Faces, Names, and Memories (completed)

Chapter 29 - Freedom

We stay in the bushes for a while, just watching the hospital. Guards come out the doors and sweep the lawn a few times, which assures us that they know we're gone. After a while the sweeps become less frequent, until a lot of time passes without the guards coming out. Finally, we decide that this means that they've given up their search until the morning. Then, we stand up and take a look around. 
As I look around the deep green forest, the realization finally hits me. We're free. We're outside. We did it. Hours of planning and waiting for things to go our way and they finally have.
"Guys, we actually pulled it off, we made it," Spenzo whispers incredulously. I can't believe it either. I laugh and shake my head. I look at Spenzo, and he laughs too, and next thing you know, we're all laughing because we're just so happy to be out of there.
This is the only time I've really been outside since I woke up. Other times I've been outside have been during physical examination days while enclosed by a barbed-wire fence. Now I remember what it feels like to actually be amongst nature. I take a deep breath and laugh again. Outdoors feels amazing.
"Look," Cale says after we've had a minute or two to take it in. "I'm happy that we made it too, but we won't make it for long if we stay within sight of the hospital."
It's a valid point. But, when I look around and see my friends' smiles of jubilation as they stand amongst the trees, and their happiness as we stand half-naked, barefoot, in only hospital gowns, in the middle of the woods, I want to stay in this moment forever. It's dark, so I can't really see much, but they all look like kids who haven't seen the light of day in a long time, so I'm assuming I do too. Even so, they're still happy, happy in a way I've never seen them before. In the basement, the times when we appeared to be happy were fabricated for the guards or the LE's; this is the first time it's actually real. It's amazing the feelings you can express when no one's watching. I have force myself to stop grinning. Thinking about the grim situation this could potentially become if we're found, a bit of the happiness fades and I swallow.
"Cale's right, as great as it is that our plan actually worked... We need to put as much distance between us and the hospital as possible before sun-up." I say.
"Yeah, checking the woods is probably the first thing they'll do," Deen points out.
"Alright, let's go then," Spenzo nods in the direction opposite of the hospital. None of us move, though. We stand looking at the trees, to each other, and towards the hospital. Everything feels so perfect right now, none of us want to leave, because once we do the happiness is over, and the danger is real. I look at Tammie and see a few tears slide down her cheeks.
"Are you okay?" I ask her, putting a hand on her arm. Her skin is cold, but that's probably because none of us are used to being outside, it'll take our bodies a while to warm up.
"Yeah, I'm great, amazing," Tammie says with a laugh and a sniffle. "I'm so happy that we got out of there, but I'm really scared for Kinnie and Zuke. We shouldn't have let them stay behind."
"It wasn't our choice," Deen tells her. "They wanted to stay. Nothing we could've said would've changed their minds."
"He's right," Is all I say. I pat her arm, but I don't know what else to do to console her.
"I know," Tammie wipes her eyes.
"Come on," Cale says. He gestures further into the woods, and Deen takes the lead and we follow with Cale bringing up the rear.
We walk for a while, we can't move that fast; we aren't wearing shoes and we're not acclimated to the woods but, eventually we can no longer see the hospital and stop for a breather.
Tammie plops down right on the ground and rests against a tree. "How long do you think we've been walking?" She asks.
Deen sits down next to her. "I have no idea, can't be more than an hour."
"How far is an hours worth of walking?" Spenzo wants to know, leaning back against a tree.
"Barefoot and in hospital gowns? Maybe a mile, mile and a half," Cale guesstimates.
Tressa hunches over and coughs a few times, then rights herself, still looking a little out of breath. "That seems about right, we can't see the lights from the hospital anymore, so we'd have to be at least that, if not further. If we have been walking for an hour, that would make sense. We're probably moving at about 2-3 miles an hour." She coughs a few more times and hunches over again to catch her breath.
"Are you okay?" I ask her.
"I'm fine," She waves away my question, but I can tell she's not fine. I see her pull her inhaler out of her gown and take a puff of it.
"Well, how many more hours till sunrise?" I ask, trying to calculate in my head how far away from the hospital we'd need to be in order to be safe.
Deen looks up at the sky. "My best guess is it's midnight, because Zuke pulled the first alarm 10:45, so we probably got out by 10:50, maybe 55, and then we waited her for a while, anywhere between 5-30 minutes which would put us around 11:30, and we've been walking for an hour it's probably half-past midnight."
"Okay, does anyone know what month it is?" I ask, that's important, because when we do find actual clothes we're going to have to know things like the date and the season.
"November 6th, so late fall," Tressa says, lifting up her head to answer, she sits down against the tree and leans back, I realize her inhaler hadn't worked as quickly as it normally does, she still seemed a bit out of it.
I remember that in the late fall it stays dark late, and gets dark early.
"Okay so sunrise is maybe at 7:00am," I guess. "So, we have about six and a half hours till we have to hide."
