Asorra weaves around the multipath like she designed the infrastructure herself. She says little, but it is enough that she is guiding me. I don’t understand why she isn’t as joyous about this as I am. At least she’s complying. I guess. “If you’re so against this, why are you helping me?”
Asorra pauses then turns to me. “They asked me too,” she says. Her green and blue eyes sparkle with a hidden sadness. An urge to hold her washes over me. I am Purity’s. Even as I think it her momentary vulnerability pilots me closer. Physically I do not touch her, but there is an element inside that will never let her go. I am Purity’s, I tell myself, but no bells sound. “I want to leave as well.” Asorra’s eyes blink her out of a trance. She glowers at me like I tricked her and hurries away. “I want to go for a swim.”
I hurry behind her failing to hold in my laughter. “Go for a swim? What do you know about swimming?”
“Nothing, but I’ve read books, and I want to experience it,” she shoots daggers at me with her incredibly diverse eyes. “It’s not funny.”
Yes it is. Getting out of a prison like home just to go swimming is the one thing I didn’t expect anyone to say, let alone the toughest girl I’ve ever met. “It’s hilarious.”
“Pay attention Saved,” she snaps. I chuckle next to her but follow her to the end of the last hallway. We stop in front of a cross metal gate. “We have to crawl from here to the docks. It’s the only route without pressure sensors or guards. I built it myself.” Really? So why did she lie. Asorra bends down and uses a small tool to remove the screws on the sides. “The docks are heavily guarded with bodies, and guns.” She takes the gate off of the opening.
The sound of rushing feet turns our heads. Cecil is racing towards us waving something in his hands. He reaches us with a few gasps of air left in his lungs. He bends over, refuels, and then places the tiny object in my hand. “Don’t forget your handset, Saved,” he says, with a grin.
“Thank You.” Cecil gives me a quick hug. It’s still so new, but before I can make this awkward, I return the embrace. He bows to us then rushes off. I look at Asorra whose eyebrows are raised in question. “Nice guy,” I say, pointing at the departing Cecil. “What’s this?”
The strange device is the length of both of my hands put together and reaches from my palm to my fingertips. There are buttons on the side that I’m guessing turns it on. Asorra snatches the contraption out of my hand. “We’re all going to die,” she says hitting a few buttons until the screen comes on.
The camera shows the docks. “This place is so interesting,” I say and retrieve it. “We can roam around the complex and still know what everyone is doing.” I press a button and the screen turns to the image of the control room.
Asorra assesses me and I return the admiring gaze. She sticks her tongue out at me and ducks into the dark confinement. I attach the device to my waist and follow her in. I think she likes me. We crawl for about five minutes before I hear a click and Asorra slides down. I pray to God’s Universe and mimic her movements.
We land in a room with a single tree, and all along the walls are paintings. Strewn around the trunk of the tree are piles upon piles of books, some, more worn than others.
Asorra climbs the tree and I blunder up behind her. “What?” I ask as she takes a seat in one of the sturdy cot like openings that she must have carved herself. They appear to be tiny branches woven into some sort of network. I sit down in the other one and we look up at the white ceiling.
Without a word Asorra puts the device into a slot next to her. My seat vibrates. “Do you really believe in your God?”
“Yes,” I say. “Look where he has brought me.”
The corners of her mouth twitch as if she might smile. I imagine it will be indescribable. “You believe he will deliver us from this place.”
“With my hands, your hands, and the hands of all that comply, he will take us to a better place.” I scoot a little closer to her. “He guides my mind, he guides my body, and he guides my soul. I’m sure if you let him, he’ll do the same for you.”
“Why?”
I smile at her. I’m not sure, but I can only imagine that God wishes us to aide others. “A home full of love, respect, and compassion.”
Asorra stares into my eyes. “You are mad. I hope you realize that.” She waves her arms. “The world does not speak or even consider the words you live.”
“I am not the world,” I say. “The world is not me. I can only share and show my beliefs. I will help those who ask of it.”
“Why?”
“I am able to.”
Asorra looks away. “You are quite unusual Saved.”
“I know,” I say, lying on my back staring at the white ceiling. “I was born that way.” When will the day arrive that I never have to say that phrase again.
A warm hand covers mine. I don’t look at it for fear it might be all in my mind. “Unusual is not a bad thing.” My eyes find hers and her face flushes red. Asorra stares at the ceiling. “You speak of love Saved, but I don’t believe you know about the destruction that sometimes follows.”
“You’re wrong Asorra,” I say, lingering on her name for a moment. I like the way it feels. “The love you speak of nearly killed me. The love I speak of knows no possession, restrictions, or limitations. It releases when it’s time, it holds on when it’s necessary, and it never ever wanes.” Yeah, I think, this is it. I have no idea where those words came from or how they spoke my feelings verbatim, but this is the love that I am now.
Silence ensues as the chair vines into a cocoon, drops down, turns to the right and zooms away at a blindly fast rate to the start of the beginning of a new society.