Shift (Rewrite)

 

Stop, take a moment, observe, and plan.

Protect yourself from the elements.

Any water is better than no water.

Take a queue from what other mammals are eating to forage for food.

You can start a fire by stabbing a lithium cellphone battery with a knife.

Life begins and ends with duct tape.

• Survival Tips by B.G. III

***

During one of the firsts of my shrink sessions after the breakup, I learned that a good cry didn't only give some sort of catharsis but also helped reduce stress. It releases oxytocin and endorphins, and those help ease emotional and physical pain. So even if I'd never been overly emotional, crying was a good thing. 

It worked then, and even with the insanity of what was happening to me, it worked now. Not that I'd realise that until much later. 

After taking a while to cry silently, my tears slowed down, and I felt slightly better. I'd fallen into the breathing exercise again towards the end, and like after the breakup, it helped. A bit. 

My mental state was hanging by a very frail thread, but the logical part of me knew I needed to get a handle on things because sitting here doing nothing would kill me. 

I was hidden in a relatively safe place, so I needed to take whatever time I had to think things out. Because, well, this was all just too much. Too much and too jumbled for me to grasp. I had to break it down and organise things; otherwise, it'd just overwhelm me again. 

As I've done dozens of times before, I started listing what I knew and breaking it down one thing at a time while keeping things as simple as possible.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

I'd been kidnapped and brought to another country. One at war. With insect men. 

No, that didn't sound even remotely right.

Again. 

I'd been kidnapped and experimented on. 

No, it didn't seem like an experiment. The place had been like an automated factory. And you didn't automate an experiment, that'd be a waste of, well, everything: time, money, and resources. 

So not an experiment.

Again. 

I'd been kidnapped, and they'd done something to me. Something that they'd repeated with thousands of others. 

Ok, better. I'd come back to why. 

I'd been sent to a warzone... by walking through shimmering lights. 

The first part is right, and the second... right enough. I'd come back to how and why when I knew more.

Some sort of insect man had found me, and it appeared very hostile. Of course, that was more of a feeling than a fact, but it seemed like a safe enough bet. 

The creature was probably the most immediate danger. So, how had it found me? It had sniffed where I'd cut my foot when it stepped into the room. I think I'd also screamed when I cut it. 

So either sound or smell. Or both.

So keep quiet and disguise my scent? Or, at the minimum, don't bleed, which sounded like a good idea no matter the occasion.

Why did the insect man leave after it saw me? 

I'd wanted it to. That was the only thing I could come up with. 

It felt like I was screaming at him, but I hadn't made a sound. Then something in my head burned, everything had tinted red, it left, and eventually, I passed out. It was close to how it felt after I saw what they did to my hair, and I lashed out at Glass-hand.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

I took a moment to start my breathing exercises, expecting anger and rage at what they had done to me to burst out of me again, but there was nothing. It was as if I started to lean into a storm that I knew should be raging when I stepped outside, but there was barely a breeze. I mentally stumbled when the closest I felt about losing my hair was mild annoyance. 

What the heck?! How? Why? 

It took me a while to remember everything that had happened after the doctor's examination to try and puzzle out what had happened, and I came to two conclusions. Neither required much more than accepting that the unbelievable might be possible. So, all things considered, easy enough. 

The first one was that whatever they had done to me, I could now do things. I had no concrete idea what things, except that I could make things leave me alone. So, mind things. Yeah, that's about as vague as I could make it, but I'd leave it there for now. 

The second was that they also had people that could do mind things. Another brilliant revelation there, if being turned into a docile sheep hadn't proven that. 

Part of me wanted to experiment. To see what I could do now. Making insect men leave me alone would be a game changer. 

Except, I wasn't pissed about my hair anymore. So either they changed me, or what I'd done changed me. 

And that scared the sugar out of me. 

Ok, leave that alone for now. I'll come back to it. List it. 

I checked my mental list and came to the topics of survival & warzone. 

There were hostile things out there, so keep quiet and don't bleed are step one. Or step one and two. 

I fumbled around a bit and found the sword shoved up beside me. I had a weapon. I didn't know how to use it, and it was the most unwieldy honking thing ever, but it was a start. 

