He refused to take another step.
His companion stopped, giving him a questioning look. It made sense, he knew, to head towards civilization.
But he couldn’t. Not there, not where he could so easily be found. They could find him anywhere. He shook his head at the stranger, rigid in his posture.
The stranger, not understanding the danger, looked back and forth between him and the looming black walls cutting into the horizon. He shook his head several times, clearly wishing they could talk about this. He unhooked the strange box from his hip. The youth had seen him use it several times throughout their trip. It had a screen, a touchscreen even, but the rest of it looked so incredibly strange. Rather than plastic or metal, the screen seemed to be housed in stone of all things. The stranger never parted from it, barely let the youth touch it. The youth thought that it must be either incredibly precious, important, or both.
The man pulled up one of the camera-like applications, the one that zoomed automatically and let him set waypoints in the distance. The youth realized now that he must’ve seen the black walls from much farther away and set a waypoint to them, which he was now deleting. He scanned the horizon again, then—clearly agitated at having to change course—waved the youth over and showed him the screen.
The youth squinted. Through a hazy mix of heatwaves and sand, he could just make out… something. It didn’t look like a wall, at least, but he couldn’t tell what it was. He looked at the man who’d saved his life. He knew they couldn’t be wandering aimlessly in the desert forever, but in truth he’d felt… almost safe out here. He was never safe. He shrugged, then gave a tiny nod.
The man, expression neutral, attached a waypoint to whatever was in the distance, and started trecking.
It took them several days to get there. The closer they got, the more confused the young man became. Was that… green? The man, at least, seemed happy about wherever they were heading. He often smiled when he looked up, a small, comfortable smile. Almost like, the young man thought, that strange green was familiar.
And so many of them! An entire wall of plants, a city of plants, a—Was this a forest? He’d heard of forests before, but he’d never seen one. He barely knew what a tree was, and here were hundreds of them, at least!
The stranger seemed to find his reactions endearing. The youth would look over at him with wide eyes and slacked jaw, only for the stranger’s eyes to sparkle and his lips curl up fondly.
He knew what forests were.
He knew how to survive in the inhospitable desert.
He sacrificed his own limited resources to save the life of a stranger who attacked him for his troubles.
The more time passed, the more the youth wished they could communicate. Barring that option, he began to memorize this man, to watch him intently. The man hummed while he cooked. Though his meals were always simple, they were also always delicious. He kept his head on a swivel, like he was scanning for danger, and appeared always ready, but never tense. He was light on his feet, but never stayed too far ahead of the young man. There was a little smile always in his eyes, and a question, or perhaps a multitude of questions, popping and circulating as his mind pieced unsaid thoughts together like a knitter at his needles. He whistled on occasion, a short collection of tunes, none of them very long.
The youth wished he could whistle. Wished helplessly that the music hadn’t been so completely crushed out of his soul, never again to return.
They arrived in the forest just as the sun was becoming unbearable (or it would have been, were it not for the borrowed circlet and cooling breakfasts). The only gradient between wasteland and paradise was provided by clusters of long grass, dry at first, but more green as they approached.
Birds. He could hear birds.
There were other sounds, foreign to his wide-open ears, and he wondered what they all meant. So many trees! Living vines and blankets of moss surrounded them, and for the first time in his life he knew how life smelled.
He felt a hum, but wasn’t afraid. How could he be? Things were thriving here; a deep pulse throbbed through his bones, soothing and strong. Welcome, it sang, though his heart wasn’t fluent enough to discern the rest.
When he next met eyes with the stranger, it stopped him. He staggered back, for the man looked so different here. There was a look, a look the man was giving him that he couldn’t decipher: soft eyes, pinched just enough to wrinkle, and a smile so warm that it made him feel… he didn’t know what. Important was too cold; happy was too impersonal; cared for wasn’t strong enough.
The man closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, as if purging some poison from his lungs. He stripped abruptly, then turned to ask for the circlet back.
What was he doing? Careful to stay at arm’s reach just in case, the youth took off the circlet and handed it back. The man tucked the circlet into his bag and deftly climbed up the tallest nearby tree.
In the distance, a sound, an inhuman cry pierced the sky, round in tone and high in pitch. Something mourned. The air trembled with the weight of it, with the sadness in it.
Was he going to get dressed?
The man’s face lit up. Still clinging to the treetop, he brought both hands to his mouth and whistled. The sound must have carried, but no reply returned.
He got down from the tree please get dressed and picked up his things.
Another cry echoed through the trees, just as wild, but less… sad.
Without hesitation, the man whistled back. He smiled at the youth, then pulled some clothes out of his mysterious belt pouch and put them on.
Okay, we’re safe. The youth, not knowing why he was tense, relaxed.
The man tied his sand-blond hair back in a short, tight ponytail. “Puyi uh,” he said, and waved for the youth to follow.
Every so often, another wild sound would carry on the wind, and the man’s whistle would always answer. He began to pick up his pace, not hurried but… happy? He looked happy, though the youth couldn’t understand why.
Quiet stretched for longer than usual. The man stopped after a while. The youth knew that posture: he was listening. Straightening after a moment, he brought his hands to his lips.
