(aka a grief-stricken girl takes her dead brother’s place in the long walk, disguising herself as him and stepping into a brutal contest and somehow learns what it means to love along the way)
a/n: success! I found the movie online so now I can keep writing lol
(aka a grief-stricken girl takes her dead brother’s place in the long walk, disguising herself as him and stepping into a brutal contest and somehow learns what it means to love along the way)
masterlist
The first miles passed in a kind of suspended reality — time stretched, warped, then folded in on itself. The air was sharp enough to sting her lungs; her breath came out in small, even clouds.
It should have felt like progress, but it didn’t. Every step only made the world smaller. The woods on either side pressed closer, the road thinning into something that felt less like a path and more like a cage.
No one talked much. A few boys tried to make conversation early on — bragging, joking, saying stupid things about what they’d do with the Prize money. One of them laughed too loud, and another shushed him like laughter might draw bullets.
A boy near the front was fiddling with a little transistor radio he must’ve smuggled in. The signal crackled, sputtered, died, came back as static and faint music before the soldiers barked at him to shut it off. He did, but she could see the grin tugging at his mouth. Small rebellions mattered when the world had shrunk to a single road.
She kept to herself, eyes down, pace steady. Jason was supposed to be here. Jason would have smiled, said something kind, maybe tried to make a friend. She couldn’t risk that. Not yet.
She tugged her flannel tighter, the fabric rough against her fingers. Her palms were slick with sweat even though it was still cold. She could feel the bindings pressing against her ribs, her breath coming shallower with every mile.
They passed a rotting cow lay on its side in a field, legs stiff, the air around it humming with flies. The smell made her stomach lurch. No one said anything, but a few boys gagged softly into their hands. A little farther on, they passed a chained-up dog outside a gas station barking as the boys walked past.
Every so often, a local would appear — leaning on a fencepost or standing in a doorway, watching. Some waved. Some just stared with void haunting unwavering gazes.
__________
A little while later, she heard someone call out, “Hey, Pete!” It was #47 Garraty, up front somewhere. “Pretty fucking desolate, huh?”
“No shit,” #23 McVries answered.
“Thought there’d be more people, I guess,” Garraty said.
“The Major doesn’t allow spectators until the final stretch,” #5 Barkovitch cut in, voice dripping smugness. “Except for the fucking locals.”
He flipped off a cop as they passed, laughing.
“Hey, smile boys, you’re on candid camera!” #46, Olsen points. She followed his gaze and spotted it — a small lens fixed to the back of one of the halftracks.
Her gaze lingered on the small black lens, half-hidden under the glare of the sun. It turned slightly as the truck shifted, the glint catching her eye like a wink. For a second, it looked alive — a pupil that could blink, or narrow, or watch her breathe.
She swallowed hard. Could it see through her clothes? Through the flannel, the bandages? Could it see the secrets she was hiding?
She adjusted her jacket, tugging the fabric tighter.
__________
The hours crawled on for what felt like ages, and yet they’d only barely begun.
By Mile 5, Stebbins had slowed. This caught her attention. He drifted just enough off pace to draw a sharp metallic voice through the megaphone: “Number Thirty-Eight, Warning!”
She turned her head, heart skipping. Stebbins didn’t react — just adjusted his stride, expression calm, almost amused. Testing the limit, she realized.
“Hey,” Garraty called back, voice curious. “You think it’s smart shoving your face with all those jelly sandwiches this early?”
“Fuck off,” Stebbins said with his mouth full.
Garraty laughed. “Alright, suit yourself.”
She didn’t join in, but she watched Stebbins longer than she meant to. His expression stayed smooth — detached, deliberate. He was learning the rules, not following them. The rabbit testing the snare.
Not long after, Barkovitch suddenly came to a stop. He crouched down quickly, muttering about a rock in his shoe.
The megaphone blared: “Number Five, Warning!”
The voice over the loudspeaker was flat, mechanical. It carried across the road like scripture. She looked even though she knew she shouldn’t.
