Leave The City - A Trench Story (tøp)

Message Man

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of smoke, something was burning. I opened my eyes and saw that Tyler wasn't in his "sleeping bag". I went outside to see him frantically waving a flaming chunk that was speared onto a stick. As he tried to blow it out I laughed a little. As the flames disappeared he looked back to see me. He gave a nervous smile. "What happened?" I asked. "I couldn't get back to sleep once I woke up, so I went for a walk and there was an animal by the creek. So I tried to cook it." He said. "What kind of animal was it?" I asked, waving the smoky smell out away from my nose. He shrugged. "Some kind of land animal, I guess." He told me. I cautiously walked closer to him to examine the burnt chunk on the stick. "Well, it might be for the best." I said. "You're probably right."

We spent the next hour or so looking around for other food. We collected a few berries that we hoped weren't poisonous. We figured we would have to go somewhere else to look for more food, so we decided to pack up our stuff and start walking.

As we walked, we talked about everything that we never had time to talk about in DEMA. Although we were best friends, we were limited in what we had been able to share back in DEMA, but not here. Now we had all the time in the world. We picked pretty flowers and threw rocks off into the distance, all the while talking about what our own minds were like. There wasn't much in the way of expression, creativity, or imagination back in the city, but we talked about how certain songs would make us feel. Obviously "The Last Of The Real Ones " was our song, and it made us think of freedom, and each other. But there were others, such as that song that sounded like the same person singing. "Immortals" it was called. It made me feel like some kind of hero. Someone who could do anything, and like I could run away from reality with someone that I cared about. And now, that was exactly what I had done. Tyler shared his visions of what he would picture during a song about Wolves. "It's like... dark." He said with his eyes closed. He had stopped walking to concentrate on his mental picture. "But not a scary dark, well, maybe a little. But there's a bright full moon. And you're running through the trees, with wolves, obviously. But it's powerful, and free." He paused for a moment. "And you're running to go see someone you love." He opened his eyes and smiled a little. "That's just what I think about." He said with a shrug before continuing on his walk. "That's amazing." I told him. "You really think so?" He asked. "Yeah!" I replied. "Well, you tell me about how a certain song makes you feel. Like... what do you picture when you hear that one song, I think it's called "Runaway" or, or something like that, you know which one I'm talking about right?" I nodded. "I think of..." I trailed off a little before closing my eyes and stopping in my place to concentrate. "I think of running through an open field. It's like, a warm sunset. But not running as in breathing hard and working to keep going. I'm running, but somehow I'm light, and just barely touching the ground. Almost like... like flying, but not. Because I can feel the soft grass underneath my bare feet. And then when it gets to the slower, softer part of the song, I jump up into the sky, perhaps all the way up into the clouds. And then I gracefully fall back down to earth. But slowly, and gently land on the soft ground once again." I opened my eyes to see Tyler staring at me in awe. "What?" I asked with a little laugh. "That's beautiful." He said. "Thanks.. I guess." I said. He nodded and then suggested that we keep walking.

After a few more hours of walking, we were starting to get tired and hot from all of the stuff that we were carrying. "Let's just look for a shady spot to sit down for a while." Tyler suggested. "Okay." I said, over my heavy breathing. As we came down the hill that we had just climbed, we spotted something strange. "What's that?" I asked Tyler, who was a few feet ahead of me. "I don't know, I can't see it very well. Should we go over to it?" I shrugged. "Sure, I don't see why not. We've got nowhere else to go." I said. We both walked over some weathered wood structures. Once we reached them, we both examined them much closer. "DEMA does not control us" was carved into the side of one of them. I ran my finger over the grooves and then looked back at Tyler. "Come see this." I said. He slowly stepped back from the side of the structure that he was at and came over to where I was standing. He squinted a little as he struggled to read the small, worn letters. "It says 'We Are Banditos' over there." He told me as he pointed to where he was standing before. We both stared at each other for a moment. "Do you think this is where the Banditos live?" I asked. He stared back at the broken structures. "More liked lived." He corrected. I turned my head to face him. "You mean you think that they're..." "Gone, yeah." "But where?" I asked. He shrugged. "Dead probably. Maybe the bishops found them and their-" "Their bodies now lie under a neon gravestone, I know." I said. "But..." He looked at me with questioning eyes. "But what if they're out there? Somewhere even further away. I mean, the bishops wouldn't come this far, would they? There's no way they would find them all the way out here." I explained. "Unless they went back, or you know, got too close for comfort." Tyler suggested. "Why would they ever go back to DEMA? After going to all the trouble of escaping?" I asked. Tyler shrugged. "Maybe they missed it." He said. I scrunched my face together in a confused look. "The laws, the order, the..." "Structure" I completed for him. "Yeah." He agreed. "Or maybe they went back to try to help others." I pondered. "But they got caught." He finished. "And now all that's left of them is their old camp." I said. "Maybe not..." Tyler started, walking over to one of the broken buildings. "Huh?" I questioned. He motioned for me to go over to him, and so I did. When I reached him, he was holding an old, yellowed piece of paper. "What's that?" I asked. He read its contents aloud to me;

"Dear Diary, today we are going back to DEMA. I am as happy as I am scared. I know my mother is there, locked up for her knowledge of the beginnings of the city. I know that we can save her, as well as the many other loved ones of those here with me. But still, I can't help but wonder what might happen if we are caught. Will we vanish from existence? It is one of the reasons I have suggested that someone stay here, but Billie has insisted that we all go together. Naturally, we had to follow his instructions. He is a good leader, but sometimes I question him. But after all, he was the first of us to escape. He lead us all out of DEMA, sometimes one by one. Teaching us what it means to be a Bandito. I have to go now, Mark is assembling the group. Sincerely, Me (Awsten)"

We both looked at each other. Then Tyler spoke. "You were right."