The End of the Line

“Miranda,” Dillon breathed. “What has it done to you?”

He ran a hand hovering over his daughter, the pallid skin of her arm, the bruises.

“They came earlier this morning while you were out. Dillon, they said there's not much anyone can do at this point.”

Dillon swore.

“For all the advances in this supposedly great city, in such an advanced place how is it that there’s no beggin’ cure damn it! I swear they’d make me find one myself.”

His wife put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry”

“What is there to do? There has to be something to do there’s always been something.”

She looked sideways at him.

“Not always.”

“That’s not true.”

Dillon strode out of the room, just enough to pass the threshold and linger there.

“There’s the cure in the mountains, that flower. There is that.” He turned to face them. “Has anyone made the journey recently?”

“Not with the electric storms no, those are subsiding though. And the flower is too expensive anyways, you still don’t have a stable job and–”

“–I have a job.”

She crossed her arms.

“Unless you want to make the trip yourself you should consider finding a different job, not something with all those partiers you call friends. You don’t even really like most of them.”

“I’ll do it myself then, go up the road people call the line. If this flower is the only way I’ll make it.”

Felicity let her arms fall to her sides.

“You’d walk the line to the mountains?”

“Yes, I will. I’ve just decided. I can’t look at Miranda like this anymore. How long did the doctor give her?”

Felicity strode out of the room, taking her husband by the shoulder on her way out.

“A few days,” she said once they were out of earshot.

“Three?” Dillon echoed.

“A few.”

“I can do it.”

Felicity’s face turned twisted.

“You’d do that? If you are, you should take the travelling device with you.”

Her head bowed.

“What?”

“Just take it. You know how to use it, or you can figure it out. Set a timer and push the button. You could probably sleepwalk the whole way there, rest on the move so you can make it back sooner.”

“I promised I would never use it. You heard me say it. You know some minds don’t take kindly to… whatever it does to you.”

“I know it's not safe for some but you of all people? You have such a strong mind, more than most people I know.”

His hand went up, and he let it come to rest softly on his wife's shoulder. She sighed into the short space between them.

“I’ll take it. I’ll be back soon, three days right?”

Felicity bit her lip.

“Go. Come back before tomorrow evening,” She added hastily with a somber glance back in the room.

He stepped back, thinking of all the things he’d need to bring along. A sack of food and bars, some water tablets.

“It’s not an easy road, the line. I’ll make it though, I can do it,” he said to himself.

Dillon turned and went for the bag hanging on a hook by the door.

Facing the wind, Dillon's eyes squinted, the skin pulling together between his brows. Nervousness, sure, but everything would work. He took the first step across the metal line marking the city limits. The screen on the device blinked to life. He placed the first boot in the dirt, then another to set this wild idea in motion.

“Sure and steady,” he whispered to himself.

Something jostled in his backpack.

“What the…”

He spun it over his shoulder to find it unzipped. A rodent jumped out carrying the fruit he’d packed.

“Hey!”

He swiped at it but it bounced away, too fast to be worth chasing after.

“Shit!” He said while dropping into a squat.

He breathed in the dust of the road, leaning forward to zip the backpack back up. Only the wind expressed any kind of pity.

“Just a setback,” he said remembering the flower, and the child waiting for it back in the city. He looked behind him, at the strange white and silver settlement now half a mile back. “Just a setback, push on,” he finished mumbling, and lurched forwards again to continue. A glance back at the city, then at the mountains ahead of him revealed there was quite a distance to go. Maybe a day’s journey out. He would have to sleep there, somewhere. It was too far to go there and back in a day, even two without the device to help restore his energy. His boots scraped in the dirt, kicking up rocks.

The thought of sleepwalking most of the way, he’d be exposed. Robbers, storms, dips in the road. Perhaps the risk was what made the flower so expensive, that or their ability to heal most ailments. For such an item, Dillon supposed one could charge whatever price they wished. He glanced down at the device, breath shuddering with the wind before he pocketed it. Boots crunched, grinding the dust in the road into more dust. The thing weighed heavy in his pocket and he wondered how long it’d be before he couldn’t ignore it.

