Lost At Sea

Chris was anxious: His heart was beating as fast as an overworked blacksmith, his palms were sweaty and he had a lump in his throat that would not go away, no matter how often he tried to swallow it.

Why had he touched Scarlett like that, why had he cleaned her? He suspected he had already fallen in love with her the moment they first exchanged words. Since they had met he had wanted to console the girl, to care for her and help her - but he still wished he had had the willpower to keep his distance, especially at this very morning! What he had done - and her reaction to his touch, which had not been too negative after all - just made things more complicated. What did it help being in love when you had to be an asshole in order to make the right decision? His conflicting emotions gave him a major headache and for a moment he was close to just screaming his frustration into the forest like a madman.

But he stayed calm of course, washed the rest of the balm off his hands and then put the backpack on Scarlett. She moaned in surprise when he began to lace it to her harness. Obviously she realized how heavy it was with all the food and water inside. Her eyes rolled around to Chris, her lips quivered around the gag, she protested as loud as possible so that he had to jerk the leash and call her to order.

"Shhh, calm down!" In a way he was thankful that he had to do this and that he got an opportunity to vent at least a minor fraction of the frustration that had built up inside him. "Don't! Don't try to fight, you need to carry this alone because that's what cattle does. Just try to keep your balance and follow me and it's going to be fine."

She grunted and made a displeased noise, but did not protest loudly anymore. However, she still communicated her discomfort through heavy breathing and the occasional moan. Chris ignored this as good as he could and finished lacing the backpack. Heavy as it might be, he was positive that Scarlett would be able to carry it for hours, even if it would be hard for her. All she would have to do was to walk slightly bent forward like the Natives' females did when they were being used as beasts of burden.

Chris grabbed the leash and began leading her away from the lake. He chose the direction he was convinced would be the right one, ignoring his bad conscience. He brushed branches aside and studied his surroundings thoroughly as he walked with Scarlett panting and groaning behind him.

To his regret it took her a remarkably short time to realize something was wrong: Only two or three minutes after they had started walking she tried to say something to him, and when he turned around to her he saw the confusion in her glance. There was also a certain kind of mistrust. He had expected this, but it still hurt him a lot.

"It's fine, just... just come with me."

She tried to say something again and he had to grip the leash a little firmer, as a warning, to make her stop trying to talk.

"Listen Scarlett", he said under his breath, "you need to follow me. I... I need to show you something that is very important."

She stared at him for another moment. She relaxed, albeit only a little, and nodded slightly. But the wariness did not leave her eyes.

So he led her on for another two minutes, further into the forest and further away from their way back to the beach, slightly uphill to the other side of the lake. The big tree was still where it had been yesterday, of course... even though part of Chris had hoped that he would not find it again, that he would maybe have to understand it had only been a figment of his imagination.

"Look at this, Scarlett. Look at it and tell me it's not... important!" Chris felt the same excitement he had experienced yesterday. "Do you know what this means?"

The tree was old and withered and had to be at least a hundred years old. But its impressive size and age had not stopped someone from taking a knife and carving letters into its bark. Those letters were not new anymore, but obviously they had been carved into the wood more or less recently - not more than only a few years ago.

C H R + TH O M

can not return t beach

when read this follow path to the abandoned city

hills up one day march

way out fredm

Scarlett stared at the message, blinking. It could not have taken her more than a few seconds to decipher it, but she kept staring at it like a deer would stare into the headlights of an oncoming car.

"Do you understand what this means?", Chris repeated his question. He could not help it, he knew he sounded a bit too euphoric now. Maybe it was his bad conscience and the fact that he could see what Scarlett thought and how it scared her. "I thought they had... abandoned us. Or that they had been killed. But they left this message and hoped I would find it. They left us directions that we could follow!"

Scarlett shook her head, slowly but determined. She tried to say something, mumbling into the gag. In contrast to Chris she didn't appear excited at all.

He placed his hands on her naked shoulders and the straps running around them and looked into her eyes. "I am sorry that I haven't told you this yesterday already, but I didn't want you to freak out. But now that you can read it yourself, don't you see that we need to find out where they are? The message says there is a way out, Scarlett. 'fredm' means freedom, that much is sure. So, if we return to the beach now we might not get a second chance to find that way out."

Scarlett blinked again, mumbled into the gag some more... it was as if she was yet too shocked for a freakout. Chris went on as quick as he could. "I have seen the Natives yesterday, I have never been so close to one of them before. I just know that they are still trying to make up their minds about me. They are not sure if they ought to kill me or not. But if we return to the beach they may see it was a new sign of weakness or some kind of retreat, and they might never give me a second chance, Scarlett." So what you and I have to do is..."

Scarlett shook her head again - and more than that, staring into Chris' face she now began also moving her arms, the muscles showing beneath her skin as she began to struggle with the straps and laces that held her. She moaned loudly - a protesting and pitiful sound - and her nostrils flared. The veins at her neck and temples became all swollen and throbbing while she tore at the restraints and screamed and protested with incomprehensible sounds, stamped her feet and even pulled against the leash in Chris' hand. In a way, he thought, she behaved like a defiant child, lost in a fit of rage she couldn't control. He still pitied her, but also found her reaction immature and annoying.

"Come on, don't... don't do that to yourself Scarlett..." This was worse than Chris had expected, in fact the worst kind of reaction possible. She was so scared, so hysteric, and he could see that all she wanted to do was run away. Only the fact that here feet were hobbled held her hear with him, but still she tore at her harness and restraints like a panicking animal.

He jerked the leash, like he had done before. Again he could see the anger in her eyes: That glance that told him she was going to kill him if he ever treated her like this again.

