text: The museum consisted of only four rooms, although I got the impression the building was an exhibit itself. The wooden floor and flagstone roof had clearly been replaced a number of times. But the walls were built with tools I had never seen; thick stone towers that seemed to bear hundreds of years of erosion. In the first room, we found odd trinkets of times before. There was nothing especially intriguing, and many were similar to the artefacts in the Citadel on Kadear Coalfields. As we entered the second room, the space opened up to a large hall. On all four walls were pictures; some ranging several metres across down to those that were the size of my hand. Each image was an exact likeness, as if you were merely seeing the sight with your own eyes. The largest display showed a group of young men and women gathered round a table sharing drinks from a bottle. The image was so large that each face was as big as my torso. I was struck by how beautiful they were; the soft skin of their cheeks, their silky long hair, and the symmetry of their smile. Never before had I seen anyone beam so widely, with so much joy, in such a simple moment. To the right of the smiling people, large text read ‘Choose the best.’ The next image was smaller, the whole picture some 30 centimetres tall and printed on thin glossy paper. There was a family in a home. Two children sat in a large kitchen, as an older woman - presumably their mother - dotingly put two plates in front of them, filled with delicious-looking cooked food; a pile of red-colored beans most prominently displayed. Underneath the image, a caption ran “For everyone”. I was still studying the picture when Alessia grabbed me by the arm. “Ferdinand, you’re not going to believe this.” “What?” “The next room,” she responded, pulling me behind her. I followed her through the archway and immediately understood why she had fetched me. What I saw, can only be described as a miracle. The far wall had been painted white. However, light was being cast on it to create moving images. The pictures were as real as the images in the previous room, but these moved. Somehow, I was watching the old world. The images were being cast by a small contraption on a table in the middle of the room. The device had a glass circle on the front that shone light out to project the images. As I got closer I realized it was also producing sound. It was faint, but if I sat down near the small box, I could make out voices - voices of the people on the wall. What we were watching seemed to be a comedic play. After each joke I could hear raucous laughter from an unseen audience. However, while the content may have been fiction, it gave me the perfect opportunity to view what the world used to be like. They had large expansive homes filled with lush furnishings. In the background windows looked over a city from an impossible height. Some seemed to work at desks like I used to, others worked serving people food and drinks. However, whatever their status in life, they seemed without worry. They were still beautiful, with white smiling teeth, and tanned, flawless skin. They were happy in their work, happy in their homes, content in every aspect of their lives. They were in heaven. I don’t entirely know how long I stayed, crouched on the floor. However, I believe a good forty or so minutes passed with us both transfixed by the sight before we were interrupted. “I thought you might enjoy this.” Turning, I found Rachel standing a couple of metres away, admiring the images on the wall. “How...?” I hesitated, lost for a working sentence. I took a deep breath and recomposed my words. “I knew things like this existed in the old world, but how did you get this working?” Rachel smiled. “Luck. Little more. A few generations back some people found a whole metal box of the devices. It took us a while to realize how they worked. We only have a few different recordings. But now we play a disc every day. A reminder of how good the world once was.” I turned back to the wall. “It really was.” “There are dates at the end. These images are from the beginning of the 21st century.” “Why don’t you share this more widely?” Alessia asked, prying herself away from the screen. “You could be the richest island around with this.” “Some things are more important than riches. This museum is who we are, what we aspire to.” Rachel looked at the screen, taking a deep breath, as if she were inhaling the utopia into her lungs. “The archipelago we live in now,” Rachel continued. “There are people out there starving. There’s fighting, murder, war. There are self-righteous islanders, condemning those around them; or islands where one set of people are made to toil while others live in luxury. We made that happen. It didn’t used to be like that. That’s what this museum is for. To remind us of a time without problems, when we were better people, when sadness and hate were fiction. To make us aspire to be something better.” She said the words forcefully, as if they were from a commandment more powerful than herself. “It’s a great aspiration,” I replied. “We may not have the technology. But we can aim to be as good. And one day the technology will come again,” Rachel took one last look at the pictures on the wall. