Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Anyway. We should think about the best place to be rescued,” Thor says. “When they send ships, they are going to locate the debris field and land there. We should stay as close as we can to the crash site in order to be found. They might come to the conclusion that everyone died if there are no signs of life.”
“You’re welcome to go and be picked clean at the crash site,” Drako says. “I say we need to put ourselves somewhere safer. Scavengers have already fed on the bodies of your crew, but predators will follow in their wake to feed on the scavengers. We need to find somewhere food rich and relatively calm where we can build a fortified camp. If you absolutely insist, we can visit the crash site and try to get a radio or something to send out distress calls.”
That’s a compromise Thor seems happy with. I want to be the hell away from danger for absolute certain. My instincts have always tended to get away from danger.
We have a plan, so that’s good. Feels like we’re starting to organize the chaos. In times like these, plans are all you really have.
“I’ll lead. Girl goes in the middle. You take up the rear, Golden Boy,” Drako says. I brace myself for another leadership challenge, but Thor seems satisfied with that idea too.
Are we… getting along?
We make for strange companions; a Vikar jarl, a Frayer officer, and me, the eternal rebel who doesn’t identify with anyone or anything, but when your life is on the line you make alliances where you can.
For the second time, we embark on our journey. This time, we make what I would call good progress. Drako points out food plants along the way, and we collect them, putting them into the pack Thor scavenges from the wreck. There are edible flowers, herbs, and some root vegetables that look close enough to potatoes to excite me.
It’s possible that everything is going to be okay, I tell myself. Just because absolutely everything has gone wrong for as long as I can remember, doesn’t mean that everything is going to go wrong forever. At some point, something has to go right, just statistically.
As we walk, the forest gives way to a grassy pasture with tall flowers that bloom in patches, yellow, purple, and rarely red. I find myself picking them as we pass, creating a three-toned bouquet that I know my sisters would like to display in their homes.
I wonder if they’ve already started building the batch of new homes that will cover over the land where we played as children, replacing the open ground with buildings and concrete forming a seamless wall along the river.
They’ll concrete the river too, to stop flooding. They’ll take away all the plants and the grasses that the fish and other creatures breed and hide in, and they’ll take down the little wood jetty we used to fish off of, because it’s not to code, and…
“Hey!” Thor grabs me by the back of the neck, moving me out of the way of a hole in the ground before I can tumble into it and disappear. It’s the strangest thing, a perfectly round aperture in the earth that is dark enough to look like it goes straight down forever. I want to drop a stone into it, but I can’t, because Thor is lecturing me.
“Where are you?” he snaps.
“What do you mean?”
He taps my forehead with his finger. “I mean, where is your head at? What are you thinking about? You need to lock in, Selene. One mistake out here is…”
“Yeah. I know. Death. Sorry.”
He frowns at me, probably because my response wasn’t respectful enough, but to hell with respect right now. I am doing my fucking best. It’s hard to keep my mind on the present when the last week or so has been nothing but absolute chaos.
“What’s the deal with the holes?” I ask the question. “Have you seen them before?”
“I don’t know,” Drako says. “We just tried not to fall into them. Some are very deep and turn into tunnels, but it’s hard to go down them and come back. Mostly because you crush yourself into squishy powder at the bottom, I think.”
I can feel Thor glowering at me, mad that I didn’t take all due precaution to protect myself. I’m not allowed to let my thoughts wander for even a moment, on account of the ever-present threat of death. I get it. It’s just hard not to think about how fucked everything I ever loved and cared about is now.
Fortunately, I think of something to say to take the heat off me. That’s a talent they don’t teach in schools. Not directly, anyway.
“If we’re going somewhere safe to call our comrades, what will happen to you, Drako? Are your people going to come for you?”