Out There (10 page)

Once again, Katelyn looked around her. I did too, but there was nothing there.

“All right, but there has to be a reason, I know it.”

“What if they just haven't told anyone what the real reason is?” I interrupted.

They both turned to me and just stared in complete silence. “They wouldn't do that.”

“That would be breaking the Oath. They would never break it.”

“Who's
they
anyway?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to me.

“The Council, of course.”

“The people that set up the city.”

Something inside me began to process. “Why do I feel like it's more than that?”

“What do you mean?” Katelyn leant in closer.

“Like maybe
they
is everyone.”

“Everyone?” Lexi tilted her head to the side.

“Yeah, like everyone that was alive pre-Movement.”

“But they don't call the shots.”

“But don't you feel like everyone's running on the same clock? Like everyone has the same priorities?”

“I don't really know.” Lexi thought about it for a while.

I hadn't really thought about it like that until that moment. Suddenly the pieces began to fit together. What if it was all some huge conspiracy? The Bubble, the forest. What if everyone was part of hiding a deeper truth? My dream had always been to leave the Bubble, and I did. But something in me felt that there was more. More to what I was seeking than a few trees. I knew what was outside, but maybe what I was looking for was inside.

Inside?
I was beginning to sound crazy, probably from lack of sleep. “Whatever,” I said shrugging my shoulders. “It's probably all in my head.”

I looked up and saw Katelyn staring at me. But it was with some strange emotion across her face that I couldn't decipher. Like she had just realised something important and she was stunned about it.

“Hey, I think Jade fell asleep,” Bri said, pointing at Jade lying on the ground.

I looked back at Katelyn, but she was walking over to Jade. We all gathered around her and stared at her. Then she let out a sort of grunt and we laughed.

“I guess we should wake her up.”

“Hey, anyone have some water I can throw on her face?” I asked.

They all laughed. “Ava, just wake her.”

I bent down and shook her tiny wet shoulder. She didn't budge.

“Guess she's really tired.” Lexi shrugged.

“Listen, I don't give up so easily.” I rolled back my sleeves and jumped on her, screaming, “Wake up Jade! It's an animal attack!”

She leapt up, sending me flying, and jumped on to the fallen tree. “Where is it?” she yelped frantically. “Did it eat someone?”

Bri helped me off the ground. “No Jade, Ava was just messing with you.”

“Is this payback for the water? Because you really freaked me out.”

I shrugged the dirt off my shoulders. “No, I just needed to wake you. But maybe I had ulterior motives…” I picked a leaf out of my black ringlet. “But there was no need to shove.”

Lexi helped Jade move from standing on the log to sitting on it.

That's when I heard it.

A tiny rustling sound in the thick bushes. It was so quiet, but it echoed in my head. Then silence. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Then it came again. But this time there was a darting of movement to go with it. I froze, straining my ears to hear something. “Did anyone hear that?”

“Can we just go home?” Jade whined.

There was a crunch. Or more of a snap. Like stepping on a twig. “Ssh! Please tell me you heard that.”

“I did,” Lexi said.

“Yeah…” Bri took a step backwards.

“You mean the snap?”

We all stood in silence, waiting. My heart thumping in my chest.

“Do you think it could be an animal?” Jade sucked in a raged breath.

Katelyn looked around her. “I don't know, I've never seen one.”

More silence. So still it felt louder than anything.

“Maybe we should go.”

“Yeah, let's get out of here.”

We all started scrambling away when there was another rustle. I whipped round just as something shifted in the bushes. My voice caught in my throat yet I managed to get out a single warning: “Run.”

And we ran.

Feet scraping the dirt causing it to fly into our faces. Clumsy dodging of trees with branches like claws. Faster and faster until eventually we were all screaming and running for our lives. I was jumping over fallen trees and narrowly dodging branches and thorny bushes. I felt like I was being followed. Chased. So I risked turning to look over my shoulder, but there was nothing there. A shadow danced across the grass from above the treetops. I almost tripped I was so distracted. I barely noticed that the sun was almost fully up.