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some issues to attend to. But please stay and enjoy yourselves.” \ We watched the marvel for another hour or so. By the time we left, the sun had set, and speckles of white stars were beginning to fill the sky. We begun the walk back in silence. My mind was elsewhere, recalling and embedding that world we had seen. I assumed Alessia was in a similar state, but as we began to leave the village, Alessia quickened the pace. I skipped a couple of paces to catch up to her. “Don’t look around. Because I know you’ll want to look. So don’t, ” she said through clenched teeth. “But those people from earlier, they’re still following us.” “Maybe it’s time we talked to them.” “If they wanted to talk to us, they’d have done so already. You want to talk to them, you’re going to have to get to them. “And how do we do that?” “Pincer them,” Alessia said, making an action of her two fingers coming together at a point. “I’ll walk back to the village. If they follow you, you turn and run and lead them straight to me. If they follow me, other way round.” “And when they reach me?” “Grab hold of them and don’t let go?” “And if they are armed, or fight me?” “Then let go,” she shrugged. “Good luck.” Alessia turned and started heading back up the path. As she did, a woman stopped in her tracks, and conspicuously walked down a small path into the forest. It was the same woman I had seen following us earlier. Now I knew where she was. I continued down the path toward the beach. To my left I could see an old stone wall that blocked out the forest beyond. To my right, the trees encroached on the path, and long branches loomed over me, cutting out what little light the stars provided. I looked briefly over my shoulder. I could only make out her outline in the darkness, but it was clear I was being followed. My pace began to slow, hoping she might keep her own, and reduce the distance between us. If I was to win a foot race, I had to make the gap as small as possible. I readied my body, priming myself for the chase. I counted to three, turned, and ran. The shadow ceased its movement, frozen to the spot for a brief second, before they turned and tried to flee. However, their brief hesitation had reduced the distance between us, and now they were maybe only seven or eight metres away. They veered to the right and ran up the old brick wall along the side of the path. For a brief moment, I lost my concentration in their agility, as they began running along the top of the wall away from me. Then, a stone gave way. It tumbled towards the path as the woman’s ankle buckled, and she was sent down the other side. She let out a yelp as she fell. There was a second’s silence, then a thud as she landed on the forest floor. I could hear her body sliding, and then a shriek so raw I could feel my heart sink and my torso tense in response. The yell gave way to a quieter, but still loud moan, occasionally broken by a stuttered sob. I climbed up the wall. On the other side was a steep bank that dropped down several metres. As I lowered myself on the other side, I could immediately feel my feet slip on the blanket of leaves and loose soil. Grabbing onto a branch for stability, I began slowly making my way down the bank, towards the baying. As I arrived on the valley floor and approached the woman, I could begin to make out more than her outline. My heart sank further. Our stalker was a girl, probably no older than 16. There was visceral pain in her scrunched, frightened face. At her right arm, there was an unnatural bend between the elbow and wrist, a sharp angle jolting off. The girl kept moving to look at it before turning her head violently away and sobbing. “Ferdinand?” Alessia called out from the path. “I’m down here,” I replied. “Come, quickly.” I waited as Alessia climbed the wall and slowly started making her way down the bank. “I think she’s broken her arm,” I called out. “Well help her,” Alessia exhaled and she slid down the leaves. I was stuck, unable to act, but unable to turn my eyes away from the girl lying in pain. I had seen terrible things, I had seen death. But somehow, seeing somebody - a child no less - suffer, was so much worse. My frozen body was interrupted as Alessia pushed past me and crouched down by the girl. “It’s definitely broken. We’ll need to make a splint,” she said. I watched on, waiting. Alessia turned to me with the eyes of a predator unleashed. “Are you really this fucking useless?” She yelled. “She’s broken her arm. We need to make a splint. We need branches, straight ones, about three centremetres thick. We’re in a forest. Think you can manage getting sticks in a forest?” Broken from my trance, I began searching the dark wooden floor as Alessia tended to the girl. “Hey, it’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you, we’re gonna fix this. I’ve seen plenty of breaks before, and they all turned out fine. Now try to stay calm, and trust me, okay?” The girl whimpered in nervous affirmation. Alessia took out a knife and grabbed the base of her own shirt. She cut out a long stretch of fabric from around her abdomen and placed it to one side. Then she cut up from the bottom of the girl’s trousers to her knee, on both legs, giving her three pieces of long fabric. “Now this next bit, for a moment, is gonna really hurt, okay? I’m sorry. But afterwards, as soon as it’s done, the pain will go down alot, I promise.” Alessia soothed. Once more the girl whimpered her consent. Alessia began slowly moving the arm back to a straight position. The girl’s cries grew louder. She tried to speak, but the words were interrupted by animalistic howls of pain. Alessia completed the task. “There. I’m done.” The girl quietened. “That a little better?” I returned with the two branches. Alessia took them. One was a good length, but as she inspected the other she rolled her eyes, before quickly snapping it in two so it was the same length as the girl’s forearm. With her tongue pinched between her teeth, Alessia slowly wrapped the fabric around the girl’s arm and the sticks, keeping the broken limb locked in place. With the arm set, the girl was silent for the first time. “You’re going to need to clean the wound too,” Alessia said. “I have some supplies on my boat. You can come there now, and we’ll take care of you. And then maybe in the morning you can explain why you were following us. But we’re not going to hurt you. You are safe. We can take you wherever you need to go tomorrow. That alright?” “Okay,” the girl replied. The girl gingerly stood up and began walking. “It’ll be about a half hour’s walk to the boat. That okay?” Alessia eyed up the steep slope ahead of us. “Yeah. I got this,” the girl replied through a sniff. “My name’s Robin, by the way.