Young Writers Society

A/N: So, about a year ago now I published a short story called "Anew" to the site, which got some pretty awesome reviews (once again, thanks to everyone who wrote to that one). Anyway, I recently revisited and, taking a lot of the criticism into account, I've rewritten the story. Some of the dialogue's the same, but a lot of the prose has been changed to flow better. I'm thinking about publishing this to a journal soon, but I want to make sure that it's good before I do.

Anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy!

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Two figures hiked down through a narrow mountain pass. The leader, a young man, wore a cloak of colors that matched the tall, narrow conifers that covered the mountainsides. His somewhat broad shoulders swayed as he walked, and he wore a smile on his face as he admired the scenery around him. Behind him walked a girl, her face obscured by a dark blue hood and wearing a coat blue as the stream running next to them. She took short, careful steps compared to her companion’s wide, sure gait.

White snow lay atop the tallest peaks around them, shining in the diminishing light as the world’s two suns slowly began to sink below the horizon.

“It’s getting late,” said the boy, pulling his large pack off his back. “Want to camp here, Lynn? Seems like a nice enough spot.”

The girl looked around. “If you think it works,” she replied quietly, removing her own sack.

He eyed her for a second and shrugged. “Want to set up while I get stuff for the fire?”

“Sure.” She dropped her pack with a loud thud, and began unrolling her sleeping mat.

“You okay? You sound a little down.”

“I’m fine, John, really.”

He shrugged. She would often act withdrawn, he’d seen her act quiet before, but this seemed different somehow. “I’ll go get some rocks for the firepit. You get settled in. I’ll be right back.” He pulled off his hood and turned to the stream. Lynn watched him walk away, his brown hair swaying in the faint, mountain breeze.

Sighing, she pulled her pack closer and rummaged through it. She pushed past tasteless bread that was going stale and some heavily-salted meat wrapped in fibrous paper. Digging deeper, through a small collection of beautiful stones she had gathered, she found it. She pulled the palm-sized, plastic device from her pack and stared at the blank LCD screen.

She chewed her bottom lip and pressed the round button on the bottom, but nothing happened. The phone had long ago run dead, its blank screen now reflecting her troubled face. Lynn stared at her mirror image for some time, watching as it slowly disappeared from the screen as the suns-light grew fainter and fainter.

The sound of John returning from the river made her push the phone back into her pack.

“Here we go,” he said, setting the smooth river rocks in a circle near her sleeping roll. He then looked at her and frowned. “I can tell something’s wrong.”

“I’m fine,” Lynn replied. “Just thinking.”

“About what?” He pulled some fist-sized, red crystals from his pack and began piling them within the ring of stones.

Lynn shrugged, pulling out a piece of old bread for her and John.

John produced a match from his pocket and lit it. “You can tell me, I can help,” he said, throwing the match into the crystals. They ignited into a deep, red flame that bathed the area in warmth and light.

“About this whole...everything!” she exclaimed frantically, dropping down to her own sleeping roll. “We’ve been trapped here for months! There are hundreds - thousands - of people just like us, trapped in this place! And so far, no one’s found a way out.”

It was John’s turn to shrug. “I don’t mind it too much,” he replied all too casually.

“How can you say, ‘you don’t mind it’?” Lynn snapped, venom in her voice. “Don’t you care about your family back home? They’re probably worried sick about you! Mine are probably worried sick about me!”

She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. John sat down next to her and placed a comforting arm over her shoulders. He knew what she was feeling. He’d known her for over a year, and she still hadn’t fully overcome the incident. At least, emotionally. In fact, no one he’d encountered had, though some coped better than others.

“We weren’t meant to live like this,” Lynn sniffed. “Not as warriors or merchants or whatever we figure we should be. We’re not meant to survive stuff like this. Life was normal before. I had a job… I had friends…”

John nodded. “We all did,” he replied. “My old friends are probably wondering about me even now, after all this time. And my boss has to have filled my job by now. It’d be crazy if he didn’t.”

There was a moment of silence between them as they remembered their past lives. Everything had changed since then. “Here, you should eat,” he said, pulling a roll from his pack and handing it to her. “It’ll make you feel better.”

She grabbed it and picked pieces off with her fingers.

John grabbed his own roll. “You’ll feel better when we get to the next town. Then, we can set up a shop or find work. I heard two brothers set up a lumber mill there, so they probably need help.”

Lynn shrugged and another small piece of stale bread with a quick bite. They finished their sparse meals without speaking to each other.

After a while, Lynn spoke up. “Can you tell me what you did again, back home?” she said. “I just want to remember what life was like.”

John smiled and leaned back on his own sleeping roll. “I was an accountant,” he said, “fresh out of college. Worked for some big, faceless corporation crunching numbers.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember the sights and sounds of an office. A year and a half ago, she would never have longed for such a thing.

Despite knowing the answer, he asked, “Remember what you did?”

“I was a desk clerk at a hotel, hoping to pay off my last year at university,” she said, remembering her old job. “That’s why I was working in that inn when we first met, I guess. Wanted to do something familiar.”

“You still remember that day?” he asked.

A faint smile appeared on Lynn’s tear-stained face. “Yeah. This crazy guy walked in, drenched in rain, and begged for a room with only a few copper pieces to his name.” She giggled. “And then he tried to sell me a sword when he found out he didn’t have the money.”

“Guess it works pretty well,” he said, nodding to the rapier on her belt.

She nodded. “Barely been used, though.”

He shook his head.

They sat in silence, listening to the fiery crystals crackle as the darkness slowly enveloped the mountains. Stars began to illuminate the land with a cool blue light. The two removed their heavier clothes and moved to their sleeping rolls, parallel to one another.

Lynn turned over to face her companion. “So you really don’t mind being stuck here.”

“No,” he said, after a short hesitation. “Not that much, at least. I mean, there’s people I miss. Hell, there’s things I miss. Can’t watch TV anymore, and no internet,” he let out a long, mournful whistle. “But, at the same time, we’ve got a whole new world. Look,” he said, motioning to the stars, which hung in the night sky like a thousand blue diamonds. “When could you see something like this back home?”

He let out a heavy breath. “Back home, I was just an accountant. I couldn’t go anywhere. I was never going to be anyone interesting. But here there’re so many possibilities. I stole when I first got here. I was a coward. But then I became a weapons merchant slash adventurer. I’ve seen mountains, oceans, and wilds that make National Parks look like city parks. And you, working from innkeeper to honest-to-God warrior.”

Lynn blushed at the last comment. “I’m not that good a fighter,” she mumbled.

“That’s bull. You took down a boar that sent me climbing up a tree.”

“That was one time!”

“We ate like royalty after that.” He smiled, noticing that she’d stopped sobbing.

“Besides, if I hadn’t gotten stuck here, I wouldn’t have meant you.” He reached out his hand, a ring on his finger. She reached hers out to meet his, a gold band wrapped around one of her fingers as well.

“It is amazing,” Lynn said, looking into the sky. A milky band of stars trailed across straight above them, a sight she never saw in the city she had once lived in. “You know, sometimes I wonder if this is all just some crazy dream, and tomorrow I’ll wake up and have to go back to work.”

“I think everyone’s had the same thought while here,” John said.

“It’s a good dream, though,” she said, gripping his hand tighter. “Do you think we’ll ever get home?”

“I don’t know,” John said. “But if we do, I can think of a lot of things I’d miss.”

Lynn nodded, and watched the sky as her husband fell asleep.

A lot to miss, she wearily thought, closing her eyes. Maybe I should make the most of this life while it lasts. After all, she relaxed her grip, it hasn’t been that bad…