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They abandon me here.
And I think I made a huge mistake.
I’d forgotten all about the ferals and I had no idea about time moving faster here.
*
I walk the light pillars for a long time. Longer than I expected I could, really.
With the butler so quick to rush off and tell on my escape, I really thought Daein would be hot on my tail, right behind me. But it’s been at least an hour, and I’m walking through the Wastelands, dragging the bag over the grass, and careful to jump from one light column to the next.
The ferals still linger in the back of my mind.
I’m careful to keep to the light, as though it will protect me from them somehow, or at least I’ll see them coming. I feel safer in the light, rather than out there in the dark.
But I felt safer with Daein.
It’s too late now.
I made my choice and there’s no turning back. The punishment for leaving…
I shudder to imagine what he might do. He’s so unpredictable and I can’t guarantee that the child inside of me will protect me from his wrath. I can’t go back, so I have no choice but to keep heading onwards and hope I reach the light lands.
Problem is, each step has me feeling more and more exhausted, heavier even. I feel my belly growing, somehow.
And then I start to hear them—
Distant cries that curl my toes in my sandals. The kind of cries that seize up a spine and set every hair on my body on edge. War cries.
I loosen a shaky breath, feet glued to the grass in the centre of a light pillar. I turn my widening gaze around the edges of the light, where it creeps into the darkness, fighting for power. But beyond that, I see nothing other than blackness broken by more white spears ahead.
I see no ferals, but I do hear them.
They sound far away enough that I might be able to avoid them completely. The sounds are travelling over the Wastelands. And if I stay quiet, maybe they won’t hear me, sense me—sniff me out. I don’t know what their strengths are, how they hunt.
But I sure hope it’s not by smell.
I firm my grip on the bag strap and creep out of the thin light pillar and into the next. This one is even tighter than the last, and I notice that the columns are growing more sparse ahead in the distance. Maybe the blackness is just swallowing them up, but it seems like they are fading away to nothing.
Shaking those dreaded thoughts from my mind, I pull the bag strap up to lift it from the grass and hoist it over my shoulder. The less noise I make, the better.
And I move on, sneaking from one pillar to the next, keeping my breaths soft and in tune with the nearby seashore.
But it isn’t long before it feels as though a knife has plunged into my belly and I drop the bag to the grass with a thud. I double over, arms clutching my belly as my face twists with a silent scream. My eyes clench shut, tight, but the light penetrates in red glows. Red like the blood I feel creeping down my legs.
A choked gasp escapes me and I drop to my knees. One hand presses into the grass to support me as I lean forward, rocking back and forth as if to soothe out the constricting pain in my belly.
Not now.
Not now.
It’s too soon.
And how am I to keep quiet if the child comes now?
I have to keep moving.
Gritting my teeth, I reach for the bag—but my fingers hardly graze its gauzy material before another knife sticks into my lower belly and a strangled, muffled sound escapes me.
