Chapter 19
19
D espite my best efforts, she doesn’t stop bleeding. Blood drips from her mangled arm, leaving behind a dotted trail in the sand. Her breathing is shallow against my ear, her chin propped against my shoulder. Jyn slips in and out of consciousness, groaning in agony even in sleep.
I carry her through the night, and then all through the day. By noon, my skin peels back, burnt and blistered by the sun. No matter how much I pray for rain or the reprieve of a single cloud, my wishes go unanswered. I’m unsure of how much progress I’ve made, for each stretch of sand looks precisely the same as the last. Knowing my poor sense of direction, we may well be going in circles. If so, I’ve doomed us both.
My neck strains and my back cracks, every step a trial. To make matters even worse, I lost sight in my damaged eye nearly an hour ago, the surrounding skin swollen to the point of sealing my eye shut. Any other person would be concerned, but my only thought is getting Jyn to safety.
I would gladly lose my other eye if it meant she would be all right.
Behind me, Jyn groans. It’s a soft, weak sound.
“A little while longer, my lady,” I wheeze. There’s sand in my throat, crunching between my teeth. My mouth is too dry to swallow away the irritation.
“Put me down, Sai,” she rasps.
“Save your strength. I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”
“Hurts…”
“Just bear with me a while longer. Would you like to hear a story?” I ask, trudging ahead. “It’s a good way to pass the time.”
Jyn mumbles against my shoulder, “Fine.”
“How about the tale of the first Fated Ones? My father used to tell me that story all the time.”
Another step forward, another sharp jolt of electricity slicing through my bones and muscles. I keep going because I have to. I will not fail her.
“A long, long time ago,” I begin, huffing a labored breath, “a boy was walking home one night after a day spent fishing by the riverside. The night was clear, and the moon was full and bright, stars speckled across the sky. The young boy crossed paths with an elderly man standing at the center of a bridge.
“?‘Boy,’ the man said, tying a red thread to the little boy’s hand, ‘do you see that lass, just over yonder? She is destined to be your wife.’
“The young boy scoffed at this. Girls were abhorrent to him, you see. Covered from head to toe in maladies and insects. He was sure to catch something, were he not careful. The boy was quick to cross the bridge, pick up a stone, and hurl it at the girl in a fit of childish anger before storming away.
“It was not until many years later, on the night of his wedding, that he was finally able to meet the woman his parents had arranged for him to marry. When the woman removed her red veil, he discovered a scar over her brow. He asked her how it happened, to which she responded, ‘When I was but a young girl, a boy threw a rock at me and left me with this scar.’
“It was in this moment the boy realized that what the old man had said was true. And that is the origin of the red threads of fate.”
The end of my tale is met with silence—not that I was expecting jubilant applause. Jyn is barely hanging on.
“Fret not,” I say, half speaking to myself. “There’s a light up ahead. Do you see?”
I squint to get a better look. The sun is mercifully fading in the distance. Finally. I’ve been walking all day; our canteens of water are now depleted. The light in question appears to be moving, rocking back and forth as it eludes us. Could it be a lantern? Who in their right mind would be all the way out here in the middle of the Wastelands?
“You there!” I shout, my voice carrying over the sands with no echo. My throat is so torn that I could easily be mistaken for a toad. “Please, we need help!”
All of a sudden, the light goes out.
An indignant squawk escapes my throat. “We mean you no harm!” My words soak into the sand, my already weak voice dampened entirely. “Please, my”— Fated One, destined soul, the other half of my being —“friend is hurt!”
The light flicks back into existence, this time to my right at the very top of a rolling dune. I blink in confusion. How did it get there so fast? Brimming with newfound determination, I start toward the lantern, eager for assistance.
“Sai,” Jyn rasps. “Sai, stop—”
“All will be well, my lady. All will be well.”
The moment I climb to the apex of the dune, the light flickers out again. I see no footprints in the sand, no shadowy figure retreating into the distance. Just when I think I’m going mad, the light suddenly reappears on the other side of the dune, as if leading me down a trail. This is getting frustrating.
