Chapter 3 #2
It was a relief to climb the ladder and emerge above the treetops, out of the dim dampness and back into the open air.
Once we reached the platform at the top of the tree, we took a moment to catch our breath and drink from our water canisters.
We’d gone through about half of our water supply already, but once we reached the end of this next batch of zip lines, we wouldn’t have much farther to go.
“Right,” my father said, returning his canister to his backpack and setting his dark eyes on the zip line. “Let’s get this final part over with.”
The wind quickly cooled my sizzling skin as we soared, and I relaxed for the first time in several hours, once again weightless and safe in the air.
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to catch the smallest bit of rest after the lack of sleep last night.
Then I opened them again and looked downward, curious to see if I could make out the mist from up here.
I could.
In fact, unless my eyes were grossly deceiving me, it looked like it was growing even thicker. It roiled above the trees, so dense that I could barely make out the shapes of the leaves anymore.
I looked ahead of me and saw that the others had noticed it too. Their heads were turned downward.
Why was it so widespread? We had traveled miles since we first spotted it. And more importantly, why was it growing thicker?
I realized then that the farther we glided, the higher the mist grew. After another few minutes, I saw what might have been called a cloudbank of it directly ahead of us. We were going to pass directly through it.
“What are you guys thinking?” I shouted over the whistling wind, no longer able to keep my confusion to myself.
There was a pause before my father yelled back, “I’m not sure, Tani. This is very weird. But it’s definitely not smoke.”
I held my breath when we reached the cloud of mist that had drifted high enough to touch us, and when we hit it, to my alarm, my eyes began to sting.
This was much, much, thicker than any of the mist we had experienced earlier; it was almost suffocating, and as we glided through it, I began to find it more difficult to breathe.
My throat felt parched, as though I hadn’t drunk anything for hours.
I heard the rest of the group making uncomfortable sounds ahead of me.
“How much longer till the next platform?” I yelled out, my voice uncharacteristically scratchy.
“I think about a minute,” my father shouted back, his voice also sounding strained. “Just hang in there.”
What the hell was this?
I almost cried out in relief when we finally hit the deck. It came as a surprise, given I could barely see five feet ahead of me, and I tripped on my own two feet as I landed on the platform, almost crashing into where Jessie stood, who had landed before me.
And then a wave of nausea rolled through me. I gripped the banister of the platform, closing my eyes and clutching my head as I fought to tamp down the dizziness. “Oh my—” I breathed. “Do you guys feel that?”
Robert swore behind me. “It’s this mist!”
I pried my eyes open, looking at my companions, and then ahead of us at the next zip line, which was shrouded by yet more dense fog.
My father grasped at the tree trunk, using it to steady himself as he turned around and faced the zip line we had just traveled across.
“We’ve got to turn back,” he said hoarsely. “We’ll get out of this mess, and then talk about what the hell is going on.”
“But Zina,” my aunt gasped. “What has happened to them?”
“We need to get off this platform, now,” my father repeated, urgency pulsing through his voice.
“But—”
“Naomi,” my uncle said firmly, though I could hear the pain in his voice. “We’re going to pass out if we don’t turn back!”
While my uncle steadied her, my father lunged for me, gripped me by the waist, turned me back around to face the zip line, then pushed me off.
The wind whipping past my face made the nausea easier to bear—though my head still throbbed—and I heard Jessie and Robert follow immediately behind me, and then the others.
I had no idea why this mist was having this effect on us, but I knew that I needed to breathe in as little as possible.
I did my best to control my breathing as we flew through the worst of it and then took a deep breath once we reached clearer air, relishing the feel of it in my lungs.
The stinging in my eyes faded, along with the bouts of nausea.
I looked behind me, now able to see each of my companions gliding directly in front of the cloud of fog—which, worryingly, appeared to be spreading.
When we reached the safe platform, my aunt collapsed in tears, my uncle holding her to his chest in comfort. My father’s eyes turned back in the direction from which we’d come, the thick fog just perceptible in the distance.
He cleared his throat, then asked in a low, anxious tone, “Did anyone else notice how shriveled the leaves were back there?”
I frowned at him, alarmed. I had been too preoccupied with my nausea to properly take in my surroundings.
