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Chapter 45

Day six.
I wake up starving. The sun is low in the east, just beginning to poke it's head out over the tree line. The sunrise this morning is rather disappointing, the colors faded and washed out.
Blinking furiously now, crawling numbly from... My bed roll. Did I fall asleep on it? I don't remember that...
"Breakfast, is served." Stone says from somewhere behind me, making me jump. Turning, rubbing my eyes, I see him crouched a few feet away, before him, the remainder of the cheese and bread, a couple slices each.
I drag myself from my blankets, and greedily snatch a slice of each and bite them together, but the taste is as faded as this morning's sunrise, the bread stale, the cheese definitely gone bad, dry and foul in my parched mouth.
"Here," Stone thrusts the water skin to me, which I take without hesitation, lifting it up to my lips. My heart drops when I can only just moisten my parched tongue with the few drops that reluctantly drip out.
"Gone." I throw the empty skin on the ground, a deep, sick feeling in my pit, malnutrition and dehydration getting the better of me. I lick my lips, and am thinking longingly about the downpour yesterday. We were such idiots! Why didn't we fill the water skin up?!
"What about you?" I say, noticing the only bread and cheese gone since last night is what I just took. There are three more thin slices of bread, one and a half of cheese remaining.
"Not hungry." Stone murmurs, getting to his feet, helping me to pack up our precious food. I watch him gently roll up the dry water skin, and tuck it longingly into the bottom of his pack.
I say nothing about his not eating, because I know he will only argue. But it's not good, and even worse, is that dinner tonight will take up everything we have left, because I know we'll be so starved we won't be able to store away any leftovers. After that... We could probably go another couple of days, albeit uncomfortably, without food. But without water... If we don't reach the rebels tomorrow, we're done for. As it is, we've already been only sipping our water for the past few days, and are dehydrated as it is.
We begin to walk. We're climbing vertically now, a carefully placed foot here, a tentative hand there. The path is no longer a path though we are still winding around the mountain. It's discouraging, though, as the peak remains hidden still.
By the seventh hour since my waking, hiking has become a monotonous pattern. I'm not even thinking about it anymore, not even there. I've faded into a dull haze, mindlessly putting one foot up until it finds a hold, reaching up until my fingers catch... I watch the sky, but we never seem to move... The sun beats down mercilessly on us till I sweat, and yet I'm chilled to the bone at the same time, goosebumps running up and down my arms, causing me to break out in violent, wracking shivers now and then. My throat aches, and eventually, I give up any hopes of speaking, as every murmur comes out as a croak. My eyelids are drooping from utter exhaustion, and I feel spent. My sore and throbbing muscles and numberless wounds plead for me to stop, to rest. The physical tax on my body from the rigorous climb is almost as taxing as the lack of food and water.
After we have hiked for an eternity, for so long I've forgotten waking up (Not really), the first hints of darkness have crept into the sky, and dusk is finally taking over. That means we can rest, sleep, or collapse, in my case.
"Maybe... Maybe we should... Stop for-for tonight..." Stone coughs after a while. The minute the words leave his mouth, my knees buckle under me, as if they had been spring loaded and waiting for the command, and that was it.
As I predicted, we eat everything for dinner. In our defense, we do honestly try to ration ourselves, a slice of bread, half a piece of cheese each... But, somehow, once we gobble down our 'meals' like hungry wolves (Quite literally, in Stone's case) We find ourselves staring longingly over to the remaining food... And then, next thing we know, we've eaten it all, but we're still starving. And now we know we have nothing at all for tomorrow.
Unlike most nights, sleep comes to me easily. My eyes close and next thing I know, I wake back up, though now it's dawn. I feel as if I have not slept at all.
There is no sunrise this morning. That is to say, I wake on the west side of the mountain, so I get nothing but a few weak rays of white light leaking in through the heavy fog.
"How much further...?" I mutter to myself, though no words audibly leave my lips. Glancing over- Stone is still asleep. So I occupy myself by staring blankly up into the sky, into the fog, straining my ears. A gust of wind brings more faint murmuring, like distant, lost voices... But I'm beginning to believe they don't exist outside of my head.
My mind is full of jumbled questions and random, broken thoughts. But the one that bothers me the most now, the one I've doubted from the beginning- Are the rebels real? Or are they simply a tall tale, told by those who wish for their existence?
"Stone," I say when he finally stirs, groaning and rolling to his back. "Are the rebels real?"
He doesn't answer, not at first. Instead he rubs his eyes, and sits up- He looks terrible. Black hair crazy as usual, but his eyes are shadowed, eyelids heavy, his cheeks hollowed and sunken, hardened mud and blood crusted onto his face, into his clothes. The white scar across his face stands out, plain and white against his pale skin. He looks like I feel, though I probably don't look much better.
"Yes." He, finally, says simply. Anybody else might stop at that, but I know him too well to let that be the final word.
"Are they on top of the mountain?"
Again, he doesn't speak for a while. He stretches, getting to his feet and locking his hands together behind his neck, inhaling deeply, staring out off the side of the mountain. I don't even know what we're over anymore- We can't see the ground through the clouds.
At last he speaks.
"Almost."