But in a way this annoyed him even more - who did she think he was, and did she think he had made his decision easily? Did she have any idea what it felt like, having to treat a woman like this?

In a way the anger helped him, because it allowed Chris to overcome his bad conscience for the moment: he jerked the leash again, choking her for a few moments. Scarlett stumbled a step towards him, coughing and protesting as loud as she could, and he just pulled the leash a third time. She was very close to him by now.

She was shaking, naturally fighting for breath and feeling hot like a woman in a fever. She stared at him in shock and anger, but held herself back with all willpower left. Through the rough treatment he just had administered, Chris had managed to force her out of her hysteria. He did not intend to allow her slipping back into it.

"You listen to me now", he declared sternly, still holding the leash very taut and venting some more of his anger. "You were the one who wanted me to do this! You made me promise that I would play the role the best I can and that I would not flinch if I had to make a hard decision. And that is fucking exactly what I am doing now!"

Scarlett was still trembling, her wide eyes filling with tears. She tried to object, but the whiny sound that came from her gagged mouth could have meant anything or nothing at all, Chris didn't care.

"Shut up!" He saw that two of the Natives - the man who had shown him the tree yesterday and yet another Native which Chris had not seen before - were watching them from maybe 150 feet away. They were standing behind Scarlett, observing what was going on. For a second Chris felt fear and was worried what these men would think, seeing him argue with what was an animal from their point of view. But his anger was not only stronger thn his bad conscience, it also overcame his fears. He was just sick of being scared all the time.

"I'm just so fucking sick of being scared all the fucking time!", he told Scarlett. "I cannot return to the beach like this, because we achieved nothing! These fruits wont last for more than a week, and neither will the water. And then we'll be starving again and nothing will have changed!"

He saw how shocked she was by the outburst. He pitied her, but he still went on to make himself as clear as possible. "If we return to the beach, then this chance might be gone and we might be stuck in hell for the rest of our lives. And I don't know how long I can take it anymore, I don't know if I could take it another week now that I've been here where live is so much better. Can you smell the plants? Do you feel the cool air, here beneath the trees?

So if there is a chance that we might find a way out or find my friends and learn what they have learned, then I think we should take that chance. I think we have to take it, because if we don't... well, if we don't then we really deserve to live in that fucking wasteland. That's why I am making the tough decision now, because you gave me that job. So what we are going to do is we are going to march towards the hills and see if there is really an abandoned city. It's only a day from here for God's sake, only one more day of discomfort for you, you spoiled asshole!"

Scarlett was crying, her arms still spasming in the bonds, uselessly straining against them. She had achieved nothing. She was agitated and still trembling, even though the air was hot and humid.

The Natives were still watching them, but Chris did not give a shit anymore: He hugged Scarlett and pulled the small woman against him and comforted her best as he could. She allowed it, after a moment of hesitation, and sobbed against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to call you an asshole. Listen, it's going to be okay", he whispered into her ear. "I'll have to be strict, but I can help you. We have more of the balm. And we'll rest often, so you can recover from time to time. All I want is find that abandoned city. I promise you that we will not go any further than that. I'm really sorry that we had to have this fight."

She sobbed louder, but when she looked up at him there was still the same impressing toughness in her eyes that he had admired from the first moment. The moment of weakness was over. Scarlett had herself under control again.

He did not know exactly what she was thinking, but she seemed to have made up her mind, and somehow she managed to accept what she needed to endure now.

And the Natives? When Chris looked up he saw they had, again, disappeared. But they had not gone without leaving something: It was small and brown and hanging from the branches of the bush next to which they had been standing. Chris went to retrieve the item and brought it back to Scarlett with a smirk. He showed it to her with something like pride, but could see that she definitely did not share this feeling when she saw what it was.

The Natives had left a leather cap, much like the ones that Chris and Scarlett had seen the Natives' cattle wearing. Chris had always suspected that these caps were used mostly as an additional measure of control, keeping the women half blindfolded. Essentially he suspected that the caps - which were pretty close to being full-blown hoods - would have the same effect that blinders would have on a horse. Now that he studied the cap he found his assumptions to be mostly correct: The cap could be used to blindfold the wearer, completely or partially. There were some laces to secure it strictly to the head, hiding the wearers' hair beneath. Also a part of the hood could be pulled further down, knotted to the head harness or under the chin. If you wanted to, you could cover your cattle's ears with thick leather pads and render the victim not only blind or half-blind, but also as good as deaf.

Scarlett didn't have the energy for loud protest anymore, but she looked scared again.

"Come on. Whatever this means, we should not reject the... present." She wanted to back away, but Chris didn't allow it. He firmly held her by the short leash and put the cap on the girls head, pulled it down until her eyes were looking through the eyeholes. Now she was not able to see any more what was happening left or right of her. Chris spared her the ear pads, also because he wanted her to be able to understand his commands if he should have any during their journey. He secured the cap strictly to Scarletts' head like it was supposed to be secured, also at the back of her head and under her chin.

She blinked insecurely. She did not start crying again, but she looked disgusted. The effect the mask had was definitely weird, that much Chris had to admit: Now that Scarlett's hair was covered and her face was not just obscured by the gag but also by this hood she was essentially just a drooling mouth and a pair of large, round eyes that stared at him. The dehumanizing effect was amazing.

In a way the mask made things easier for him because it helped him to see her a little more neutral, as if she wasn't the woman he had met at the beach.. He felt a weird form of gratefulness towards the Natives as he knotted the last lace.

"I think we should get going, Scarlett. Listen, I know it's not easy, but... thank you for coming with me. I think we are doing the right thing."