Chapter 6 - Weight of leaving

  "Think you can carry one of the big rucks?" I asked, pulling one of the two massive rucksacks down that I'd packed.

  "I don't know," Reece replied and stood next to it. "It's almost as big as me."

  I stared at him and the rucksack. "You're right, I'll find one of the older ones."

  Even though we'd moved from one side of the lake to the other, and back. We'd made sure that the most important items were stored in the larger of the rucks, an easy put me up tent—sleeping bags. Other important water gear and stove. We'd kept things for as long as possible without using them, and even when mom had been tempted, Dad had told her one day that ruck would be life or death for us.

  I guess it was now because we were leaving.

  I emptied the packs out onto the floor, mentally categorizing everything into three piles: essential, useful, and unnecessary. We'd been preparing for this moment for years without knowing it, but now that it was here, I had to be ruthless. Being sentimental would only weigh us down - literally.

  I pulled out the gear and discarded some of the other things they had packed for themselves. Things that were too big for us, or just too plain heavy.

  One pair of boots would do for us each. Although worn, the boots were comfortable enough for walking throughout the day. Two sleeping bags, no mats, just thick clothes to change into, in case we got super wet, and underwear, you could never have enough of that.

  Mom had taught me about a woman's body and though I hadn't had a period yet, there were tampons and towels in case I did. I hesitated over them, weighing practicality against possibility. Mom had explained that malnutrition often delayed puberty in girls. Given how little we'd been eating, who knew when I'd actually need these? But being caught unprepared could be disastrous. Seemed pointless waste, but I guess the last thing I wanted on the road was that. So, I left them in a side pocket.

  Reece brought in an armful of books. "We can't take those," I said to him.

  "What? Why?"

  "Because we can't carry them," I said and tapped the side of my head. "Everything we need has to be in here."

  He wasn't having any of it. "I'll carry them!" He said and pulling out things from his rucksack, he repacked it and yes, he squeezed in two huge books and a folder. Then he looked around. "What about… what about all our other things?"

  "Things like what?" I asked.

  "Mom's brush, her favorite jumper. The Xmas decorations we made."

  I moved to sit on the bed before him. "Reece," I said gently, putting my hands on his shoulders. "I know you want to keep these things to remember them by. I do too. But out there, every extra ounce we carry could mean the difference between making it to safety or not. We have to carry our memories in here." I tapped his chest, right over his heart.

  "We can't take any of them. We have no idea what is out there. It's too much."

  "What abou—"

  I put a finger to his lips. "Go grab the rest of your clothes. I'll pick out the good ones."

  While he was gone, I pulled the two larger books out of his bag. The thickest was a collection of stories, Dainty's World Wonders'. I hid it under the mattress. We really couldn't afford to take it. I knew he might kill me later, but for now, that and the folder of pictures from the cabins… they had to stay.

  I did, however, keep the—herbal medicines and how to forage for them. That at least might be something… I still worried, though.

  It was a lot to pack, a lot to carry.

  Reece brought mom's phone in next, and though the battery had been dead a long time, he looked at me hopefully.

  I smiled at him, taking the phone and sliding it into a side pocket of mine. "You used to love the music she played for special occasions."

  "I wish we could listen now," he murmured.

  "Remember how she always played that one song when we'd finished all our chores?" I started humming the tune, the melody bringing back memories of easier times - Mom swaying in the kitchen, Dad laughing as he pulled her into a clumsy dance.

  I knew which was his favorite though and sang it for him, and his eyes lit the room along with his smile.

  Together we danced and sang, and then finally collapsed, exhausted.

  "We need to leave all of it," he said. "I'm too small to carry."

  "We'll manage," I said. "Maybe we can find a trike or set of bikes to ride."

  "I've never ridden," he said.

  "It's not too hard," I said. "I'll teach you."

  "Promise?"

  "Of course, but first we need to figure out where to go. They went for miles and miles around here with that truck."

  "You know that?"

  I pointed to the map on the wall. "Dad marked off all the places, yes."

