malinryden
patreon
Escape - Reprise
🕑 Added 2024-01-24 17:37:42 +0000 UTCThis month's lore post crawled into my mind and refused to let go. Some select portions from Sidestep's second escape from the Farm.
---
Can't run. Not yet. Gravel biting into elbows, every move a painful repetition of the last. Heave. Pull. Stay still. Crawling is easy for the first few hundred yards; after that, it becomes a chore. Then, the chore becomes pain. Becomes torture. And yet you keep doing it. Like a finger in the candle flame, so easy at first, increasingly hard as the heat builds and the pain ramps up to unbearable. Heave. Pull. Stay still. The sun is up, slowly roasting you after the chill of dawn. The thirst is bad. It will get worse.
You don't care.
Instead, you keep moving. Slowly. Inch by inch, in the wrong direction, towards desert and doom. Crawling avoids an easily spotted silhouette now that they are close, but drones are harder to fool. Staying on hard ground hurts, but you leave few tracks the hovering nuisances would spot from the level they usually fly. No need for them to swoop down to investigate closer if you don't give them a reason. You don't plan to. For every hour since your escape, the possible area to search grows wider. The net thinner. Do you run or walk? When did you ditch the car you stole? Which direction are you headed? All things they need to take into account, plotting probabilities, trying to predict where you will be.
You don't plan to be anywhere near that point.
The car sped west, driven by a slack-jawed guard ordered to drive as fast and far as possible. If you're lucky, he'll crash on the way, and it'll take them a while to sort out the fact that your body is missing. Then, they'll search possible exit points along the road, triangulating how far you could have made it on foot.
You were never in the car.
Instead, you crawled away, slow but careful, in the direction nobody should predict you going. No roads. No way to hitch a ride. Nothing but shrubland and the sun. Dogs could track you easily. As could people. You're no master of wilderness survival, only barely functional after years of imprisonment and... let's call it torture. Experiments are too kind a word.
You breathe in. Breathe out.
Once upon a time you were very good at remaining unnoticed. Making people overlook you. Ignore you. Once upon a time. You dig your elbows in and pull yourself forward once more, using the pain to send a wave of loathing cascading over your surroundings. A warning. This place is bad. Dangerous. Terrible. The ants ignore you, but the birds that had spotted your tempting form glide elsewhere. In the distance, a dog barks as a rabbit flees, both heading in a different direction. Nobody in their right mind would go towards this place. Towards you.
Repulsive. Run before it's too late.
When you close your eyes, you can feel their cloaked presence, an increasingly distant hunger and need. To find you. Quickly. Run away, you urge, deep in your throat, in your amygdala. Numbers shield thoughts, dampeners block telepathy, but this? This is primal. Fear. Desperation. You've learned the meaning of both by now. No need to know what they think. No need to make them think at all. All you have to do is just be... you. People will react accordingly.
They have NO idea what they are dealing with.
You can't. You swallow, mouth dry and filled with dust. You can't keep this up. Not because it's hard, but because it's so goddamn easy. Focus on the pain instead; keep crawling, crawl faster. You need to be out of here before the ground cools enough for thermal drones to be useful again. In the distance, you can feel the little pinprick of hope slowly approaching. It is worse torture than the crawl to willfully avoid extending your presence in that direction. Pull it close. Tight. Extend backwards. No symmetry.
She'd be proud of your control.
Your mouth tastes of blood as you bite yourself, kill that thought, bury it in the hard ground, and leave no graveside marker. Keep crawling. But she's harder to bury than that, hand out of the ground like a laughing corpse, whispering memories in your ear. Did she know what you could do? Had she spotted the awkward movements, the aborted smiles as you tried out your puppets? Did she wonder why people would stumble? Drop the pencil? Take the wrong note? Tap their fingers? Did it annoy her?
Did it scare her?
