We made it about ten miles before the back tire on the bike popped. I guess there was a sharp rock in the road or something. Whatever it was just made our trip a hundred times more difficult. I was already plenty upset about what had just gone down, along with all of the previous events.
I know Tessara was in just as bad of a state.
I stopped a few feet after the tire popped. I got off the bike and checked the tire. The hole was several inches long on the tread of the tire. Great, that wasn't fixable, and I didn't have another tire.
"Looks like we're walking the final fifteen miles"
"Great…" Tessara said. I thought she was going to collapse on the road.
It was tropical down here, and it was still summer, so the heat was nearly unbearable. I don't really sweat. Tessara, on the other hand, is like a melting ice cube. She would dehydrate pretty quickly in this and we don't really have any water, which means we'll have to find some.
We walked for about four hours and made it about another ten miles. My arms were killing me from wheeling the bike. A broken tire seriously sucks. I looked over at Tessara. She looked like she was about to melt into the dirt road. We needed a break now or we weren't going to make it much longer. It was starting to get dark out, too. I didn't think we'd make it to dock before night and I really didn't want to be out on an open road at night.
I started slowly wheeling my bike to the left side of the road. Tessara looked up at me with a bored face that said, "what are you doing?"
"What? If we don't find water, we're going to be french fries on the side of the road. Plus it's getting dark out, and we've still got five miles to go. We won't make it back to Rubic in time."
"Ugh, fine," she said, trudging off the road behind me. Despite her attitude, she looked pretty relieved to be stopping. I forget she can't exactly be all go, go, go, like me — which is why I try not to take her on missions.
I rolled the bike off into a set of bushes and set it down where it was well-hidden. I grabbed a pack from one of the side pouches. Inside was a set of metal water bottles, which I make sure to always keep on me, some meat and bread left from the other day, a spool of rope and some cloth. We set off into the jungle and began to search for water.
The ocean was bordering the street on our right down the road and there were several underground waterfalls running out the sides of the cliff below the road that I noticed. I knew there had to be waterways nearby, we just had to find them somehow. I'm not familiar with jungles, so I don't really know how to know if water is nearby or if I'm going north or south. We were just kinda wandering at this point.
I checked my wristech, and realized it was shattered. Great. Now there really was no way to know where we were. I decided the best way was to listen for water. Seeing as we were relatively high above sea level, it was safe to assume the water would be running downhill, towards the ocean.
The canopy was thick with bushes, vines and leaves. I pushed a branch down and to the side and let it fling back into place. A few more branches I pushed aside and let fly back. I turned to see if Tessara was still following me. She was, except she had red lines all over her face, leaves in every part of her hair, and a mouthful of the last branch I flung back. She just looked fed up with life at this point.
I felt her pain. Normally I'd laugh at the face she was making, but I was not in the mood.
"Sor—" I started to say.
"Save it," she said, spitting out leaves. "Let's just find water before we can't see two feet in front of us."
"Right," I said, pulling out my sword. I think slashing the branches and vines would be better than throwing them into Tessara's face.
We wandered for another hour. I couldn't see the sun with all the trees and leaves, but the jungle was getting very dark now. My sword was running out of energy, too.
Soon, I heard it — water. Finally. It sounded like it was straight ahead, I think. It was windy too, making the leaves rustle and sound almost just like water. All I knew was there was a louder rushing noise coming from somewhere nearby. I kept walking toward the sound. I finally walked out into a clearing. I walked a few more feet until I felt water splash around my boots.
We found it, but we couldn't drink it just yet. It was most likely contaminated, being in the jungle like this. The water was still, meaning whatever falls in it stays and festers.
I saw Tessara slowly start to lean down to drink. I immediately grabbed her arm and pulled her away from it.
"Tessara, don't drink that. I don't need you getting sick."
"Don't tell me what to do," She said as she began to reach down to fill up her water bottle.
"Goddamnit Tessara, just fucking listen."
"Just listen? Just listen?! All I ever do is listen to you, but you don't ever listen to me. You constantly treat my opinion as second. You always expect me to come to you to meet you where you are. You never do that for me, you never go out of your way for me, unless not doing it causes a problem for you. You're self-centered, arrogant, ignorant and pushy."
"If that's what you think then why do you force yourself into my business? Why do you insist on coming along on every mission? Why do you even talk to me?!"
"Because we have to communicate on a mission in order to get it done and — I don't know, maybe I appreciate being able to talk to another human being, unlike you!"
"I never asked you to be here. I never wanted you here. I never wanted you to go anywhere with me, you chose that. Over and over again, so again if that's what you think then why come with me at all?"
"Because I thought you were confident, sure of yourself, someone who could give me direction, purpose. As kids you always knew what to do, how to handle a situation, You had what I thought was a level head. Now I see that it was a wall between you and the world — a separation that kept your mind away from it-"
"What the hell do you know!?" I screamed, cutting her sentence short.
"Oh I know enough! Enough to understand that you struggle so much with anything more than a surface level relationship! You can't even be open with yourself! And that wall you created, it's finally cracking and you don't know how to handle it."
I didn't know how to respond to that. My mind was so scattered, it just blanked out. She stared at me for a moment. The subtle buzz of the night took over the silence.
"I'll find my own way home. I won't bother you anymore." She said quietly as she wandered into the tree line.
I turned back to the water. It's fine. She can go throw a hissy fit, while I make the fire for the water. I didn't need her anyways, I'm fine by myself like I always have been.