  We stood before it. "So we need to go further than they did?"

  "Yes, but it's really far," I said and moved to tug the map carefully off the wall. "See these marks? Dad plotted everywhere they'd explored. But look at all this empty space beyond. That's where we need to go - somewhere new, somewhere that might still have resources."

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  "Any idea what is out there?"

  Reece had only seen videos of what was outside our valley. He was still too young to recall the towns, the cities. "I don't," I admitted. "But we have a direction, that's all we can do."

  I'd made sure I'd packed the knife dad had given me and the axe was hung in a makeshift sleeve. My mom had a sword at some point, but I don't know what happened to it. I'd seen her and dad fighting with two, but then there was never any physical evidence. Maybe it was magically made. Maybe I could get more information from her journal.

  One day, not today. Today we had to start out… today we had a very long way to walk, while the worst of winter wasn't here.

  The climb up the embankment on either side would be hard, so I took us what I hoped would be the easiest route.

  It wasn't. Reece teetered, and I had to reach for him to stop him toppling backwards. "This isn't going to work," I said.

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  I steadied him in front of me. "Give it to me," I said.

  And with one pack on my back and his somehow strapped to my front we made our way up and then onto what was an old road.

  YOU HAVE BEEN TRAPPED IN AKER VALLEY

  WITH LIMITED SYSTEM ACCESS

  SYSTEM REBOOTING

  PLEASE WAIT

  I froze instantly on the spot.

  "What is it?" Reece asked. "System—Rebooting?"

  "The system," I breathed, understanding dawning. "Mom always said the valley was special, that it kept us safer somehow. I think we've just crossed some kind of boundary."

  Mom had said the valley protected us. I had never really thought about why the system messages we'd gotten were so limited. Even Reece never had much before now. Just what I knew he'd said when younger, that he was a lightning mage.

  SYSTEM RECOGNISING

  Cerys Bellova

  Female - 17

  Puberty - Not Attained

  To reach the next level in system recognition - reach puberty

  SYSTEM STATS

  Recognizing skill

  Scholar

  Shooter

  Herbal Medic

  "What is it saying?" Reece asked.

  "It recognizes me, but I'm not mature enough."

  "I got the same," he said. "But you're older than me?"

  "I am, but according to the system, I'm not an adult yet. I haven't reached puberty."

  "That's a bad thing?"

  "I'm not sure," I said thoughtfully. "But it seems like we can't access our full abilities until we reach certain physical milestones. The system sees me as more skilled than before, though - it recognized my shooting abilities and that I can identify medicinal plants. That's something, at least."

  "It might be," I replied.

  "How do you reach puberty?"

  "I need to be a little older maybe a year or so and put weight on," I told him. "Mom said it was due to my body fat percentage."

  "Then let's find somewhere to stay and hopefully more food." He pointed to the berries that were just like ours in the valley going out of season, but still edible."

  "We've been all round here," he said as we walked and ate. "You really know where we should headfirst?"

  "I'm following my nose," I said and tapped it.

  "Think we'll encounter any—"

  "I have no doubts," I said. "There will be monsters, maybe other people too. We need to be cautious about both. From what Mom and Dad told us about their encounter with that group near the town... not everyone survived this world by being kind."

  "We'll move slow and steady till we reach something we're not sure of, any buildings, then—"

  "We need to drop the packs and go in slower?"

  He was smart. "Learned all you could," I nodded his way. "Yes, we'll need to figure out somewhere to stay each night. So, I'll be tracking us with the map, progress and hopefully I can predict and work out a route where there are buildings that aren't occupied."

  It was the occupied that scared me.

  By the time the sun was setting, we'd eaten everything we could find on the sides of the road. There wasn't anywhere near as much as we needed, but it was better than the nothing that was in the valley.

  While a small building ahead hinted that there was a village coming into play we skirted around it and I found an old farm building for us to hunker down in through the night.

  I performed a thorough check of the barn first, knife drawn, methodically checking every corner and potential hiding spot. "Clear," I announced finally, the way Dad always had when securing a new location. "This will do for tonight."

