Ever Onward

“Are you serious?”

Slater was wondering how far his sister was going to push their luck in one evening, as she was hauling a large can of gasoline over to a rundown gas station.

“Elijah told me about these places,” Lillian put the gas can down outside the building, then placing her hands on her hips. “They’re for refueling vehicles, so we’re bound to find one nearby!”

“What about one that still functions after decades of rot?”

“I’ve kept a bike for years, I’m sure I could fix one up!”

“One you’ve never seen before, that’s way older than yours?”

Wearing a smug smirk, Slater continually nudged his sister with his elbow with each attempt he made at throwing her expertise into question. She eventually chose ignoring him as the best answer, and kept up her search for some sort of vehicle they could drive the next sixty miles.

The city of this side of the river was noticeably smaller than the other, as the two came to find out in their search. After thirty minutes of wandering, the two had come across the gas station they were now searching through. No vehicles had turned up in their search yet, and there were notably not any out in front of the gas station, but Lillian hadn’t admitted defeat just yet.

“To actually find a bike, I have an idea of where to check next.”

She led Slater through the town for another couple minutes, zigzagging through the ashen buildings and streets, until the building she had alluded to entered her sight. Lillian threw up an arm, pointing to it in excitement.

“And there it is!”

The building, despite the years of wear and debris, still retained a faded blue color. A small door existed on the side, but the main form of entry were two large garage doors, which conversely, currently blocked anyone from getting in.

“How’d you remember where this was?” Slater flashed a distrusting look to his side.

“I’m a woman, we’re good at this kind of thing.” Meeting her brother, the pair shared their playful stares of disapproval. Once they tired of another round of their ever-constant game to annoy one another, Lillian walked forward.

“This place reminded me of an auto repair shop I passed by in the Middle Level on the way to Elijah’s once. I hadn’t been going long, and got lost on my way there.” Slater saw his sister’s face soften a bit, running her hand along the ash-covered wall of the building. “But, I was able to see all sorts of vehicles you could never see back home in the Lower Levels. Soon after, Elijah even gave me a bike of my own…” Her face’s softness turned to somberness, reminiscing about the man she admired. However, she shook her head, hoping the thoughts would go with them. “A-anyways, the doors being closed on this building could mean any equipment or transport we might need inside was preserved!” Her excitement shown through, as Lillian reached for the handle to the leftmost garage door. Rushing forward to help, Slater placed his hands on the handle with her, pulling up and sending the metal door flying back up towards the ceiling. It sat nicely on the ceiling, letting them peer into the contents of their now-opened treasure box.

In the center of the room stood a glorious sight for the two of them. While slightly rusted and covered in a thick layer of dust, a blue chrome metallic stallion of a bike showed itself off to the world in centerstage of the garage. Lillian immediately threw herself over it with a childish giggle, not giving any heed to the dust, which irritated her throat enough to give her another small cough, not that a cough would distract her either. Meanwhile, Slater slowly approached, looking around the rest of the garage. The trance Lillian had been stuck in from the antique bike was only broken by an errant scream from her brother just to her side. Turning to see what could have elicited that reaction, Lillian’s eyes widened and tried to keep her own screams from coming out.

Dimly lit by the little sunlight peeking in from the opened door, was a, much like the cityscape outside, an ashen gray skeleton. Distinctly human, the man of bone was slumped over in the corner, painting a picture of how the human it once was had accepted their own death. The biggest concern of the siblings at this moment, however, was suppressing the urge to vomit.

The skeleton itself was dressed in a faded blue worker’s uniform, one Slater unfortunately recognized. A familiar face flashed over the skeleton’s, breaking his focus.

“T-that’s… the same uniform Theo and all the workers wore…” The ground beneath him began to shake, at least in his mind. He staggered backwards, falling into his sister, who caught him from behind.

“They made it this far, yet they still didn’t make it out…” Lillian looked down, letting an uncharacteristic defeated spirit take her over.

Slater’s hands quickly started waving in front of her, as he darted back to facing her.

“Hey! Theo said all the workers stayed there and just helped others cross! I’m sure this is some awful coincidence, so let’s focus on the bike!” He put his hands to his sister’s back and pushed her onto the back of the metal stallion from earlier.

His sister was dazed after sinking into the seat, but gave a solemn nod once she had internalized his words. Without another moment of hesitation, Lillian poured herself into inspecting every aspect of the motorcycle. The deceased observer watched as the little remaining sunlight faded, leaving just a girl in the dark fiddling with the systems of a bike for over an hour, with her brother joining the skeleton in his watching of the spectacle. That is, whenever Lillian wasn’t demanding he hand her a part of some kind or a snack from the supply bag. Just as night fully hit, the siblings wheeled the mostly-working bike out of the garage.

Wiping a speck of oil off of her face, Lillian sent a laugh towards her brother. “It was a bit old, but it seems my skills transferred well enough!”

“Except you couldn’t figure out the fueling system for the life of you…”

“Hey! That’s why we collected that gasoline at the station back there! I’m pretty sure that’s what goes in this!”

“You’re banking our lives on a ‘pretty sure?’”

A swift punch landed on the top of Slater’s head.

“If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it, boy genius!”

