.Maybe someone will spot the car and find me.I can easily and honestly explain to my savior what I'm doing here: I'm lost, I'm lost, out of control, crazy. I walked along the riverbed at first, letting my body follow the rhythm of the natural stride.It's not like the pavement I walk to and from college - it's not my stride at all, but it fits the rough terrain here and keeps me going smoothly, with a speed that amazes me until I get used to it.

"What if I hadn't taken this road?" I asked myself as I walked deeper into the desert wasteland. "What if Healer Furvoz was still in Chicago? What if my road hadn't brought us so close to them?" It was that sense of urgency, that lure—the idea that Jared and Jamie might just happen to be here, somewhere in the middle of nowhere—that made it impossible to resist this stupid plan. I'm not sure, Melanie admitted, and I think I'll give it a try anyway, but I'm worried there are other spirits around.I'm still concerned that trusting you might kill them both.

Thinking of this, we both felt a twinge of dread. But here, so close it seemed like I had to give it a go.Please—suddenly she's begging me, begging me, there's no trace of hate in her mind—please don't use this to hurt them, please. "I don't want I don't know if I can hurt them, I'd rather" What?Die by yourself?Instead of betraying a few wandering people to hunters? Again we shuddered at the thought, but she was comforted by my aversion to the idea, and I was more frightened by it than she was comforted. As the riverbed began to wind its way further north, Melanie suggested that we forget about the flat gray path and take a straight line to the third landmark.The spur-shaped rock to the east pointed like a finger at the cloudy sky.

I don't want to get out of the riverbed any more than I resist getting out of the car.I was able to walk along this riverbed all the way back to the road and then follow the road back to the highway.It's many, many miles and I'll spend a few days traversing, but once I get out of this riverbed, I'm officially off track and wrong. Have faith, wanderer, that we'll find Uncle Jeb, or he'll find us. Had he been alive, I added, sighing, striding away from my easy course, galloping briskly into bushes that were identical in every direction, confidence was not a familiar concept to me, I Don't know if I'll believe it.

So what about trust? Who do you trust?you?I laughed out loud.The hot air scorched my throat as I inhaled. Just think about it, she said, changing the subject, maybe we'll see them before this evening. This memory belongs to both of us: their faces, a man, a child, springing up simultaneously from the memory of both.I'm walking faster and I'm not sure if I have full control over my movements. It did get hotter—and then hotter, and then hotter.Sweat drenched my hair, my scalp, and made my canary t-shirt stick tight and uncomfortable wherever it touched.In the afternoon, the scorching wind howled, blowing sand into my face.The dry air dries up the sweat, sets the sand in my hair, and blows out my clothes.The wind blows stiffly like cardboard covered in dried salt, and I keep walking.

I drank more water than Melanie wanted me to.She gets mad at every sip I take, threatening me that we'll need more water tomorrow, but I've given her so much today that I'm not in the mood to listen to her.I drink water when I'm thirsty, most of the time. My legs moved me forward without thinking about my role.The crunch of my feet in the sand provided the background music, muffled and dull. Nothing to look at, one twisted, hardy bush looked exactly like the next.This empty sameness lulls me into a kind of vertigo—I am only aware of the silhouette of the mountains against the gray pale sky.I read their outlines every few steps until I became so familiar with them that I could draw them blindfolded.

The surrounding landscape seemed to freeze, and I kept turning my head, looking for the fourth landmark - a large dome-shaped peak, with a piece missing from it, forming a curved notch, which Melanie let me see this morning. --as if this insight would change my last step.I hope this last lead is right, because we're lucky to have gotten that far.But I have a feeling that Melanie is hiding more from me, that the end of our journey is far away. I ate my granola bars all afternoon, only to realize I had eaten the last of them when it was too late. When the sun goes down, night falls at the same speed as yesterday.Melanie was ready and already looking for a place to stop.