“Ava, I take it back. This was a terrible idea!” Lexi yelled as she ran round the bushes.

“If we die, I just want to say I love you all!” Bri shouted over to us.

“We're not going to die!” I was intent on getting back.

We kept running and screaming until our feet were numb and our throats sore. Katelyn tripped over a root poking out of the ground and I skidded to a stop then turned and ran over to help her up.

“You OK?”

“Yeah.” She clung to my jacket as I pulled her up. “Do you think it's still behind us?”

“I don't know.” I stole another glance back.

“Ava, are we going to die?”

I looked at her for a moment. “Not on my watch.”

We sprinted ahead and kept going until we were headed downhill and the trees thinned out.

“Are we at the Bubble yet?” someone yelled.

“Yeah Ava, what was your plan to find our way back?”

“That's the problem! I have no plan!”

“What!”

We kept running and I thought that maybe we would never make it in at all.

There were barely any trees left, but that only made it easier for us to get eaten. I was beginning to understand Katelyn's point about the Bubble.

“We're going to die!”

“Is it still chasing us?”

Then I saw the Bubble up ahead. The glistening clear walls that curved the opposite way from the inside, bending outwards.

“There's the Bubble!”

“Will we make it?”

“Only one way to find out.” I narrowed my eyes and propelled myself forward at the Bubble wall. The distance was closing and just before I reached it I smiled with pride, closed my eyes and leapt.

And in my mind I imagined myself flying. But I never ended up flying. I smacked hard into the wall and collapsed on the ground. I looked up in shock.

It wouldn't let me in. We were stuck.

Chapter Five

Ava, Seconds Later

It wasn't possible. There was no way that we were all trapped right outside our home. I turned over my shoulder and saw the mass of trees, like claws reaching out to grab me. Would we be stuck there? Struggling to find food and water, living like savages?

“Ava, are you all right?” Katelyn ran over to me and knelt down.

“Why are you lying on the ground, Ava? Come on or we're going to get eaten!” Jade shouted as she came sprinting downhill.

“I'm fine Kay.” I rubbed my throbbing head. “But we might have a problem.”

“Yeah I saw, what happened?”

Jade ran over and tried to yank me off the ground. “Get up, quick!”

“Ouch, Jade stop!” I pulled back my arm. “It won't let me through.”

“What! What do you mean it won't let you through?” She looked around frantically.

“The Bubble.”

“Wait, so we're stuck here!”

Lexi and Bri ran up to us. “Did she just say we're stuck?”

My head was making a strange pounding noise and everything else sounded distant. Like I was standing miles away listening in.

“Are you sure you're OK, Ava?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” I replied as I gripped Katelyn's hand and tried to stand, but I stumbled.

“Here, you sit for a minute,” said Katelyn. She walked over to the Bubble and tilted her head to one side, inspecting it.

“What happened to you?” Lexi asked.

Her voice was coming closer.

“Well, I ran into it, but it wouldn't let me through.”

Jade was pacing in circles. “You don't think it's still chasing us, do you?”

Lexi walked over and shook her by the shoulders. “Calm down Jade.”

Jade took a deep breath. “OK, I'm calm.”

“What are we going to do?” Bri asked nervously.

It was pretty much completely light by then and I was trying to guess how much time we had spent outside. My head was beginning to feel somewhat normal so I lifted myself to my feet. “I'll get us out, promise.”

“But is that a promise you can keep?” Jade asked, with one hand on her hip.

Slowly I crept up to the Bubble wall. I lifted my finger and gently poked it. It was like poking plastic. I tried again and again, harder every time, but it was obviously not going to open.

“We're doomed!” Jade cried out.

I sighed and slumped to the ground, placing my head in my hands. Maybe we were doomed.

Katelyn looked over at us with concern. Then she paced back and forth thinking to herself.

