Why is the world so cruel to us—
to me, to the boy, Jimson?
What did we do to deserve it? Nothing.
This life, these acts of love we endure — never for ourselves. No. We do it for hope. That fleeting, illogical drive.
Hope: unreasonable, unceasing, festering, yet necessary.
I must endure for us, for you are no longer with us.
My hands rest on Sharkie's matted fur.
The dog pants beside me, tongue lolling.
He's been acting strangely for a while now, but more so since Jimson died—skittish, aggressive, snapping at invisible shadows.
Tim has changed too; I can feel it.
Sitting ahead on Cindy, he clutches at his father's body. The pendant remains tight and empty, worn around Jimson's sunken neck.
I watch the boy's shoulders shake with silent sobs.
I watch as Sharkie watches him.
Strange.
Those eyes, they feel wrong.
Not the loyal, gentle brown I remember.
They're clouded, distant.
Wild.
I hold him in a gentle but binding embrace, riding closer to Tim to inquire further.
Fuck
He just tried to lunge at him.
"Sharkie, it's just us," I say softly down to him.
His growl deepens.
Something's definitely wrong with him, has been since the prowler attack.
Since the fire. Since the smoke. Since the mud.
I never acknowledged it then, never needed to.
But now, It's evident. I can even see it in the dilation of his pupils, even in this dim light.
His breathing is faster.
His movements are jerky.
His paw trembles to keep his claws tame.
This is not Sharkie anymore.
And he's only getting worse.
"Tim," I call softly. "How's Sharkie been? Acting normal?"
Tim doesn't turn around. "He's fine."
"Has he eaten anything today?"
"He's fine, Desmond."
"Tim, I need you to be honest with me—"
"I said he's fine!" Tim's voice cracks. "Just leave him alone. Leave us alone."
I sigh a sigh of resigned air.
I've seen rabid dogs before. This is it.
How long do we have before he snaps?
Hours? Days?
And if he attacks Tim?
I can't take that risk.
But I also can't just—
No. Stop. Think this through.
Option one: Do nothing. Hope he gets better by the time we get to camp. Living with the danger of him attacking Tim when I'm not looking. But in the long-term the dog could recover.
Option two: Try to restrain him. We have no rope left. No supplies. He could break free, and then he'd definitely attack.
This won't work either.
Option three: Try to explain to Tim that his dog is sick. Get the boy to agree to... what? Leaving Sharkie behind? But what if he follows us.
Tim just lost his father hours ago.
I look over at his empty face.
I can't ask him to choose this.
Option four...
No, I can't.
But if I don't, and something happens to Tim—
My hands shake.
Jimson's last words echo: "I leave him to you. You are his only choice left here."
I've always lived to help others.
But now I see—that's not what the world, what he needs from me.
Protection. Love. Nurturing. In that order. I can only try, no matter how messy it gets.
A blinding light suddenly penetrates the chasm, the canyon walls gradually widen around us. Through the gap ahead, I see life.
Real life, not the sickly moss of the dark lands, but real plants. Real trees.
Settlers' Camp must be close now.
Sharkie whimpers. His body goes rigid in my arms. Then he vomits a puddle of black bile mixed with blood, sticking to his coat as it escapes his mouth.
Tim turns at the sound.
"What's wrong with him?" His voice is small, scared.
"I don't know. Maybe something he ate."
Sharkie convulses again. More blood.
"Desmond..." Tim's face is white.
"He'll be okay. We just need to—"
Sharkie snaps, teeth grazing at my hand. I barely pull away in time, his jaws clamp down on air.
Tim sees it. Sees the wild look in Sharkie's eyes. Sees the foam forming at his muzzle.
"He's sick," Tim whispers.
"Yeah."
"Really sick."
"Yeah."
Silence.
"We need to stop," I say. "The yonks need water anyway. I can hear a stream ahead."
"But the prowlers!"
"We will only be a moment."
Tim nods slowly. He doesn't argue back.
Five minutes later we find the stream cutting through to the side of the ravine. It runs within an isolated enclosure in a shallow but clear space to stop.
The yonks charge over to drink from the water gratefully.
Helping Tim down from Cindy. I notice how his movements are increasingly disconnected, unfocused.