Here, she told me, we want to get as far away as possible from the cactus, which rolls over when you sleep. In the fading light, I glanced at the floppy cactus, densely covered with fur-like bone-colored needles, and it terrified me.You want me to sleep on the ground like this?right here? Do you see other options?She sensed my panic, and her tone softened, as if pity.Look, it's better than sleeping in a car.At least that's flat.It was too hot for any animal to be attracted to the heat of your body, and "Animal?" I demanded out loud, "Animal?" Her flashes of a small, deadly-looking invertebrate curled up like a snake were deeply unsettling. don’t worry.She tried to comfort me while I tiptoed away from anything that might be hiding under a grain of sand, my eyes scouring the darkness for an escape.Nothing will mess with you unless you mess with them first.After all, you are bigger than anything else here.Another memory, this time of a medium-sized canine scavenger, a type of wild dog, flitted across our minds. "Great," I grumbled, bending and crouching, though I was still terrified of the dark ground beneath me, "killed by wild dogs. Who would have thought it would end in such a trivial way? How anticlimactic Ah. Of course, the savage beasts of the mist planet, at least have some dignity to be defeated by something like that." The tone of Melanie's answer reminded me of her rolling her eyes.Don't be a child, nothing will eat you.Lie down now and rest for a while, tomorrow will be harder than today. "Thank you for the good news," I said grumblingly.She's evolving into a tyrant, which makes me think of the human adage that pushes an inch.However, I was more exhausted than I expected. When I reluctantly lay down on the ground, I found that I refused to lie on this uneven, gravel-scattered muddy ground, and then close my eyes. possible. Dawn seemed to come in a few minutes, blindingly bright and hot enough to make me sweat profusely.I woke up to find myself lying on top of dirt and stones, my right arm was crushed under my body and was numb.I shook the sting away, then reached into my bag for water. Melanie disagreed, but I ignored her.I searched for the water jug ​​that was half full from the last time I drank it, rummaging through the full and empty ones until I found a pattern. With a growing sense of alertness, I began to count.I counted twice, and there are more empty bottles than full bottles, and I have already drank more than half of the water. I told you you drank too much. I didn't answer her, but I put on my backpack without drinking water.My mouth felt horrible, thirsty and full of sand, like bile.I try to ignore the feeling, try to stop my tongue like sandpaper sticking out between my teeth, and start walking. When the sun is higher and hotter above my head, my stomach is harder to ignore than my mouth.It jerks and twitches every once in a while, expecting food that doesn't come.By the afternoon, the hunger had gone from uncomfortable to painful. this is nothing.Melanie reminded me nonchalantly that we've been hungrier than this. you have been through.I retort that I don't want to be a listener to her reminiscences of past endurance right now. When the good news came I started to feel hopeless.When I turned my head numbly to the sky, as usual, the outline of the dome came into view from the center of the northern line of a group of small peaks.From this vantage point, the missing piece is just a looming dent. close enough.Melanie assured us that we were all excited to finally make some progress.I turned north eagerly, my stride lengthening.Watch out for the next one.She remembered another terrain for me, and I immediately began to crane my neck to look around, even though I knew it would be futile to look so early. This will be eastward.North, then east, then north again.This is the law. The exhilaration of finding another landmark kept me going, even as my legs grew weary.Melanie urges me to keep going, shouts words of encouragement when I slow down, and thinks of Jared and Jamie when I get discouraged.I made steady progress until Melanie agreed to drink the water, even though the inside of my throat felt like it was bubbling. I have to admit that I am very proud of myself for being so strong.When dirt roads come along, it's like a bonus.The road winds north, and I'm already heading in that direction, but Melanie is timid. I don't like the terrain here.she insisted. The road is like a khaki-colored line through the bushes, the flatter road surface and lack of vegetation making it stand out.The old wheels left two marks in the middle of the road. If the path is wrong, we divert it.I'm already in the middle of the rut, which is easier than walking through creosote, wary of cacti. She didn't answer, but her uneasiness made me feel overly anxious.I kept looking for the next feature—a perfect M, two coincident craters—but I was also more alert than ever about the desert around me. As I paid extra attention, I noticed a gray blur in the distance, a terrain I had figured out a long time ago.I don't know if my eyes are playing tricks on me, I blinked to dust off it.That color was wrong for rock, that shape too solid for a tree.I squinted and stared at the bright spot ahead, trying to guess. Then I blinked