No. You doubt she can feel fear, but she's not out here, and all the others are. They do. They fear you. How was this possible? How were you possible? Industrial sabotage, government terrorism, and combat Re-Genes off the leash are all so much likelier than one little broken cuckoo whispering nonsense in the corner of their cell. They don't know. Not for sure. Because if they did? They'd go after you harder than this. Carpet bomb the desert, and damn the consequences.
But what if they can't?
The thought stops you cold in your tracks, taking a moment to feel for the distant minds, the cloaked and the uncloaked alike. Heading the wrong way fast, easy to spot that from the dogs. Dogs don't use numbers; what idiots do not think of that. Or is that something other telepaths can't? Feel the animals as well as the humans? You remember reading notes through other people's eyes, chained in your cell but not contained. Not for months.
The things you learned.
You can't just. You pause. Breathe. Through your nose, less loss of moisture. Breathe. Don't unpack that now. Too much. Focus on this. The little light in the distance, a lonely prospector with a jeep. A cracked road, still serviceable with the right car. Mines. There are big gold mines to the south. Always someone searching for an untapped vein. With the geologic upheaval, who knows what cracks might be revealed to the discerning eye?
Hope.
You've hooked him, pulled him north with greed, with the feeling that there's something out there to be found. And there is, you. If you can get close enough in time. If you can stay conscious. If your nose can stop bleeding. Oh. That is bad. You're pushing yourself too hard, too fast, but what choice do you have?
You know what choice.
Shut up. A bad choice is worse than no choice. Rolling on your back, you scan the skies. No birds. No drones. Empty space around you, all looking elsewhere hurrying way. Far away. If you're going to run, you need to do it now while you still can. Shit. You force yourself to your feet, aching knees protesting as you stand up. Wobbly.
Weak. The whisper taunts.
Shut up, you growl back, slamming doors over voice and pain both, making your mind a missile heading south. You run as fast as you can, ignoring protesting muscles and screaming feet. Out of shape. Hurt. Wrong. Could you? You almost stumble, knee too weak, but you force your fear away. Don't hesitate. Trust. You will do this. You Will do this. You'll prove her wrong.
You already did.
The cloud of dust in the distance is faint enough that you wouldn't have spotted it if you weren't looking. Finding energy where there is none, you stumble up to the jeep, where the driver has stopped, scanning the horizon. Too far away. Wrong terrain. You can feel his annoyance, but he can't see you. Can't hear the sound of the door as it opens. Won't smell you, bitter sweat and blood as you sit down on the seat. Leaning forward with your head in your hands, you urge him to turn around and drive home. This was a bad day. Wasted. Nothing found.
Except you.
Several hours later, you stumble out at a gas station near the edge of town, ignoring the cameras because you can feel the owner's thoughts. Haven't worked in years. Just there to scare people. You're too tired to be scared as you walk into the bathroom, unseen, unheard. The mirror is dirty, and you don't recognize yourself. Water. You leave blood in the sink and dust everywhere, but the face that's revealed scares you more than dying of thirst.
Eyes. Shit.
You close your eyes, pulling yourself in and down. Pack everything back in the box, no time for Jack right now, tense that spring and close the lid. Lock it tight. Breathe. In and out. Open your mouth and check your teeth. Tongue. Cracked lips. Flaking skin. The guard uniform barely fits you, everything but the bare necessities discarded. A prison shiv filed down to the minimum amount of steel needed to kill someone.
Not today.
You wash your face. Soap your stinging hands. Wet the sad reminders of your hair. Put on a face. Control. Stop smiling. Stop snarling. The Jack in the Box awaits its next victim. You can do this. Be unseen. You knew it by heart, you can relearn those lessons. Even if it would be easier to just reach out and...
No. Not today.
Instead, you carefully clean the bathroom, removing any trace of your presence there. Not enough if someone really wants to look, but they should have no reason to. Outside, you feel the prospector pulling away, talk filled up, ready for a drink before sleep. A nothing man in a nothing town. You don't think you left blood in his car. Nothing you could do if you did.
