𝐕𝐈𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 | Gally | BOOK 2

Chapter Eight

My legs had already gotten sore from trekking through the terrain. I looked back on where I came from. With the minerals of sand rushing through the air and the blackness of night, it was hard to see anything in any direction except for the faint lights from WICKED's facility. My foot prints where untraceable, which I guessed was partially a good thing.

My eyes had started to well up and sting from the wind blowing the sand in the air. It felt like someone was poking little needles into my eyes. I tried to pull the hood of the sweater over my face and cover my eyes with my arm, but the situation was helpless. I'd have to keep going whether or not I liked it.

The stars above me, which were also difficult to see, had shifted now. I wasn't sure if I could trust them. I'd seen the patterns of the stars in the Glade so many times but I couldn't tell if they were different from these ones. Was this the night sky that had been gazed upon for centuries, or were they artificial too? A prop?

I looked behind me once again before continuing on. At this point there was no sight of WICKED's building. But that didn't mean I was fully safe. At any point a helicopter could putter above me. Would I hear it coming even with the whirling wind? How far would they go to find and detain a missing subject? They wouldn't pity me. I'm not a child, I'm an experiment. That's all WICKED will ever see me as.

Somehow, the wind picked up and became even stronger, almost knocking me down a few times. The sand became less compact the more I walked and gave out on my feet too many times to count. I wanted to lie down in my makeshift bed back at the Glade. I wanted to curl up in that hard, thin clutter of cloth that you could barely call a bed. I wanted Gally to sleep in the hammock beside me and be surrounded by all the other Galders. It was one of the rare times I truly felt safe.

Sometimes, when we'd have the massive bonfires for the greenies, someone would dump water over it when we'd finished and we were all curled up ready for sleep. I watched and waited for them to dump the giant bucket of water over the dying flame. It reminded me that we had control over something, over some type of danger. The smoke would wisp around the still air and dance around upward, finally vanishing into the night sky the higher it got. The embers would still drift in the air like little insects with minds of their own. When everyone had fallen asleep or more commonly, when my nightmares kept me awake, I'd stay up and make sure the embers didn't catch in the grass or trees. They never did. Their orange and red glow always died out before they'd reach their final destination.

Did I have a final destination? At the moment I had no clue where I was, if I was even anywhere.