The Wall

I was lost to it.

Matthew watched our reactions in a gentle but clinical ma

When the collection of songs ended, I leaned into Matthew, my eyes wide. “Is there more?”

He laughed. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

I crossed my arms and collapsed back into my chair, hugging my ribs. More. Any place that had more of that couldn’t be half bad. I glanced at Joseph’s face, which was somewhere between a smirk and a laugh that didn’t quite get out. I could tell it affected him, but not as intensely as me, because he took new things on so much more easily than I did. It didn’t send him into a spiral of wonderment and sadness; he could accept it into his head like it had always been a part of him.

“Do you have your own music, too? Like a favorite song?” I asked.

Matthew’s eyes creased and a flash of pain crossed his face. I had upset him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No, it’s fine, Rosa. Like you’ve just experienced, music can evoke strong emotions. My favorite song is hard for me to hear; it brings up memories of the people I have lost.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wishing I could say something more meaningful but there was nothing.

Matthew told us that he had a wife. At the very begi

Joseph silently chuckled. “What?” I asked.

“Oh, just sounds like someone I know,” he whispered.

When Matthew finally won her over, it didn’t take long before they were married, or what Survivors’ called being married. It basically meant living together.

His favorite was the song they played at their union party. It was their favorite song, and that’s why he couldn’t listen to it anymore. He didn’t need to continue—I understood. This is what life was like, not just here but everywhere. There were no happy endings, just endings. Things rarely seemed to work out the way they should.

“I knew she was sick when we got together. Perhaps I should have kept my distance but then…” he smiled sadly, “I think it was better to have had those short months with her than nothing at all.”

I tipped my head gently, agreeing. Even though it was more painful than I could possibly have imagined, I would never want to give up knowing Clara. Her loss stung me a thousand times a day in a thousand different ways. Even though I was barbed and ridden with holes from her, I couldn’t regret our friendship.

Deep in thought, I didn’t notice we were slowing down until we started rolling backwards, clanging gently against the other carriages like marbles on a slide.

“We’re here,” Matthew said, satisfied, full. He was happy to be home.

It was about lunchtime when we stepped out of our carriages onto a concrete platform in timid shuffles, like we were stepping onto thin ice that might crack at any second. Our group of newcomers was quiet and anxious.

The Survivors looked relaxed. They were home.

All I could see as I sca

The cold still bit into us with gnawing teeth. We were told to put our jackets on and follow them.

Gwen was half-skipping, half-walking. “Why are you so excited?” I asked distrustfully, listening to her hum a repetitive tune.

She turned to me and smirked. “It’s my bros birthday. I thought I’d miss it. I’m go

I saw Bataar unloading the dogs and wondered what he was going to do with them. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d miniaturized them and put them in his pocket with his pipe.

Our little group looked like a herd of startled deer. Survivors pushed us this way and that, our legs skittering across the concrete, our eyes wide as we searched for clues, skimming over everything, looking for one shred of similarity we could hold onto. Where was this settlement?

As we were steered past the shelter, something close to a convulsion went through me. We found that shred of similarity we were looking for… though I wish we hadn’t. It hit us like a sledgehammer, so much so that we all stopped still and the Survivors in the back bumped into us. Apella shot forward and her thin hand gripped my arm like a bird claw. I heard Alexei whimper. Joseph wrapped his spare arm around my shoulder protectively. I tried hard to breathe but the air felt thin, laced with fear. Not again.

The wall was as high as the Woodland walls but made of a different material, crumbly-looking stone that seemed like it was before the time of the Woodlands. I wondered if this was where the Superiors got the idea. Theorizing didn’t help; it was a wall and it was terrifying, and if we couldn’t see the settlement on this side of it, it must have been within the ominous structure. My expression hardened and my stomach twisted awkwardly, like it couldn’t digest the sight.

It stretched both ways as far as the eye could see. A dirty brown color, the wall was constructed of cut stone. Our standstill had created a traffic jam but the Survivors didn’t push us, they just parted their people sea and went around. It didn’t intimidate them. They didn’t break stride as they made their way towards it.

As they passed, Gus grunted and pushed Cal towards Joseph and me forcefully. Cal stumbled, pulled himself up, but stared at his feet as he talked. “I… I wanted to apologize for my behavior. It was,” he looked to Gus meekly, who nodded, “inappropriate.” He a

Cal looked only at me, ignoring Joseph looming possessively over me, whilst I felt like I was shrinking to the size of an ant. “It won’t. I promise. Friends?”

“Um, friends,” I lied. I truly hoped this would be the last time I would ever see him.

He walked away with the rest of them, looking over his shoulder like a wounded animal, like he expected me to follow him.

We were left staring silently at the wall that encapsulated our worst fears. The fear that we had not come to a better place and this was exactly the same as where we had come from. The thought hurt a great deal, pushing old memories I had barely buried back up to the surface.

Matthew stood with us for a while, and then broke the quietness. “It’s not what you think.”

“You don’t know what we think,” I snapped without thinking. It felt like this was all a trick. The very small amount of trust I had afforded Matthew sprung back to me like it was attached to elastic. The need to protect my family, my new family, whose bonds were tenuous as it was, was overwhelming. I took a deep breath.

“I’ll go with Matthew. I’ll check it out. Then I’ll come back for you. If I’m not back in thirty minutes, leave,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself, but I was shaking as I talked.