I strain my one good eye and take in the light’s shape, gawking with a mixture of fascination and confusion when I realize what it is I am looking at. A white-blue flame, floating a few feet off the ground on its own, like the plentiful lightning bugs back home in Jiaoshan. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. What magic is this? This is no lantern light.
It is a wisp .
An entire row of white-blue flames suddenly illuminate the way forward, their fiery tendrils flickering back and forth in the arid breeze. I follow them one step at a time, my curiosity piqued. Could they be trying to help us?
I can’t be sure how far I travel, or for how long. All I know is that my muscles are fatigued and feel moments away from snapping from their joints. Thirst is the only thing on my mind. That, and this seemingly endless trail of white-blue fire. My head pounds. I heave, but there’s nothing to hurl from my stomach.
We’re surrounded by a sea of golden sands, constantly shifting with the winds like waves upon the ocean. It’s endless. How far have we come? How much farther do we have to go? Ahead of me, behind me, and to either side of me—it all looks the same. There are no mountains. No trees. No distant waters to use as markers. We are alone in this barren prison, a great and lonely distance in every direction.
Delirium sets in.
Where are we even going? Have I not passed this stretch of sand before? Is Jyn still there on my back?
Exhaustion. I want to lie down, but I’m already waist-deep in the sand. I sink farther with every step. Before I know it, the grains are up to my chest. I focus on the remaining wisps ahead. I’m sure they will guide me to safety, if only I could escape this pit…. Perhaps if I try harder, move faster.
I’m up to my chin in sand now. The person I was carrying… Who was it, again? I can no longer sense them with me. Have they been swallowed by the sand, too? Why is it that I can no longer breathe? My nose and mouth are covered. I’m suffocating.
Movement is unthinkable. My good eye strains in the dark. Is that a woman’s hand I see sticking out of the pit, grasping fearfully in search of something to hold on to? Who could it be? How curious that she should have a gray, fraying thread just like—
Jyn.
I come to my senses all too late. My fear of water has now been replaced with a fear of being buried alive. Either way, I’m drowning. Desperate for salvation, I’ve been tricked into taking us to our own graves. There’s nothing more horrifying than the awareness of my final dying moments.
Jyn and I are sinking, sinking, sinking. And just when I think I have met my untimely end—
I land on my back at the bottom of an underground cave.
Fire screams through my bones, a terrible pressure pulsating inside my skull. I wheeze and cough, hacking up fistfuls of sand from my throat. There’s no light, only darkness and cold. Panic grips me by the throat. What is this forsaken place? Have we stumbled our way into Hell?
Somewhere in the darkness, a cough.
“Jyn?” I call out, my vocal cords shredded to bits. Gods, this night couldn’t get any worse.
I fumble about helplessly, doing my best to follow the sound of her voice. When that fails, I instinctively follow my thread. Jyn’s presence has a glow to it, though it’s fading fast. I seek it out, tripping over my own two feet until I find her, curled up on her side. I fall to my knees and pull her into my arms, grazing my fingers over her cheek.
“Jyn? Please, say something!”
“Wisps,” she wheezes. “Little bastards… Tricksters. Their magic… hypnotizes their victims.”
I huff, exasperated. “Yes, well, I know that now . How do we get out of here?”
Something in the darkness hisses.
Jyn and I freeze. I hold my breath, fearing that even the faintest of noises will alert whatever beast is lurking in the darkness. Perhaps it will ignore us and move on if we remain perfectly still.
Another wisp suddenly ignites into existence before us, illuminating the dark cave with its soft blue flames.
I grimace. Little bastards, indeed.
But what horrifies me is not that the wisp has given away our position, but the fact that I can now see the creature responsible for the hissing. I have never seen anything more hideous.
A man, except he’s the furthest thing from it. He’s emaciated, with leathery white skin hanging loosely from his bones. His eyes lack any trace of color, his lids pulled back so far it looks as though they might pop right out of their sockets.
His nose is missing, as are his lips. Both have been torn off his face. He twitches, clawlike fingers curled and crusted with dirt and browned blood. He gnashes his yellow teeth, chewing on something wet and fleshy . His meal falls from his mouth and drops to the cave floor.
A nose.
Gods, is it his nose?
“F-friends…,” he croaks. “New friends… here for dinner .”