  Out here I wasn't going to start any fires, so we'd have to sleep the best way we could. Luckily, while I left Reece to go find things, I found some more old sleeping covers. They smelled a little moldy, but they'd be more than adequate to keep the cold off us from the floor.

  When I got them back to the barn, Reece had set some traps and with glee in his eyes he held up a rabbit he'd been brutally trying his best to prepare for me. "There's quite a few around the back fields. We could catch a few more through the night. I've set a good few traps."

  "Well done," I said and took the rabbit from him, leaving him to make the beds.

  "We'd not travelled too far, yet already we've got more than we had in the valley. It was that place that was killing us." I said. "Think you can eat the rabbit raw?"

  "Eeew, no," he said, but he was nodding.

  It wouldn't be the first time we'd eaten fresh meat without cooking it.

  "If we get more, I'll cook them tomorrow when it's daylight and hopefully we can hide the smoke better."

  It was a tough eat, and an even tougher night out. I couldn't sleep well, and every sound made me jump.

  I lay awake most of the night, my hand never far from my knife. This wasn't like the valley with its familiar sounds and relative safety. Out here, every rustle could be a predator - animal, monster, or human. I envied Reece's ability to sleep despite it all.

  We couldn't split the night and take watches Reece was still a little young, yet.

  So it was fitful annoying, and I woke just as tired as I had been the day before.

  The week dragged, the roads were overgrown, cars and other vehicles reclaimed by nature. Buildings were wrecked, some burned to the ground, other looked like bombs had gone off, decimating all of them, nothing but rubble.

  As we walked, I tried to imagine what had happened here. What force could have destroyed so much? Mom and Dad had never been clear about what exactly brought the system, what made the world "fall" as they called it. Now, seeing the extent of the destruction firsthand, I wondered if we'd ever know the full story.

  No matter if the food on the road was better, the packs were too heavy. We ditched almost everything. The book soon went, and Reece gave it a loving pat before he did. "You already got rid of the rest?"

  "I had to," I said.

  He'd just nodded, and we'd carried on with nothing but cleanish underwear and sleeping bags.

  Our progress was slow. We'd been out in the countryside as much as we ever could be. To head down into a town or a city could be—monsters—death.

  So we avoided them all, just picking a house, or home in the general direction and then sometimes staying there for a night, or several.

  When winter was really about to hit, it was too much to travel, the wet, the cold, everything. We found a small town, and though we thought at first, there might be people around, there wasn't a soul. It had mostly been cleared out. But a nice stronghold of old good was tucked away in a shed.

  "We need to stay here for the winter," I decided, assessing our supplies and the state of our bodies. We were both too thin, too tired for continued travel through snow and ice. "This place is defendable, and there's enough here to start with. We can scavenge the rest."

  Pooling everything the way I knew, mom and dad had taught us. We made a base, Reece as young as he was, went trapping and I made our supplies last as much as I could. It meant most days were went hungry.

  By the time we'd gotten through our first winter, we'd both learned a lot. You'll pack in the food when you can, heat what you can by burning anything and everything. That meant books as well as smashed up furniture.

  The hardest lessons weren't about survival techniques - those we'd been taught well enough. The truly difficult part was learning to make the brutal choices. Which house to loot next, what to burn for heat even when it felt wrong, when to eat and when to save food. Every decision carried weight, and the responsibility never eased.

  The smoke brought animals, and as dark settled in…. Getting the last bit of furniture to burn took me longer than I hoped. I saw beady red eyes ahead, and the fluttering of wings caught my attention the other way. More eyes stared at me.

  My hand moved to my knife in one fluid motion, body tensing as I assessed the threat. Multiple sets of eyes, surrounding us. Not good. We were outnumbered and possibly outmatched.

  "Reece," I said. "When I say—you're going to run."

  "What? Why? He asked, but then he saw them too.

  The eyes lunged out from the dark, with growling, snapping teeth.