The Toils (Book One)

XI. Still Us

C3 chucked the bones from her weka into the flames, walking back to her group. 
Feeling the ropes slip from his wrists, Drew leaned forward to listen to the conversation, trying to find the right moment.
"Oi!", a twenty-something male, with the letters Z23 on his thighs quipped, to C3.
"What?", she turned on her heel and looked to him. 
"There was still meat on that", Z23 pointed into the flames. 
"If you want it, pick it out", C3 pushed her face right into his, pointing a narrow finger to the puck of gristle burning in the fire. 
Z23 spat at her, causing her to recoil. F14 and K1 watched the two panthers circle each other. 
DOOF! Z23 threw a ham sized fist into C3's throat, knocking her to her knees.
He dealt another hard blow to the back of C3's before finally she'd had enough and grabbed him by the wrist and tugged. As his head came down, she rammed the crown of her skull into his chin, shattering his teeth.
To Drew and Ruataupares shock, C3 latched onto his neck with her teeth, tearing a large strip from his jugular, spurting blood onto the fire.
Ruataupare looked gaunt; as though she was on the precipice of vomiting. 
Gurgling, Z23 clutched the gaping wound on the side of his neck, collapsing with a thud in the thin layer of snow deposited on the bush floor. 
The two smaller Cold Country soldiers watched on aghast, though not entirely disturbed. 
"Drag him out of the campground", C3 commanded F14, a younger, frailer looking version of C3 - perhaps a sister.
K1 waited for F14 to start shifting the body before addressing the scene - "you can't keep doing this, Torvus, you need to get yourself in check".
F14 grunted as she dragged Z23 by the arms, his body still jerking as she heaved into the bushes.
C3 stepped closer to K1, a brute of a man with a thick black beard and past skin. 
She glared up at him, the line between them stark - one was a tiny framed woman - face caked in fresh blood, the other - a man of epic proportions, but spiritually smaller than the person he was facing down. 
It looked as if he'd shrunk inside himself as she bored daggers into him with her eyes.
"Get those two ready to move", she flicked her head to face the hostages tied to the trees, but to her shock; Drew was gone.
"Where the-?", Torvus spun on her feet, scanning the nearby treeline, "-Where did he go?", she stepped over the fire and approached Ruataupare.

Drew ran through the bushes, dodging rogue toetoe fronds and ducking under lower hanging branches. He could hear twigs breaking beneath his feet as K1 thundered behind him.
The foliage bushline opened out to a wide clearing with wildly overgrown grass.
Two distinct exits, one in front and one to the left, were immediately obvious. 
Drew had no idea where they were or in what direction they had come from. K1's hulking footsteps grew louder behind him; he had less than forty seconds to decide. 
The exit to the left seemed to have less snow or was it just a trick of the light?
Unable to decide, but knowing he needed to buy himself time, he ran straight.
The snow on the ground soaked his already chilly feet. 
He continued to run, until just off the path to his right, a large dead tree. 
Taking the opportunity, he lept off the path and laid beneath the mossy trunk laying a few feet from the pathway.
Drew's stomach churned as millipedes dropped to his face from the underside of the log. 
It crawled closer to his eye, leaving Drew no choice but to stuff his fist into his mouth to keep from screaming. His skin goosebumped and he swore he could feel every tiny leg brush against his flesh.
K1's steps grew louder, the millipede got closer. As if synchronized, the millipede passed over his eye and into his hair and K1 passed by, not even noticing Drew's incredibly heavy breathing. 
Drew remained perfectly still until K1's footsteps became entirely inaudible. 
He stood, shaking his hair and letting out a pantomime scream.
Drew wriggled, hoping to shake free any last creepy crawlies hiding in his clothing.
Making track, Drew sprinted back out into the clearing, this time taking the left exit. 
Despite being free of his pursuer, Drew was still faced with the same problem; where was he, and from what direction did he come?

