Somnia (Dream Corp.)

CHAPTER FOUR

The sun was burning hot. The ground her bare feet were touching wasn't any different. B3x had been out for what seemed hours, and a half of them she had been running. But the sun had never stopped burning any less, even as it began to fall down.

When she had woken up, face towards the sky, the sun had been a fraction hidden still behind the looming Dream Corp building. She had felt a chill all through her body, and then had turned to her side and vomited. Vomited in the rotting face of a wide-eyed young boy. Then the smell had hit her. That and the good view of her surroundings when her eyes cleared of fogginess had forced her to vomit again. She had been laying on an enormous pile of half-naked bodies. She had been numb all over but her body had been forced into movement by fear and disgust. Her hands had smacked on bare chests as she had scrambled to get up, and her feet had sunk into skin and stuck between limbs as she fell again and again, face soaked with tears. There had been dozens upon dozens of bodies there, stacked onto each other in a grave pit. She hadn't dared to look at their faces. Most of them could've be people she knew.

She had stilled then, right at the edge of the pit, by a sound that had come from above her. Two large metallic tubes were secured there, protruding from the walls of the building. Before B3x had understood what they were for, there it was, the ugly thump as another half naked body fell on the spot where she had been lying minutes before. She would have kept running then, but the new body that fell there laid partially on a dirty white backpack. It would have been easy to miss, if she hadn't looked there, since all the bodies were rid of clothes. Like herself, they were left with only their underwear to protect their last shards of dignity which didn't do much good, B3x had thought, when they lay stacked on one another like a fallen house of cards.

She knew the pack had been meant for her, yet she hadn't been able to move. She had stood there, holding onto the edge until she had heard the patrol in the distance. Then she hadn't given much thought and she had turned back for the backpack, gagging as her hands and knees had fallen on rotten faces. By the time she had gotten back to the edge, and had scrambled her body up on the patch of earth between the building and the mass grave, the agents had rounded the corner and she had been seen. She hadn't had time to open the pack or search for something to cover herself with. Their silent march had turned to shouts and readied rifles and within seconds she had been shot at.

But she had run. Even as her legs had gone limp and thrown her off balance, she had run like hell, rounded the other side of the building, and headed straight for the woods as Elle had told her. The patrol has to regroup, to call it in, Elle had said, you'll use that time to sneak out. They don't have fences surrounding the woods, you just have to run long enough to reach the end. The patrol won't follow you outside the perimeter.

She had been right. The patrol hadn't followed her, but someone surely was out looking for her. Her freedom didn't feel so free right now. She was alone in an unknown world, but at least she knew where she was headed. She hadn't entered the city yet, but she could see it in the distance, poking out between the walls of empty and windowless houses, dancing in the heat. From here, she could imagine it was waiting for her in the clouds.

Her legs had only now started to lose the last of the numb spots, but she was afraid if she stopped even for a few moments to catch her breath, the pain would catch up with her in strong waves. The most painful, in particular, would be her feet. Exhaustion was a thing she put aside, but the skin under her feet had been almost scraped off by twigs and thorns from running through the uneven woods. They had been bloody and dusty and she had stopped only long enough to clean them up and cover herself. There had been an empty house, with no roof intact like all the others, where she had made a quick pause to look through the pack. She had found some water, half of which she used to wash out her wounded feet, and there had been boots and a long coat with half a map in the right pocket. She had contemplated leaving the empty pack behind, but that would most certainly lead the search party her way. So, she had mounted it back, with the little bit of water left, and was out of the house within two minutes.

But if she stopped again now she knew she wouldn't be able to walk for hours. And by that time the guns would catch her. So she pressed on, moving silently between the vacant streets, as the sun stood first above the city and then slowly fell away behind it. When she finally made it between the buildings, she spotted them behind her.