Generations After

007

Anthony reached the top of the stairs, shut the metal hatch, and flung the wooden door open, taking a step back outside. The sun had moved directly overhead.

"Ant! Ant! Look at what I found!"

Anthony glanced over at Riley and saw a small Schreik standing beside her. It suddenly got down on all fours and sprung itself onto Anthony's shin.

"Ah!" Anthony tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground with a shout. Before hitting the ground, the small creature leaped off and scurried back into the tall grass. Anthony sat back up with a groan of discomfort, the handgun he'd just purchased painfully imprinting his back. But the pain in his stomach reminded him why he was there to begin with. He jumped up and jerked the map out of his back pocket, flinging it open. Checking the marks Theodore made, he deduced a foreboding realization.

26 miles southwest...

"Quick, Riley! Catch it!"

After only a few minutes of chasing, it was obvious they were wasting more calories than they'd gain from eating such a small creature. All they could do was continue to the closest red circle on their map and hope to make it there before expending any of their reserves.

After a long day of nothing but sightseeing, during the sunset, they realized there was no helping it. They would have to set up a camp.

After preparing a pile of sticks of varying thickness, Anthony sat next to his shotty campfire with an open can of peaches in hand. The one hope flooding his brain while heat warmed his legs was to never have to stand again. They only had about three or four miles to go till they reached the small town of Torna, but needed to stop before they got there. Besides, he was sure the townspeople wouldn't want a couple of suspicious lurkers sleeping against their front gate.

After finishing half the can, Anthony sat it next to Riley and continued to listen to the crackling flames, wrapping his arms around his legs.

"Why did you follow me?" Riley's sharp glance struck the side of his head as the question lingered in the smoky air.

"You looked scared," she retorted.

Anthony's concentration to the flames broke by Riley's tilting head, now fixated on the night sky. She threw her arms back and propped herself in a relieved manner, as if she was worried about telling him her reasoning. He could hear her intake a large breath over the sound of the crumbling logs. One thing that kept bothering him was that he'd forgotten this girl existed before today, yet she talked to him as if they were best friends for years.

"Why did you leave?" She exhaled another large breath, her tone switching emotions from relief to something resembling an interrogative. "It's not like you've shared any real details about yourself up to this point."

He felt he had no choice but to snap back without hesitation to maintain any guise he'd forged till now, "to figure out what I want—"

"Stop," she broke off his response like a weak branch from a tree. "I don't want the same excuse you give everyone you don't want knowing you from Adam."

Anthony was worried about being honest. He didn't know if the anxious feeling flowing through him was because of her or his actions. Everything seemed like jokes and giggles until night fell on them. He figured it was probably just his nerves, but the tension in the air appeared to be exhausting his mind. As he thought more about the situation he was in, he could feel his persona weaken.

If she already figured me out, there's no point in keeping up this front. But should I keep it up anyway, for Riley's sake?

He could no longer control his reasoning after that question broke out from his subconscious, freezing any other thoughts, except one. Another had followed it through, skipping it, and making its way to the top of the long list of notions floating through his head.

Was this for Riley's sake? It wasn't, was it?

If he had to speculate, he had built up this front to keep himself stable long enough until he could get away from those he didn't trust. Riley, being here, just broke that cycle, skewing it long enough to the point of the primary task got thrown to the back of his mind. He hadn't consciously known this girl for long, but something inside of him kept pushing to trust in this girl. Even to the point of throwing away every distrust in her, spilling every drop of hope into her.

Anthony had to make this decision now. Even though it felt like hours since Riley had asked, it had only been mere moments. But soon those moments will run out and his time to make this decision will pass. Possibly forever.

Anthony swallowed every ounce of pride he had left inside himself to confide in this girl and give her an inch past the borders he had built around his heart. He took a slow, steady breath; the thick warm air had a scent of a willow tree close by, followed by the burning feeling of ash sticking to the inside of his throat.

"I'm looking for my parents," he said as sternly as he could, his green eyes reflecting the unwavering flames. He could feel the trembling in his words. He broke his focus on the blaze once more, but this time, turning his head in Riley's direction. She looked back at him with a look he could not decipher. It was a blank expression, but it also had a hint of yearning for something, maybe more detail.

"The 'family' I left back in the city, they are my caregivers. Nothing more," he continued as he tucked his head back into his knees, facing the inferno. "The people who raised me explained that I was born deathly ill from a rare virus, and the only proper treatment was to be taken to and monitored in the city. For whatever reason, my parents and sister couldn't stay long."

Anthony picked up a stick and poked it into the fire a few times as he continued, "they left me under the care of some old colleagues that they knew sometime before. The reason I didn't state my actual intention of leaving the city was that my caregivers never told me directly. I heard the same story over and over, time and again, when they thought I was off to bed or wasn't home. They would talk about their sons Bradly and Donny wanting to follow them for years after they didn't come back. They always wondered when they were coming back or the details about their departure. The first confirmation to my face about the whole thing was from Joseph right as we were leaving."

Anthony buried his face in his knees, "so I intended to leave while keeping everyone in the dark about my true intentions just as they did to me all those years, but then Joe kicked us out. The only clue I have is something they called 'The Marrow', which I guess is a date of some kind and it takes place off to the west somewhere. That's where their sons planned on heading, anyway."

After Anthony finished, he looked over to check if the length of his story had left Riley unconscious. However, she was no longer sitting next to the fire. He turned a bit to look around, but his action halted as two white limbs reached under his armpits and met in front of his abdomen.

"See? Being honest with yourself isn't so bad now, is it?" Anthony couldn't respond. The shock of Riley's actions had rendered him speechless. He could see the tip of her nose and black hair in his peripheral vision as her chin rested on his shoulder. From the direction of her nose, it seemed she was staring at the fire alongside him. As he fixated back on the flame, he could see the memories of loneliness he experienced without his biological family by his side burning away within.

Is Riley seeing this as well?

Just as that thought pattered through his mind, the white arms retracted behind him. He turned to meet the owner of the limbs, who was now sitting back beside the pack he had laid on the ground next to himself earlier. His eyes followed her hands as she untied the string connected to her green hooded cape from around her neck and laid down on the ground. She placed her head gracefully onto the provisional pillow that was his bag and covered herself with a green wave of her cape.

"We can switch in four hours, okay?" She yawned out in a sweet-sounding voice.

"Okay," Anthony said, watching her turn away from the fire. He was glad she did not see as he let out tears streaming from his glossy eyes to his smiling lips.