“Wait, you can't be serious!” Lexi exclaimed. “Stuck? We're never going home?!”

“So much for graduation,” Jade moaned.

“You know what, stop it, OK? I understand that we have a bit of a problem, but can you all just calm down and quit complaining so that I can find a solution?” I snapped. “Or better still, how about you all actually try and help out instead of always leaving it to me and Katelyn?”

Silence. They just stared at me in disbelief. Lexi looked wounded and turned her head away, yanking at the grass with her hands. Bri stared down at her lap, her cheeks burning.

Katelyn was giving me a strange look, like the one from earlier – a combination of understanding and accepting. Then she turned away, scanning the ground for something.

“Maybe there is a way out,” said Bri and looked up. “Let's see…”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Katelyn picking something off the ground and then walking over to us with it concealed in her palm.

“What if we all jump at once? Or maybe we could all…” Bri continued brainstorming.

Then Katelyn, in one swift movement, took the object from her hand and threw it hard at the Bubble. It sailed straight through. But it did something else too. The tiny object, as it vanished through the Bubble, left a thin gap. The gap was the same width as the object and it stretched from the bottom of whatever it was to the floor. But then it disappeared after a second.

I looked at her in shock. “What was that?”

“A rock.”

“Did anyone else see the little gap it made directly beneath it?”

“Yeah,” Bri exclaimed. “Katelyn, you're a genius!”

I stood and walked to where Katelyn was standing earlier. There were a few rocks scattered on the ground so I took three in my hands and joined the others. One by one, I threw them at the Bubble and they all went right through, leaving the same little gap. But when I ventured to put my hand in it, I couldn't even make a dent.

“I don't get it,” Lexi said and came over to me. “How come rocks go through, but not people?”

Katelyn, who had walked away to collect more rocks, soon returned carrying other items as well. She handed me a thin twig. “Try this.”

I took it from her and poked it at the Bubble. As I held it in place, the same gap appeared except much narrower, as the stick was thinner than the rock. All the leaves and dirt and rocks Katelyn brought over made it through. How come we didn't make the cut?

“This doesn't make sense,” I sighed. “So we know anything here that's not alive has made it over, but anything that breathes hasn't.”

“Well, we don't exactly know that, maybe animals would make it too.”

“What's the connection?” I thought aloud.

I rubbed the rock in my hands, its smooth texture cooling my burning palms. “All I know is that inanimate objects get through and we don't.”

“So how do we get in then?” Lexi asked.

I thought for a moment and scanned the grassland for something large enough for the plan I had in mind. Then I spotted a perfect thick tree a few metres away.

“Give me one second.”

I ran over and walked round the trunk several times. It seemed like it would work, so I gripped my hands on a loose bit of bark and stripped it off. It was a large piece too, almost half my size. I held it under my arm and strolled back to the group.

Katelyn looked up as I walked over. “Did you take that off a tree?” she asked.

“No, it fell from the sky,” I replied sarcastically.

She laughed. “You're crazy.”

“That's for sure,” Jade agreed.

“Prepare to see the craziest thing of all then.” I winked and stepped forward to the Bubble.

It snickered at me like a challenge and I grinned at it because I knew I had won.

“Can I please have a volunteer?”

I waited for someone to come forward, but they all stared off into space as if they couldn't hear me.

“Fine, I'll do it,” said Katelyn as she got up and stood next to me.

I gradually lifted the bark so that it was a bit over Katelyn's height and parallel to the ground. Then I held it in the Bubble and, lo and behold, a gap opened just big enough for Katelyn to fit through.

She gasped, “Ava, that's genius!”

“Go on, you can walk through it.”

“You sure it's safe?” Jade asked cautiously.

“Yes, I'm sure.”

“OK then, here I go.”

Katelyn carefully walked through the little archway of a gap and made it to the other side. She spun in a circle and cried out, “It worked Ava! It worked!”