Barkovitch however ignored the warning and stayed on the ground fixing his shoe. “Second warning, 5.” called a soldier, gun out and readh to provide the first boy with his ticket. Barkvitch smoothed his sock carefully over the arch of his foot.
“Oh-oh,” Olson said. They had all turned around and were walking backward.
Stebbins, still at the tag end, walked past whilst Barkovitch tried to tie his shoe. The air seemed to hold its breath. She could hear her own pulse now.
“Third warning, 5. Final warning.”
But then Barkovitch was up. He paused to brush road dust off his pants, then broke into a jog, catching up with the pack. “See? I just got myself a rest,” he bragged to Olson, his grin cutting sharp and cocky. “It’s all in my Plan.”
“Maybe you think so,” Olson shot back, voice tight with strain. “All I see that you got is three warnings. For your lousy minute and a half, you got to walk three fucking hours. And why the hell’d you need a rest? We just started, for Chrissake!”
Barkovitch just laughed, loud enough for everyone to hear.
She kept her eyes ahead, trying not to get drawn in. Barkovitch’s kind — the loud, the desperate — always burned out fast. The ones who joked early were usually the first to scream.
__________
Hours bled into one another. Her legs began to throb; her shoulders cramped under the weight of her pack. The sun burned through the morning haze, and sweat collected at the base of her spine.
She counted her steps. She matched her breathing to the rhythm of the crowd. She didn’t think of her parents or Jason or the hollow ache in her chest that whispered what have you done.
And yet, when she looked up again, she found him — Stebbins — not far ahead. He flicked the last crumbs from his sandwich and licked his thumb clean, calm as ever.
He hadn’t spoken to anyone. His strides stayed consistently the same: slow, deliberate, like he was conserving energy. His stride never faltered. It wasn’t arrogance. It was inevitability.
He looked, she thought, like someone who already understood the rules of the hunt.
And she — she was the mutt trailing behind, teeth bared just enough to warn off anything that got too close.
For a long time, she just watched him. The distance between them became its own kind of conversation — her stare, his silence.
When he did glance back once, just once, she dropped her gaze immediately. But she could have sworn his mouth twitched — not a smile, not quite, more like acknowledgment.
The kind animals give each other before the fight.
She didn’t know whether to be afraid or grateful.
By afternoon, the sun hung high and merciless. Her shirt clung to her skin; every breath scraped. The road shimmered ahead, endless.
She wondered what it would sound like when she broke — what kind of noise she’d make, what kind of silence she’d leave behind.
Ahead, Stebbins tilted his head toward the sky, eyes half-closed like he could already see the ending.
She hated that he looked so calm and confident. She hated that she wanted to understand it.
She kept walking.
And when her legs threatened to give, she thought of Jason’s grave and the words she’d whispered there.
a/n: not much of stebbins in this chapter but she’ll have her first conversation with him next chapter.
(aka a grief-stricken girl takes her dead brother’s place in the long walk, disguising herself as him and stepping into a brutal contest and somehow learns what it means to love along the way)
masterlist
By midday, the walk had begun to settle into rhythm — a slow, collective hypnosis of bodies and breath and asphalt.
The adrenaline was wearing off. That was the most dangerous part. The mind starts to wander when it shouldn’t.
She found herself caught between two clusters of boys. The ones in front — Garraty, McVries, Olsen, and Baker — were loud, trying to talk over the exhaustion creeping in. The ones behind and around her were quiet, like her.
She hated being in the middle. Too visible.
The road curved, and one of the louder boys —Olsen, gum smacking whilst he talked— looked over his shoulder at her.
“Hey, you’ve been awful quiet back there, Jason,” he said, squinting. “You shy, or just scared shitless?”
She blinked once, forcing her expression neutral. “Saving my breath,” she said.
The sound of her voice startled her — lower than her real one, but still fragile, scratchy around the edges from disuse and nerves.
The boy snorted. “What’s with your voice, man? Sounds weird. You sick or something?”
The annoying fuck known as Barkovitch chimed in, “Maybe his balls ain’t dropped yet.”
