Escape from Eden (Original Series book 2)

C
opyright
© 2016 by Rachel McClellan

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I
grip
the cold handle of a machete and swing hard cutting into thick overgrowth. The vines are interwoven with each other, making my job so much more difficult. I have to chop again, over and over until a day-old blister tears at the top of my palm.

I lower my hand and grit my teeth. Not because of the pain, but because I’m tired and cold. Every day it’s the same thing: cut and clear no matter how much rain, no matter how much mud. Purgatory Island shouldn't be this overgrown, especially with plants and trees that belong in jungles, but the first Primes who were banished to this island included several Techheads. They messed with the DNA of the island's natural plants. They probably wanted to create their own food, or possibly better shelter, but the results were disastrous. It always ends that way when you mess with nature.

“Sage!”

I know the voice, but I don’t turn around. Even though it’s been five months, I’m still not used to this new Max. It isn’t that I don’t like him, I love my brother, but our relationship has changed since he no longer has to rely on me. I used to have to help him with the smallest things like remembering a jacket in cold weather or getting him ready for bed at night, but now it's often him telling me what to do. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

“Why are you still out here?” he asks. “Everyone else has already gone inside.”

I finally turn around. Fading sunlight shines on Max’s face. He’s bright pink from running all the way from the complex. “I’m coming. Just wanted to get some more done before tomorrow. I know Jerry is anxious to get the new barracks built.”

My brother smiles, showing deep dimples on each cheek. They weren’t so pronounced when he was bone skinny.

“You mean
you
are anxious,” he says.

I shrug and look past his shoulder, as if I can see through all the trees to our current living quarters. There are at least four hundred Originals and a few dozen Primes stuffed into several connecting buildings made of wooden timbers and metal sheets. There's always something needing to be fixed on the oddly shaped structures that each exhibit their own personality. Take Zone One, for example. It was one of the first structures built on the island. It's made almost entirely of a heavy, shiny metal engineered by Techheads. The layout of the structure is organized and holds the heat well, but as most of the Techheads died off while the Original population thrived, the outer structures became more wood than metal, except for the roof. They also became colder and more cramped. I live in Zone Three where six sleep to a room, but our room has eight. I nearly suffocate every night. As soon as the weather turns warm, I’m sleeping outside.

Max takes hold of my free hand and pulls me along. “Pretend I’m your older brother, and you have to obey. You’re going to freeze out here.”

“Just this once,” I warn, but force a smile.

I let him pull me across the muddy trail heading back to the complex. He's doing so well here at Eden, thriving actually, but part of me wants to slow him down, to let me lead again. He could get hurt being this confident in a world he basically just "woke up" to. This isn't my only worry.

Max is strong, stronger than a ten-year-old boy should be. He’s also grown three inches since we arrived at Eden. It worries me. Whatever our father injected him with might be harmful. If it was Prime DNA, then Dad may have shortened Max's life considerably. The Kiss, the deadly, incurable disease created by pDNA was a plague to all Primes and rarely allowed a Prime to live past the age of thirty.

“Not so fast,” I say. “You’re going to make me trip.”

He slows a little. “Sorry, but I hate the sounds at night.”

Just as he says it, a great moan breaks through the chill in the air. By the sound of it, it’s something large. I have yet to see what lies beyond the forty-foot, metal walls surrounding the complex. I've deliberately avoided it because I know if I get that tiny glimpse of freedom, I'll remember the passion behind the personal vow I made to take down the Institute.

We round a corner and go up a small rise. The door to Zone One is open spilling warm light across the moist ground. For most people, the soft glow probably looks inviting, but it only makes my chest tighten. Too many people crammed into a space made for much fewer.

“I’m going to sit outside for awhile.”

Max sighs like he was expecting this. “I’ll bring you dinner when I'm done.”

I sit on a bench against the metal wall of the complex, right next to one of many Rule Boards that hang at every doorway. Rule number one is ‘Work hard to do your part'. I exhale and lean back.

