Solar Flare

Chapter Three: The Promise

The wild woman, who's name I found out was Lane, paced by the fire as we attempted to fill Ninna in on as many details as possible. The problem was, there weren't that many details, and Lane repeated herself, constantly, making the process of figuring out where to start even slower.

Ninna was more than understanding when I brought Lane home for a meal and a place to sleep. Ninna didn't talk about them much, but she occasionally mentioned her family and how she lost each of them. It seemed like that was something everyone who made it that far had experienced -watching everyone we love die around us.

The next morning when I woke up, Lane wasn't on her sleeping roll spread out a few feet from me. I jumped to my feet, knocking over a few books and my unlit candle, and ran to the other chamber. Ninna slept with Kyle and Tera on either side of her, each of them obvious to my panicked arrival.

I found Lane sitting on a large rock a few meters from the cave entrance. The sun was barely in the sky, making a soft orange glow in the vast darkness of the sky. Even when the sun isn't visible the heat never stops. It releases from the ground all hours of the night, only to be recharged by the merciless ball of gases during the day.

"How long have you been out here?" I sat next to Lane, letting my short legs dangle over the side of the rock.

"A few hours. I couldn't sleep." She looked into the darkness around us, seeing something I couldn't. Or maybe looking for answers that I couldn't provide. "He's out there somewhere. And he's scared. I know it." When she turned her head to meet my eyes, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

Her brown hair seemed a little less crazy today -more tousled than chaotic in the calm air of the night. Her wide green eyes begged me to understand more than she could put into words.

"But I won't be around long enough to help him." I began to protest her surrender. Surrender to The Sickness. But her cold, clammy hands clasped mine before I could utter a single word. "There's no use denying it. I can feel my insides turning against me. Refusing to do its basic functions. I want you to take this." She handed me a small, but thick, brown leather book. It was bound by a thick leather strap that wrapped around it multiple times.

"This is everything that is left of our life before -family pictures. Information about his family. I've included all the information I could manage to remember about where we were when he was taken. It's not a lot, but it might help. I also wrote my son a letter. Please," she put her hands over mine that were still holding the book, and squeezed, as though she could push her message through my skin. "Please find Koal."

The words that I failed to speak tangled together and lumped in my throat. How could I promise this woman I would find her son? I was only barely seventeen and I had a family to take care of! But at the same time, how could I tell this dying woman I couldn't find her son?

"I know we planned on visiting a few places together today, but I'm not going to make it." I knew she was telling the truth. Right before The Sickness got to the last, and worst stage, the infected became extremely lucid and normal. For someone who had never seen anyone die this way, they would be tricked into believing the sick was recovering. To those of us who watched everyone we knew and loved die from it, we knew it was the calm before the storm. "I'm going to leave."

"You don't ha-"

"Yes, I do." Her voice was sure, and calm. In that moment she reminded me of my own mom, always calm and strong even when the world was crumbling around her. "It's not your responsibility to watch me die. And there is somewhere I would like to be in my last moments." She squeezed my hands on the book one more time before rising to her feet. "When you find Koal, he will need to know what happened to me. And then he will need a friend. Tell him I never gave up on him."