No Man's Land

 The scenery, just as it had in his last ride, flew by the pair on the hoverbike in a gray streak. The past few minutes had passed in total silence, aside from the whirring of the Tomcat’s systems. Only a few minutes into the ride, Slater had switched places with his sister due to his slight edge in experience over her. Ever since, the pair hadn’t exchanged so much as a word. Neither of them could, as the scenes they had just bore witness too hung of their minds too heavily. The stench of fresh blood continued to eat away at their nostrils, not letting them forget.

That didn’t mean there were no attempts to forget, however. Slater put his focus into analyzing what he could as the bike passed by all sorts of scattered debris. Being his first time immersed in No Man’s Land, he couldn’t help but wonder what the area would’ve looked like before it had become this way. Each passing ruined building had him picture a family trying to survive, and every rusted old vehicle chassis might’ve been a man trying to make it to work on time. But, no matter where his mind wandered, Slater found it coming back to the two men who stood with their backs turned to him to give him and Lillian a chance to escape. After all, every perished person in No Man’s Land had, unknowingly or not, faced danger head on that day seventy-five years ago. Just as Theo and Elijah had. Because of this, Slater could never fully divorce the memories of their sacrifice when surrounded by a land drenched in sacrifice. His next course of action was to try and set his mind simply on the task at hand, so he posed a simple question to Lillian, who sat with her back turned behind him, staring back at from where they came.

“How long will this take, you think?” He said, getting used to using his voice again after the long silence.

Lillian threw her head over her shoulder in response to his words, before processing them, sighing in resignation before having to commit fully to the conversation, and turning herself fully around to partake. When she did so, Slater now saw her eyes devoid of spirit staring back at him.

“When I talked it over with Elijah…” She paused for a moment, as if giving his name the proper hallowing it deserved following the day’s events. “We have about eighty miles between the warehouse and the river. Once we get there, we have to find a way across, and after that, a way to get the final sixty miles out of No Man’s Land. Considering how long it’s been already, we should be at the river in less than an hour.” Her words came out matter-of-factly and dispassionate, mirroring her behavior as she turned back and continued looking back, her hollow eyes trying to capture a phantom of the man they had seen not that long ago.

While the silence at least let Slater process things himself, the new image of his sister’s eyes was not one he could easily bear. He hadn’t seen them in so long, but those were the same eyes he had seen years before. Once when Elio disappeared, and again when Cora left. Even if he felt better keeping the silence, Slater knew deep down, those eyes needed someone to reach out more than anything right now. The biggest sin he could commit was to let this ride conclude without another word. And so, not wasting another moment, he began the conversation anew:

“You wanted to stay and save him, didn’t you?” He made sure to focus on steering the bike, not just to keep the both of them safe, but to keep his face out of view.

“I keep telling myself if I had, that we all could’ve left together.” She replied. While he couldn’t see her, the clarity of the sound communicated that she at least had turned around. “But… Who am I kidding? I always try to be strong, but… I never can help anyone I care about.” Hearing the change in her volume, Slater could tell she had turned back yet again.

“You’ve helped me all these years.”

“And lost three more. Not exactly a good record.”

Slater felt a flare burning inside him.

“And what could you have done about them? You weren’t near us when me and Elio fought, and Cora chose to leave on her own, how does that make you weak?” Slater’s eyes remained on the road ahead.

“If I was just stronger—“

“You weren’t there. But I was.” He couldn’t help but recall his own experience now. “No matter how strong you were, I was the only one who could’ve done anything..!”

Lillian’s voice snapped back. “And so you spent the last five years stuck thinking the way I am now, who are you to criticize me for it?”

“Because I chose to stop and grow stronger! You can’t jus—“

“Where did that get us, Elijah still isn’t here! We still ran away!”

“We just did what Theo said would honor ever—“

“Theo? The guy you talked with for maybe an hour? Is he more important than Elijah now?”

“That’s not wha—“

“Did he say something to you you’re not telling me?” His sister’s head turned to make sure he could hear her fully this time. “Because you’ve been awfully quiet about a lot of things recently.”

Slater hung his head. He had no rebuttal.

“That sword of yours especially!” She had now fully turned back towards facing him. “We never would’ve dealt with all of this if you hadn’t had those guys on our tails… And even with it, you still couldn’t do anything!” Will her final scathing words, Slater’s head turned away from the road to make contact with his sister. Seeing each other for the first time since before the ride, Lillian specifically took notice of her brother’s softened eyes and his quivering lip. She bit her own lip and turned away her eyes, hiding them under the shadow of her midnight hair that was blowing in the harsh wind.