My stomach growled at me. It also had a good point. Food and water should be a priority. And some warmer clothes, because my camouflage clothing wouldn't keep me warm in this climate before the rain drenched them. Shoes that fit would also help. 

Ok, good. Priorities. I could do priorities. 

I remembered a zombie disaster movie I'd seen a few years ago with Jo. In it, the main character mentioned that he'd been in many war zones, and the people who stayed and hid died. Those that kept moving lived. 

While basing my survival strategy on a zombie movie was probably not the most intelligent thing I could do, looking out of the closet into the room with the stained bed, I decided it was better than nothing. I needed to move. To find my way home and sitting in this closet wasn't home or the way home.

Also, the survivor guy was Brad Pitt. So that was something in favour of the idea, right?

Anyway. Warm clothes, shoes, food, water, keep quiet, and keep moving. 

Those were problems I could deal with and try to solve now. I'd come back to the other questions later. 

Jo would call it Future Jo's problem, and occasionally I used that tactic myself. 

'Future Lana' was way more knowledgeable and smarter than 'Today Lana' and could efficiently deal with all those issues without breaking a sweat, so I shouldn't bother with them. 

Call it compartmentalisation. Good. I could do that.

Starting with warm clothes, that was easy. 

I tried to figure out what was in the closet with me without moving too much. It was cramped, not made for people to sit in, and the stupid sword was in the way. I quickly concluded that I'd need to get out and open the closet to get a good look. 

I hadn't heard or seen anything outside since I'd woken up, but I'd been crying for at least an hour, so how attentive could I have been? I waited, straining to hear anything, but it was quiet. Not even birds or insects. Not the tiny ones, nor the man-sized ones. 

I slowly opened the closet door a fraction and peeked out. My eyes flicked to the side and ceiling. A mental image of some half-remembered animal program about a praying mantis waiting quietly for hours forced its way from the recesses of my memories and made me move even more cautiously. 

There was nothing, of course. 

The insectman wouldn't have been stopped by the flimsy wood I'd hidden behind, and I was sure it had already seen me before it had left. If it had returned, it'd have gotten me already. I was still in one piece, so it hadn't come back.  

Unsurprisingly, my logic didn't help calm me down, but I eventually got out of the closet, gingerly avoiding standing on the cut under my foot.

With a bit of silent effort, I dragged the sword out behind me, holding it in both hands while looking around. Part of me knew the steel slab wouldn't do me any good if anything came in, but it still made me feel better while I waited; like a security blanket. 

When I couldn't see or hear anything moving after a few minutes of me exiting the wardrobe, I lowered the sword and quietly propped it up against the wood. 

Quickly I rifled through the clothes, followed by the drawers, all the while throwing glances at the hole in the wall. 

Going by the contents, I guessed the room had been a man's. I picked a thick wool grey jumper and quickly pulled it over my clammy clothes. I had to take my eyes off the hole in the wall, which freaked me out, but when I could see again, nothing had charged in to kill me. 

Still, I took more than a moment to eye the hole before returning to getting dressed. The jumper came to just above my knees, and I needed to roll up the sleeves, but it was warm, making the momentary panic worth it.

I found a drawer full of far-too-large socks. After quickly checking the wound in the sole of my foot and ensuring it was free of debris, I wrapped a long white one around it as a makeshift bandage, then pulled on another pair of socks to cover my bare feet. I tested to see If I could put weight on my bad foot, and the pain was surprisingly mild. I could walk and wouldn't need to add crutches to my list of things to find.

Finally, I added a few belts to turn the jumper into a kind of dress. After that, even mainly wearing clammy clothes, I was a bit warmer and instantly felt better. 

Warm clothes: check. 

Shoes. Food. Water. And then keep moving.  

I'd seen nothing resembling footwear in the room, so I carefully picked my way through the debris towards the only door opening that should lead further into the house. 

The doorframe was shattered, sharp pieces of wood sticking out haphazardly. The door looked like it was still in one piece but lay on its side in the hall, which was as bad a shape as the room I'd just left. Rubble lay strewn across the wet floor; most of it used to be parts of the ceiling and walls. There were also hints of a foul smell in the air. Almost as if a sewer line had burst. 

