4338.209 · July 28, 2018 AD
The Answer in the Dirt
Joel's body has opinions about walking across a desert. Strong opinions. Opinions that involve collapsing face-first into the dirt and refusing to get up no matter how much his mind screams at it. But Nelson's boots have opinions too, and they're more persuasive. Somewhere between the kicks and the crawling, Joel discovers something he didn't know about himself: he's already died once. He's not ready to make it permanent.
The sky bleeds crimson at dawn. The mountains mock him from the horizon—beautiful, impossible, approximately a million kilometres away. And Joel's legs have decided they're done.
Not won't. Can't. The distinction matters when you're face-down in alien dirt with a man standing over you who doesn't believe in the word can't.
Nelson's methods are simple. Get up or get kicked. Keep moving or get left behind. There's no negotiation, no sympathy, no room for the limitations Joel's body is trying to impose. Just the cold mathematics of survival: walk or die.
Joel walks.
He falls. Gets kicked. Gets up. Falls again. Gets kicked again. Reduces existence to its simplest form—lift foot, place foot, repeat—until even that becomes impossible and he has to find something deeper. Something that isn't strength, because strength ran out hours ago. Something that isn't hope, because hope is a luxury he can't afford.
What he finds instead is a question: Do you want to die?
The answer surprises him.
No. Not here. Not in the dirt at Nelson's feet. Not after everything it cost to come back.