*

Although they'd been hacking at hostile bushland for the better part of eleven hours, neither Ritty, Antonia, or Agnes felt as if they'd made any progress whatsoever. They had to cut with the natural winds in the road - lest they slip off the small bank the road sat upon and drop into a collection of gorse bush.
They had no clue how much longer it would take, and only the vaguest idea on how far they had come. Ritty and Antonia hacked in the front allowing Agnes to rest upon the trailer hitched to the horse at the rear.
The procession moved incredibly slowly, slower than it should've, given the frigid chill of the morning. 
"You can talk to me", Antonia begged, slashing at toetoe fronds, trampling them flat onto the ground for the horses behind her to walk over. 
"Oh my god, Antonia - just let me be angry for fuck sake", Ritty stopped hacking at a thick blackberry vine and addressed her. 
"I don't want you to be angry", Antonia frowned, continuing to slash, squash and trample flat the cutty fronds of the toetoe. 
"I am", Ritty glowered at her.
"I did it to keep us safe", Antonia rebutted.
"Whatever you need to tell yourself", Ritty resumed his grasp on the vine with a wrapped left hand, chopping it with his right hand. 
He took a deep breath, tossed the vine over his right shoulder, speaking - "I can't even look at you right now". 
Ritty turned on his heel and squeezed past the two horses and approached Agnes on the back trailer.
Laid next to the canoe with her eyes closed, Agnes had her right hand in the pocket on the front of her robes, giving the cat a scratch on the neck. 
"Swap with me", Ritty gave her a pat on the shoulder. 
"Again?", Agnes snapped her eyes open and groaned. 
"She keeps trying to talk to me", Ritty shrugged, speaking with the intonation of a teenager angry at a sibling. 
"Alright", Agnes heaved herself from the trailer, "but you can't keep ignoring this forever".
"Thanks", Ritty smiled weakly, "I appreciate it".
"You're looking after Pimly, too".
She lifted the cat gently from her pocket, the tether still tied around his neck, passing him to Ritty. 
"You named it?".
"Him, probably", Agnes shrugged, correcting Ritty, "And yes".
Ritty clutched the cat close to his chest, looking at him as if he were a foreign object.
"Where do I put him?", Ritty asked, "I don't have any pockets".
"Tuck him up your shirt, he'll keep you warm", Agnes suggested.
"What if he has fleas?", Ritty grimaced, "Bugs on my skin freak me out".
"You remember that thing I said last night about just 'stopping'?", Agnes gave him a playful jab to the ribs.
"Alright", Ritty resigned himself.
Ritty tucked the cat inside his shirt and lay down on the trailer and closed his eyes. 
Agnes moved down the procession to the bush, wrapping her left hand tight.
"You need to stop pushing him", Agnes approached Antonia. 
Antonia sighed - "you said you understood why I did it".
"I do", Agnes crouched, her knees clicking loudly, and started cutting at a large gorse trunk, "but he doesn't - and you're not going to win him over by forcing the issue". 
Antonia moved over to Agnes and lent a hand. Agnes got the bottom of the trunk cut, once severed, Antonia lifted the bush and heaved it to the left-hand side, out of the road. 
"Antonia", Agnes puffed a little as she stood, "do you honestly expect him to fawn over you taking out two civilians?".
"I thought he'd understand, at least", Antonia admitted, "I didn't expect him to call me a bitch".
"Be realistic here, girl", Agnes gruffed, "you know what kind of upbringing he's had. You've spent years with him, flouncing off, smoking dope and eating food that you couldn't cook for yourself if your life depended on it. But before that, you lived in the villages, you had it rough. I don't need to know you to know how hard it is, I did it myself".
Agnes sighed, her wrinkled face looked older than ever, haggard after a restless night.
She continued - "I get that the real world is tough and violent, but he needs to see it for himself before he gets it too".
Antonia nodded, accepting the reality of Agnes' words. 


The chill of the morning woke Randall, a firm breeze blowing over him. 
Pulling his eyes open, the first thing he felt was confusion - was he outside?
Looking around he saw bricks. Confusion gave way to terror as he crawled to the edge and realized where he was - the deconstructed cell on the fifteenth floor. 
The staircase had been obstructed by planks of plywood, fixed into place with bricks beneath.
Randall crawled over to the plywood, feeling as if he could be blown off at any moment. 
"Sean!", Randall screamed at the plywood blocking the staircase, "SEAN!".
Randall pounded the wood, his skin was almost blue. 
"Keep your fucking voice down!", Sean growled from beneath the plywood.
"What've you done to me!?", Randall bared his teeth, his grey eyes glinted red with rage.
"You're the idiot getting blackout drunk and calling people names, this has nothing to do with what I've done", Sean responded, his voice muffled.
"Who was I calling names?", Randall slumped to his ass, and asked, genuinely confused.
"It doesn't matter now, mate, just sit tight, I'll come to get you when you're in a better headspace", Sean knocked on the plywood. 
Randall heard his footsteps descending the spiral staircase - "Sean, don't you fucking leave me here you idiot!". 
"That's why you're up there, Randall", Sean called from below, his voice barely audible. 
Randall started to panic. The air whistled through the piles of brick, the first specks of snow started to fall.
Crawling to the edge of the building, Randall looked down, feeling sick at the sheer drop off the rooftop.