That's promising. Not.

I edged down the hall, using the sword to probe the floor, and instantly regretted not taking another few pairs of socks because these were soaked through after my second step out of the bedroom. I decided I'd have to get dry ones when I found shoes to keep them dry.

The hall had a few doors leading off it. The first of which turned out to be a bathroom. The mirror and sink were shattered and strewn across the floor, and the tiled walls cracked. 

Carefully avoiding all the shards of glass and porcelain, I edged in and tried the tap, but there was no water pressure. I did take one of the towels, neatly placed on a miraculously undamaged shelf, and wrapped it around me like a scarf. I don't know where the idea came from, but having a towel with me seemed better. 

The next door in the hall I tried refused to budge. There was no lock, so it had probably been barricaded by something behind it. I moved on to the next one and found a closet filled with shoes, coats, and other outdoor wear. 

Jackpot!

I held the shoes against the bottom of my feet and found a pair of dirty white trainers, which were only a little too big for me if I laced them tight. 

A black synthetic coat, which would have been too large for me ordinarily, now fit nicely around the jumper and towel I was padded with. It even 

looked watertight. A brown woollen hat covered my bald head.

I also found a backpack I opened and looked into: schoolbooks and supplies. I quietly emptied the pack and found myself reading the titles and a bit of the neat handwriting in one of the notebooks.

It was English.

I hadn't been following the news as much as I had before the breakup, but I was pretty sure none of the English-speaking countries were at war. 

Of course, this could be an expat family going to an English international school, but me walking into that particular home would be one fantastic coincidence. 

I put it out of my mind. Future me was going to be busy answering a lot of questions.

Food, Water, Move.

I used the edge of my sword to awkwardly remove a few sparkly patches and buttons, which had probably been added to 'pimp' the backpack. Then I shoved an almost empty notebook and a few pens in, adjusted the straps for myself and slipped it on. 

Returning to the bedroom, I changed my sock-bandage and soggy socks for dry ones and then put the shoes on. With a double pair of socks, they fit almost perfectly. I added a few more socks and boxers to my backpack, just in case. 

Bundled up and feeling a lot better about my predicament, all things considered, I returned to the smelly hall and pushed open the last door before stopping cold. 

It had probably been the kitchen-dining room because kitchenware and chairs were strewn in pieces everywhere. 

There were also three bodies in the room. They looked bloated, and their smell assaulted me as soon as I pushed the door open. 

I recoiled and closed the door as quickly as possible, bile rising in my throat already. I was sure I'd spewed it across the floor if I'd eaten. As it was, all I could do was swallow repeatedly.

I breathed in and out for a few minutes, trying to calm myself down. But the image was burned into my mind and was like some kind of high definition, ultra 4k, IMAX, 3D thing. 

It was like I was still watching them. 

The three had visible lacerations across their bodies -which might have happened when whatever blew up the side of the wall did its thing-, but each of their heads was missing the back side. And I didn't think that could have happened in the explosion. 

I knew I couldn't go back in there. 

I'd get food and water somewhere else. 

Move now. Slowly and Quietly.

***

 

It took me hours to slowly creep from the house towards another one still partially standing about two hundred meters away. It was slow going, mainly because I constantly stopped, hid, and scanned the ruins around me, but there was nothing alive out there. 

I passed seven more corpses, six of which were bloated and long-dead like the others were. All of them had been missing the back of their heads and had extensive injuries across their bodies. 

The seventh one I found was a wiry man who had died recently. The blood and gore splattered around still looked wet. He had the same gashes as the others, but he was different. For one, he was wearing the same blue-black camouflage clothes I was. 

His head was also completely gone, but that wasn't even the worst part. 

I could clearly see the remnants of a metal spine half ripped out of his back, ending in jagged pieces of torn metal from my hiding spot.  

I stayed hidden in a fallen tree for a long time, straining my ears and eyes as far as possible. I couldn't hear or see anything living, so after a while, I grit my teeth and edged closer to the man to get a better look.

The metal looked like it had been shredded to pieces and ripped out. Its missing top half left a gaping hole in the man's back. Bits of metal clung to the fleshy shreds around the hole the spine had once filled. 

