Lucille’s
Position – Northwestern Tennessee Mountains - Continous
Lucille
does not stop moving unless her body forces her to. The forest
thins as the land rises, the trees giving way to exposed stone and
wind-scoured brush. Her boots are wet through. Her calves burn. Her
shoulders ache beneath the weight of the rucksack, straps cutting
into skin already raw. She has fallen twice since nightfall, once
when loose shale gave way under her heel, once when her knee simply
buckled and refused to lock.
Each time, she got back up.
She navigates by compass
and memory now. The map has been folded and unfolded so many times
the creases are soft as cloth. She trusts the terrain more than the
paper, ridge lines, the shape of the valleys, the way cold air pools
low at night. She keeps to high ground when she can. Safer. Slower.
Colder.
Morning breaks gray and
thin.
She stops only because her
vision swims.
Lucille sinks to one knee
near a narrow stream, water cutting through rock in a steady,
indifferent line. Her hands shake as she shrugs the rucksack off her
shoulders. When she opens it, the truth greets her immediately.
Too light.
She counts anyway.
One ration pack. Then
another. Then empty space.
Her jaw tightens. She
checks again, slower this time, fingers probing corners she already
knows are bare. The full four days are not there. They never were.
Someone took them, carefully enough that the weight felt right at
first. Carefully enough that she did not notice until now.
Her breath leaves her in a
slow, controlled exhale.
Of course.
Lucille tears open one
ration and eats methodically, chewing until it hurts her jaw,
swallowing past the dryness in her throat. She does not rush it.
Hunger is a problem to be managed, not a panic to be indulged. She
drinks from the stream, cold water numbing her teeth, and uses the
rest to scrub dried blood from her palms and along her forearms.
The scar on her left arm
prickles faintly as the cold hits it.
She ignores it.
When she stands again, she
does not allow herself to think about Cain. Not the empty trail
behind her. Not the silence when she called his name that first hour,
then the second. Not the way the thought of him not being there sits
like a stone lodged behind her ribs.
If she thinks about that,
she will slow.
So she doesn’t.
Lucille shoulders the
rucksack and turns toward the ridgeline. The rendezvous point lies
beyond it, another valley, another climb, another stretch of ground
that does not care whether she lives or dies. She adjusts her pace,
longer strides, fewer stops. She calculates how far one ration can
take her. How much ground she can cover before her body demands
payment.
She will get there before
the food runs out. She will get there because they expect her not to.
The wind cuts sharper as
she climbs, carrying the scent of cold stone and distant rain. Her
fingers go numb. Her lips crack. She welcomes the pain, it keeps her
present, keeps her moving.
Lucille Domitian does not
turn back. She marches on.
Lucille pushes on, another
day. The mountain does not welcome her. The path narrows into a spine
of broken stone, sun beating down hard and white against jagged
shale. Every step sends gravel skittering into the void below. The
slope falls away steeply, a sheer drop that disappears into mist and
pine shadow. One misstep here means a long, screaming end.
She keeps moving anyway.
Her boots scrape. Slide.
Catch. Her calves burn, thighs trembling with fatigue she refuses to
acknowledge. The pack digs into her shoulders, straps biting into
skin rubbed raw from yesterday’s march. Sweat stings her eyes. She
blinks it away and leans into the climb.
The ground gives way
without warning.
Stone collapses beneath her
weight, a sudden, vicious shift. The mountain shrugs her off like a
parasite. Lucille slips, boots losing purchase, gravel cascading in a
roaring hiss. She goes down hard, shoulder slamming into rock, ribs
screaming as she slides several feet before instinct claws control
back.
Her fingers find a root,
thin, half-dead, but enough.
She hangs there, breath
tearing in and out of her chest, heart hammering so loud she swears
it echoes off the stone. Pebbles rain past her face into nothingness.
Her arm shakes violently as she hauls herself back up, scraping skin
raw against the rock.
When she crawls back onto
solid ground, she stays there for a long moment, pressed flat against
the earth.
She pushes herself up.
Blood slicks her palm where the stone peeled her skin open. She wipes
it against her pants and keeps going.