Some promises needed breaking.

There are more important things than promises, he told himself. Still, it’s better not to.

After two miles Dillon’s hands felt dryer than his throat. Two miles in with only half the food he’d intended to bring and at least ten miles to go, even if the distances to the city and the mountains looked the same now. The snow caps might have been refreshing, even just a handful. A little taste to keep him going.

Something behind him cried. Or at least he thought he heard it through the wind and the sound of the road. In an effort to calm himself, Dillon pulled his coat around himself. Off the line, the road, a small creature like a lizard scurried forwards, then away after a brief glance up at the man towering over. Dillon watched it leave, hand suddenly gripping his pocket.

“I can do this, slow and steady.” He drew in a breath. Eyes darted around nervously, becoming streaks of black in blue-grey darting around at the barren waste and to the ground and the mountains ahead. If you’re low on food…

A hand wrenched into his pocket.

“It’s not that dangerous. The odds of even–”

His finger went down on the screen, specifying the amount of time to sleep for. Two hours, nothing too risky. He started walking, five steps to set his body in motion before holding the little button on the side of the metal box. His vision blinked, eyelids shuttering until they couldn't help but fall all the way down.

He stood on the line, still walking when he woke but his head spun. The mountains took up more of his vision than they had only a few seconds ago. No, two hours ago, you slept for two hours. His coat didn’t feel quite as warm all of the sudden and somehow the way the wind blew had changed. Softer, cooler.

A second pair of boots. He heard it, unmistakable. Looking back he found the thing he’d never expected.

“Hello?” Dillon hollered. He blinked away the water in his eyes, pooling from sudden exposure to the open air.

The traveler didn’t give even a wave. Hunched over, they must have been someone in late life, also seeking the flower. He sniffled and moved on, hoping they’d make it but doubting they would.

His eyes shut again, fluttering, trying to push away the brightness of the world. The ground underfoot pushed harder into his feet, each rock in the road pressing deeper.

“Keep going,” he murmured.

The footsteps behind him resumed, slow, not trying to conceal themselves at all. He wondered, at what point over the two hours he’d slept did the person join him? He winced, shutting his eyes as the light became too much to handle. What time is it? My mouth tastes terrible. What did Felicity say about when I should get back? Two days.

The mountains, still too far off to properly appreciate, stood waiting at the end of the line.

What if I don’t get back in time?

Dillon huffed, an effort to compose himself as his eyes finished adjusting.

“I can do it, Miranda I promised you.”

He looked at his feet but thought of losing her stuck in his head. You should go faster.

“Maybe, one more time.”

There was the danger involved, but it worked out last time. It could work again and if not he could handle it. Nothing, he thought, could stand in the way of his finding this cure. No criminal or hunter nor any setback.

The water in his eyes mixed with tears but he passed it off as more of the wind.

“Just once more.”

Dillon’s gaze leapt downward to the device. Two hours would be fine again, he determined, and pushed the button again. Darkness fluttered over his vision, a cure to his own desperation.

Why isn’t it better, what's going wrong? Dillon's eyelids creaked open, the light even worse than the last time. He flinched, stumbling on a rock as what seemed like the most impossible light prevented his eyes from opening all the way. Everything from the road beneath him to the city he could see as a dot over his shoulder shone as if it were the sun. He experimented with opening his eyes a crack more and put out both hands for balance, head spinning like the wind. Yet in the midst of all this he would not stop walking. Step by violent step his boots dug into the ground. What if she’s gone by now, everything is gone, it’s all just light, light and the spinning in my head. But that couldn’t be true, no he was still here wasn't he? Then there was a way forward.

His knee wobbled, and with it the steady gait he’d been keeping. There was still so far to go to get to the mountains.

Feet grinding to a halt, he unshouldered the pack.

“I just– need water.”

