COMPLETE! The Wasteland. A woman screams in the night. Spotlights flash on a pile of dust in the desolate patch of land that lay just beyond the tall crosses that picket the boundary of Encampment R-34. A group of curious students leave their bunkho...
MELL'S NOTES BOOK November 9, 2245 Entry #14 - Handwritten
I don't want to write. Not now. Not ever again.
Trigger just came to me. I met him outside the Generals bunkhouses. How he knew I'd be out here at this time, I don't know. But what he said made me want to hide under my covers until the Neverdowns. It's safer, I think, if I just add his ramblings to the list of crazy things Trigger has done. It's because he knows that we stole the Scavers map. Has to be.
I can't let what he said stop me from writing, no matter how much it bothers me. First, I need to explain what happened after we had finished up our daily duties at R-13.
For hours, Bryne and I talked about the letters from Jonathan Harker and his trip to Castle Dracula. It took us a while to interpret exactly what we had read because so much of it was unfamiliar. Certain language, and the meaning of things. But we understood that Jonathan was brought to an area where he was unfamiliar, for a purpose. His detailed journey across the foreign lands was enlightening and scary. It was all the more terrifying for us, knowing the real person of Vlad Dracula and seeing it from an innocent man's point of view. But Jonathan has survived for now, and I feel connected to him, across these many years, in our shared uncertainties of the unknown world in the darkness.
There is something Bryne said while we were talking, I can hardly recall it now with everything that happened afterward, that made me believe he had already read this passage when I forced the Chrono-tablet on him. I'm probably incorrect. Lately, I feel like I'm over-interpreting everything around me. There is nothing wrong with Bryne asking that we read more as soon as possible. He only wants to hear the truth, like I do.
Hopefully, no one will ever find the Chrono-tablet in my bunk-trunk. Part of me almost hopes Ireath finds it so I can be free of this. But if it's found, we'll never hear the truth of what happened to Jonathan. Bryne and I tried to get the book free from the glass drawer of the Chronoscope desk, and it proved to be impossible. Not without breaking it entirely.
Wait, I'm mixing my hours together. We didn't try to get the old Notes Book out during our work time. It was tonight when we went back. Here's why.
After leaving R-13, a Mass was called before dinner hour in the Church Hall. Each of the life-jobs sat in their dedicated pews. The students at the front, the infirm and the young at the back with the Guardians. I should have been worried about the look in Trigger's eyes then, but the thought left my mind when Bryne took my hand. We haven't shown affection to one another lately, but I think he feels as connected to me as ever since we are also connected to so much more, beyond the bounds of time, beyond the fences of this encampment.
After a song, led by Elder Samod and Elder Farolyn, who both seemed worse for wear, which was, without doubt, a lingering effect of the drug they had been forcefully given at different times.
Elder Hemaris approached the podium at the front of the church. Elder Priest prayed a blessing over his words before sitting at his usual throne at the back of the apse.
"My people," Hemaris began, in that scandalous tone of his. "Great troubles have befallen us, and rumors are spreading that some of you have lost your loyalties to the Tablets of the Law. By the vow of our encampment, we believe the words and hold them true, that through faith we survive."
"Through faith we survive," I said, in unison with the others. Bryne only mouthed the words.
"Before Elder Priest rises to give Mass, I have an important announcement. As of tomorrow, we will be suspending the expansion plan in order to use the Generals to fortify our existing defenses. The work will be difficult, but it will be safer than any hours spent beyond the boundary. The Elders and I believe that harmony with the Encampers is more important than comfort and room to roam freely."
There was more to his speech. It seemed like it went on for hours, actually. But I didn't hear it and neither had Bryne. He gripped my hand with more fortitude than affection. We agreed without words that for the sake of what we were hoping to achieve with Sweeney, we would need to secure the book from the Chronoscope while we had a chance.
As I've already written, we failed at freeing the book from its housing. We may go back tomorrow, if they ever let us back. And it's possible we could have succeeded tonight, but we stopped because I heard something rustling around out there, in the overgrown courtyard of R-13. It made me realize that we had never been there at night. I don't know what I was thinking, assuming that we would be safe because we knew the area. But I am writing this, so obviously we came through alright.
For safety, Bryne and I climbed to the roof as silently as we could to get a better view. As my eyes were focused on the ruins of R-13, Bryne was focused on Oscar, who was walking alone along the desolate patch, dressed in his night garments and moving slowly, as if there was nothing to fear.
"What's he doing out there?"
"I don't know. Should we go out to him?"
Bryne looked down to where we had heard the noise, squinting and shaking his head, hoping just as I was, that it had come from a wild animal. Then he tilted his head up to the sky as a patch of clouds was about to cover the moon, then looked at Oscar, who had now stopped and was staring out at the valley.
"He's going to get caught. And if he's caught, he'll be exiled. I know it. If we're going to get him, we have to go now."
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