again, and the indistinct scene suddenly turned into some sort of architectural shape, closer than I'd always thought.It was some kind of house or building, small, and turned a lifeless gray in the sun and wind. Melanie's sudden panic caused me to jump off the path and into the barren undergrowth, a dubious disguise. Hold on, I tell her, I'm sure no one lives there. how do you know?She restrained so much, I had to watch my feet before I could make them move forward. Who will live there?Our soul lives for society.I could hear the sarcasm in my own explanation, and I knew it was because of where I was—both physically and mentally.Why am I no longer part of the soul society?Why do I feel like I don't belong like I don't want to belong?Did I ever really belong to any society that belonged only to me, or was that the reason why, in my long life, I had lived briefly in various lives?Have I always been an anomaly, or has Melanie made me an anomaly?Did this planet change me, or did it reveal who I was? Melanie didn't have the patience to listen to my personal crisis—she wanted me to get out of that house as quickly as possible.Her thoughts tugged at mine, tangled with mine, tried to pull me out of reflection. Calm down, I ordered, trying to gather my thoughts to separate hers from mine. If there was anything living here, it would be humans.Believe me when I say this, there is no such thing as a hermit in the soul, and perhaps your Uncle Jeb is sternly against that idea.No one will survive in such an empty place, and your kind has searched thoroughly for all settlements.Whoever lived here either ran away or became one of you.Uncle Jeb would have a better hiding place. And no matter who lives here, if they really become one of us, I comfort her, then they will all leave here.Only human beings live like this. My voice gradually disappeared, and I suddenly felt scared too. What?She reacted strongly to my fear and locked us in place.She scoured my thoughts, looking for things I'd seen that made me sad. But I don't see anything new now.What if there were humans out there, Melanie—not Uncle Jeb, not Jared, not Jamie?What if other people find out about us? She slowly understood what I meant and thought carefully.You are right, they will kill us instantly, of course. I want to swallow, to get the feeling of fear out of my thirsty mouth. There will be no one else.How could there be?Your race is too thorough, she reasoned.Only those who have already hidden will have a chance.So let's go check - you're sure there's no one of yours there, and I'm sure there's no one of us there.Maybe we'll find something useful, something we can use as a weapon. I shudder at the thought of sharp knives, long iron tools that can be turned into clubs.No weapons. Ah, how did this spineless creature beat us? Theft and superiority in numbers.Any one of you, even your young ones, is a hundred times more dangerous than any one of us.But you are like termites in an anthill, there are millions of us, all working together towards a common goal. Again, when I describe solidarity, I feel a sense of dread and disorientation that tugs at me.who am I? We approached the little house along the creosote wood.It looked like a house, a log cabin on the side of the road, with absolutely no indication of its purpose.The reason for its location here is mysterious - the place has nothing to offer but emptiness and heat. There is also no sign of recent occupancy.There was a big gap in the door frame, and there was no door on it, only a few pieces of glass buckled on the empty window frame.Dust had collected on the threshold, and it was also dusty inside.The weather-beaten gray walls seemed to slope in the direction the wind had swept, as if the wind had always been blowing in one place. I was able to hold back my worry as I walked hesitantly toward the empty doorframe.We are sure to find no one else here, as we have all day today and all day yesterday. The dark entrance portends shadows, and this draws me forward, its appeal overcoming my fear.Still listening intently, my feet moved forward swiftly and firmly.I sprinted through the door, leaning quickly to the side so I had a wall behind me.It was a gut reaction, a product of Melanie's days of foraging for food.I stood there motionless, not nervous because I couldn't see, waiting for my eyes to adjust. The shack was empty, as we knew it would be.There were no more signs of habitation inside the house than outside, a broken table leaning down on two good table legs, in the center of the room, with a rusty metal chair beside it.Patches of cement peeked out from under the tattered, dirty carpet.Alongside the kitchenette was a rusty sink and a bank of cabinets, some with doors—and a waist-high refrigerator, the door ajar to reveal its dark, moldy interior.A divan framed against the wall inside, all cushions missing.Stacked on top of the sofa is a framed photo of a dog playing poker at an angle. Like home, Melanie thought, now she can safely sarcasm, there are more decorations here than in your apartment. I'm already on my way to the sink. Keep dreaming.Melanie added, helpfully. Of course it would be a waste to have running water in this isolated place.Souls are better at coping with minutiae like this without leaving