With eyelids squeezed shut he rummaged around for the bottle. Somewhere along the way half of it had disappeared but he couldn’t remember ever drinking any. Unless someone on the line had taken some and put it back. You can’t remember anything right now, don’t worry about it.

“It’s still today,” he said, noticing how bright the ground was. His throat clenched, turning up a sob. “She has two days still. Stop it.”

It took the rest of the water for his throat to unstick itself.

He picked up the pack, almost forgetting to zip it up first. It hit the ground again and when the zipper snagged on a loose string he forced it once, hard but it didn’t come free. Dillon blinked away the tears forming, turning to look up at the side of the road where they wouldn’t pool so much. One more yank and the zipper came free. The breath came out in tremors.

The sleep should have helped, not made things worse. Still, he realised as he glanced through blurry vision, the gate to the mountains was still far off and he no longer had the desire to make the journey fully conscious. He could deal with whatever consequences when he’d come back with the flower.

He thought he heard a voice, sweet like the morning sun.

“Dillon you’re awake…”

Wind curled around his head, whistling in his ears.

“I have to tell you…”

His finger trembled as he set the time on the device to three hours. Part of it felt like a death wish. He pushed the button anyways knowing this was his responsibility, and wishing he was strong enough to finish.

He awoke with the road pressing into his side, the rocks and dust surely leaving marks and indents on his shirt and skin. His eyes leveled with the dust, streaks of it drifting like snow along the road. How much of a failure. To not even be able to save your own child. You of all people…

He choked on the dirt, or perhaps on the thoughts trying to surface. His head rolled into the ground, feeling the place beneath his face where the earth had already been wet. His mouth opened but all that came out was a mumble into the cold.

A hand reached down to him, attached to an arm from the sky. Without the dust in his eyes perhaps he could have seen who it was.

“Dillon.”

He mumbled something else.

What if I could never do it to begin with? Was there anything else I could have done?

“Dillon get up.”

He lifted his head.

“Felicity?”

The word came out cracked. But why was she here? “No, you're supposed to be with our daughter.”

“There was nothing I could do for her. Except make sure you get back.”

Her hand felt its way over the top of his head before he put his up.

“We have to– keep going.”

“Dillon.” For all the noise she felt like quiet. “You are remarkable.”

She knelt beside him as he attempted to sit up. His breathing travelled the distance between them.

“You stayed with me.” She nodded. “Felicity, I don’t deserve this. I couldn’t make it.”

“Stop that, get up.”

She held a hand out again. With no tears left he grabbed it. Though his eyes hadn’t quite adjusted after waking up he could see enough of her face and the auburn hair framing it. The blue in her eyes stared through him, cold.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Dillon squinted at her and wiped his eyes, trying to discover something in the way her brows drew together.

“She’s gone,” he said. Nothing happened for the few seconds after his wife nodded. Not even the wind ruffling through his hair. Slowly his lips parted.

“Is there nothing I could have done differently?”

He looked up at her through the subsiding light, his eyebrows raising as he found a solemn smile on his wife’s lips. He thought it strange, as she looked at him, at the man who’d failed to save his own daughter.

“Nothing you haven’t done already.”

Her eyes peeled away. “Come on, we’re not done yet. We can plant one for her back home.”

She stood up and started walking. Towards the end of the line, towards the mountains. He sat listening to her footsteps, each one clear and concise. Somewhere in the last few minutes his headache had disappeared and he could now clearly make out the slope of the mountains, the patchy snow marking the final part of their journey, the end of the line. Dillon stood up to follow her. Her steps turned to shuffling and then to nothing as he caught up. Their hands entwined as together they passed the first patch of snow.

“Let me ask you something,” said felicity. “If you’d known she would pass while you were away, would you still have made the journey?”

He stooped over to feel the cold ground, the life saving ground. Up ahead a spot of orange bloomed. No longer would it save anyone, only the memory.

“I know now I’m not strong enough. But for her? I still would have tried.”

He noticed her smile. That strange smile in the midst of all his shortcoming.