I open my eyes. More white, more pain. My head is pounding and lights are popping in my vision. Every single bone in my body is aching, my left foot feels like it’s about to rot off.
I blink. It’s not snow I’m looking at. It’s a ceiling. I’m covered with white blankets, and next to me is a warm, white, furry—
Shit!
I try to inch away, but my body doesn’t do what I want it to do. Ears prick. A black nose leaves a wet trail on my cheek. A tongue goes slop. With a squeal, I push the dog off my bed. It does a whoomp on the floor and then puts its snout on the mattress looking insulted, as if I tried to kill it and not the other way around.
‘What the…’ I say.
‘Oof!’ it replies.
I’ve never had a conversation with a dog, and until a pack tried to eat Runner and me, I hadn’t even seen one. That reminds me…
Something in the room moves, and it’s not the beast. My eyeballs seem to be stuck in glue, because it’s hard to change focus.
I find a boy sitting in a corner of the room. No, not a boy, a young man. He holds a rifle. His eyebrows are pulled low, and his expression is dark. ‘Hey,’ I try. ‘Where’s R…the man I came with?’ The stranger only stares at me. My question must have been unclear. ‘I dragged a guy wrapped up in a tent. Do you know where he is?’ My voice gains in pitch and panic, but all I get in return is hateful staring.
He doesn’t want to break the news. I know it. Runner is dead. Or dying? With a cry, I force my legs to move out of the bed. ‘Where is he?’ I bark, but I get no answer. When I notice I’m naked, I tug at the thick blanket in an attempt to wrap it around me. It’s heavy, or stuck somewhere. ‘Okay, mute guy,’ I grunt, still struggling with the stupid thing, but at least half-covered now. ‘I’ll find my friend, then I’ll pack our things and we’ll leave.’
I take a step towards the door and lose my grip on the blanket as I notice that something’s wrong with my left foot. Pain shoots up my leg and the floor begins to tip. The white fur ball plus the rug it occupies are approaching fast.
A yelp, a nip in my arm, and I bonk my head on something sturdy.
‘Micka.’
My eyelids are sticky.
‘Micka!’
Something pokes my ribcage. ‘Ow!’
‘Micka, you need to eat and drink, except, of course, if you’d rather die. I’ll have your food then. Fine with me.’ Runner’s voice. He sounds like he’s having fun. ‘This wild boar ham is delicious. And the bread! Fresh from the oven. Can I eat it?’
I’m so happy he’s alive, my chest is about to burst. I clench my jaws, swallow the excitement, and say, ‘Man, you are toying with your life. I’m not a morning person.’
‘Lucky it’s noon.’
I rub my eyes and crack them open. ‘To me it feels like the morning after someone scrunched me through a turbine. You look better than last time I saw you. How’s the throat?’
He pushes a plate on my lap. I see a large black stain on the side of his neck. The suture is awfully red and black but not swollen anymore.
‘You don’t look like you should be walking around,’ I tell him.
‘I’m okay. You are not, though. You suffered from severe hypothermia and exhaustion. You have a bad concussion. And you…lost two toes of your left foot.’
What an inventory. The information doesn’t really lodge in my brain just yet. ‘Did the dogs chew them off?’
‘No, frostbite. They’ve been amputated.’
‘Um. You warned me when we first met. So…’ Two toes. Shit. I’m the eight-toed Micka. I test-wiggle whatever remains on my left foot, but it hurts too much, so I stop.
He sees my gaze stuck to the bandaged limb. ‘The two smallest toes. The big toe is important for balance, the small ones not as much. You’ll be fine.’
‘Ah,’ is all I can say. Just one more scar.
The scents wafting off the food on my lap make my mouth water. I reach out and grab a slice of warm bread, spread butter on it, and put ham on top. Chewing hurts my head, though. ‘Why do I have a concussion?’
‘Your skull had an argument with the butt of a rifle.’
I dimly remember the dark thing that came flying before I blacked out.
‘You tried to shoot the dogs, so Katvar hit you on the head.’
‘Why would anyone befriend dogs? And who’s Katvar?’
‘He’s kept an eye on you in the past three days. Both eyes, actually. I told him to take a nap. The people here keep dogs to protect the village against wild dogs, and to pull sleds or carts.’
‘Crazy. Oh, but…’ The food in my mouth suddenly tastes stale. ‘How can they survive in the lowlands?’
‘They are nomads, sort of. They live here in winter and move up in the mountains when the snow melts.’
‘Hum.’ I finish my sandwich. ‘By the way, that guy, what’s his name, creeps me out. Never seen anyone so…sulky.’ I laugh. What an understatement.
‘He protected his dogs.’ Runner’s voice sounds wobbly. I look up at him. He looks tired and pale, as if he’s about to pass out. I offer him my food, but he declines. ‘I thought you were hungry?’
‘No. No, I…I’ll lie down for a moment.’
He shuffles from the room. He can barely walk upright. That was a close shave, closer than I’d thought. For him, at least. I stare at my food. My appetite is gone.
I wake up to the man, Katvar, sitting on his stool again. He pushes his cap farther up when he sees that I’m awake. The white dog lies panting by his feet. I wish I had my hunting knife.
‘Hey,’ I say. He pulls his silent staring thing. ‘Thanks for hitting me on the head.’ Wow, I had no idea his expression could turn even fiercer. ‘So, you’re too noble to speak with lowlifes. Why don’t you just piss off?’
He stands and shows me his middle finger when he leaves the room. I send a loud, ‘And don’t come back!’ along. The dog rises with a grunt and follows him, tail going left and right in synchrony with his butt, claws clacking on the wooden floor.