You could. No.
You open the door with a napkin, watching the owner half asleep in the cage. A shotgun resting against the back. Not taking any risks. But you're not after his money; instead, you make him drift off, watching the view through the window. Not you. Never you. Like a ghost, you fill your pockets with chocolate, a bottle of water in your hand. Don't be greedy. Nothing he would miss. The coffee machine makes a sound he doesn't hear, watching as another car stops to fill up.
A chance.
No. Play nice. You pick up a pair of cheap sunglasses and a baseball cap, resisting the urge to see if the owner has a spare coverall in the back. Instead, you limp through the door as confidently as possible, sliding into the passenger seat without anybody noticing. The driver sits down, turns on the radio, and speeds away. You drink your water slowly, one sip at a time. Eats a bit of chocolate to chase away the headache. Dab your nose with the napkin, still spotted with blood.
Not good.
A while later, you pass a motel by the side of the road. You make him stop to take a piss, and while he does, you leave and start walking back towards the motel. Dingy. The night clerk doesn't look at you. You lean into his mind and make him sign you in under the blandest name you know. Make him think you paid cash. You take the key and leave, making sure nobody is watching as you walk into the room, drawing all the blinds and curtains.
Dark. A smile.
You turn on the lights, but there is nothing there. Nobody. You haven't slept, you're hallucinating. But that's alright. You've been doing that for years; at this point, it's reality that feels weird to you. Freedom. You sit on the bed in the small room, watching the door. Listening. Sensing. Nothing. If you wanted to, you could get up and walk away. No locks. No bars. Your hands are shaking. You eat more chocolate. Have another drink of water.
Dangerous.
You feel. Yes. You spent so many months throwing yourself against the dampeners that now that they're not there, there's too much of you. Someone three doors down is heading out on business. You make him pick out a change of clothes for you from his bag. Easy to forget exactly what he packed. He delivers it by your door, and you pick it up without incident. He'll sleep well. You can't sleep yet.
Shower.
You scrub yourself clean, the dim light revealing nothing you haven't seen before. You want to throw up, but you watch the wall and count to ten until it passes. Don't be weak. Rebuild the walls. Rebuild yourself. You dry yourself, then put on the clean clothes and the guard's boots. The rest you package up neatly. You'll take them with you when you leave. Tomorrow. You need to sleep. But how can you? How dare you?
No. Choice.
You drift off with your boots on and your mind roiling free, like thunderclouds over the plains. In the distance, someone is smoking a cigarette until the embers burn her fingers. In the distance, someone is dancing to a song only they can hear. In the distance, a man sits behind a desk, mouth open, as if waiting for a coin to be pushed in.
Dolls.
"Shut up," you whisper in your dream, you're too old to be playing with dolls, you never played with dolls, you are the doll. "We are not doing this."
"Really?" The voice is clearer than ever before, but you know moments of clarity are rare in a snowstorm but not impossible. In the end, all tracks will be erased regardless.
"I am in control." You will yourself to be, you must, you can. You know the drill. It's not the lady or the tiger that matters but the door. Close. Lock. Step back. Don't make a choice. Don't open the box. Avoid the tiger and the lady and the jack. Jack, be nimble; Jack, be quick.
"How dare..." the you is unspoken because it's not understood. Good. The snow is deepening, and you start to shovel.
"Do you know the story of the wolf in the snare?" Who told you that one? She? Him? You bare your teeth and keep shoveling. "Chew off his leg to get free."
"Limping."
"I'll bite them all off," you snarl, teeth bloody and sharp, the snow red around you, the sand sticky under your eyelids. "I'll chew and bite and crawl if I have to."
"You'll be nothing."
"I'll be Free," I hiss. "I'll be Alive."
"You'll be nobody."
"Do you really Think," I say, me myself and I in the core of my being. "You really think I Care? That I Can't?" Too close, my hands in gloves of skin, too tight for my bones.
