Ignoring his taunts, I tighten my grip.
“I’m not going to bring you up,” he continues as he looms above me, silhouetted against the starry night sky. “You’re going to die down there, girl.”
Letting out a grunt of pain, I squeeze his wrist even harder, waiting for the right moment.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he tells me, “I can assure you, I’ll never forget the way you’ve fought to survive. You’ve shown me just how tough and resilient the human spirit can be, even when face with insurmountable—”
Before he can finish, I use my legs to kick away from the side of the pit. There’s a brief pause as he tries to stop me, and then he lets out a cry as gravity does the rest. As I start to fall, I squeeze his wrist tighter than ever, tight enough to ensure that he comes tumbling after me. We fall through the darkness, and a fraction of a second later we crash down together into the soup below. He lands on top of me, pushing me down until I feel myself hitting the submerged bodies at the very bottom of the pit, but I quickly twist around and swim back up, finally reaching the surface and gasping for air. Frantically, I start wading toward the side, so I can start climbing up again.
Suddenly Walter grabs me from below and starts pulling me down. I try to struggle, but I barely have the strength to fight back. He grabs my shoulders, pulling on me with all his weight until finally I’m submerged again. Hauling myself up, I manage to break the surface after a few seconds, just as Walter starts trying to climb up the side of the pit. I lunge at him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him back, but he elbows me in the face and sends me tumbling back. I crash into the water, but this time I manage stay on my feet and I reach out for him again, pulling him around and slamming him against the pit’s muddy wall.
“You’re a dumb bitch!” he hisses, grabbing my face with his right hand and trying to dig his thumb into my eye. “You’re never going to—”
Before he can finish, I push his head down under the surface of the soupy water. His right arm, reaching up from below, is still trying to gouge my eye out, and I gasp in pain as I feel him struggling to get back up. Deep down I know that this is my last chance, so I focus all my remaining strength on a desperate attempt to push him further into the depths. For a moment, I feel as though his thumb is actually going to burst straight through my eyeball, but finally I realize that he’s starting to weaken. I let out a cry of pain as I force him deeper into the water, and slowly his struggle starts to fade until he falls still. After a moment his thumb stops pushing against my eye, and his hand slips down my face before splashing lifelessly into the soupy water. Refusing to accept that he’s dead yet, I hold him under for several more minutes until I realize that there’s absolutely no way he can be alive.
When I let go of his head, he sinks down into the depths.
Leaning back against the muddy wall, I desperately try to get some air into my lungs. Every breath is agony, and I’m starting to think that I might have fractured a rib, but after a moment I realize that if I’m going to get out of here, I have to start moving. Turning, I dig my hands into the wall and start climbing, pushing through the pain. My tunic has been soaked since I first fell into the pit, but now the water’s extra weight seems to be dragged me down with more force, trying to make me fall. Somehow I manage to reach the top, and when I clamber over the edge I feel the metal spikes digging into my side. I roll away, finally stopping on my back and staring up at the vast starry sky.
Closing my right eye, I find to my relief that despite Walter’s best efforts, I can still see through it perfectly. At that very moment, a shooting star arcs across the night sky.
“Remember when we saw one of those?” Della’s voice whispers.
“Yeah,” I try to say, momentarily forgetting that I can’t speak. All that emerges from my mouth is a faint gurgle, and then a moment later I roll over and start to vomit, bringing up some of the foul human soup that I accidentally swallowed during the struggle.
“Walter was right,” she continues. “Life is too hard. Not only here on the island, but everywhere. Little moments of pleasure, like watching a shooting star, aren’t enough to make up for all the misery we have to endure.”
That’s not my sister.
She’d never say anything like that.
If she was here now, she’d tell me that things are going to get better, that I can get out of this mess. She’d tell me to get up and start walking, and to make sure I find Steadfall so I can warn Asher.
“Believing in something is one thing,” I remember Bran telling me once, before I betrayed him, “but you have to actually fight for it. No matter how hard it feels, you have to haul yourself up and fight for what’s important.”
“It’s too hard,” I imagine myself telling him. “I’m not that kind of person.”
“Everyone has to die some day,” he continues, “but what day do you want that to be? Do you want to die right now, alone and sick, shivering in the mud, with your friends in danger? Or do you want to last at least a little longer, and try to help them all?”
For a moment, I feel my mind dimming, as if I’m losing consciousness.
“You have to warn the others,” Bran reminds me finally. “You can’t rest now.”
He’s right, but I’m too tired. I just need to rest.
“Iris,” Della’s voice continues, as I roll onto my side, “what are you doing?”
“Sleep,” I imagine myself reply. “I need to sleep.”
“Iris, no,” she continues, “you have to get up!”
“I’ll sleep for a little while.” My mind is fading now, as I start to lose consciousness. “The morning sun will dry me, and then I can…”
For a moment, my thoughts fade to darkness.
“You’ll die if you try to sleep!” Della’s voice hisses.
My eyes flicker open.
“Iris,” she says firmly, “you have to get up!”
Even though I’m in agony, I know I have to find a way to let Asher know what’s happening. I might be too late, but there’s still a chance I can get to them in time. I might have been tricked into betraying people in the past, but this time I can do the right thing. There’ll be time to sleep later, but right now I have to help the others.
Hauling myself to my feet, I use the north star to work out the right direction and then I start walking, stumbling through the forest. I feel almost like a zombie, as if my mind is fading and I’m simply making my way through the darkness with a single goal in mind. I don’t even know how far I have to walk, although I’m pretty sure that I doubled back around toward Steadfall over the past few weeks, which means I shouldn’t have to go too far. A few days at most, maybe even less. All my addled mind can think about is the fact that I have to warn the others that there’s danger on the island.
“That’s right,” Della’s voice whispers, as if to encourage me. “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. You can do this!”
Chapter Thirty-one
“Don’t be an idiot, Asher!” Doctor Phillips hisses, making some more notes on the chart at the foot of my bed. “Frankly, I expected better from you by now. What’s wrong? Is military training too hard for you?”
I know this is a dream, I know it’s just a recreation of something that happened a long time ago, but that knowledge isn’t enough to keep me from panicking. Pulling on the restraints that are holding me to the bed, I try desperately to get free. The metal frame shudders, but after a few seconds I realize that I’m completely powerless.
“Focus, Asher,” Doctor Phillips continues, stepping around the bed and leaning closer to my face. “Ignore your fears. Ignore any pain you might be feeling. Just try to focus on your training. Remember what—”