“I noticed,” Jessie murmured, removing the bandana she wore over her hair and wiping her brow with it.
“The bark… it was also soft,” my father went on, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Softer than any bark I’ve ever come across. It practically crumbled under my hands.” He looked toward me, and then to my uncle.
“You think this fog is somehow damaging the trees?” my uncle asked hoarsely, as my aunt sobbed harder.
My father ran a hand down his face, his fingers fidgeting with his beard. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “All I know is what I observed during the few seconds we were standing on that platform.”
“So, what are we going to do?” my aunt managed, swallowing back tears. “Zina’s home isn’t far from there. The fog must have reached them, too.”
“And what caused it?” Robert asked.
My father exhaled. “Again, we don’t know.
I’m sure we could come up with a dozen worst case scenarios if we stood here speculating, but I don’t think that’s helpful right now.
We’ve hit a dead end here, whether we like it or not, so I suggest we hurry back, call an emergency meeting in the hall, and put our collective minds together.
See if any of the seniors have experienced this phenomenon before.
Then we can consider returning better equipped, and with more experienced scouts. ”
“We can try the masks,” my uncle said suddenly.
I frowned at him, confused, then realized what he was talking about.
“From the museum?” Jessie asked incredulously. “Those things are ancient.”
The museum was a special building we had back in the colony, designated solely for relics and pieces of equipment from the founding days.
It was basically a storage room for memorabilia but included some things that could potentially be of use, too, like a collection of gas masks—which I guessed had been kept for good measure, back in those apocalyptic days.
“Yes, but they could still work,” my uncle replied.
My aunt nodded, pulling herself together. “You’re right. Those things were built to last, and as far as I know, they’ve never even been used.”
It was true that we’d kept them in pristine condition—along with the rest of the artifacts.
While other colonies had been more careless over the centuries, losing equipment or abandoning it due to the need for space, we were apparently a more sentimental bunch and saw value in keeping those memories alive.
“Right,” my father said. “So, we return with the masks, and then investigate what’s going on here.”
We fell into a tense silence as we sat down and rummaged through our bags for our water canisters.
We took deep gulps, along with a few bites of the nuts and dried fruit we had brought with us, to help regain our strength, and then donned our backpacks once more and prepared to climb back down the ladder.
I was thankful at least that the mist in this area wasn’t yet thick enough to affect us. Then I shuddered at the thought that a few hours from now, it could be.
We had to be quick.
As my uncle took the first step down the ladder, and I waited in line, I stole one last look at the sky behind us, at the ghostly green shadow of roiling mist. And that was when I noticed something else.
A black dot in the sky, hovering quite close to our level—perhaps less than a quarter of a mile away. I would have brushed it off as a large bird almost immediately, were it not for its glinting surface.
“Hey,” I said, staggering back and grabbing the arm of the first person within reach—Jessie. “What’s that?” I murmured, jerking a finger toward the object.
My uncle stalled his descent down the ladder and climbed back up as the whole group turned to look where I pointed.
My father stood frozen for several seconds, squinting at the object through the sunlight, and then held his breath and took a step closer to the edge of the platform.
I moved next to him, watching as the thing grew closer.
“Is that a… drone?” my uncle whispered, coming to stand behind me.
My face scrunched in confusion. “Huh? Look at the size of that thing. There’s no way that’s a drone!”
My uncle shook his head, his eyes darkening. “I’m not talking about a drone bee. I’m talking about a drone. It’s tech they had in the old world—there’s a section about them in one of those ancient TechNow magazines at the back of the library. A piece of flying, unmanned machinery.”
As it drew closer, I realized what he was talking about. Its surface was dark and metallic, its shape smooth and cylindrical. It made a dull whirring sound, and now I could make out two bright red lights fixed to the front of it, reminding me eerily of eyes.
I heard my father’s breath hitch as the thing came to an abrupt stop about ten feet in front of us. We stood still, staring at it, and it almost felt as if it were doing the same.
Then my father’s hand closed hard around my shoulder. “We need to get away from it,” he breathed.
The fear in his voice shook me. I wasn’t sure what went through his mind but my instincts screamed at me to do the same: Run.