Authors: Mark Lavorato
From what I could make out, there were three distinctive zones in the valley: a grassy meadow directly below the saddle - which, like a meniscus, crawled a little way up the ridges on either side of it, an area of scrubby trees that started at the edge of the meadow, and eventually a thicker forest further down. All of these zones were threaded together with a thin and meandering streambed, which appeared to be dry.
My first instinct was to cross the meadow and climb over the next ridge, thinking that the crew might not predict such a strange tactic, but the exposed rock would mean slow and painful travel, and judging by how quickly they were moving, I doubted I would be able to climb over it before they could spot me. Instead, I decided to descend to the meadow and head down the valley, into the trees, hoping to find some way of losing them in the thick forest.
I soon arrived at the meadow and started limping through the grass at a furious pace, heading toward the first trees. My mind was blank, thinking in tasks again. And because I was only concerned with moving from one to the next, I don't find it absurd that, after seeing something so significant right in front of me, I would have simply swerved around it and passed by, as if never having seen it at all. However, I'd only continued for a few steps before the image of what I'd passed began to worm its way into my mind, calling my attention to it, slowing me down. Until, eventually, when I realized the degree of which it changed absolutely everything, I stopped and turned around, almost surprised to see that it was still there, nestled in the green of the meadow as if wanting to hide. It was a firepit.
I limped back to it, watching it carefully, suspiciously. As I came closer, I could see that grass of a brighter green hung over its edges, and that there were a few charred sticks piled inside, rows of black squares running along the spent wood. I knelt down to inspect it, pulling back some of the vegetation to expose its base. It was exactly what it looked like: fresh shoots had replaced the ones that had previously lined the pit - the scorched and yellowed remnants of which were still visible - and the musty smell of wet smoke hung above the wood. It couldn't have been more than two weeks old.
People. There were people living nearby.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what was more shocking for me: the fact that there were other human beings on the mainland, or the fact that every one of us had been wrong when we'd guessed about their existence in the first place. Because all of us - the Elders, myself, Mikkel, even the crew - while
hoping
for different things, had still independently held the same belief; namely that finding anyone alive was a far-flung likelihood, that it was among the remotest of possibilities. Yet here was the evidence, stooping in the grass right in front of me, which definitively proved every one of us wrong.
And as it was obvious that the crew's sole focus was on catching me, I could be sure that they hadn't
also
come across proof like this, that I was the first (because if they had realized that there were other people alive besides ourselves, then they would have had enough idealistic work cut out for them to last lifetimes, making the task of hunting me down one of the lowest of their priorities). I stared at the coals, trying to think this through as quickly as I could.
It was interesting that everything in my education had focused on preparing me for that exact moment, but when I found myself crouching in front of it, my mind was free of voices, free of the cumbersome ethical questions that had always haunted me. But this was only because, even if those distant obligations had found a way to squirm into mind, I was in no position to act on them - whether I'd left The Goal behind or not, this was obviously not the time or place to 'discreetly infiltrate and sterilize' a surviving community. No, the only question that needed answering was in the context of immediacy: What would this group of people do when they saw us? And this was almost a redundant question. What would we have done on the island if an angry mob of men came sprinting through
our
forest, all but one of them armed with spears? Their reaction would be a conventional one. They were going to kill us all. And if a few of us managed to scatter and escape when they tried, they wouldn't be able to sleep a wink until they had hunted every last one of us down, cutting each of our throats in turn. (And, needless to say, these men - who would run the ends of their spears under our chins after we'd thrown down our weapons and held bare arms over our heads - would do so convinced that they were acting in the most valiant form of self-defence.)
Having thought this through, I looked over at the opposite ridge again, reviewing the first plan that had come to mind while I was running down the slope, ready to grasp at anything. But I found that it was still a bad idea. Choosing to hobble through the awkward rocks with one of my feet wounded and both of them bare was choosing to be dead within hours.
There was really only one choice. I would have to continue as I'd planned, running toward the thick forest of the new valley, away from the people behind me, who were, of course, bent on killing me, and toward another group of people who would most likely kill us all. And the only way I could make this decision was by rationalizing that the crew, who would pose much more of a threat bearing weapons, would probably be killed before me, as a matter of instinctive priority. I even allowed myself to entertain the idea that if I could find these people's community or gathering place before the crew had caught up with me, and lead them to its border, and
if
I hid as the community's soldiers poured out of the walls and the fighting ensued, then there
might
be a possibility that I, after the dust had cleared, could sneak away alive - and then, afterwards, somehow manage to outrun, outwit, or outmanoeuvre a new set of trackers, who would probably pursue me just as relentlessly as the crew had.
I flung a hand behind my head to furiously scratch my neck in a place that hadn't bothered me in the first place. Then I looked around the meadow, feeling as if the world were closing in, becoming suffocatingly close, the circle of the firepit rising beneath me, the sides of the valley swelling, the thick sheet of clouds pressing down. Everything had spiralled completely out of my control. And it seemed like the only thing left to do was to hobble toward the one shard of hope I had - or that I'd been desperate enough to invent. So I stood, gave the firepit one last glance, and started jogging toward the trees, my pace half-hearted.
As I made my way through the end of the meadow, I was busy reviewing my list of improbable tactics, but not, I'm sure, because it was useful, but because I wanted to keep myself from the quiet understanding that was just beneath the surface; which was that, inevitably, and very soon, my life would be coming to an end. And I wish now that I had forced that thought out into the open, that I'd admitted it and used it to move toward wiser things. Like thinking about
how
I should die. Like thinking about dignity and integrity, and what I could still do to honour them. Like thinking about what I had stupidly pushed away, and what I was foolishly,
foolishly
leaving behind.
