The Laws of Paxia

9. Somehow I doubt I will

 Chapter Nine

Somehow I doubt I will

  We begin the day with a steady breakfast. We are soon leaving our temporary camp. I am not hungry anymore and Lex seems to be in a good mood too. I slept well outdoors, but the night was still very hot. I play mindlessly with the webs and they are singing today, I never heard them do that before.

  “Sometimes I’m away from the tribe several weeks just so I don’t have to see them,” Lex says suddenly as we are packing the last things down into backpacks. “There is something about you that is very…”

  “Different?” I fill in when he can’t find any word as I follow him out into the wild.

  It’s foggy and grey as usual. The emptiness makes me frown; I wish there could be at least some other colour around. I miss the fresh air from the sea and I am starting to wonder if this coal filled air is dangerous for the health. It feels like I am swallowing smoke in every breath and it tastes disgusting.

  “Definitely different,” he says thoughtfully. “You are not desperate or scared to death. You are still sane and calm like this is a normal place to be at.”

  I scrunch my nose at him. “I don’t find this place normal,” I object. “Quite far from it. It‘s not like I have a choice to be here.”

  “A lot of people can’t cope with that fact; you seem to know how to adjust at least.”

  “I use all my anger to hate the fact that I can’t walk. I can move around smoothly here in Paxia, but it doesn’t satisfy me when I can’t feel it.”

  I sigh loudly when I see pity in his eyes. We are walking through the lands and I have no idea where we are. Maybe I’d lose my mind if I didn’t meet that hardship on Earth. It’s not like I had much life left, stuck in the house as I was. I am recovering faster here in Paxia and it feels weird to be thankful over that fact.

  “The tribe from yesterday is gone,” he tells me with a grin. “So I am taking you to the moon trees.”

  Excitement starts to bubble inside of me; I really want to see what they look like.

  “How do you know that the tribes are gone?”

  “I can feel it in the air with the threads. No one from any other tribe is around. Something must have happened that scared them off.”

  “Like,” I start saying confused. “What scares a whole tribe off?”

  “Tribe fights. They must have ran into some other tribe at the moon trees. We will only stay there for about five minutes so look closely and pick as many fruits as you can and put them in your bag.”

  So that’s why I was only allowed to bring a bottle of water with me. We are heading towards a crater and I stop when I see the fantastic view over the small valley.

  “Amazing,” I whisper at the sight before me.

  A mass of thin trees are growing in the middle of the valley on the purest white grass. The moon fruits are growing on thin black branches and I wonder how they won’t break, holding such a big fruit. The sight is truly beautiful.

  Lex uses the webs to transport through space and time and within a second he is down there waiting for me by the tree line. I close my eyes and look for the travelling sensation in the webs just to get a chock.

  Trust me, trust me, trust me.

  The web is talking so loud inside my brain, louder than I ever heard before. Then I feel my legs moving without my consent and I lose my breath when I suddenly fly through the air and land smoothly on the ground below. My whole body has a tickly sensation from the jump and I feel a little bit scared of being controlled by the web like that. I straighten myself up and I shudder when I think of the huge leap I just made. I blink a few times as I try to understand what just happened.