n’t follow her,” I said, arms stretched outward to block Mag’s chase. I could feel his heart as he pressed against me, knocking his fist into my ribcage with enough force to normally settle me. Our woman was missing, and we needed to think clearly about it. It was clear now Zane wasn’t one of the good ones, but I did have a feeling he wouldn’t kill her. If she was to find him near the greenhouses, she could calm him down. Maybe she could convince him to come around.
Impossible, I thought. But these thin slivers of chances were all we had left. I was getting tired of running and fighting for my freedom. Adeline was the only beauty left in the modern world. Without her, I’d lay down my life and wither away.
“She will leave us.” Mag writhed and threw me to the ground, trying to get a strong enough hold on me.
Finally, I swiped my ankle around his and strengthened my thigh to slide and tumble him below me. I got the hold on him, placing his arm behind his head and twisting. “Calm yourself. She will not leave. We must have faith in her,” I said.
Nearby, Donovan sat on a rock and pondered the markings made by our bodies and the tent we had destroyed. I could tell he was hurt. If Mag wanted to leave the most, Donovan just wanted someone to explore and understand the world with him. His entire life, he had wanted to pair with someone who had that same adventurous soul, and he had found that in Adeline. The worry took us all but not by surprise. This was our life.
“We head to the greenhouses, but we will give her time,” I said, holding my hand in the air to hopefully quiet their protests. “This is her decision. We agreed to this many nights ago. I know you both remember this.”
Donovan grabbed his pack and tightened the straps. “I don’t care what I agreed to. It was different then and you know it. She is the most unique woman we have ever laid eyes on. If we lose her, we’ll fall away again.”
“Into madness,” Mag muttered, cryptic and cold.
“Doesn’t matter. These are the rules of our group, and they are set in stone.” I walked forward, forcing my heel hard into the ground before pouncing yards in front of them. Mag might have been the strongest, but I was taking charge. What Adeline did was her business.
I cocked my head back to tell them one more thing. “We’re here to make sure she is safe. Let her make a choice, for once in her goddamn life.”
After I said that, it was silent. They weren’t mad. Maybe a little salty, but not mad. Even when the urge to interfere was at its strongest, we would have to wait.
The exit was near the greenhouse, directly in the center of the thirty-six neatly built rows. Inside building number eighteen, there was a door within some of the overgrown grass and shrubbery. Donovan was the one who took the initiative to build the houses. The plan was to start a new life and to expand our discoveries. We had it in our heads we could find a way back. For years, we searched, often getting lost within our own heads if a hallucination storm passed through our edge of the realm. Eventually, Donovan found it.
It was a small plot of land near the edge of the Iron Peaks Mountain, named for its luminescent glow. In fact, if you stared at the cliffs for too long, you’d swear you could see it reflect like metal. That’s what tipped Donovan off, but the small plot was inconspicuous and innocent looking.
Back then, this realm was desolate and empty. There wasn’t a plant or animal in sight. However, the soil was damp and fresh, a fertile ground for seedlings to hatch. As an experiment, he planted some seed he brought along wherever he went. After, he continued on with us following his lead.
We found something out there. Something dark and sinister. A large, black pool glowed before us, liquid spinning counterclockwise. The three of us shared glances, but we didn’t dare enter it, worrying our bodies and brains could not handle the trip. Donovan stepped forward first and dropped a single seed inside. When nothing happened, we decided to wait. We made camp about a mile away and settled for the night. When we woke up, we saw it.
I never designed a way out, but there it was. An altar made of the whitest marble stood in front of us, almost as if it were an entity itself. There was no telling how it got there, but that didn’t faze us. We had seen the levels of insanity this realm offered. It was almost like it was trying to tell us something.
Years passed, and still, we did not dare touch it or get near the large slab of stone. The CIA still hadn’t figured out how to harness pure energy from this place. As far as we knew, the obelisk was another trick, a way to connect us together so they could keep experimenting. Eventually, we gave into our aching curiosity. Well, Mag did.
He knelt before it. He placed his hand on the sleek marble but, of course, nothing happened. But he could hear a buzzing coming from within. The rest of us eventually followed, but we were like cavemen reacting to fire for the first time. This moment was our first light of inspiration after seeing Adeline, the young girl who broke our chains and set us free. Together, we fell to our knees and touched the stone. It was so smooth that, as soon as I touched it, the hairs on my neck stood up.
And the buzzing grew louder.
Day after day, the sound filtered through the valley. We stayed, huddled around its base. As the days wore on, we started to build. Without the privilege of time, I was not sure how long this project took us to finish, but we dedicated our lives to it. In an act of humility, we planted more seeds around the strange obelisk.
And the rains came in. And the seedlings sprouted. And the land took to feeding us. And I got to watch my world grow into something real. It was both magical and regretful at the same time.
The obelisk never disappeared like the other irrational buildings and odd structures we had seen come and go, and the humming began to slow until it was hardly audible. I held my ear against the side and felt the cold connection to another place. Home. But so different. I could hear the liveliness, strange dialects. I could hear the hum of modern technology. It was a different world that inspired me, but anything was better than this place. The only problem was the sound was losing volume.
We didn’t have the keys to any of this, but Adeline would run to it. That, we all hoped for. It was the only way to freedom.
“Our way out of this hellhole,” Mag said. “It’s our only way out.”
“It’s a piece of rock,” I replied and started to pack a few things for the trek, falling away from my visions of the past. I was so tired of wandering through the darkness. I wanted to settle down and be a fucking normal human being. A family, all to ourselves. But I still wondered how we could even leave. We were freaks. Abominations of God. We had no home anymore.
There wasn’t a set of instructions we could follow to get out either. And with Zane in the picture, I was starting to visualize the worst of outcomes. Our final death day was looming on the horizon. They’d finally close my world off, but what would happen to our souls?
Donovan stood and packed his things alongside me. It was quiet near our tent, and every time we heard the wind howl in the distance, we both looked to see a sign. “You’re right, you know,” Donovan said, after settling his things and zipping his old pack.
“Yeah? About what?” I asked, feeling the strain start to set in. All of this was about to change. She would find Zane, and then what? Would she leave us all behind? Fuck. She had to leave us. I constantly went through the runaround in my head, and it brought me to one conclusion. We had to make sure she got out, but Zane would have to stay. Then, she could tell our story. She could warn future generations. Maybe it wouldn’t bring about change, but at least people would know what happened to us.
“You’re right to think they’ll kill us,” Donovan said. “The people in the modern world... they wouldn’t understand.”
I swallowed and tried not to look in his eyes, but I couldn’t take not telling him the truth. So I just said it. “We have to stay, Donovan. This is our home. We can’t go back to Earth.”