The terrain eases hours
later, breaking into forest again. Pine needles soften her steps,
muffling sound, swallowing exhaustion just enough for her legs to
keep moving. She follows the map by instinct now, compass steady in
her hand. No hesitation. No doubt.
A stream cuts across her
path just before dusk.
She drops to a knee and
plunges her hands into the water. Cold bites instantly, sharp and
clean. She scrubs dried blood from her knuckles, rinses dirt from
beneath her nails. The water runs pink, then clear. She splashes her
face, drinks sparingly, mindful of what little she has left.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
She doesn’t linger.
Night creeps in like a
predator.
The forest changes after
dark. Shapes loom larger. Sounds multiply. Every crack of a branch
tightens her spine. Coyotes howl somewhere far off, their voices
carrying like laughter. She adjusts her grip on her knife, thumb
brushing the wolf head on the handle without thinking.
Her legs threaten mutiny.
Every step is heavier than the last. Fatigue claws at the edges of
her vision, whispering that she can rest now, just for a moment.
She doesn’t listen.
She marches until the moon
is high and the stars blur overhead. Until her breath turns ragged
and shallow. Until pain becomes a constant, dull companion she no
longer bothers to name.
Then a sharp vibration
against her wrist.
Lucille freezes.
She looks down.
Her band pulses once, then
again, emitting a low, mechanical chirp that sounds impossibly loud
in the quiet night.
COORDINATES
REACHED.
For a moment, she doesn’t
move.
Then her knees buckle.
She drops where she stands,
the world tilting violently before settling. Gravel bites into her
palms. Her pack thumps against her spine as she leans forward,
forehead touching the earth.
She made it.
She drags herself upright
and scans the clearing. It is empty, no firelight, no voices, no
shapes moving in the dark. Just trees and stone and the quiet hum of
the band confirming her position.
Lucille sits down, back
against a boulder, and pulls her knees to her chest. Her hands
tremble now that there is nothing left to chase. She stares into the
dark and waits.
Cain’s Position –
Continuous
He
is not having anywhere near as easy a time as Lucille. His
legs burn. His shoulders ache beneath the weight of his rucksack. The
ravine has chewed at him for hours, slick stone, loose shale, roots
that snag and twist underfoot. He is forced to stop more than once,
breath rasping, vision tunneling. He hates every second of it.
Night comes cold and fast.
He finds a shallow hollow
between two boulders and forces himself to crouch there, pulling his
cloak tight. He eats without tasting, chews mechanically, counting
bites like they matter more than hunger. His hands shake when he
finally stills them against his knees.
He tries to sleep. It does
not come.
Every sound makes his head
snap up. Wind through branches. A bird startled from rest. Distant
howls that crawl along his spine. His mind refuses silence. It keeps
replaying the moment he lost her, her back ahead of him, the press of
bodies, the laughter when he turned and she was gone.
Idiot.
Idiot.
He stares up at the sliver
of sky between stone, eyes burning. Lucille doesn’t stop when she’s
tired. She doesn’t stop when she’s hurt. He has always been the
one who drags her down into rest, who blocks her path and tells her
she’s done enough for one day.
Without him, she will push
until something breaks.
The thought sits heavy in
his chest, crushing. He exhales slowly, frost blooming in the air,
and finally, finally, the pieces slide into place.
She won’t wait for
him.
She won’t circle back.
She won’t stay lost.
She will go straight
through.
Straight to the rendezvous.
Cain swears under his
breath and rolls to his feet before the thought can fade. He doesn’t
bother with comfort. Doesn’t bother with proper shelter. He
tightens his straps, kills the light, and starts moving again, legs
screaming in protest.
“Of course,” he
mutters, voice hoarse. “Of course you would.”
He pushes through the dark,
guided by memory and instinct and stubborn refusal. Every step hurts.
Every misstep sends pain flaring up his calves. He stumbles once,
catches himself on a tree, laughs breathlessly at nothing.
He keeps going.
Because if Lucille Domitian
is still alive, and he knows she is, then she is already ahead of
him, bleeding quietly, jaw set, eyes forward. And Cain Aurellius
refuses to be the reason she stands alone at the end of this.