Drew took a look around - trees, shrubs, bushes - hadn't he just been here? 
He was well and truly lost in the thick brush, completely unaware of how far north, south, east or west from Motueka he was. 
He figured he was headed north, the right direction back to Pa. 
Coming out onto a dirt pathway on the edge off a cliff face, Drew thought he'd found the way back.
The snow was falling thicker than it was the hour prior, making the edge of the cliff ever harder to see.
He delicately stepped, sticking as close to the treeline as was possible. The pathway curved away from the cliffside, taking Drew into a small gully lined with clay banks.
Coming into view was a large rickety bridge, fifty meters in length, covering the gap between the gully he was in and the continuing path on the other side. Forty or so pallets lined the bridge - many of them missing, leaving spaces in the bridge that made Drew uneasy. 
Drew approached the bridge slowly, making sure his footing was solid in the snow. Looking down, the drop made his stomach sink.
The cavern below him was at least a kilometer deep and would surely kill him.
The pallets on the bridge were rotting and many of them were outright missing. 
Drew surveyed the bridge, reasoning one of two things; either this was the bridge they took to get to the camp, and so it must be stable, or alternatively he was further becoming lost and all hope of rescue was futile. He shrugged, stepping from the solid ground onto the first pallet. 
Grappling the waist-high rope, Drew took a step over the gap where the second step once resided. The bridge swayed as he stepped forward. 
The gap between the fifth and sixth stairs was large enough for him to drop through unobstructed. Swallowing, he steeled himself taking a wide step over the gap, sighing as he successfully made it onto pallet number seven. 
He took the next half dozen steps with newfound confidence. Step eleven, he sighed - step twelve.
He exhaled, taking the thirteenth step. Drew placed his foot on the fourteenth step - 
SCHWOOF! The fourteenth pallet broke beneath his steps.
Instinctively, Drew clasped his right hand onto the rope holding the pallets - leaving him dangling beneath the bridge and over the cavernous drop beneath him. 
Grunting, Drew heaved his left hand next to his right, clasping the tattered rope desperately. 
Frustrated, Drew screamed, his voice echoing throughout the surrounding hills.
He pulled up, struggling to lift himself enough to get a foot onto the pallet closest to him. 
A few steps ahead, a thread between the top and bottom ropes sat in view. 
Sighing, trying not to look down, Drew released his left hand and swung it in front of his right. He reclenched. Right hand in front of the left. Reclench. Left hand in front of the right.
The vertical rope was directly above his head. With a deep breath, Drew heaved himself upward, a firm grip on the vertical rope. Pulling with his right hand, he secured his left on the rope. 
Finally, Drew hurled his torso upward and hooked his right leg over the rope between the two pallet steps above him.
CRACK! Drew didn't have time to figure what went wrong; the rope broke beneath his knee, sending him hurtling toward the ground at an ever-increasing speed. 
"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!", Drew cried as he fell, twisting his body to see the ground beneath him.
The pines beneath him went from being a green blur to individual tops, gaining on him ever quickly. Under the canopy of the trees, the ground was entirely obscured.
Drew pulled his feet together and aimed them toward the ground, hoping to take the impact in his knees. He pulled his elbows over his head in order to protect his cranium. Lastly, he closed his eyes, not wanting to see whatever became of his body lest he live. 
Branches whipped at his face as he fell through the trees - he knew he was about to hit the ground with force.
Suddenly - Drew was doused in ice. 
Opening his eyes, he was surrounded entirely by snow. 
Climbing out from the preposterously large mound of snow, Drew let out a sob, collapsing to his knees.
Sobbing turned to manic laughter and kneeling on the ground Drew thumped his fists.
For a brief moment, the depression that'd overwhelmed Drew for the better part of forty-eight hours melted away. 
"THAT. WAS. AMAZING!", Drew screamed upward to the treetops, sending birds hurtling toward the sky from the trees. The bridge above him was entirely obscured by tree cover.
His heart was still beating at a trillion miles an hour. He was alive - no closer to his destination - but alive.