TRENCH

Cover Me - Chapter One

Everything ached. His arms, his legs, his chest. He had been running for hours in the cold. The forest seemed so much more pleasant now that he was out in it. But he was a bright target among the wooden branches and pine.

A place called Dema loomed over the hills beyond, a place he was trying to get away from. Of the nine districts he was born in, he was born in the north-western corner. The corner operated by the dreaded Nicolas Bourbaki.

His full name was a mere formality. A sense of respect. Only those close to him would ever call him just Nico. Nico was a name of a tamer lion, but Nicolas Bourbaki was the name given to one that still dwelled the savanna. Note that I say "tamer lion". Nico was never the domestic type.

Get on his bad side and you may just pay for it for the rest of your life. Try to escape your debts to him and you may just end up like Delroy. Running in bright orange in the forest with no sense of direction at all.

He just wanted to taste the air outside Dema's walls. That, maybe, the water on this side was actually sweeter. That the Earth truly was something to behold on the other side.

He slows down, taking deep and unsteady breaths. He falls to the ground with his palms and coughs. It was at this moment that he realized that he wasn't the only bright thing in the forest. A greenish-gray jumpsuit laid by the base of a tree called his name. The yellow of the brandishings highlighting it even more-some.

Once his heaving chest came to a controllable rate of intake, he crawled over to the thing and picked it up. Looking it over, he found an initial sewn into the right breast pocket inside the jumpsuit, R.

It could've been a Robert. It could've been a Rose. For all Delroy knew, that was anything but good news. A Bandito jumper all the way out here could only mean that there was somebody else to strip it from their back. Somebody like Nicolas Bourbaki.

He had to keep moving, so he slipped the jumpsuit over his prison one and kept running even though his body hated him for it. He enjoyed the pain, after all, it was greatly outweighed by the euphoria of being out here and free.

But his legs would stumble and his balance would taper, he'd tripped on an unkempt tree root and it left cuts behind. He seized at the pain of his left shin, he rolled up the pant leg to find that there was blood coming from the scrape the root left. He felt the same hot-cold on his face, as his nose now brandished a horizontal cut.

With the scrape in his leg and the fall itself, he believed that he should tread carefully on his damaged leg. He could've sprained it badly, and he wouldn't want to make it worse.

So he limped out of the forest and found himself starstruck by the deep trench that cut the valley ahead into two. He was told it was dangerous, following it to the end, but there wasn't anyone to stop him. So there he went, to the mountains colored smoke.

He prayed that there would be his freedom. Right there, within those slopes.

||-//

In just a few more steps, he was there. The creek ran with snowmelt and he couldn't stop himself from cupping his hands and drinking it. His ankle burned more than his shin did. He took off the boot to give his ankle a rest, finding that it had swollen to twice its original size. He cupped a bit of water and poured it on, it was relievingly freezing.

He tore off some of his shirt that was underneath all of his layers and dipped the rag in the water before binding his ankle tightly. He placed his boot back on and then looked up to see a group of vultures ganged together on one of the highest peaks. "Not right now," he murmured.

He stood up, staring them down as they did the same. Then something scared them off. Their wings cut the air as they flew overhead and were replaced by an emerging and thriving group of Banditos.

But all went sour when the Banditos looked to their left. Delroy turned with them as if it were queued. Agrippa, Nicolas' horse came forth with thunderous and coordinated hooves. On their back was a red-cloaked and black veiled Nico.

"No," Delroy whispered to himself, but he couldn't get himself to move right there.

Agrippa came to a stop, whipping their tail with impatience and flicking an ear in Delroy's direction as Nicolas climbed down.

"It was an ill decision to follow the trench, Mahlah." Mahlah. That was what they called people like Delroy. Weak, sick. "Dema is your home. Your people live there and they want to see you get better."

He stepped nearer. Delroy tensed up, shutting his eyes and tried imagining that he wasn't there.

"Out here, among them, it's no way to heal," Nico assured. "And what about your family back at Dema? You'd abandoned them for this?"

There was the feeling. The feeling that Delroy was being strangled. But there was nothing there to be doing it. In his hands, too. They were numb. This is just what Nicolas did. He preyed on insecurities and manipulated people to carry out his wills. For Delroy, it was letting people down.

"Come back with me, Delroy," he said, now directly in front of him. "We can talk about what makes you feel unfaithful on the way there."

Delroy finally opened his eyes. His face was blank. "Okay."

Nico went back to Agrippa and climbed up on their back again. He directed the horse to leave the slopes and Delroy followed him. Albeit, wobbly. Every now and then, he'd clutch his throat with his numb hands. It hurt to breathe in his neck now. And his hands felt so numb it was as if they weren't there.

He glanced over as they passed a bundle of yellow wildflowers and then he remembered that they were completely surrounded by them, by the Banditos. He looked up, they started tossing yellow pedals over the cliff edge. He watched them come down, mesmerized by them.

He looked forward, Agrippa stirring over the flowers that swarmed swiftly around them. Delroy watched as Nicolas tried getting them to stop.

"No!" Delroy screamed as he started sprinting the other way. Completely disregarding his ankle.

Agrippa and Nico twisted and Agrippa galloped hastily after him. The chase was short lived as when Delroy looked back, his ankle gave out beneath him and he fell to the ground. He looked forward by the creek and saw a lone wildflower growing there. He reached out weakly and plucked it from its roots.

He clutched the specimen to his chest as he slowly fell to unconsciousness.

Nico looked at the group of Banditos and just nodded at them. It was a warning and an acknowledgment. He knew that behind the masks, they were pitiful about Delroy. As for the warning, it was to stay away.