The land chews at him for
it. Mud sucks at his boots and refuses to let go. His calves burn,
then go numb, then burn again. Thorns rake his shins through torn
fabric. He slides once on shale and catches himself with his hands,
palms splitting open, blood dark and quiet in the dirt. He barely
notices. His thoughts are a single, relentless line forward.
By late evening he reaches
water.
A narrow stream cuts
through the ravine, swollen from recent melt, its banks churned into
slick clay. Cain drops to a knee without thinking, scoops water into
his mouth, lets it spill down his chin. Cold enough to sting. He
drags a hand across his face, breath shuddering, and only then does
he see it.
A mark.
Not much. Not a print you’d
show an instructor. Just a shallow crescent in the mud at the edge of
the bank, heel-heavy, toes light. Someone careful. Someone light. The
impression is already softening, water seeping into it, trying to
erase it.
Lucille.
His chest tightens
painfully. Relief hits first, she’s ahead of him, she’s alive,
then fear claws in right behind it. If she passed through here, she’s
still moving. She hasn’t stopped. Of course she hasn’t.
Cain scans the opposite
bank, the treeline, the split in the terrain where the ravine forks.
Two viable paths. One climbs sharply, brutal but direct. The other
winds lower, longer, safer. No broken branches. No clear disturbance.
Lucille leaves almost nothing when she doesn’t want to be found.
“Damn it,” he whispers,
voice raw.
He stands there longer than
he should, heart hammering, trying to think like her. Not what he
would choose. What she would. The harder path. Always the
harder path. The one that hurts more but gets her there faster. The
one that proves something to no one but herself.
Cain tightens the straps on
his rucksack, wipes his bloody hands on his trousers, and turns
toward the climb. His legs scream in protest as soon as he starts up,
but he doesn’t slow.
He won’t lose her again.
The path ahead narrows,
skirting a slope that falls away into shadow. Loose stones shift
under his boots. Once, his foot slips and he pitches forward,
catching himself on his hands. Gravel bites into his palms. He swears
under his breath, not loud enough to carry, then forces himself back
up.
Lucille would already be
halfway across this, he thinks. She would curse once, adjust her
footing, and keep going like the mountain itself had insulted her.
The thought hurts worse
than his scraped hands.
By late morning, the sun
hangs pale and distant through thin cloud. It offers light but no
warmth. Cain stops only long enough to drink from his canteen,
forcing himself to ration even as his mouth feels dry and raw. He
eats a strip of preserved meat, chews slowly, mechanically. He barely
tastes it.
He walks. He stumbles. He
walks again.
The hours bleed together.
The world reduces itself to breath, footfall, balance. His thoughts
circle the same track no matter how hard he tries to steer them away.
You should have stayed
with her.
You should have noticed.
You
should have fought them off.
By afternoon, the ache in
his legs turns sharp, like something tearing instead of bending. He
alters his route again, favoring gentler slopes even though it adds
distance. Every tactical instinct he has screams that this is
inefficient. Every human instinct tells him he won’t make it
otherwise.
When night comes again, it
comes fast.
Cain makes a shallow
shelter beneath a bent pine, scraping together needles and brush with
numb fingers. He curls in on himself, cloak pulled tight, and closes
his eyes.
Sleep does not come easily.
When it does, it is shallow and broken. He dreams of Lucille’s back
disappearing between trees. He wakes with her name in his throat and
frost on his breath.
Morning finds him worse
than the night before.
He rises slowly, testing
each joint before trusting it with his weight. His hands shake as he
shoulders his pack. He drinks the last of his water, grimaces, then
sets off again.
By midday, the terrain
begins to feel familiar. Not comforting, never that, but
recognizable. His wristband ticks softly, counting distance, time,
heart rate. He checks it, then checks his compass again.
She would be close now,
he thinks. If she made it.
The thought tightens his
chest.
He crests a ridge in the
early afternoon and nearly collapses in relief when he sees the
marker pylons in the distance, their dull metal catching the light.
The rendezvous point. He forces himself into a jog that is barely
more than a stagger.