Some of the boys laughed. Her stomach tightened. The urge to bare her teeth and snarl was overwhelming, but dogs who bite too soon get put down. Instead she forced a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Maybe I just don’t waste air yapping,” she said. “You’ll be out of breath before night fall.”
That earned her a surprised bark of laughter from the blonde boy. Barkovitch just rolled his shoulders, smirking. “We’ll see, midget.”
The road ahead shimmered, heat rising off the pavement. Stebbins was a few paces in front of them now, walking like the air itself parted for him.
Barkovitch cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, farmboy! You think you’re too good to walk with the rest of us?”
Stebbins didn’t even turn his head. He just lifted one hand in a lazy half-wave and kept going.
The laughter broke out again — too loud, too forced — but she noticed how it faltered after a few seconds. There was something about Stebbins that made noise die in people’s throats.
She found herself watching him again. His stride was efficient, unhurried, and yet she could tell it was deliberate — every step measured. He didn’t look strong so much as inevitable, like gravity itself had chosen him.
When she looked too long, she caught his reflection in the mirrored lenses of a soldier’s helmet — his head turning, just slightly.
He’d noticed her.
Her heart stumbled in her chest.
For a moment, their eyes met — over the heads of the other boys, across the din of footsteps and breath. His gaze was unreadable. Not cold, not kind. Just knowing.
It felt like he’d peeled her open with a glance.
Then he turned back toward the horizon, as if she were already a page he’d read and decided to keep for later.
The laughter behind her faded. The rhythm of walking took over again.
Her throat ached. The bindings around her chest cut a little deeper with every breath.
She wondered if he’d recognized her — not as a girl, but as something else, something pretending. A mutt trying to pass for a sheep.
She didn’t know whether she wanted him to or not.
By the time the shadows lengthened, the boys had stopped joking. The sun had cooked the mirth out of them. Their words grew fewer, heavier. A few had already started to limp.
The quiet came back.
Ahead, Stebbins walked as steady as the ticking of a clock.
She matched his pace without meaning to. Every few minutes, she’d catch a new detail — the faint scar on his jaw, the way he flexed his fingers when he thought no one was looking, the way he seemed to listen to the road instead of fight it.
He was too calm. Too still. The kind of stillness that meant danger.
And yet, she couldn’t stop trailing him.
A rabbit, a cowardly dog, and the road between them.
She didn’t know which one she was supposed to be anymore.
__________
She’d started walking near #49, Harkness, without realizing it.
He had an easy stride, a little lopsided, like someone who’d spent his life moving toward something he never quite reached. Sweat had begun to fog up the lenses of his glasses, and his dark strands of hair stuck to his forehead. But he was smiling. Always smiling.
“Man,” he said after a while, “I thought I’d get used to the walking part. Turns out I was wrong.”
She huffed a short laugh. It startled her — the first sound she’d made that wasn’t a reply meant to protect herself.
“That was a laugh, wasn’t it?” he asked, grinning. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Guess I surprised you.”
“You did. I was betting you’d go the whole Walk without saying a word. I’m Harkness by the way.”
She shrugged, trying to play along. “Jason,” she introduced herself. “I like to save my voice for when it matters.”
“Smart. Maybe you’ll be the one giving the victory speech when this is over.”
Harkness wrote her brother’s name and number in his small black notebook. The script was strange and jerky, bumping up and down as he walked.
That caught her off guard. “You think there’ll be anyone left to hear it?”
He tilted his head, studying her. “Dark. You always that cheerful, or is this just the heat talking?”
“I’m realistic.”
He nodded slowly. “Uh, I suppose you're wondering why I'm writing down everybody's names and numbers..”
“Was just gonna assume you’re weird,” she shrugged off.
“I’m writing a book you see. A book about the long walk from the insiders point of view.”
“Dontcha gotta survive to write that book?”
“I suppose.”
Something in his tone — the mix of humor and sincerity — made her want to keep walking beside him. He didn’t press her with questions. He didn’t stare too long. He just walked, letting silence breathe between them like it was allowed to exist.
After a few minutes, he said quietly, “You got anyone waiting for you at home, Jason?”