I started going around the edges of the water and picked up sticks and dead leaves from the ground and began a pile. The problem was, since it was a jungle, finding dry things that could burn was hard. I started doing the most basic thing anyone would do — I took two sticks and started spinning them together. I spun them for what felt like forever. Not even smoke.
"Damn it," I said, throwing the sticks. What now? A bullet might work, if you shot the sticks at point blank range. Saw it on a show once, a guy used a shotgun shell to start a fire. Dangerous for sure, but it worked. Tessara was the only one with a gun. Maybe if I had a battery, that could work too, but I didn't have any of those.
I guess the bullet was the only thing I could think of at the moment. Come to think of it, Tessara has been gone for quite a while. Not sure how much time had passed, but it had been a little too long even for her. I started to walk out in the direction she went. During the day, it would be hard to track someone in something this dense, but at night it's even worse. Although thanks to all the mud, I could clearly see her footprints.
She walked up and to the right down the edge of the water. The whooshing noise was getting even louder than before. I thought it must be a waterfall. I continued to follow the footprints and started to hear someone talking. I continued closer to the sound and came to the edge of the woods. The forest canopy was open over the river and moonlight shone on the water. Next to the edge was Tessara, barely visible in the light. We were on top of the waterfall, just above the pond where I was collecting sticks.
I watched as she stared at the water.
"Maybe I was too harsh, but I just ughh! Why does she have to be so difficult! I try to help her, she shoves me off. I try to be nice, she ignores me and shuts me down. I try to be funny and she glares at me. I tell her I'm here if she wants to talk and she pushes me away. I try so hard, but everything I do she has a problem with! I try and I try and I try, but nothing works, nothing. I just want to be there for her, I just want her to see that she doesn't have to be or do everything alone."
The reflection of the moon light rippled over the water as something hit the surface, but she hadn't flicked any rocks.
I really was so caught up in my own world, I never stopped to think of her as anything more than an obstacle, annoyance or a crutch to my own failures. She started walking in my direction. Then in my exact direction. If I move she'll know I'm here, but if I don't she might walk right into me, and that's exactly what she did.
"What the heck?" She said, as she bumped against me. Then she started touching me as if trying to figure out what she just ran into and then pulled her hands away.
"Oh, it's you."
"Yeah."
"You heard all of that, didn't you?"
"I heard enough. Look — I'm sorry. You're right. I was so caught up in my own world, I never really stopped to think how it affected those around me."
"It's fine, you don't need to explain. I'm ok now."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
We started walking back towards our campsite, it was awkwardly silent. She clearly was not ok.
We sat down on large leaves I had found, in front of the failed fire pit a few feet from each other and silently stared at the ground. She had her legs up against face and her arms crossed around them.
"Weren't you gonna start the fire?" She said, in a low voice.
"Well I was gonna use a bullet of yours, since rubbing sticks together didn't work."
"Why not just use your sword?"
I just blank stared at the ground. How did I not think of that? I activated my sword and lit the pit of brush on fire. I placed the filled bottles by the fire and sat down.
"Listen, I should explain."
"No, it's ok."
"No I need to, It's the least I owe you."
She just continued to stare at the fire.
"I don't like to get close to people, because when I do, it never ends well. The only reason I even hung out with you so long is because at first I felt bad when I pushed you off. So instead, I let you tag along, but as just a work partner. I wouldn't let myself view you as anything more because, if something bad happened, I don't know what I'd do. It's just easier when I don't have those attachments, those anchors. But I never stopped to think how it made other people feel — how it made you feel. I'm sorry."
She just stared at the fire and I saw a few tears slowly drip down her face and onto her knee. It lightly sparkled in the firelight.
She whispered something under her breath.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"I said it's ok, I forgive you." She took a deep stuttered breath. "My dad was assassinated at 6 and my mom didn't cope with it very well. So I understand what it's like to want to shut out the world. But you can't do it forever."
"Yeah I guess."
I stared at the fire again as jumbles of scattered thoughts ran through my brain.
"Do you know why I froze in the mine?"
She just slowly shook her head.
"I saw something I didn't think could be real. My sister, alive. The last time I saw her I was eight, the village we were living in was attacked by the same group. That's why that symbol looked familiar. I barely escaped after we were caught in an explosion that destroyed our house."
I paused.
"My mom used her body to shield me from the blast. I tried to pull her with me, but she was too injured, and Anasu had been in the house. She told me to run, so I did. I ran as far and as fast as I could while the gunfire and screams rang behind me, and I didn't stop until I collapsed."
I drank from my bottle.
"I spent the next several months wandering, looking for Nazul. She told me to find her old guild there if I ever needed help. Eventually, I found myself in the Oasis. A gang had found me sleeping by a dumpster and thought it would be funny to push me around. A kid with damn near rags for clothes. If it wasn't for Garry, they probably would've killed me. He's the only reason I made it to Blazing Phoenix. From that day forward I refused to get close to anyone, because I never wanted to put myself in a position where I would feel the way I did back then."
"Vera, I-I'm so sorry," she said with tears falling down her face. She scooted over to me and hugged me. I didn't really react. That was the first time I opened up to anyone in over eight years. It made me feel a little better, but the anxiety of connecting to someone like that still lingered in my mind. It poked my conscience like a looming sword — hovering over my throat, waiting to strike.
"We should go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
"Yeah, ok."