The rest of the ride to the destroyed city on the river passed in complete silence, just as the start of the journey had. With the silence blending together with the seemingly unchanging landscape, the remaining hour flew by in an instant as deteriorated buildings began entering Slater’s view from the front of the hoverbike. As they pulled into the outskirts of town, the pair immediately felt the imposing nature of the ruined obelisks. Littered among the giant stone pillars were various collapsed buildings. This did nothing to ease the nerves of the two present in regards to the buildings’ structural integrity.

Weaving through the streets, Slater peered into the windows of the buildings they passed. It had been just like the remnants they came across on the way here. Signs of life frozen in an instant, and kept that way for almost a century. No building in particular stood out, each having such a similar look of snuffed out life that it all blended together. What stood out most, however, was a large arch dwarfing everything in the city. Despite the broken buildings fallen over around it, the grayed arch still maintained its form and cast its shadow among the wreckage below.

The hoverbike, after multiple minutes of finding its way, finally found its final stop at the river. The river itself was about two thousand feet across, according to what Lillian had shared. Likewise, the Tomcat couldn’t cross a body of water that wide, and with nobody to bring it back, this would likely be its final resting place. The siblings hopped off of their steed, before each giving it a prolonged look and small pat as they headed down toward the riverbank.

Careful not to let himself fall down the slope, Slater put his arms out while he watched his steps. This ran contrary to his desire to observe the surrounding area for a way across, which caused him to occasionally look up during his descent. One of these cursory glances made him aware of the large bridge which had collapsed off to their right. He turned to yield this info to his sister, but paused a moment, not wanting to shatter the fragile silence the two had been steeped in for the past hour. After a moment’s hesitation, he went through with it anyways, raising his arm to point.

“There’s a bridge, but it looks unusable.” His out-of-practice voice got out in a somewhat weak manner.

Lillian, hearing what she took a moment to realize was a voice, turned to face him, saw his hand, then turned towards it herself.

“You’re right.” She kept the response short, looking back at her brother’s face. Lillian was reminded of the scene which had unfolded earlier, and forced more words out: “We could get back on the bike and try to jump it, but if we fail we will lose all of our supplies and possibly even die. Neither of those are desirable.” She placed one hand on her chin.

“What are our other options, then?” Her brother asked, poking his head out in front of her.

“Our only option at the moment seems to be floating across somehow. We could build our own bridge or walk downstream until we find a strip of land narrow enough, but those are both costly and time consuming.” The options were weighed between the two.

“Where are we going to get materials for a raft?” Slater brought up, making sure he had the full picture.

“Back in the city, there were—“ A sudden coughing fit took over Lillian’s explanation as she fell to her knees from the intensity. Her brother dropped to his knees shortly after, but only to help and make sure she was alright and not join her. She put a hand up, signaling she was doing fine, causing Slater to back off a bit. Even so, he didn’t let himself relax completely and still kept himself a little lowered.

“Are you doing alright? I mean, we have enough supplies to—“

Lillian’s hand went up again as the coughing stopped, and was finally able to answer. “N-No. We need to keep moving. The longer we stay… The higher chance we could die out here.” Pants were interspersed through her speech now.

Slater caught her as she began to sway a bit. “Don’t push yourself! This will mean nothing if you die out he—“

“This… will mean nothing… if we both die out here…” Lillian stood herself up again, looking just as sturdy as she had before her coughing began, but Slater still couldn’t trust it from the look of her face. However, he was starting to feel the choice wasn’t his.

“Are your sure you’ll be okay?” He simply wanted to know his sister’s true, unbridled thoughts.

She let out a heavy cough into her hand before answering with a simple “Yes.” Slater looked down and proceeded down the shoreline to look for the best point to cast off, not pressing any further. Moving her eyes from her brother’s back to her bandages which had been dyed red from Axel’s blood earlier. In her palm was a small pool of blood, her own, which slowly began to absorb into the bandages and join the crimson flood localized within them.

“If you’re feeling fine now, hurry it up!” Slater yelled from where he had gone to look, cupping his hands around his mouth. Lillian let her arm hang down, before giving a light jog, not enough to excite her symptoms but not too little to worry Slater, to catch up with her brother, a tight grasp on the ever-active core she had stashed away with her.