text: After another hour or so of trekking through the forest, we arrived at a clearing. For a brief moment, the dense foliage of trunks and vines gave way to compact brown dirt. And there, at the far side, there was a group of some twenty or so men, women and children - the rest of our captors’ group. “They back,” one small child screamed as he ran up to one of our captors, wrapping his arms around a leg the width of his body. The man leading the group turned to us. “You. That tree over there.” He pointed to a short, stout oak tree with the tip of the spear. “Go there. You try run. You die.” We obeyed the command and sat by the designated trunk. “You think spirits are hunting these people?” I asked. Alessia just tilted her head towards me, her eyes rolled upwards. I chuckled. “So how do we get out of this?” “Not sure. No weapons. No idea where we are.” “We need to know more. About this place? About where they’re taking us?” The man who led us here was sitting down with a few of the adults who had stayed at the clearing. They leaned in, listening closely to quiet words with their eyes glanced downwards. While elsewhere the returnees were running around with children or sharing jokes, that small group of three remained solemn. Alessia followed my gaze. “We can’t ask them. They believe any knowledge we share corrupts them. They’ll kill us if we try it again.” I thought on Alessia’s words for a second. “We can’t share knowledge *with them*...” I trailed off, pushing myself to my feet. “Where are you going?” Alessia said, placing her hands by her side, ready to follow. I held up my arm to stop her. “I’m going to ask some questions. But, stay here. They’ll be less jumpy with one of us.” Alessia relaxed against the trunk once more. “Just. Please Ferdinand.” She paused, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Please don’t do anything stupid. Be safe.” “I will,” I smiled. I walked towards the small huddle. As I approached I began to overhear their conversation. “Cold claimed three. At least winter stopped. But vargs took child last week. If we don’t have children soon...” The woman speaking stopped as she saw me approach. The leader turned to face me, but he remained sitting. “What?” “I wanted to ask you some questions-” “Each time you speak, and share knowledge, you make death on all of us.” He gave a dismissive wave of his arm. “The rules state that you must not be corrupted from nature. But that only happens if I share knowledge. You can share nature with me. Tell me. I will only ask questions. No sentences, no opinions, no facts, just questions. No corruption.” “Why I accept?” “It costs you nothing to tell me. And this way, you control what I say. In return, I stay quiet. Make sure not to say anything that corrupts you from here on out.” The man pondered my offer for a second, exchanging a quick glance with the others. “Come closer,” he said to me. I took a couple of paces forward. “No. Closer.” I obliged, closing the gap between us, so that I was only a metre or so away from him. The man raised a hand to let me know I could stop. The man quickly reached for his spear, and with one quick movement thrust it up to my gut, stopping mere centimeters away. “Ask questions. You share. I thrust.” I swallowed hard, feeling the movement of the air through my body, pushing my stomach that moment closer to the tip of the spear, the edge brushing against the fabric of my shirt. “Who were those people who attacked you?” I asked. “Another group,” the man said. He stared at me with unmoving eye contact. An intense, unaltered stare. “Why did they attack?” “Food.” “They thought you had food?” The man let out a small shake of his head, but the eyes remained glued to mine. “We were food. They hunt.” “And they are why you carry the spears?” “Them. Hunting. And the varg.” “Who are the varg?” “Monsters.” I took a moment to check the questions I wanted to ask, making sure that at no point would I share knowledge. Looking down, there was the smallest of spaces where I could make out the uneven brown dirt between the tip of the spear and my belly. That brief gap that kept me alive. “Who are the Leviathans?” “Don’t know.” “Then how will you take us to them?” “At four years Leviathans demand a child. The river enters a cave. The cave leads to Leviathans.” “So you’re going to make us swim down the cave?” “No. Your bodies will float. You are not a child. You don’t need life.” I instinctively took a half pace back. My right foot, resting a few inches behind me. The spear though remained far too close. “You’re going to kill us for the Leviathans.” The man simply nodded. “Then why not kill us already?” I hated saying the words, feeling as though I was daring him to thrust, to do it now instead of later. I closed my eyes as I continued to speak, waiting for the pain to erupt in my gut. “If we are to be offered dead, then why are we alive?” The man chuckled. I squinted as he finally broke eye contact from the ripple of laughter. Finally he turned to me, and smirked. “Dead don’t carry themselves.” My mouth opened. But no words came. The air had been sucked from my lungs, my voice stolen. “Done with questions?” The man asked. “Go. We leave soon.” I turned and walked back to Alessia, my mouth still open, my mind unable to process our fate. Alessia was already standing staring at the tree we’d been sent to. “How’d it go?.” I didn’t respond initially. I was unable to find words to tell someone I cared about that our bodies were due to be offered to make-believe ghosts. Instead, I stood, perfectly still; my nervous, shaky legs, planted to the spot, until the words made themselves apparent. “They’re going to sacrifice us. Kill us and throw us in a river that will take us to the Leviathans.” Alessia let out a wry smile. “I’m not surprised. What were you expecting?” “I don’t know,” I said, my hands raising to the sky. “Not to be murdered because some stupid people believe some fictional spirits might come and harm them.” “I wouldn’t say it’s all made up,” Alessia replied, her eyes returning to the tree. “What? There’s ghosts that come and kill them if they break nature? There’s no real threat-.” “Ghosts? No,” “What are you on about?” I said, my voice becoming increasingly terse as Alessia failed to meet my fears. “While you were gone, I was looking at this tree. It’s covered in these little scars, where something hacked at it years ago and it had grown over.” “Spears?” Alessia shook her head. “So I started looking on the ground near the tree. And...” She reached