Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

With renewed vigor, she darted to and fro, cutting a mad and winding course across the flat rock. The last Wadi skidded behind her, slipping now and then, cutting across the sunrock when it had to, its scales gleaming in the fury of her nightmare Horis.

Anlyn lunged left and right several more times, her thighs so heavy and sore that they threatened to collapse with each powerful juke. She forced her feet to grip the stone, forced her arms to pump along with her legs, took one more spin, faked to the side, then dove, headfirst, through the hole of her imagined and longed-for safety—

When the helmet came off, there were even more men around her than before, more in the dark suits and especially more in the white tunics. They were yelling even louder, but no longer at each other. They seemed to be cheering. The wires came off her skin with sharp stings. The straps were pulled away, and Anlyn was forced up. She could see that the room was empty of other prisoners; all the padded beds were vacant, which left her with the impression that she’d been in the nightmare for much longer than it had felt. Then again, in other ways, it felt like she’d been in that horrible place for several sleeps.

The Humans were obviously happy with their experiment. A large group of them continued to speak loudly with one another as her escorts led her back to her cell. Along the way, there was more spitting and yelling. This was followed by more hours of sitting alone, hugging her shins, and then another sleep during the confusing cycle of light to dark. The only change was in the quality of her water and the amount of food she was given later that night. Neither, however, were enough to overcome the residual shaking the nightmare had left in her bones.

The next day, they did it to her again. It was another Wadi nightmare, very similar to the last one. The fear and pain did not lessen, but Anlyn at least knew what was expected of her. She made it to the hole once again, cut up and bleeding by the time she got there. The dream wounds felt so real that her flesh was tender as they drug her back to her cell. She half expected to find actual scars or dried blood on her somewhere. She slept with real aches and with the perpetual fear of the nightmares finding their way into her cell.

And so it went: Wadi dreams for a dozen sleeps. Anlyn became exhausted by the ordeal, which at least meant she was able to pass out for the entirety of her imprisoned nights. During a subsequent march down the cell-lined corridor, one of her escorts lashed out at a spitter, which was different. Anlyn hardly cared. She liked it better when they left her alone in her cell.

During the next nightmare, she learned something new. The Wadi could be turned on one another. Not purpose-minded, but on accident. She could taunt them along on colliding vectors, sending the imagined animals into each other, which made them vanish even quicker than outrunning them. At the beginning of the dream—when there were lots of them giving chase—this tactic worked well to thin the herd. It was after a few days of experimenting with this that she reached the hole for the first time without getting touched, with nary a nick. The Humans were oddly silent after that dream. A group of them huddled together, their heads bent close, as she was led out. It was also one of the few times other prisoners were still strapped to their beds when she awoke. She saw them twitching with shocks of pain as the guards marched her out of the room. She tried to feel some twinge of joy at seeing the spitters get their own, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

And even though Anlyn hadn’t gotten nicked in that last dream, she was already losing her sense of feel. She could hurt while not being touched and feel numb as she was struck. It left her in a confused, permanently anxious state. Her environmental cues did not match her feelings.

After that first untouched nightmare, the Humans gave her a sleep cycle off. The following day, they took her to a different room, one with more of the white tunic men and fewer of the black-suited ones. That was her first day of learning English, one word at a time. They used pictures and repetition. They showed her words made of letters, the shapes of which she recognized as Human, just as she knew the florid script of the Bern. Her meals were served as she followed along, the two feedings framing the extremely long sessions. Even though her mind was numb from her conditions, Anlyn fought to absorb the lessons, knowing that communication was the way out. If she could explain who she was, perhaps appeal to their leaders, she might be able to return home.

And so she learned. And the next day they forced her to suffer a nightmare. And the next day she learned some more.

And so it went for many sleeps.

And what they were teaching her was war.

Anlyn was glad she and Gil had only one shade bridge to cross, for his moment of panic had nearly gotten them both hurt—or far worse. She was already furious, her hot side dominating, as she dove into the shadowpath ahead of the next strong gust of wind. Before she could vent her anger, however, Gil fell to his knees before her, panting.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, over and over.

“It’s okay,” Anlyn said, though she didn’t mean it.

“I just got scared.” Gil wiped at his face, a sheen of sweat mixing with his tears.

“We have to be more careful,” was all Anlyn could say.

He helped her up, and they walked together the last few hundred paces, a tense silence settling between them. Their quiet left just the canyon moans and the whipping winds and the flapping of loose bits of their Wadi suits to pace their march.

Anlyn let Gil walk ahead of her, perhaps to keep an eye on him, perhaps because her excitement for the Rite had abated. She took another swig from her thermos, careful to not drip any, and looked through the Wadi holes to her side.

The animals’ tunnels had grown in size over the last few thousand paces, moving from something a single fist could get caught in, to holes almost large enough for a young child to squeeze through. The wall was also quite thin, being a part of the narrow wedge that had divided the canyon in two. Some of the tunnels went straight through to the other side and were lit up almost all the way across. Anlyn knew that these were getting to be a better size for grasping eggs, but the canyon’s pocketed dead-end was visible just ahead, which should offer them a bounty and save them time in hunting.

“This is gonna be embarrassing,” Gil yelled over his shoulder. He held the egg graspers to his side, the pinchers clicking together nervously.

“You’re just now realizing that?” Anlyn asked.

Gil shook his head slowly. He stopped and waited for Anlyn to catch up. “Well, maybe I am,” he said. “All the other boys are gonna have stories to tell.”

“We’ll make up something heroic for you,” Anlyn told her cousin. “C’mon, let’s go get our eggs.”

“Anlyn?”

The voice came through a Wadi hole, high and tight, nearly lost among the cries of the wind passing across the face of the cliff. At first, Anlyn thought she’d imagined it.

“Anlyn!”

There it was again. Anlyn stopped and leaned close to one of the holes beside her.

“Hello?” she called into it. “Coril? Is that you?”

“Hey!” Her cousin’s voice came through with an echo and a crispness borrowed from the cool stone. “I’m on the other side of the wall!”

Anlyn ran back to the hole her cousin’s voice seemed to emanate from the loudest. “How are you?” she yelled. “Have you got your Wadi yet?”

“Go back another hole,” Coril shouted. “I saw you guys go past a second ago.”