The Bearing

9. The Resistance

We quickly make our way closer. After we have a full view of the houses, as well as some of the villagers, I yell so someone can hear us. "Hey! Is anyone down there!? Can someone come help?"

Nobody turns their head or looks in our direction. We head down the hill, being mindful of Gray's ankle, and try again.

"Hello?" calls Gray.

Now we have their attention. All of them stop whatever they are doing to come marvel at the newcomers, but they're too shy to say anything.

"Hey," I start, "We're refugees from the URA, and he really needs medical assistance. I'll explain more later, but can we please have some help?"

A dark, burly man steps out of the crowd, wearing a frown. "How can we trust you if you are from the URA, as you say? How did you find us, and how do we know you aren't spies?"

"I was given these coordinates!" I cry out in desperation. "You have to believe me. I know it looks suspicious, but I promise I'm telling you the truth. Here, look, I was given this map!" I hold out Gray's map, hoping it looks familiar to one of them.

"We've never seen that before in our lives," says one of the other villagers, a slightly older woman with a shawl over her graying black hair. "Do you even know where we are?"

"No, I don't," I admit. "Okay, let me introduce myself. My name is Leah Heartbeat. This is Grayson Bear. We were hoping we could get an explanation about all of this. We're looking for a resistance group because we would like to join. We were being hunted, so we're seeking refuge here, and we were also hoping we could work together and fight back against the URA."

"I see," grunts the man. "If you really are who you say you are, and some mysterious person gave you our coordinates, then you must be important, right?"

"Maybe?" I ask.

"Alright then," he says with finality. "Then you won't mind us doing this."

Two younger women dart out from the crowd and run behind us. Gray stares at me, confused and distracted. In one swift motion, one of them hits Gray in the head, knocking him out as he falls down, eyes rolling back into his skull. Before I can react, I feel a large thump on my head. My world goes black.

When I wake up, the first thing I notice is the rope tied around my wrists, reminding me of the police's handcuffs. I'm in a room made of wooden logs with a couple of lanterns on a wooden table in front of me. Everything is made of wood, unlike the URA buildings made of white man-made steel, concrete, iron, or glass material. They must have built this entire village themselves by hand. Impressive. The URA's made all their citizens lazy, unable to even drive their own cars or turn on their own light switches. I bet it's to make them subservient and reliant on the government. The more I think about the government I've come from, the more ashamed I am to have worked for them. How will the resistance believe I'm on their side? I look down at my clothing, wondering if it's a dead giveaway of my previous job position. I'm still wearing my dress, but it's completely tattered and dirty. Nonetheless, it looks like a housewife dress from someone who is affiliated with Americhinsia, not working against it.

Footsteps echo from behind me. I brace myself for the worst, which usually comes after good news. In this case, the good news was that we found the coordinates' location to be civilization; the bad news is that they tied us up and will probably choose to eliminate us. How ironic that would be if the savior we were seeking ended up causing our death.

A pretty woman with dark brown hair sits in front of me on a chair behind the table. She looks like she's in her mid-50s, with slight lines carved into the parts of her face that she must always use to express herself. Based on the lines on her forehead, she must raise her eyebrows a lot. The lines between her eyebrows tell me she must furrow them often in worry. Still, she has lines on her cheeks, showing that, despite fear, she manages a way to smile.