It looked like the thing had replaced the spine's position and functions to my inexpert eye. I saw part of his left shoulder blade, which looked like the same material. They'd taken out more than just the backbone.

The metal spine was also hollow. 

Congealed gore and shredded flesh coated the inside, but whatever machinery had been inside had been ripped out. I imagined that whatever device had been in there was whatever had killed him had wanted. 

It also dawned on me that whatever had murdered the man had been strong enough to rip through the metal and take whatever had been in there.

I crept away from the corpse, swallowing repeatedly to keep things down with every step. 

I had the same machinery in me. 

I had been violated by the same people and filled with machinery in the same way. For what reason, I had no idea. But something was out there, and they clearly wanted whatever machinery they put in us.

It was getting too much again. 

I crawled into the crown of the fallen tree and quietly released my stranglehold on my emotions.

'Find a time and place to let your emotions out. Don't bottle them up.' 

I'm paraphrasing from some stupid self-help books I had picked up before going to Doctor Schwartz. It wasn't bad advice, so I'd hide from everybody and everything once or twice a week to break down and silently cry. 

I did the same underneath the brown leaves of a dead tree.

***

 Dusk was already creeping in as I entered it through the missing door in the garage. The house was in slightly better shape than the first one I'd entered.

A crushed car sat in the garage under part of the ceiling that had caved in, but I found one of those travel coffee mugs undamaged in the cupholder. Even exhausted, I continued to poke around, and it was lucky I did; that place was a treasure trove. 

On the intact side of the garage was a tool locker filled with tools. I stashed a flashlight, hammer, small crowbar, pliers, pocket knife, and a roll of metal wire in my backpack. There was a lot more, but I'd keep it to what I thought were the essentials.

Continuing to search the house, I found an intact bathroom and four more bodies in two bedrooms. Three of them had been children. They were in the same state as the ones I'd already seen outside. I closed those rooms and stoically kept searching.

I hadn't eaten or drunk anything in more than a day, and the puddles outside had started looking very enticing. The only thing that stopped me was the dead bodies oozing into them. 

So I continued. Trudging on, dragging my honking sword, looking for sustenance. 

I checked all the taps I could find, but like the other house, this place had no water pressure. Nor did it have a kitchen or anything like a pantry. 

Whatever food there was had probably been annihilated at the same time that part of the house was destroyed. I could smell the sickly sweet smell of it rotting. 

After rechecking the rooms I had been through again, I found nothing to eat or drink but decided moving on into the night would be foolish.

I went to the bathroom, ensured it had no outside access, locked myself in and switched on my flashlight. I found more towels in a rack in the bathroom, probably the fashion here, and used one to block off the crack underneath the door to keep the light from being seen outside. 

This place was entirely cut off from the outside, it didn't even have a window, and I could lie to myself that I was relatively safe there. I was physically and emotionally dead tired. I needed to sleep. 

I used the rest of the towels from the rack to fill the bath, turning it into a bed. Or at least the closest thing to it. It would be a lot more comfortable than squeezing myself into another closet. The sword I stoop up against the wall next to the bed. 

After making my bed, I sat on the toilet to relieve myself before turning in but stopped myself as I was about to flush. 

Stupid. I need to stay quiet! 

Then I facepalmed when I realised that that wouldn't have been my worst mistake. I was about to flush away clean water… 

The top of the reservoir easily came off after unscrewing the ring holding securing it. 

It was full. 

I dipped my travel mug in and forced myself to slowly taste the water. I sipped, and it tasted like the best water I've ever had, even if it was stale. I sucked in mouthfuls of the precious liquid, refilling my cup and draining it repeatedly. 

After I finally quenched my thirst, I filled the travel mug and stored it in my backpack. Just to be sure that if I had to run, I'd have some water. 

Feeling slightly better, I got into the bath and ensured the pack was where I could easily find it, even in the dark. The towels made the tub a bit more comfortable, and I pulled more of them over me as covers, then turned off the flashlight. 

I went over my list again.

Warm clothes: check. 

Shoes: check.  

Food: nothing yet. 

Water: check, but I'd need more. 

Keep moving.  

Tomorrow I'd move on and find some food.