Page 7 of Into Ember

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

“How much farther?”

“A while.”

“Excellent.” Thwack. Thwack. “Love that for me.”

We walk, and my mind goes where it keeps going. Back to the one thing I’m refusing to admit. Because it’s absolutely insane, and even thinking it makes me feel like I need to check myself in somewhere.

Where? I don’t know.

Why? Because I have no fucking idea where I am!

But the thing keeps coming back, and there is no possible way I’m asking the question because if I say it out loud, they’ll all think I’m crazy.

I swat at a bug I have literally never seen before.

Because that isn’t crazy.

It is the middle of the night. There are big, huge stars in the sky, not to mention the four moons I refuse to deal with.

And the one thing I’m refusing to deal with even more is the fact that I can see.

Not look through the darkness and squint, hoping for the best. Not make my way because four glowing moons are casting light across the forest.

It is dark.

Dark, dark.

And I can see everything.

The trees, the roots waiting to kill me, the exact set of Gunnar’s jaw twenty feet ahead. I haven’t tripped once. In flip-flops. I trip on my own rug at home in full daylight.

“My feet hurt,” I tell Leif.

“Mhm.”

“I don’t think you appreciated the seriousness with which I meant that.”

“I do.”

“I don’t think you did, because we’re still walking.”

“We are.”

“I haven’t eaten.”

“We’ll fix that.”

“When?”

“When we stop.”

“When is that?”

“Soon.”