Slater, rubbing his head, decided silence was the best course of action going forward. Giving a confident sigh to make sure his sister at least didn’t think he was giving up, Slater grabbed the bike and continued pushing it back towards the station. Once she realized it was moving, Lillian joined in pushing soon after.

Shooting a glance back at the skeleton which had occupied them, Slater memorized the sight, once again seeing Theo’s face in the bones. He then turned himself forward. He couldn’t move forward if he kept holding onto these feelings. At least until he made it to his current goal with Lillian, Slater wanted to work through all of this later. With each step, he left a piece of Theo behind. Pieces which would certainly find their way back to him one day, and bring that skeleton crawling back with them to drag Slater back to the grave with it. But until they came back, he would walk on. Walking the path Theo opened for him.

After another few minutes, the duo arrived back at the familiar building, gas can and all, just as they had left it.

Lillian ran ahead and made it to the gas can before Slater. She bent over and picked it up, lugging it over to her still-approaching brother and the bike. He stopped once she had gotten close enough, letting her do her work. The gas cap was removed and Lillian spent the next few minutes getting it full, checking to make sure it was all properly working, and finally starting the bike itself up. Slater finally tuned back in to her work when he felt the rustic mechanical whirring of the running engine.

“You actually got it to run?” Slater looked over to his sister, sounding reductive, but letting through thinly-veiled pride.

“Of course! Why would you ever dou—“ Coughing began again, and not the small fits which worried Slater before. Lillian fell to the ground with a thud. Her body slumped over on the ground, the only thing commanding it now being her coughing fit.

Slater dropped to his sister’s side. “Sis! Are you okay?! What’s going on?! You said it was nothing!” He blamed himself and his own self-diagnosed stupidity on the situation, trying to scramble to do something, anything.

His first thought was the bandages. They were still soaked in blood from the previous fight. Maybe they contained some type of parasite? He unraveled the bandages around her arms, but that did nothing to calm his worry. Once the bandages had been tossed aside, now, fully exposed to the world, was a reddish-pink tint to her skin, spread over the entire left side of her body. It was only barely hidden under her neck, making it almost comically easy to hide in Lillian’s manner of dress.

Laying his hand on her forehead, Slater recoiled quickly. She’s burning up..! His eyes darted around, completely at a loss for how to deal with the situation under these circumstances. Eventually, he settled on the bandages and the bike. I’m gonna have to bank on finding help once we leave No Man’s Land…

Collecting the bandages in a fist, Slater picked up his sister’s body, which he could no longer tell if she was even still conscious, and placed her on the back of the motorcycle. Situating himself on the front, he threw the bandages around and tied them, giving him at least some assistance in preventing his sister from falling off.

Spending the next few seconds fiddling with the pedals and handle bars, Slater tried his best to get accustomed to the vehicle, and, while his current concerns rushed him out a bit, he drove off towards the ruined city’s limits, hoping the next hour or so would pass by without incident.

The terrain was rough. The path to the East was not as well traveled as the one leading out of the West, making the journey that much more difficult. With each bump in the bumpy expanse of desert, Slater thought Lillian might be in danger of getting worse. He turned back to check back on her. She was still passed out, leaning forward onto his back. The redness had spread, now covering half of her face. Slater’s check in was cut short, however as he saw a white object in the corner of his eye, realizing as he turned back he was about to crash into a dead tree. With an almost-too-late swerve, he was able to dodge the tree and slide on the bike, stopping with his foot in an open patch of land.

Now being stopped, Slater was susceptible to the cold night air assaulting his face and hands. While he tried to ignore it, his body gave a defiant shiver, launching his hands to the opposite arm as he tried to warm up. Given he was doing nothing else with his brief respite, Slater looked left and right, confirming nothing was in the surrounding area for many more miles.

He had been on this leg of the journey for forty-five minutes now, meaning it had to be coming to an end, but he could only push himself so far. That being said, Slater knew his limit still was a ways off. Standing up, he placed himself back into the seat of the bike, and continued riding off. The ride continued for another fifteen minutes, but it was then Slater and his limit became acquainted. Each second longer on the vehicle began to weigh on the boy, making the weight on the sister on his back feel that much more severe. His vision also started to cloud, leaving only the blurry sensations of the same grayish purple landscape dyed by the night.

Slater’s mind had gone blank. He no longer knew how long he had been out here. Everything looked the same, the sky never moved. He had no idea if he had even been traveling the right way. Every memory of the eternity he spent in this hellscape was either gone or the same monotony repeated into infinity. His suffering simply perpetuated itself, that is, until his blurry vision was cleared by a bright white light flashing into his eyes accompanied by a loud sound penetrating his ears he couldn’t register. The light, startling him, had Slater’s instincts hit the breaks abruptly, sending the boy and his sister flying off the back of the motorcycle.

Unsure if he was still even alive, or about to cease to be, Slater’s body arced through the air. He caught a glimpse of his sister, eyes still closed, still sleeping, and hoping for her brother to find a fix to this all, at least he assumed. He would never get to confirm, however, as the two bodies collided with the ground and rolled a couple feet over the ashen dirt. By the time the momentum had faded, Slater too, could now only see black, as even he wondered if he would even wake again.

- End of Arc 1 -