into her pocket and placed a small metal bullet in my pocket. “That tree isn’t hundreds of years old is it?” I said, rotating the bullet in my hand. “Fifty years at most,” Alessia replied. She turned to me, her gaze steady, but her eyes wide. “Someone on this island is a much bigger threat than anyone in this camp.” “What doing?” a voice barked from the clearing. We turned to see the leader of the group heading our way. I flung the small metal bullet out the back of my hand and into the forest. Removing the trace of something unnatural. “We’re ready to go,” Alessia replied. “When you are.” The man looked at us for a second, deciding how to proceed. He nodded. “Yes. Move. Let’s go.” He headed off and gathered the rest of his crew before marching us off once more into the woods. As we left, the sun was just lowering past the tops of the trees. Sunbeams clawed through the gaps between the trunks, as long shadows crawled across the ground. Pace by pace, the sun slipped further down, till the horizon swallowed it. Red light burnt across the sky, and the embers of the day began to die out, slowly fading into the dark blue of the night. My hearing began to take over as the primary sense as the forest around us took on a different voice. Songbirds chirped for territory, as owls whistled their arrival, ready to hunt the forest for mice or voles. I looked at Alessia. The last of the sun’s light reflected off the perspiration on her face, as her eyes were cast in shadow. “We’ve got to make a move soon,” I whispered. “We can’t just wait to die.” “I know. If need be, we wait till the last second and try to fight back. But, we could do with something changing our situation.” Our pace slowed as shrubs and leaves snared at our ankles, trying to hold us back. “I...” My mouth ran out of words. “I didn’t really want it to end with a death march.” Alessia let out the smallest chortle. “It wasn’t my plan either.” “I’m sorry I got you into this, but... I’m glad to have spent this time with you.” I muttered. “Shh,” Alessia replied. “Stop pretending you know how this ends.” I tried to force a smile, but it quickly melted. “It’s looking bad though.” “Yeah. I just don’t like giving up.” Alessia looked at me, head tilting forwardsl. “So don’t you give up. No matter what.” I nodded. The leader of the group grunted behind us, and pointed to the right. We turned and descended through a steep bank of trees. I held out my hands against the trunks for balance, as the bark scratched back at me. The twisted mess of ivy beneath my feet hissed as I dragged my feet through it, the brushing leaves threatening me. Then, as we reached the bottom of the bank, we came across a clearing. The forest abated and wild grasses, thigh high, instead covered our surroundings. The river descended down rapids and into a gorge, heading to a large cliff to our left. Then it hit me. This river. This is where we were due to meet our end. The water flew down a series of bony rocks. Gravity gave it a kick on the way down, and the water raced towards the cliff disappearing into a cave. However, the cave wasn’t filled with jagged shapes like you’d expect from erosion. Instead it was a perfect semi-circle. The kind of shape never seen in nature. It was man-made. Not a cave, but a tunnel. As I looked up at the cliff too, I noticed that behind the bushes and creeping vines, the steep slope was made of individual stones piled into a great mountain. Each rock, no doubt, carried to the top, and added to the pile by human hands. I had no idea who built this construction or when, but it wasn’t part of nature. Whether our captors knew it or not, man-made structures had always been with them. We began walking out into the clearing. The sun had gone, only twilight remained. The long shadows had withered, retreated to the earth. The tall grass shivered in the evening breeze as we marched across the clearing to the whispering leaves. My pace slowed, trying to delay the inevitable. I looked behind me. The group was getting closer, their spears prepped out in front of them. Ahead, I could hear the water churning over the rocks, beckoning us towards it. My mind was in a haze. A thousand, desperate screaming thoughts looking for an option. My feet slowly trudged as an automatic process, while my brain fought with itself, throwing accusations at past decisions, futilely pleading with the Gods for a route of escape. The world around me disappeared. The entire universe consumed by nothing but the fury inside my own head. The lights, the sounds, the sense of the breeze on my skin, all dissipated as I lost myself in the tumbling, frantic thinking. Then a howl. A high-pitched, but deep-throated whail into the nighttime air. That same howl I had heard on the clifftop the previous night. I turned to face our captors. They all stared at the forest, their bodies braced: back legs stretched out, spears by their side ready, eyes watching. I heard a growl. A rumbling snarl seeping through the woods. Then it stopped. Silence returned. Time stood still for a brief moment as no one moved, no one spoke, no one dared breathe. Then one of the group with a single exhale muttered. “The varg.” The bushes shook as great beasts leapt from the undergrowth. The animals looked like dogs, but their size was at least twice that of any I had seen. Huge, padded feet paced towards us. Black snouts sniffed the air, and the corners of lips raised, revealing jagged teeth. The varg charged at us. One spearman tried to swipe at it, but the varg was too quick, leaping up and latching onto the man’s arm. He screamed as he fell backwards. The great creature clenched its jaws around the man’s neck, as another of the group thrust a spear into the creature’s flank. The varg winced, retreating a couple of paces, but it didn’t fall. It stood, turning its attention to its attacker, the lance still sticking out of its hip. I tapped Alessia’s arm. “Quick, let’s go.” We ran towards the river - the only route available to us. We stopped at the edge of the rapids, the water swirling beneath us. Behind us, there was another scream. I saw a man being dragged back towards the forest, teeth firmly sunk into his shoulder. I looked at Alessia, her eyes caught by the slaughter behind us. I grabbed her arm, and her head whipped round to face me. Her mouth was open, her lungs gasping for air, as her wide eyes pleaded for sense. I nodded to her. She took a deep breath, and nodded back. Then, we turned to face the water, and jumped. \ Next chapter released 4th November.