Amy Cross - Persona

“Asher, I know who we were fighting!” Harold shouts. “Asher, they lied to us! Asher, listen to me!”

Without even hesitating, I throw myself clear of the helicopter.

For a moment, I tumble through clear air. If this is my last moment, if this is how I die, then at least—

Slamming into the tree-tops, I immediately feel branches snapping under my weight. After a couple of seconds, however, I hit part of a trunk, and this time my entire body shudders as the impact sends me deeper into the forest below. Hundreds of broken branches scratch my face and tear my clothes, and I feel bone after bone being shattered as I fall through the trees, until finally everything goes black.

I’m unconscious before I hit the ground. Ghosts are waiting for me in the dark. Ghosts and memories.

Three months later

“Haul it in!” a voice shouts. “Haul it in now!”

Turning, I watch for a moment as several people lug a crop-filled canopy through the town’s main gate. I have no idea what, exactly, they’ve got in there, but I’m sure someone’ll manage to turn it into a meal. We still eat a lot of wild rabbit, but at least the diet around here is diversifying a little. Some wild pigs were recently found near the island’s eastern shore. I have no idea where they came from, but they’ve made for a welcome change to the menu.

“Iris!” George calls out excitedly. “Iris, over here!”

Glancing over my shoulder, I see him waving at me frantically. He’s been busy working on some kind of secret project for a while now, although he was never willing to show anyone what he was doing. Now, however, he suddenly seems keen to share, so I make my way over. When I get around the side of one of the rebuilt huts, I’m surprised to see a large section of wood that he has somehow managed to fashion into a meter-wide disc.

“It’s a wheel!” he says proudly.

I can’t help frowning.

“I know just one wheel isn’t very useful,” he continues, almost breathless with excitement as he holds the disc up for me to get a closer look, “but it’s a proof of concept.” He runs a hand along the edge. “See how smooth it is? That took real work, Iris, and craftsmanship! I’ll only get faster, too, so I think we might actually end up with wheeled transport! Sure, it’d be great if we had horses to pull them, but at least we can have wheelbarrows!” He waits for me to reply, and it’s clear that he’s extremely pleased with himself. “What do you think?” he asks finally. “Should I keep going?”

I pause, before nodding.

“I can have another one done within the next two weeks,” he explains.

I nod again, and then I watch as he gets back to work. It’s strange to think that a man could be so pleased with himself for making a wheel, but I guess he’s right when he says it could have some practical applications. I stick around for a few minutes as he starts cutting more wood, and then I make my way to the other side of the hut and stop for a moment, watching the town as its inhabitants go about their business. It’s hard to believe that Steadfall didn’t fade away after everything that happened a few months ago, but something about this place seems to keep attracting people. Now that the sickness has passed, we can look to the future. Whatever was in that foul soup that caused people to become ill, it died off, and I didn’t get sick even though I fell directly into a pit of the damn stuff. Walter mentioned that it required a few extra ingredients, so I guess I was lucky.

Meanwhile, we’re gaining two or three new arrivals every month. They come from other parts of the island, though, not from further afield. It’s been a while now since the helicopters came to drop anyone on the island. Sometimes I wonder whether the rest of the world has forgotten about us.

I still feel a shiver whenever I head out to the south-east and see the crude cemetery that contains the bodies of everyone we lost. Deckard, Elizabeth, Carly, and so many more… The list is too long, and sometimes I find myself staying awake when I should be asleep, going over and over the events of that awful night. There were even times when I felt we should shut the town down as a mark of respect, but eventually I realized Steadfall was somehow taking the decision out of my hands. For reasons that I still can’t quite fathom, people seem to believe in the town’s ability to survive. It’s almost as if Steadfall refuses to die.

We rebuilt the huts, of course. After all the bodies had been taken out and identified, we started again with every building in the entire town. It was a tough job, but somehow we got it done. I just wish Asher was able to see it, and to help out. Everyone talks about her all the time, and a lot of people have faith that one day she’ll be among us again.

I’m not so sure.

“Any news?” a voice asks.

Turning, I see that Miranda is working nearby, peeling the skin off a duck.

I shake my head.

“Asher’s strong,” she continues. “If anyone can come back from what happened, it’s her. We all know that.”

I want to ask her what she means, exactly, by that word. Strong? What really makes a person strong? I sure as hell don’t feel strong, and I’m not sure Asher would feel particularly strong right now, if she could feel anything at all. A moment later, however, I realize that someone is waving at me, and I turn to see that Olivia is trying to get my attention from one of the other huts.

“Asher’s going to be fine,” Miranda continues, as if she thinks she can make it true simply by saying the words. “I know it. I feel it deep down.”

Making my way across the busy clearing, I finally reach the hut where Olivia is waiting in the doorway. Before she can even say anything, however, I can see from the expression in her eyes that there’s no good news.

Slipping past her, I step into the hut and see Asher’s unconscious body still laid out on a crude, makeshift bed. The light in here isn’t very strong, but when I get closer I realize that the thick bruises covering her entire body have barely changed since the last time I was here. When we finally found Asher after she’d fallen from the helicopter, I honestly thought she was dead. She had so many broken bones, so many cuts and tears, she looked less like a human being and more like a chunk of meat that had fallen from the sky. Somehow, however, she’s managed to cling to life long past the point where most people would have given up. She’s stayed unconscious, most likely comatose, but her body refuses to die.

Her mind, on the other hand, shows no signs of life.

“I think the splints are working,” Olivia says after a moment. “I was feeling her legs and…” Her voice trails off for a moment. “If she woke up, I honestly believe she’d be able to walk again. Eventually, at least. It’s not her body that’s the problem, at least not anymore.”

Stepping closer to Asher, I look down at her swollen, bruised face. I’d give anything for her to open her eyes, or for her to show some sign that her mind is still in there.

“It’s not impossible that she’ll wake up one day,” Olivia continues. “I was a nurse, remember? It’s unlikely, it’d be almost miraculous, but miracles do happen from time to time. I mean, the fact that she’s still alive at all is a miracle, so why shouldn’t we get one more?”

If I could speak, I’d probably try to temper her optimism, to remind her that Asher will most likely just wither away and die. That her heart will just stop beating one day, and that her body will finally give up its long fight for survival. Then again, maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t say those words out loud. For some reason, people tend to interpret my constant silence as a form of wisdom. Even when they see the stump of my tongue, they think I must be compensating for my inability to speak by somehow becoming smarter and more thoughtful. I wish that was true.