Like he's in a lucid dream.
"Tim," I call gently.
"Take Sharkie. I need to check on your father, make sure he's... secured properly for the last stretch."
Tim holds Sharkie without a word. The dog doesn't resist—too weak now.
Tim sits on a flat rock by the stream, cradling Sharkie's head inside his lap.
I watch them for a moment; the boy with his dying dog.
Turning away I lean back over Cindy, grabbing the pendant around Jimson's neck.
I start to unfasten it. My fingers work to undo its tired knot.
This 'thing' we must leave it here, bury it, whatever needs to be done.
I won't have it attract them to us.
I inspect the undone emblem as it hangs from its lace.
A loud scream interrupts me.
Tim's scream.
I run.
Tumbling around the yonk, I freeze.
Sharkie has Tim pinned to his back; he lies down, arms up, straining to keep the snapping jaws from his exposed throat.
The dog is snarling, frothing, lost to its own madness and is completely feral.
"SHARKIE, NO!" Tim screams. "IT'S ME! IT'S TIM!"
It doesn't hear. Doesn't stop.
I make my move, grabbing at a nearby rock.
Cold and brittle enough I move to finish the job.
With the rock in my hand, I bring it down on Sharkie's skull.
Once.
The dog yelps, staggers.
Turning toward me, he lunges.
I catch him mid-air.
We go down hard.
Teeth snap past my face. I roll, pin him and bring the rock down again.
Crack.
A muffled cry.
"I'm sorry boy"
I softly mutter down, stroking behind his drooped ears.
The sound that follows is wet, stiff and final, as his body goes limp in my arms.
I rise, chest heaving. Blood on my hands. On my shirt. On the rock.
Tim lies on his back, staring upward. Alive. His arms show bite marks; shallow, but still bleeding.
"Tim," I breathe. "Are you—"
"You killed him." His response is empty.
"He was going to kill you. You saw—"
The stone slips from my hand. I approach him, slowly.
He steps back.
"Tim, look at me. He attacked you. He didn't know you anymore. That unknown sickness—
"Stop." Tim's hands are shaking.
"Just stop." He turns away from my gaze and walks toward Sharkie's dead body.
He kneels beside it. His hand reaches out, hovering over the matted fur. Then pulls back.
Stretching out again, his fingers scrabble through the grey tangles, searching for a heartbeat; some semblance of life to drag him out from this miserable moment that exists before his reality.
"He was a good boy," I murmur. "But he was sick."
I spit on the ground to cleanse the foul from my mouth.
"What do you know?" He retorts.
"Jimson's dead now. The weight of those words may never sink in, Tim, but whether we like it or not, I have a responsibility now to keep you safe. My life and yours are both entwined and hanging like a threaded needle. I just couldn't let anything unforeseen happen to us."
I place my hand over his and squeeze.
He shivers, holding the body in his grasp processing everything that just happened.
His face then hardens as he points to the nearby distance.
"Why is that there?"
Shit it's the necklace, must've dropped it when dealing with the dog.
I pick up the pendant from where it fell.
Tim's suspicious eyes follow each of my movements.
"You were going to take it," he says. Not a question. A clear accusation.
Should I lie? Make an excuse. Say It must've fallen.
No, that is not what trust is about.
"Yeah," I admit.
"I was going to bury it here. Leaving it behind."
"But why?"
I take a shallow breath and a long exhale.
"Because it's my belief that it is the cause for attracting the prowlers. When your father used it initially, when it healed him, they found us right away.
I thought if I just... removed it, you wouldn't have to make that choice."
"You mean you were going to just take it away." His voice is harder now.
"To protect you, yes—"
"By lying to me?" Tim's hands clench.
"By sneaking off and burying the last thing I have left of my family?"
Those true words make my gut clench and make me feel sick, but my resolve hardens.
"I made a promise to your father, Tim. And I intend to keep it." I hold up the pendant in front of his gaze.
"Your life, boy—this pendant may hold meaning to you. I won't discredit your feelings for it. But we cannot keep it any longer."
It is my honest belief that we must let go of the past to move forward. Take my words with a grain of salt or learn from them, hate me even, but no matter how you justify it the memories of the past hold less weight than the potential of our future.
