We Leapt Into the Sky

Chapter 18

Kendra rested, sleeping fitfully in a secluded corner of the ruins. She didn't want to meet the shadow, the corrosion that lay in the cavern below; she didn't want to think about it. When she woke, the moons were high in the sky, and she steeled herself.

Then, she quietly made her way into the hidden room with the fuel, opening it using the interface points on her palm. Inside, she drank some of the fuel and dipped the container into it, filling it and then sealing it as best she could. Kendra carried the container of fuel on the strap she made as she crept through the main cavern, out into the desert.

This time, she would make it to the research station.

No one stopped her from leaving. Kendra followed the same path as before, walking in the shadow of the cliffs. She thought of past hiking trips. She had walked over twenty miles in one day before, though never with Jerome. He loved the woods and lakes, but it had been too dangerous for him to venture deep into the wilderness. His health had required that he stay where paramedics could reach him more easily.

When Kendra hiked for miles and miles, she went alone. She climbed low rolling hills and high mountains, resting in the shade of trees so massive that their trunks rent boulders when they fell. But she always carried an emergency beacon; she always had a backup way to contact someone if she was in trouble.

Here she was alone.

The sand slowed her progress, and whatever the caretakers had done to her body, she still was capable of exhaustion and overexertion. As day broke, she reached the cave where she had slept before. She opened the container of fuel and found it unchanged. Kendra drank from the container and curled up in the recesses of the cave.

She dreamt of Jerome. The clouds floated by in wisps as she stood at the base of a white cliff, looking up at their home and the pastel pink-orange sky behind them. Before her was the lake, with Jerome sitting at the end of the pier. She sat beside him, watched the sunlight glint off his curly, strawberry blond hair. He was hunched over a sketchpad, the pencil tiny in his hand as he drew the forest across the lake. They were talking; he was laughing, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

She woke, unable to recall their conversation. Closing her eyes tighter, she rested her head on her knees and tried to remember the wind through the trees, the muted sky, and the cool water of the lake. The seaweed tickling her calves. Anything but the desert and the images of crumbling clay.

The moons were waxing again, casting light over the sand as she reached the edge of the cliffs. This part of the planet lacked animal life and few plants grew here. She walked on, climbing the dunes when necessary, but otherwise keeping to the paths where the sand was shallow.

After hours, the sand grew deeper, rising in an immense dune that spread across the horizon. With no way around the mountain of sand, she climbed it, trudging on until she reached the top. There she saw the stone temple below.

Relief washed over her. She ran down the dune, sliding on the sand, slowing her pace at the bottom as she tromped over to the stone slabs to sit. Reaching the stone temple meant about seven miles to the research station. She opened the container of fuel and found the liquid darker and more viscous. Did the fuel degrade over time? It was open the air in the ruins; it didn't make sense that it would decay so readily.

After drinking the fuel, she capped the container and started moving. The research station would have more tools available to her. She could contact someone and go into stasis if needed. And the rover ought to be there too. If nothing else worked, at least she would have a way back to the plateau.

Familiar rock formations emerged from the sand, marking paths where her boots didn't sink quite so deep. She focused on each step to hold back the racing thoughts that swirled in her mind. Against the sand, a white dot appeared on the horizon. The ground was more gravel than sand here, and she picked up speed.