Her throat closed. “Not anymore.”
Harkness’s smile softened. “Yeah. Me neither.”
For a while, neither spoke. The sound of the road filled the gap — boots on pavement, wind in trees, the low hum of the half-dead world around them.
When he finally did speak again, his voice was low enough the soldiers wouldn’t bother listening.
“You remind me of my dog,” he said. “Used to sit on the porch with me for hours, watching cars go by. Never barked. Just watched. Like he knew something I didn’t.”
She looked at him then, startled. “A dog?”
“Yeah. Don’t take it the wrong way. He was the best damn thing in the world.”
She didn’t. Couldn’t. For a second, her chest ached with something like warmth.
Shortly after he sped up and made his way towards the group of so called musketeers, attempting to introduce himself. None of which seemed to discernibly care about his book. He continued to introduce himself to others and write down their names and numbers. Most gave them willingly enough, joking around about his supposed book.
She pulled out the bag of sunflower seeds she’d packed in her bag and began to much on them. She tried to crack the shells with her molars, but the ache in her front tooth gap made her nauseous. She ignored it, using her tongue to separate the seeds and spitting the shells onto the road.
Olsen gave her a dirty look when he saw the shells fall to the side of the road but she ignored it and continued. He didn’t talk so much anymore, and every few minutes he’d bend one knee swiftly. She could see him stiffening up. Perhaps he would be the next to go, she wondered to herself before grimacing at the idea of another boy receiving his ticket.
“Warning! Warning number seven!”
She turned to see the young looking boy, curly limping and holding his leg. Curly fell back slowly and several of the others began to receive warnings as they adjusted to his speed and tried to help the boy. Garraty was the one to go up to the boy and encourage him to keep on moving.
“Warning! Warning 7! Third warning, 7!”
“I’ve got a charley horse!” Curly shouted hoarsely. “It ain’t no fair if you’ve got a charley horse!”
“Keep walking!” a voice hissed. “Don’t stop, man!”
Once Garraty had finished encouraging him to keep on walking, he turned back to keep walking ahead with his group.
Curly steadied himself for a while, speed ever so slightly picking up. She thought maybe things would be fine and he’d be able to keep on walking.
Suddenly though, he let out a pained scream. He fell to the ground in pain, holding his leg and crying out like a wounded animal. The sound of the gun safeties clicking off made something in her chest twist. She almost stopped right then and there to help the boy, but as she watched Stebbins simply walk past him she chose to do the same.
She’d seen animals die before — possums on the road, deer in the ditches by her parent’s farm. They all moved the same way at the end. A desperate, twitching refusal to accept that the body had given up.
Curly looked like that now.
Not a boy, not a rival, not even human — just a creature whose eyes pleaded for mercy.
The first shot rang through the air.
She didn’t flinch, not really. Just stopped for half a heartbeat before forcing her body forward again. The smell of the shot hung heavier than gunpowder — warm copper and something else, something too raw to name.
“Fuck!” Someone yelped.
“Warning! Warning number forty-seven!”
McVries grabbed onto the arm of Garraty and forced him to keep walking. The others didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. The silence after the gunfire was louder than any laughter they’d made that morning.
She could still hear Curly’s last sound echoing in her ears — that small, broken whimper of something that only wanted to keep moving, screaming how it ain’t fair.
And maybe, she thought, that’s all any of them were. Animals waiting for their turn on the road.
But still, she knew what she needed to do. She was determined.
a/n: two chapters in one night yay! might have to wait til I’m able to stream the movie online to write any more chapters though, unless someone has a link to the movie script. right now I’m just going off my memory and the book. hope you all enjoy! xoxo 💋
(aka a grief-stricken girl takes her dead brother’s place in the long walk, disguising herself as him and stepping into a brutal contest and somehow learns what it means to love along the way)
masterlist
She arrived that morning, her body buzzing with nerves. As she walked up to the gate, one of the guards asked to see her ID card. She handed Jason’s blue ID card to the guard with a forced grin. The guard’s eyes skimmed her face, lingered for half a second on the gap between her teeth, then moved toward the computer terminal. That was the first miracle of the day. The card disappeared into the terminal and flashed her brother’s full name on the screen: JASON TAYLOR JAMES. Seeing his name made her heart ache for a moment but she brushed off the feeling and kept walking as the guard waved her forward.