such anomalies behind.I still had to turn the ancient knob, one broke in the palm of my hand and was completely rusted. Then I turned to the cabinet, knelt on the dirty rug, and squinted carefully inside.I leaned back as I opened the cabinet door, worried that I might startle some venomous desert animal hiding in this lair. The first one was empty and had no back so I could see the wooden slats on the exterior walls.The other had no door, but contained a pile of old newspapers, covered with dust.I pulled one out, curious, dusted it onto the dirtier floor, and read the date. According to the age of man, I emphasize, not because I need a date to tell me this. “Man Burns 3-Year-Old Daughter to Death,” the headline yelled at me, along with a photo of the blond, angelic toddler.This isn't the front page, and the horrors detailed here are not so horrific, given the fact that it's formatted in terms of priority.Below that is the face of a wanted man who, two years before the publication date, murdered his wife and two children and whose possible presence in Mexico has been discussed throughout the story.Two people were killed and three others were injured in a crash caused by drunk driving.An investigation into the admitted suicide of a prominent local banker points to fraud and murder, a repressed surrender admits to releasing a desecrated child, and a family pet is found dead in a trash can. I shuddered, pushed the newspaper away from me, and retreated into the black cabinet. Those are the exception, not the norm.Melanie thought quietly, trying to block my reaction to the horror of her new discovery, seeping into her memories of those years, bringing them back to life. But can you see why we think we might do better?Why do we think maybe you don't deserve all the good things in this world? Her answer was sharp.If you want to purify this planet, you will destroy it. As much as your science fiction writers imagined, we just don't have that technology. She didn't think my jokes were funny. Besides, I added, what a waste that would be!This is a lovely planet, of course, except for this desert that cannot speak. That's how we become aware of your existence, you know, she said, thinking again of the disgusting news headlines, the evening news with nothing but stories that galvanize the human good, when pedophiles and addicts When the gentlemen walk to the hospital gate and line up for treatment, when the images of the TV show are converted into Maybury, then you have already unconsciously revealed your intentions. "What a bad change!" I said dryly, turning to the next cabinet. I pull back the hard door and discover the wellspring of abundance. "Crackers!" I yelled, grabbing the faded, nearly crushed cracker box.There's also a box behind it that looks like someone stepped on it. "Twiggy Cookies!" I yelled. look!Melanie urged, and I pictured her pointing her finger at the three rusted bleach bottles at the back of the cabinet. What do you want bleach for?I asked, had the cracker box been ripped open and poured into someone's ear?Or knock them over the head with a bottle? Much to my delight, the crackers, despite being crushed to pieces, were still packed in tube-like plastic wrap.I tore open a bag and started shaking the crumbs into my mouth, chewing them for a moment before swallowing them, too fast for me to get them down my stomach as fast as I could. Open the bottle and smell it, she ordered, ignoring my comment that my dad used to store water in the garage just like that, the residual bleach kept the water from spoiling. Wait a minute.I finish one tube of cookie crumbles and start another.They were a bit moldy, but compared to the taste in my mouth, they were delicious food.By the time I finished my third tube, I realized the salt was burning the inside of my lips and the cleft in the corner of my mouth. I unscrewed a bleach bottle, hoping Melanie was right.My arms are weak and noodle-like, and I can barely lift the bottle.This worries us both, how much has our situation deteriorated?How far can we go? The cap on the bottle is so tight I don't know if it's melted in place.However, I finally bit it open with my teeth.I sniffed the top of the bottle cautiously, not particularly hoping to faint from the bleach bubbles, the chemical smell was mild.I sniffed it closer and it was definitely water, still, stale water, but the water was all the same.I took a sip, it wasn't fresh mountain spring, but it was very moist, and I started to drink it in big gulps. Take your time, Melanie reminds me, and I have to agree, we've been lucky to find the treasure hidden here, but there's no point squandering it.Also, now that the burning from the salt has subsided, I now need something solid.I opened the twijji box again and licked three crushed cookies from the package. The last cabinet is empty. The hunger eased a little, and Melanie's impatience began to leak into my heart.Unrestrained this time, I quickly packed my loot into my backpack, emptying it by throwing the empty water bottle in the sink.Bleach jugs are heavy, but they are a comforting weight.It means I don't have to lie on the desert floor to sleep hungry and thirsty tonight.I strode back into the sunny afternoon as sugar-fueled energy began to hum through my veins.