Blaze

17. The Shadow

There's no way to physically distinguish the border. According to the map I hold, I may have crossed it with my last step. Or the one before that. Or the one before that.

Maybe there are just as many steps left before I cross it.

Then Ismael freezes beside me; he stares straight ahead.

His hesitation stops me as well.

"What?" I ask.

"It's there," he says. Pointing. "Right there."

All I see is flat earth and a squashed horizon; the horizon's like an overturned cup, trapping a liquid sky.

"Right there."

I squint.

No, there's nothing else. Nothing there.

"You can see the border?" I ask Ismael.

He smiles tightly behind his scarf, leaving, just for a moment, the impression of his lips on the fabric.

I turn my gaze to the map.

"Is it red?" The voice isn't mine, although it comes from me.

He shakes his head.

"It's black," I say.

"No," he says, still shaking his head, "it doesn't have a colour."

He says nothing else, and, for the first time, I don't want to go any further.

I don't want to cross the border.

You have to, I tell myself.

And the thing within me that sometimes steals my voice steals my legs, rushing bad blood through them in a torrent of warmth. And I walk forward, body tingling and burning with the motion.

But I don't want to.

Desperate, I speak; I throw out my voice behind me, as if it were an anchor. As if it might bury itself into Ismael's reply (if that reply is soft enough) and pull me back. Or stall me in some other way.

"What do the Raiders really look like?" I ask.

I try to imagine them, but only see the roaring of Bandits. That and pale eyes, dropped into their sockets. Are their clothes also ripped? Are their bodies just as frail?

"I told you," he says, his voice slightly dipping in volume. "They look like you."

"Aren't your eyes supposed to be white?" I deflect. I don't want to think of anyone having my eyes. "Since you fought in the Blaze?"

"I know how to stay clear of bio mines." His tone is flat. "My name is Ismael."

Another smile-print.

I don't know how Ismael does it. I don't know how he says goodbye without uttering anything resembling the word. But he does, somehow. I don't even hear it; the thought just wakes up in my mind, as if it were always there.

He says goodbye.

I don't turn around after that.

---

I really do see the border as I approach it. It's like someone dropped a line into the Earth. It's like a thin, thin divide I need to step over. A crack.