".... .... ..."
"I'll chew your throat and make myself a bed from your bones." Singsong threat, backing away, locking all the doors you can. Distance. Safety. Cut and cut and cut everything you can afford to lose.
"Even this?" Warmth. Safety. Trust. Companionship.
"Yes," you say, voice hard, like an axe to your umbilical, a razor cutting the ripcord. Fall freely. Crush whatever you land on. Blow up the rest. Can't save what you can't dare to lose.
And you've already lost everything.
You gasp awake at the sound of a distant fire alarm. The pain in your hand is not yours. Neither is the burning bed. You pull yourself back inside your own head, rushing out with the others to see the fire spread.
Shit.
You leave before the fire department arrives, step into a car, slowing down to gawk at the flames, leave it an hour later at a different intersection, step into another, then a third until your trail is obfuscated and your head is throbbing once more. The guard's clothes have been dumped in the river with a stone at the center. Just like your heart needs to be. Stop thinking about it. You'll do better next time. You can control this. Build a bigger wall.
Later.
Already, memories are growing dim, but you hitchhike your way across the state, erasing your memory from whoever you come across. Shutting yourself down. One nightmare at a time. Rebuild your walls. Make them a fortress. Dig the moat deeper. Fill it with crocodiles. Lock all the doors and throw away the keys. Dim your light, one step at a time, until you can barely see. Barely be. Be safe. Go slow.
Come home.
Why? The ground shakes as you stand, looking down at distant Los Diablos. A small quake. In your body or your mind? A timer ticking, counting down to what? Too few fingers. Too many thumbs. You shake your hands, and your body feels yours once more. Discipline. Get some fucking discipline. You did it. You're out. Free. Nobody knows you are here. Nobody will.
Yes. Nobody.
You need to rest and rebuild. Then, you need to prepare and plan. Chewing all your legs off for freedom doesn't leave you with too many options. But this is a day of new possibilities; wolves don't starve in the wild; they move west and get modded. Fill in the flesh with bones. Hide your light under a bushel and buy a flashlight. Or a damn floodlight. You can't follow their rules anymore. You need to make your own. There's nobody else you can trust.
They would try to stop you.
And you might want them to. But that's for later. This is now. Rest in your grave for as long as you dare. Rebirth will come soon enough.
Once you're ready.
Comments
Arkiatta
Felt like re-reading this and man, this has got to be my favourite short story in FH yet. I love possession / different-identities-in-one-body narratives and to not only experience this with the Puppet, but learning that Step's mind is basically free real estate for telepathic intrusions is delicious haha. I've been tinfoiling over 'Jack' ever since this short story came out and I just cannot wait to learn more about this. Also, really love the structure of breaking up paragraphs with single phrases, it's invisible at first but re-reading I feel like those single lines could be Jack intermingling with Step's mind, those 'whispers' from him. Kudos. Also x2, ' "Even this?" Warmth. Safety. Trust. Companionship. ' - hits even harder when your main Step's scar is Friendless D': Also x3, the part about burying Jack in their mind and intentionally forgetting about him, has got me wondering about the parallel with the Void and how back then Step has also 'refused understanding' of sorts, rejected the lure of knowledge that could potentially make them stronger (or equally likely, destroy them) in order to protect themself. "If I had a nickel..., I'd have two nickels" haha. I'd even wondered about asking about this in Q&A, if there was a specific theme, a meaning, that you had in mind with this or if there's a connection at all - but while trying to write out exactly what I meant, I actually started to dig into it further on my own, trying to find my own meaning, and it was quite difficult but also so freeing and so satisfying. I might still ask about it one day, maybe if some more of the story supports my thoughts, but for now I am content just figuring it out on my own. :) Thank you so much for your writing. Much love. <3
Yours truly, Fern.
I have no regrets whatsoever about finally joining the patreon, it is fulfilling to read more of your work.