43
I threaded my way through the trees, which became higher and denser with every minute I ran, until the leaves began to block out the light and the ground lost its soft covering of grass, giving way to exposed soil. Dirt and debris crammed into the wound on my foot, making it increasingly sore, inhibiting. I had to favour my right leg more and more, my stride becoming jerky, awkward, my arms swinging out to compensate. I clenched my jaw, concentrated on clearing my mind of the pain, in the same way I concentrated on clearing it of my closing future. Everything rested on luck, and luck requires no thought, no acknowledgement - it doesn't even require belief.
I watched the mounting evidence of humans as it passed. At first it was slight: a faded trail, the twigs that had hung over it cleared away, a fallen tree that was stripped of its dead branches to be used for firewood. But soon, the trails and snapped branches seemed to be culminating toward one central spot, and I walked toward it, often stopping to listen for movement, though never hearing even a breath of sound. Not that I was expecting to; the most recent evidence that I'd come across was still weeks old.
Finally, I came over a small rise and could see something horizontal through the trees, something clearly manmade. I stopped to listen to the stillness again, making absolute sure that no one was around, and then walked toward it, knowing that I had to learn as much as I could about these people, as fast as possible.
When I came closer I could see that they'd cleared a patch of the forest, and that the horizontal beam that I'd spotted, which was a simple log running between two trees, was one of several that were in the area. There was another firepit in the centre of the clearing, and a spot where the soil had been cleaned of leaves and underbrush, which they must have used to sleep on or raise temporary shelters. There was a horrible smell in the air, which along with the droning sound of flies, became stronger as I approached, until it was so strong that I had to pinch my nostrils to continue. I imagined it was an animal they'd killed and had left to rot at the far edge of their camp. But once I'd followed the smell to its source, a few tiny scavengers scurrying out of the way as I came into view, I realized that it was much more than that.
The carnage of numerous animals was placed neatly inside a shallow pit that they'd dug, and I stood at its edge, looking through the pile of unwanted tissue and bones. There were hoofed legs, a few heads, and the recurring arcs of rib cages splattered with flecks of remaining flesh. (I'm sure that such a gruesome sight would have seriously affected me at any other moment in my life, but as it was, I could look at it with rational eyes, my need for useful information pervading everything else. I was only searching for something that could help me, and if I couldn't find it, I would simply carry on, unmoved, indifferent.)
With the rotting waste so close to the camp, I could assume this was only a temporary site, which probably served as a place to quickly kill, gut, skin, and butcher the animals they could find, taking with them the hides, and as there was still a lot of wasted flesh on the remaining bones, it looked like only the best of the meat. And because travelling fast and light seemed to be a priority, I guessed that their community was much further off than I'd first imagined.
But before the implications of this could register - which were that now, even my most fantastical and imaginative strategies were void, and every last bit of hope, even the most absurd of it, had finally ambled out of reach - my eyes fell across something recognizable in the pile of rotting limbs. It was on the opposite side of the pit, sticking out into the swirling cloud of insects, and it had caught my eye because, unlike the other limbs, this one was without a hoof or foot; it was only an appendage of dense fur that ended in a grisly stump, bulging with the darkness of clotted blood.
I circled around the pile to get closer to it, probably knowing that it was a Creature before I'd even seen its face. Half of its torso lay exposed near the outside of the pit, while the other half was still submerged inside, the rotting entrails of another animal lazily draping over its stomach. Its skin had been cut in countless places, and, judging from the amount of blood that drenched its wounds, the cuts had been made while it was still alive. I noticed a ring of thinned hair and exposed, chafed skin around its neck as well, as if it had been bound by a rope and yanked along for several days. The Creature's eyeballs were wrinkled and dull, covered with a dusty skin; and though they'd lost their moisture and life, I could see that they hadn't lost their expression. It was frozen there, and probably wouldn't fade until the tissue had collapsed and liquefied. The expression was one of terror.
I swallowed. I could feel my numbness slipping away, could feel myself becoming more awake, more present.
I looked again at the bloodied stump that had caught my attention. Its hand. They had cut off its hands - and this, while it was still alive. It had been tortured. It had been dragged away from some trap that they'd set for it, and made to die a slow and horrible death. It had been made to suffer.
And yes, I might have been able to understand why they had felt the need to capture it. I had also feared the Creatures, had invented an intimidating story around them. And before I'd actually seen them and consciously ripped apart my delusion, I probably would have condoned killing them as well, maybe even to chopping the hands off their corpses. But what I couldn't understand, no matter how hard I tried, was the act of doing it while they were still alive. What do we prove by making something suffer? Why had these people, who'd already captured the Creature, who'd already clearly subjugated it, who'd won their struggle for unquestionable domination, still felt a need to torture it? In what way was this gratifying, fulfilling?
The buzzing sound of the flies seemed to be getting louder, their monotonous song becoming more grating, maddening.
I knelt down to look at the Creature more closely, at the ring of gauzy fur around its neck, at the wrinkled film over its eyes, still staring at the indescribable last moment of its life. Then I reached a slow hand out to touch it. Its fur was grimy, sullied. By us.
I was disgusted, furious - so absolutely
furious
- at everything about us. At our cruelty, our destructiveness, our brutality, at the idiotic self-deceit that keeps us from seeing those exact traits for what they really are.
And then it struck me: the people who were responsible for this base, depraved act, were the same people that Mikkel wanted to save, the very beings that he believed should persevere throughout the ages. Even if he had no
idea
of what saving our kind would mean outside of the context of his petty little self, even if he didn't have the slightest
clue
about what we would do to the world if we were given another chance, he was still bent on it. Because he hadn't allowed himself to see what we really are. Because he couldn't afford to.