"Six hours is good," Cale nods approvingly. "That means by sunrise we'll be almost 20 miles away from the hospital, they'll probably fan out in a 5 mile radius, 10 mile radius at max, they won't expect us to be out of that range, so the further we are, the better."
"That sounds great, but realistically we'll probably barely get outside a 10 mile range," Deen says. "There's no way we're going to be able to walk till sunrise. Not in hospital gowns."
"That's optimistic," Spenzo frowns. But, I realize that Deen isn't just being pessimistic, he's being practical. The later it gets, the colder it's going to get, it's already pretty chilly now. Without proper clothing to protect us from exposure, we'll be walking slower and slower the longer we walk. If the temperature drops low enough, we could get hypothermia. Even if it isn't ice cold, the way we're dressed, we're not even equipped for a 50 degree rain shower.
"Deen's right, we're not dressed for this. We'll be lucky if we get 10 miles without freezing to death." I say. I'm just realizing how cold it is and I rub my arm to get some more heat into it. It's cold enough that I'm starting to shiver a bit.
"We should have planned ahead more," Cale says, realizing that we're both right. "We could have easily gotten coats and shoes from somewhere."
"Yeah," Tammie says nervously, standing up.
"I'll be honest, when we were making that whole escape plan I really wasn't thinking about what we would do after," Spenzo admits.
"Me neither, I thought it would be a miracle if we even made it out alive." I add.
"It is a miracle," Cale replies.
"Well, we can't change it now. And, if we did take coats they probably would have been missed, especially six of them. Hindsight aside, let's just move as far as we can, for as long as we can, until it gets too cold for us to move anymore, then we'll make a camp," Deen suggests.
"Good plan, if we actually had something to make a camp with!" Tammie says, tearing up. "Maybe Zuke and Kinnie were smart to stay behind."
"Don't cry, Tammie," Spenzo says. "If we're smart enough to devise a plan to escape that prison they call a hospital, we're smart enough to find a way to survive in the animal-less woods."
"That is a good point, it's not like we're stranded in a desert. We may be city kids, but, this isn't a real death trap, our biggest threat right now is the cold." Deen points out.
"Let's start walking, if I know anything about the cold, it's that we're supposed to keep moving," Cale suggests gesturing us forward. Deen takes the lead again and Spenzo offers a hand and helps Tressa to her feet while Cale brings up the rear.
"But, guys," Tammie says as we push our way through the low hanging branches and high reaching bushes. "We don't have food, or water."
"There are plenty of edible stuff in the woods, plants and stuff, and we can kill a bird if really need to. But, given that we'll never be more than a few hours walking away from a city, I don't think starving to death is a problem," Tressa points out. We all laugh a little at Tammie's dramatics as it compares to Tressa's practicality.
"We still could. Or maybe some wild animal will come out of nowhere and maul us, we should at least build a shelter or something, or break branches to mark our path," Tammie continues.
"No we should not," Cale objects quickly. "Building a fort or breaking branches would only do one thing, give the guards and LEs a direct path to us. That's why it's actually really good that we aren't wearing shoes, the soles of our feet aren't heavy enough to leave lasting footprints. And, we're not breaking any branches as we step on them, there's no real way for them to track us here."
"Yeah, and also we've kind of been zig-zagging a bit to make sure our path isn't clear-cut." Deen adds.
"And, why would we want a path back to the hospital?" Spenzo asks. "You know if we ever show our faces anywhere near them again they're going to graduate us and force Jade to do whatever it is Jaz wants."
"But-" Tammie tries to think of something else but she stops short. "Okay those are all really valid points."
"I wouldn't worry Tammie. I think we're going to be okay," Tressa says putting a comforting hand on Tammie's shoulder.
We walk quietly from then on, there really isn't much else to talk about. We quietly take in the serene surroundings as we walk through the woods, almost silently, because - another hidden benefit to being barefoot - we don't make much noise as we trek through the woods. After around 2 or 3 more hours of walking, the glamour and beauty of being in nature fades, and starts to feel redundant. Not bad, of course, this was much better than being locked inside a cell all day, but the forest has lost it's appeal. Plus, I'm really starting to feel the cold all over. Somewhere between hours 3 and 4, I grab Cale's arm and snuggle next to him. Not because I feel safer or more comfortable next to Cale (not saying I don't of course, Cale pretty much has been my anchor since I landed down here, but just saying that it's not the reason for me taking a step closer to him) but because I need some of his body warmth or else I'll likely freeze. Cale seems to realize that this is best for keeping warm because he doesn't push me or away or ask why I'm holding his arm. In front of us, Tressa and Spenzo, following our suggestion, link up and lean into each other. Tammie and Deen look back at us and follow suit. As hour 5 of us walking through the woods approaches, I can't ignore how exhausted and cold I am. I'm freezing. Goosebumps cover my arms, shivers shake my body, and chatters control my teeth. The gown provides no warmth against the temperatures and with each breath, white steam comes out of my mouth. I remember that this is a normal occurrence in cold temperatures, but it isn't soothing. I also realize that as we walked we had drifted closer together so now the six of us were walking more as a pack than as 3 pairs. And, we are walking much slower than we had been 2 hours ago. Halfway through hour 5, Tammie falls. Deen catches her before she hits the frozen dirt forest floor.