They gathered the boys in a long, uneven line next to the simple stone post— fifty names on a list, but fewer faces she could really see. Most of them were spread out across the road, some sitting alone and others in groups and talking amongst themselves. The cool Maine air bit through the flannel and the binding beneath, sharp enough to remind her that she was still in a body, still pretending.
She kept her eyes down. She couldn’t risk overacting now. Better to seem nervous. Everyone here was nervous.
The soldiers were efficient — boots thudding, clipboards shuffling, orders barked out like they were breaking horses. She caught her reflection in the glass of a car window: the short hair, the swollen lip, the hollow eyes. Jason, but shorter and thinner. Jason, if someone had wrung him out.
Around her, the boys buzzed — some joking, some praying, some whispering in low tones about the rules. She already knew them. Everyone did. The Major had made sure of that. Three warnings. Fall under the speed, stop too long, talk badly about the walk — bang. You get your ticket.
She listened, not to the words but to the rhythm of fear in their voices. It was human, fragile, almost tender. She chose to keep to herself, too scared her real identity would be revealed if she chose to speak.
And then she saw him.
He stood near the edge of the group eating what looked like a jelly sandwich, slightly apart, the way an animal might stand when it knows the others don’t want it close. She didn’t know his name yet, but she knew his type — pale hair, still eyes, quiet mouth. He had that unbothered calm that makes people uneasy and stayed quiet, his tone biting when he did bother to speak. Like he’d already made peace with something the rest of them hadn’t.
She couldn’t stop looking at him.
He reminded her of Jason in some distant, aching way — the same gentleness that felt like it shouldn’t survive here. And yet he didn’t move like Jason. Jason had bounced, restless energy bottled in human form. This boy looked like he’d been born for the walk, tall with a strong physique. She wondered if he’d make it far. Probably. She wondered why it mattered to her.
The Major appeared from a jeep — all smile and teeth, his uniform too clean for the dirt and blood he dealt in and his reflector sunglasses hiding his judgmental eyes. The boys straightened. She did too. When they called “Jason Taylor,” she lifted her head, nervously stepped forward and took the dog tag. The number #20 printed there didn’t mean much yet, but it would soon. It would be the only name she had left.
Eventually the loud booming voice of The Major shouted for them to line up in groups of 5 in no particular order. Boots scuffed the pavement. Unconsciously she moved towards the rear end of the group near #38, or rather Stebbins she had learned once he’d gone to grab his dog tag.
The Major gave his usual speech — a good clean contest, the pride of the nation, the honor of the Long Walk, blah blah blah. It felt like it was meant for the cameras more so then it was meant for them.
When the countdown began, a strange quiet fell — the kind that’s deafening in times like these.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
She glanced once more toward Stebbins. His gaze was fixed on the horizon. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t breathe.
Four.
Three.
Two.
Her palms were sweating. Her front teeth ached.
One.
The shot split the air, sharp and absolute.
They began to walk.
The line stretched forward like a single living thing, feet slapping asphalt in uneven rhythm. The first hour was quiet — the sound of breathing, of fear. The soldiers rolled behind in their tanks, the engines growling like something hungry.
She stayed near the back, measuring her pace by the speed watch on her wrist. Her legs felt steady, but her chest burned under the bindings. She hoped the bandaging on her chest wouldn’t hinder her in any way. The weight of the secret pressed heavier than the bag on her shoulders.
Now and then, she caught glimpses of Stebbins, his blond head bobbing just above the crowd. He looked like a hare breaking through the tall grass, always a few paces away from danger and yet somehow in its mouth already.
She envied him, that calm. A part of her hated him for it.
She kept walking.
The road bent toward the woods, and the sun climbed higher, washing the world in pale light. Birds moved in the trees — tiny, weightless things that could go anywhere.