The sunset, the color of a dying fire, is slowly fading to gray. I’ll stay here long enough to see the stars. It’s the only connection I have left to Colt. If he somehow survived the fight with the Institute’s guards, and then lived long enough to get the oDNA injection from my father, than he just may be able to see the same stars. It’s a stretch, I know. Colt was having seizures almost every day before he refused my father’s help. The chances that he survived are slim. But I have to hope.

Sometimes at night I imagine him flying overhead with his great bat-like wings. These thoughts often carry over into my dreams where he scoops me up and carries me away forever. But sometimes the dreams turn to nightmares, and Ebony, the leader of the Institute, steps out of the forest and shoots Colt from the sky.

The Institute.
I cringe at the thought of the huge medical corporation that controls what's left of the world's population by giving or withholding Original DNA, the one thing that helps Primes live longer. Ebony, a Techhead Prime, was the one who ordered Max and me to be captured from our remote home in Maine. I wouldn't be in this mess without her desire to hunt down every Original alive for our pure DNA—the only thing keeping her in power.

Another moan followed by a deep grunt comes from just outside the wall. The creature is closer. Maybe it can smell us. Or maybe it just wants to belong. Who knows what it was before the island's first Techheads manipulated its DNA. Techheads love to play God, but they often abandon their creations. Very unGodlike.

“Max said you’d be out here.”

I turn my head. Link is standing in the doorway staring up into the sky, his muscular arms at his sides. People say he could be my older brother, but I don’t see the resemblance, other than our green eyes and brown hair. Max, on the other hand, despite being blond haired and blue eyed, shares my same high cheekbones, narrow nose and full lips.

“You should go back inside,” I say. “It’s cold.”

“Uh-huh.” He sits next to me and drops his head against the metal behind him with a dull thud. “So when are we getting out of here?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, even though I know exactly what he means. From the day I first met him, I could tell Link wanted to leave the island. He was always asking me questions about the outside and what the people were like. And when everyone else gathered at night for a planned activity, he was rarely present. I always know where I can find him, though: pacing the outer wall. We often pace it together.

Link was born in Eden along with many others, but he isn’t anything like them. Most Originals are happy staying at Eden where they are safe, but not Link. He wants to experience the whole world, whether bad or good. Maybe it's because he's never seen the real world before, except for pictures in magazines or the occasional movie that’s smuggled in. Sometimes I wish everyone here could see all the fighting going on off the island, but no transmitting is allowed except for a few times of the year when the magnetic fields in the air reach a certain level. This makes it harder for the Institute to detect any communication, but also leaves us utterly alone on Purgatory Island.

“Eden will teach you patience,” Jerry had told me when I first met him. I have yet to learn it.

“I know you’re not sticking around here,” Link says. He runs his fingers through his shaggy brown hair.

“Where else would I go?”

He pauses before saying, “I don’t think it’s ‘where’, but ‘to whom’.”

“What makes you think I have someone on the outside?”

“Because every guy in here has hit on you, but you haven’t even noticed. And sometimes you smile when there’s nothing to smile about. Just admit it already.”

I rub my thumb over the line of blisters on my palm, remembering when Colt had bandaged a similar wound on my hand. “There is someone.”

He laughs. “Really? Because I was totally guessing.”

I elbow him and say, “You tricked me!”

“It worked, didn’t it? So this guy, why isn’t he here in Eden?”

I glance away toward the sound of the great creature moving. It rubs against the outer wall like a cat rubs against a tree. I couldn’t tell Link about Colt, at least not the part where Colt is a Prime. He wouldn't understand and might even think differently about me. Primes and Originals keep to their own kind for obvious reasons.

“He prefers the outside,” I say.

He folds his arms to his chest. “I don’t blame him. To have all that freedom to go wherever you want?”

“It’s extremely risky,” I say, remembering how I was constantly on the run once I escaped from the Institute. If Anthony, Jenna and Colt hadn’t helped me, I probably would’ve been captured again.

“It’s worth it to have no more walls, to have real adventures that don't involve map courses or fighting with sticks. I'm so bored here.” His gaze lifts to the sky. “Why’d you leave him to come here?”