"Is she okay?" I ask, looking over Tressa's shoulder,  we're so close together now that I'm pretty much on Tressa's back, so when Tammie fell, we all had to stop. Tressa leans over and feels Tammie's face, then she puts two fingers to her neck to find her pulse.
"I-it's the c-cold, i-it's n-not good f-for p-people with c-cardiov-vascular p-problems," Tressa says, but I notice her teeth are chattering viciously, and her lips are blue.
"I c-can't im-magine that the c-colds g-good for asthmatics ei-either," I say pointedly, but my teeth chatter as I say it.
"The cold's not good for anyone, we need to find someplace to crash or else we'll all dead by the morning," Spenzo says, his teeth aren't chattering. It surprises me how, though I can tell he clearly is feeling the cold, it's not physically debilitating yet, as it is for us girls. It could be because all three boys are larger, taller, broader and heavier than us by a steep margin. The difference most likely won't last long, so Spenzo has a good idea to find shelter soon.
"Where exactly are we going to find shelter out here?" Cale asks tightly, I can tell he's cold, if the ice-like temperature of his arm is any indication. I would rub it to try give him some of my warmth, but I don't have any left to give. 
"W-we d-don't need t-to f-find it," Tressa says in a wheezy voice. "N-nature h-has shelters of i-it's own. If-f we -don't f-find a cave or something, we c-can easily b-burrow into the d-dirt, that's what the a-animals d-do." Tressa let's out a few coughs. Deen lifts up Tammie.
"Let's stop talking about finding a shelter and actually find a cave," Deen says.
"You should walk with Tammie in the middle," Spenzo suggests. "She'll be warmer that way."
"Do you actually know if there's a cave out here or not? If we waste the energy and warmth we have looking for a cave that's not here, we won't have enough energy left to burrow under the ground," Cale asks.
"I d-do," Tressa insists. "Th-this way." She turns to the left, and the whole group follows. We walk for about 10 more minutes until we come across a cave. By this point, even the boys are shivering with chattering teeth.
"We n-need a f-fire," Deen says as we all crowd into the cave's opening. It's not that big of a cave, but it's big enough for the 6 of us and a small campfire, maybe bigger but we can only see but so far back with the slivers of moonlight coming through the thick canopy and entering in the entrance to the cave.
"I g-got it," Tressa starts to get up and gather sticks but a fit of coughing causes her stagger and fall back to her knees.
"No, you d-don't," Spenzo tells her. "D-Deen and I w-will get s-some stuff-f for the f-fire." Spenzo says.
"I'll c-come," Cale starts to stand, but Spenzo shakes his head. "S-stay with th-the g-girls."
"Make s-sure, they st-stay awake," Deen tells him. Deen and Spenzo disappear through the crack in the cave. Now that they mention it, I realize how sleepy I really am. Going to sleep would be nice; I'm just so tired, and so cold.
"S-sleep sounds g-great, right n-now," I shiver.
"N-no," Tressa coughs some more, but vigorously shakes her head at me through her coughs. "Y-you n-need to stay awak-ke."
I don't want to stay awake, though I know they're right. It's easier for the cold to set in when someone's still or asleep. But, I don't know if I can hold off till Spenzo and Deen get back. I will try though. The next few minutes are hard on all of us, sitting waiting for Spenzo and Deen. They're taking an eternity to get the wood. The longer they take the easier it will be for us to fall asleep.
Tressa spends the whole time coughing while Cale tries to do his best to keep Tammie as warm as possible until the fire comes. Finally the two emerge with enough wood to build a medium campfire. Though we really only need a small one, I won't complain about a medium one. Cale helps them to set it up, but, none of them are sure how to light it. Tressa does though, so she volunteers. Using only two sticks, she makes a flame between the two sticks. Then she, maybe just to make the fire light faster, uses her inhaler to blow a puff of fire at the campfire, and within seconds the campfire is lit. Genuine heat floods into the room. I take it in for a few seconds, then I crawl over to Tammie and bring her close, but not close enough to get burned, to the fire.
None of us can talk for a few minutes, we just stare at the mesmerizing flames, and let the warmth that the cold night air had stolen from us return. Tammie breaks the silence with a few coughs. I look down at her and rub her arm, which still feel frighteningly cold. She opens her eyes, and is at first startled by the fire but I quickly assure it's alright, and we're safe, and she relaxes and lets herself be warmed. Finally after sitting in front of the fire for about 40 minutes without saying much, we're ready to have an actual conversation.