I begin to move, trying to
direct my way up the slope all the while knowing that the instability of the
land will take me downwards. I hear Upson make a hesitant move to follow. I don’t
know how long we’ve been in this place. Teague said that time worked in a
different way between these worlds. If a week had passed in a couple of hours
between earth and the Edge, who knew what the displacement was like here. Our
half hour might have passed already. I knew one thing, I wasn’t going to leave
this place without Yates beside me. I don’t care what Upson decides to do.
Secretly, I pray that the other
man doesn’t leave me. I don’t think I could stand this place alone for too
long.
We grow closer and closer to the
echo. I hope it’s Yates. There might be thousands of people down here. People
left the town all the time in search of something better? How many fall and
just keep falling? What if this place is infinite, going on and on into
nothing, engorged by the fear of the hesitant and they all lie in echoes, just
out of the reach of our sight?
I shake the thought from my head
and trudge onwards. The pool of fear remains in the pit of my stomach and I try
my hardest to focus on the job at hand.
If a place like this exists,
then I can’t help but feel terribly alone in the universe. A place so large and
so empty, watched over by no one and nothing. It is then that I realise how
much I don’t want Upson to leave. There might be no one watching over us in
this waste land from on high, but while I have him here, we can look out for
each other.
‘How long were you in the town
for?’ I ask.
‘Oh years now.’ Upson seems glad
I’ve broken the silence. I turn and see him confidently wading forward, but a set
of teeth grasp his lower lip, a sure sign of anxiety. ‘I love the peace, but I
get this feeling sometimes, you know? That there might be more than a village
in the middle of the desert. Makes me think of home.’
‘I suppose once you start
thinking like that then it’s hard to stay,’ I observe. ‘I’d be the same.’
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