“Max.” I don’t have to say anything else. Link knows I’d do anything for my brother.

“But now that Max is here, you can go back out, right?” When I don’t answer, he adds, “He’ll be fine without you, you know. Everyone really likes him. Besides, you can come back.”

“Could you leave your brother?” I ask. Link’s brother Chase is a year older than Max. From what I’ve seen, he and Link are really close.

Link leans forward, his eyes downcast. “In a heartbeat, if my parents would let me.” Seeing my shocked face, he hurries and adds, “But that’s only because I know when I finally leave Eden, it’s to find a place for my family to live on the outside. Then I’ll come back for them. We could do it, right? The people out there can’t be all bad.”

I smile, thinking of Anthony, Jenna and especially of Colt. “Some are quite wonderful, but because they die so young, a lot of them have stopped caring about each other. It's almost like they've trained themselves to be apathetic so they won't feel the pain when they lose someone they love. It’s sad.”

"But everyone dies," Link says.

"Not like out there. Can you imagine meeting someone you like, then realizing they will mostly likely die within a few years at best? Would you open your heart and give love a chance or would you protect it? Now, change that time frame to fifty plus years, like we have. Most people wouldn't hesitate to jump into a relationship."

Link is staring up at the sky again. Sunlight disappears taking with it the last of any warmth. The first star of the night appears. It’s always the brightest. My mother once told me it was angel light trying to break through night’s black veil. “As long as it shines,” she’d say, “there will always be hope.” A pain stings my heart just thinking about her, and I wonder what she would think of the world today. All she ever spoke about was trying to find ways to bring people together to end the suffering.

“Can we fix it?” Link asks.

“I don’t know. We need more Primes on our side.”

He turns to me for the first time. “Do you ever wish you were a Prime? You know, give yourself something cool like super strength or speed?”

The question I always ask myself. I stand and take a few steps toward the wall. “It would make things easier. My weakness was a liability on the outside and always put others’ lives at risk.”

Link appears at my side. After a full minute, he says, “I know I’ve asked you a million times before, but how about we go peek over the wall? That creature out there sounds wicked.”

My heartbeat races the way it used to when something exciting was about to happen. I inhale deeply. It’s too soon to feel this way about the outside, isn't it?

“Come on. I’ll show you.” Link nudges me on the shoulder and walks by me.

Normally it’s easy to refuse him, but after talking about the outside with him, something we rarely do, the storm inside me has reached an epic pressure. I need to see over that wall.

Link circles behind the compound and disappears into an overgrown patch of trees. The full moon provides just enough light to follow after him. I step through thick mud, but when my shoe almost gets sucked off for the second time, I call out to him. “Do you know where you're going?”

He crawls up a steep ravine. “Up here.”

I scramble after, careful to keep my footing on the wet ground. The top is smoother and after walking on it for several steps, I realize it’s a trail. An old one, but a trail nonetheless.

“Not many know about this place,” Link says over his shoulder. “Kyle showed it to me a couple of years ago. He called it make-out point, but I don’t think he calls it that anymore after a girl broke his nose.”

“You ever take a girl here?” I ask.

A snort is the only response I get. I chuckle. Link isn’t like most Originals. He isn’t anxious to find a girl and start a family living in Zone 4 where each family is given small, private rooms. He wants an adventure first. The bigger the better.

“Up here,” he says.

At first I don’t see anything in the darkness, but then he moves to the side of a huge tree that butts up against the concrete wall. Just behind it is a ladder made out of rope.

“You want to go first?” he asks.

I peer up, excitement swelling in my chest. I wrap my hands around the coarse rope and squeeze my way between the tree and the wall. The rope gives a little when I put all of my weight on it, but I think it will hold.

“I’ll wait for you to get to the top before I follow,” Link says as I climb. “Be careful. It can be tricky.”

I go slow, using my back against the wall, and my feet against the tree to help me up. The rope is dangerously frayed in certain spots, but in just a few minutes I’m at the top of the wall. I pull myself to the ledge and slide over on my bum. There’s barely enough room for me to sit.