Leave The City - A Trench Story (tøp)

Fake You Out

The next few days were more or less the same. We kept our camp near the old Bandito ruins, and continued to try and figure out what had happened to them. We talked very late into the nights as the fire would grow dim. We often wouldn't realize how late it was until one of us commented about how dark and cold it was. The fire was usually reduced to smoking embers by then. As we talked more and more, I felt closer to Tyler than ever. It was strange. I felt something for him, as oppose to nothing. When people had been announced to be under a neon gravestone, I hardly gave it a second thought. I had never realized it before, but now, I wondered. How would I react if something like that happened to Tyler? I don't think I would be able to go on. I thought about the lyrics of some of the songs that we had learned over the years. Speaking about fear of losing someone. I never knew what they were talking about, neither of us did, at least not in the beginning. But now, I knew. It was Tyler. I couldn't lose him. I cared about him. I began to marvel over this concept more and more with each passing day, but before long, there was something else that took over my mind.

One day, when Tyler and I were on a walk, we saw something in the distance. A strange figure out in the trench, coming from the direction of DEMA. "Tyler..." he looked to see what I was so worried about, and squinted to examine it more closely. "Is it a bishop?" I asked frantically. "Or a guard?" He seemed to shake his head. "I can't say for sure, but I don't think it's a bishop. They're wearing green, and there's some weird lines on their clothes too." He explained. "Should we hide?" I asked. "I don't know..." Tyler trailed off. "I don't think they would send somebody out here alone, especially not this far from the city." He said. I gasped slightly. "Do you think it's someone else who escaped?" I pondered aloud. Tyler turned and his eyes met mine, mauling over this thought in his head. "What should we do?" I asked him. "I guess we should go see if you're right." He said. I swallowed and nodded, cautiously following him down the hill. As we got closer, the figure turned into a clear person, a man, who seemed to notice that we were coming towards him, he seemed cautious, but mostly he looked relieved. When we were within speaking distance, he shouted to us. "Did you escape too?" "Yes, who are you?" Tyler asked him. As the man came closer, he started to slow down from the jog that he was previously in. He walked towards Tyler and stretched out his hand. "I'm Josh." He said. "From Andre" He clarified as Tyler shook his hand. "How did you get out?" Tyler questioned. Josh motioned to stripes of colour on his jacket. "It was like I was invisible." He told us. Tyler raised an eyebrow. "I'm serious. I didn't even get caught on the way out of the towers once I found it." Josh continued. "Wait a minute. You got into the towers?" I asked. Josh turned his attention to me, his eyes meeting mine. "I was chosen to sneak into their secret possessions collections. That's where I found the tape, the plan was to bring anything back and share the information with the rest of the group, but they caught me before I could think of anything to do next. I stood up to run, still holding it, and it was like I had disappeared. They spent minutes talking about how they must have hallucinated my ever being there in the first place." He told me. "What do you mean you were chosen... who-who's this group that you're talking about?" I questioned further. "Yeah, how do we know you're not working for them?" Tyler interjected, grabbing my arm gently and subtly moving us backwards. "Oh the others? The others who want to escape. They're the only reason that I ever got this far." Josh explained. "And trust me, I'm not working with them, I'd rather be buried under a neon gravestone than get trapped supporting vialism." Tyler still looked suspicious, but I figured that there wasn't much one guy could do all the way out here even if he was with DEMA. "Are the others still there then?" I asked. Josh nodded sadly. "They'll probably think I got caught. Bishops will cover it up like that at least. I'll probably even have my very own personal gravestone to remind everyone too." I gave him a small, sad smile. "Well at least you're here now." I said. "And thank goodness I am." He said. "I've been out here for at least a day and I feel like I'm about to collapse. You don't happen to know anywhere to rest at all do you?" He asked. "Our tent is just up the hill, a bit of a walk." I said. "You didn't bring anything then, did you?" Josh shook his head. "Well, at least, you have the tape." I said. Tyler pulled me in front to walk a ways ahead while Josh followed us, trailing behind us. "You really think we can trust him?" He asked. "I'm sure he's not with them. He came all this way, and he hasn't tried to do anything at all. Besides, I'm sure if he was, you could take him." I laughed a little, and Tyler lightened up a bit as well.

That night, Tyler insisted on staying up with Josh once he woke up from his long nap. By the time I finished eating and Josh finally got up, it was already dark, and so I was too tired to care. "You should go to bed eventually though." I told Tyler. He gave me a meaningless smile and told me to sleep well. "Goodnight." I said as I rolled my eyes lightly, hoping that Tyler didn't scare Josh off with his suspicions. But as I walked into the enclousure and crawled into bed, I realized that I couldn't really blame him. We had come so far. It had been weeks since we'd made it out of DEMA. We were surviving so well on our own. For someone to come all the way out here and drag us back would be... well, then it would all be for nothing. If anything it would be worse... much worse than before. Having been out here and then going back, knowing everything that we do now. Everybody still inside has no idea, they still believe that they're better off. And yet, I couldn't help but come back to thinking, what if they were?