Red Rock

Chapter 11: The Best of Instincts (Part 1)

Chapter 11 The Best of Instincts

Daire didn't have a clue how long he had been running, seconds, minutes, hours; he would have accepted any answer. Everything was a blur, so many things happened so fast, making his mind twist and turn in every direction trying to make sense of it. There was none. He had to run away. There was no place for him back at the ship, only death.

Finally, Daire had to stop. His heart was pounding harder and faster than it ever had before. His legs were cramped from running on the soft sandy surface of the Martian landscape. He took a thirty second break of deep breathing but it wasn't enough. Every breath he exhaled made him desperate to inhale another, but his body wasn't used to operating on the brink of physical exhaustion. Thirty seconds passed and it was as if he had taken no break at all. He knew that running was no longer an option. His body was screaming to stop and lie down but he was too scared that he might never get up. So he walked.

Time was but an afterthought to him, he could not perceive it for what it was. Operating on such primitive instincts, time didn't seem to exist beyond the point of the present moment. The tilted bottle above his head provided large flushes of water into his mouth, rolling down his chin and wetting his clothes. It felt good. He had never truly thirsted before. He was running for his life, operating at the brink of debility, but he felt alive. The water he had just consumed had a taste for the first time ever. It had tasted of life, refueling every last inch of his body with precious energy. He kept walking. For the first time in his life, he felt that he had a purpose.

The sun was on the fringes of the east and Daire could see farther down the horizon with every passing minute. His heart lit up. A small cabin was less than a hundred meters ahead of him. The cabin looked abandoned, unmaintained for many months, encouraging Daire to go inside. A weathered meat rack was aging meters away from the small home as if some kind of outpost. The door was on one hinge, tilted thirty degrees inward but he didn't care. He would have accepted a rock to rest behind at that point.

Daire dropped his bag off his back and collapsed in a little hole on the ground in the cabin's interior. He didn't care about the sweat that still dripped off his face and soaked his clothes. His eyes slowly fluttered into a deep close, locking his eyelids tight. He had never been so comfortable in his life.

*

"Whoever is in the cabin, exit through the front door with your hands up," said a voice loudly from outside. Daire's heart sank. "I want a verbal response," the voice commanded.

"I'm coming out," Daire shouted through the thin walls, eying an escape. Sunlight intruded through the broken front door signaling day time. A naked shuttered window hovered five feet above the ground at the side of the cabin.

"If you even think about leaving through the window I'll kill you," snapped the voice.

Daire cringed at his escape plan being foiled, and now that the room was lighter, he started to feel like a fool. The small hole that he had slept in still had finger marks from the person who had carved it, and the floor was littered with footprints that clearly weren't his. The cabin was occupied before he had taken his nap.

"I'm not going to ask you again!" the voice said, sounding more aggressive.

Daire quickly went to his bag, grabbing an arrow and tucking it in the back of his belt line. "I'm coming out!" he called, slowly making his way through the door. The eye adjustment put him at an immediate disadvantage, leaving him at the mercy of his intruder.