The man and youth turned. Another man emerged from the trees, a bit taller than the first, and a bit broader, too. Well-used muscles lay hidden beneath modest sleeves, and his wheat-blond hair was gathered in a low, lazy ponytail, just long enough to drape over his shoulder. He waved at them, smiling.
“Rae fma asir?” said the newcomer. “U noihv paloayo mnupfwuyz iyv—”
“Cnzofzovlc!” said the first man. “Ju mua—Ju mua weiyiygiwe yi? Pweh mua ahjiwekcwehj yi?”
“U’l pahhr,” said the second man, waving his hands. “U vay’f eyvohpfiyv fnif wiyzeizo.”
They weren’t speaking the same language, that much was clear. The first man’s face fell so hard and fast that it broke the youth’s heart. “Mua pweh’c ahjiwekcwehj yi,” he said, disappointment dripping from his tongue. He unhooked the box from his hip and started flipping through pictures.
The second man turned to the youth and waved sheepishly. “Nu fnoho. Kiy rae, eyvohpfiyv lo? Ah nul, tah fnif liffoh?”
“I can’t understand you,” said the youth simply.
The newcomer’s face fell.
The shorter man found what he was looking for and held the screen up to the new stranger. The youth couldn’t see the screen, but the newcomer’s reaction said enough. His eyes widened to their maximum, even as the rest of his face softened. He stared at the first man, and some understanding passed between them that the youth couldn’t read.
“Zo fhun mua,” said the first man.
The second man looked at him. “Rae syam,” he almost whispered. “Nam va rae… Mna iho rae?”
The first man put his box back on his hip. He turned in a circle, fidgeting, pacing. The youth felt just as frustrated, not being able to understand either of them. The youth was between the two men in height, though he was closer to the taller one. His hair was darker than theirs, his eyes not nearly as blue.
The first man stopped, facing away from them. He took the box off his hip again, flicking through to another picture. His knuckles turned white for a second, gripping the box tighter as his eyes lingered on the image. He turned to both of them, waved them over, and showed them the photo.
There were several people in the picture, all of varying ages. The man himself was there, and there was a woman beside him, around the same age. The others were all younger, and if the youth paid attention, he could see bits of the man and woman in the faces of the younger ones.
The word family wafted into the young man’s mind.
The first man pointed to himself, made a “looking” motion, then pointed back to the picture. Gone was the cheerful, relaxed expression the young man had grown to expect from him. His lips were tight, his eyes shining with the first warning of tears.
The second man squeaked. He covered his mouth, brow drawn up, eyes shining. He pointed to himself and nodded, made the same “looking” gesture, and pointed to himself again.
The shorter man looked even more distraught than before, eyes softening, lips parting, brow drawing up just like the taller man’s. He hooked the box back on his hip and hastily placed a firm hand on the taller man’s shoulder. The taller man returned the gesture—almost as if to hold himself up—and before the youth knew it, the two grown men were clasped in a firm embrace, weeping.
He watched them. Confused. He’d gathered that they were in the same (or at least same-enough) situation, but… They’d just met, hadn’t they? They didn’t even speak the same language. The young man took a step back, unsure, uncomfortable without knowing why. This, feeling, this… whatever it was, felt, so… Not wrong, per se, but… other. Different in the most extreme sense of the word. He didn’t understand even what he was seeing, never mind the why.
The two men separated, sniffing, resting their foreheads against each other before finally stepping apart with strong pats on each others’ shoulders. The first man turned to the youth. He thought for a few seconds. He pointed to the youth, then to the two men. Then he pointed to the youth again, then gestured all around them. He ended the pantomime with a half-shrug.
Question, it was a question. Me, them, the young man pieced together, or me, somewhere else? It clicked: they were asking if he was going to travel with them, or go his own way.
The rush paralyzed him. A choice? They were… but why? He looked between the two men, cursing that they couldn’t understand him. He looked around at the wilderness.
His eyes caught hold of the strange box with the screen. What he remembered of that picture ran through his mind. Several of the younger ones had looked around his age. Something clicked. It was something he couldn’t name, but somehow, the actions of this stranger he’d met in the desert made so much sense now. He couldn’t articulate why—didn’t know why beyond the sameness of his age to those in the picture—but he knew, somehow, that it explained everything.
And, in that same instant, he knew his answer.
Trembling they will hurt harm leave you for some reason, the young man set his jaw, pointed at himself, then pointed at the two men.
He wasn’t prepared for the look they gave him. It was same look that the shorter man gave him before, when they first entered this forest; the exact same look, but colored by two different faces, two different persons, and it hit with more than double the force. He took two steps back before anchoring himself. The second man seemed confused by this, but the first man’s eyes wrinkled with—sad? why sad?—recognition.
This feeling, this look they were sending him, it felt… warm, but stronger than that. He felt like he would drown in it, like it would suffocate him, consume him in a furnace of light, but… in, somehow, a not-bad-way? It hit like a boulder at the bottom of his soul and he couldn’t explain why.
The first man looked around and scampered up the tallest nearby tree, taking the initiative and scouting the way ahead. Something rushed in the young man’s blood; some fire burned, a flame he’d felt exactly once before. He couldn’t name the connection between the two events, but it was there, as solid and real and unshakable as his reason for joining them.
Something fell into place inside him. For a single, precious instant, he knew exactly who he was.