You can only move forward by carrying the past with you, not being crushed by it.
Don't throw away your life.
I step closer.
"Your memories aren't in that pendant. They're here." I tap his chest. "Where no man can ever reach."
"But what if I forget—"
"Then you shall forget," I say bluntly.
"It will hurt. But you'll be alive to experience the hurt. That's the difference."
I hold the pendant between us.
"Tim, listen to me. I wish I could give you time. I wish I could let you say goodbye on your own terms, bury it with your father properly at Settlers' Camp, do this right. But we don't have time. The prowlers could already be tracking us. Every minute we keep this thing is another minute closer to dying."
"So I don't have a choice." His voice is hollow.
I pause. Look him in the eyes.
"You have a choice," I say carefully. "But I need you to understand what you're choosing between. Keep the pendant—maybe we make it to camp, maybe we don't. The prowlers might find us. They might kill us both. Or maybe I'm wrong, and nothing happens."
"Or?"
"Or you let it go now. We bury it here, we move fast, and we have the best chance of reaching safety."
"That's not a choice. That's you telling me what to do."
"No." I kneel to his level.
"These are the stakes reality has imposed onto us. The choice remains still yours. But Tim—" I grab his shoulders and hold them, "If you choose to keep it, and they really come, I won't blame you. We'll fight them off together.
However I need you to choose knowing what might happen, the cost of our actions. Not hoping. Knowing."
He stares at the pendant in my hand. His breathing is uneven.
"What would Dad want?"
"He'd want you alive. Even if it meant letting him go."
Tim's hands shake. He reaches for the pendant, touches it gently.
"I want to keep it," he whispers.
"Just until we get to camp. Just for a little longer."
My jaw tightens sternly about to criticise.
"But I can't. Can I? If what you're saying is true, I'm choosing this thing over both our lives. And that's... that's not what Dad would want. That's not what I want." His voice breaks.
He looks up at me, eyes reddening.
My chest tightens.
"But I hate this. I hate that I have to choose. I hate that you're making me choose."
"I know."
"And I'm going to be angry at you."
"I know."
He takes the pendant from my hand holding it close against his chest.
I stare into his eyes unflinching, weaving my fingers through his brown curls streaked with the all-too-familiar highlights of his golden tips.
I watch his face as it catches the fluorescent green glow of the mossy overgrowth above, casting deep shadows beneath his troubled eyes in deep consideration.
What is he feeling? Hatred, emptiness, defeat—a burning, all-consuming rage. Shadows know I deserve it all.
He looks down for a moment, our gazes descending into quiet rumination.
Then, suddenly, he tosses it away—the string, the ornamental beads, the pendant. They collide against the rockface, scattering and drifting with the air currents before vanishing into the narrow crevices along the canyon's edge.
I watch in disbelief, the echo of their fall still ringing in my ears.
His shoulders begin to shake.
Then he leaps into my embrace, arms wrapping tightly around my body, tucking his head beneath my chest.
In my arms he quivers.
"This is what you wanted right!" His voice volatile, his fingers clawing at my back.
"Why?" I stare down at him dumbfounded.
"No matter what it was, I realised it never really meant anything to me. I was convinced that somehow holding it would give me some comfort, some tribute to his memory, but" He looks up at me with thick tears.
"It was my father who valued it, not me. I don't need that but I need you. Just please… don't ever leave me," he softly squeaks.
My eyes soften. My heart palpitates.
What is this? I've heard compliments and gratitude many times throughout my life for my deeds, but they never meant anything to me—too shallow, too insensitive, or too misaligned with my perception of my actions' worth.
But now… why does this feel different? A small warmth flickers in this infernal void of mine. What is the difference? Is this what people call bliss? Why am I only feeling it now?
My arms slowly find his shoulders. I lightly tap his back, then pat it gently.
"I will be here for you always Tim, we'll stick together; us against the world we'll be unstoppable you just wait, we'll show them, we'll show them all"
He giggles and looks up at me through smiling tears revealing a struggling but toothy grin.
Then his smile falters slightly. "Show who?"
I pause. "Everyone who goes against us. Everyone who thought we'd die out here. Everyone."
His smile returns, but there's something different in it now.
I don't let go.