A pile of clean clothes sits on a small drawer next to my bed. I put them on, gingerly inserting my bandaged foot into the left leg of my pants, or whoever’s pants. I decide to ignore my chopped-off toes as long as possible. At the moment, I can’t stomach yet another wound. There’s a crutch next to the door. Someone must have had fun imagining me hobbling over to get it and probably falling and bonking my head again.
I stand and give it a try. When I put my weight on my heel only, I’m okay, as long as I ignore the pain. I reach the crutch, grab it, pin it under my left arm, and explore the house. It’s oddly quiet. My pad (wool sock), plop (bandaged foot), pad plop sound through the hallway. Quiet clinking pulls me to the right and I spot the kitchen with Runner sitting at a table that looks like someone carved it from a single piece of mighty trunk. He’s staring into a mug filled with what smells like coffee. A half-eaten slice of bread lies on the plate in front of him.
‘Good morning,’ he says when I step in.
‘Hey.’
‘You look better.’
‘You, too. What’s that black stuff on your neck?’ I ask, and sit down across from him.
‘Shale oil. The people here use it for medical purposes. They treat infected wounds with it. I analysed it and found it contains a lot of sulphonates.’
Sulphothings. I wonder if I ever heard that word in chemistry class, but I come up blank.
‘Sulphonates kill bacteria.’
‘Where did you get this from?’ I point at his plate. ‘And where is everybody?’
‘Behind you on the counter, in the cupboard, on that shelf.’ He waves. ‘To answer your last question: outside, sled-dog training. And before you ask: no, I didn’t father any children in this village.’
That pulls me up short. ‘I wasn’t…what’s wrong?’
‘You nearly died,’ he says quietly.
Way too serious a topic. I get up and search for edible things. ‘Two toes, Runner. That’s all.’
I put a loaf of bread, a knife, butter, and jam on the table. ‘Where are the cups?’ I ask, and he points. I spot a thermos, open it, and sniff. Barley coffee. Wonderful!
‘It will not get easier, Micka,’ he says when I sit down. ‘I made a grave mistake. I planned for us to run into a pack of wild dogs, planned to send you away, make it look as if I sacrificed myself. I wanted to see how you would react, how you assess danger, and what decisions you make. I wanted you to question my stupid decision. But…I didn’t anticipate this. More than sixty dogs! I’ve never seen a pack that large. Ten to fifteen dogs are the norm. Easy enough to scare off with a rifle. I have no idea how a pack of this size feeds itself. The people here believe that several packs merged temporarily.’ He shakes his head and rubs his face, as if to wipe a thought away.
‘When I saw them, I knew our chances were slim. So I sent you away in earnest. And you did question my decision then and I could have…I could have killed you for it.’ He curls his hands to fists. ‘I meant business when I pointed the gun at you.’
‘Okay.’ I don’t look up. I pretend to be busy spreading butter on my sandwich.
A hand stops mine on the way to the jam. ‘Thank you, for saving my life and risking your own.’
I gulp. ‘Yeah…umm…welcome.’
‘It has been five months,’ he says.
My stomach makes a lurch. I quickly take a large bite of my breakfast, so I don’t say anything stupid.
‘Your probation is over. You’re ready for an apprenticeship, should you still want it. Considering…’ He points at my left foot.
‘Two toes.’ I mumble. Then, I’m just chewing, wide-eyed and stupid-looking, most likely.
‘You are a good shot, Micka.’ He looks up and I see something working behind his eyes. As if the fact that I can aim decent enough is significant to whatever plan he’s brewing up.
‘You ordered only one rifle so your sacrificing yourself would look better?’
He nods.
‘Will you keep playing these games during my apprenticeship?’
‘No.’ He draws his eyebrows down. ‘Remember that you cannot contact your friends and family from the moment you enter apprenticeship.’
‘I know.’ And I couldn’t care less. Although… ‘I should send a message to my parents, so they don’t think I died.’
He lowers his head. ‘Write a letter, and the new Sequencer in your area will take it to your parents for you.’
The penny drops. He came just for me. ‘Why…how do you choose apprentices?’
‘Lock the door, please.’
I get up and lock it. Once I’m back on my chair, he begins. ‘Two years before the old Sequencer was to be replaced, he made the suggestion to test you.’
‘Why was he replaced?’
‘He asked to be retired.’
‘Ah. Yeah. He must be something like seventy or eighty years old now.’
Runner laughs and says, ‘He fell in love with a woman. They wanted to stop traveling and have children. So he asked for relief. He is not that old. Only sixty-two.’
‘But why did he suggest me?’
‘What do you think?’
I shrug. ‘First, I thought you were having a good laugh.’ I don’t tell him that I believed he was a pervert who dragged girls away from their parents and buried them in the woods. ‘But now it feels…real. I have no idea what to make of it. Everyone else was good at school. Why did you not choose any of them? Why the…’ I was about to say ‘village idiot,’ but somehow I don’t feel like this anymore. The special treatment by Runner has already changed me.
He looks at me with those intense black eyes and I’m about to wilt. ‘We choose highly creative, intelligent, independent, and sensitive people.’
No idea who he’s talking about. I snort, but he continues calmly. ‘We are not interested in the authority-obeying, adapted mass. We are not interested in people who strive for a goal that aids only them. We want the dreamers, the people who think differently, who doubt themselves and others constantly. We want the ones who fail, fall, stand up, and try again. The ones who put puzzle pieces together in a way others can’t. The ones who see the large picture, who see the world and the humanity within, and not just their own small bubble of reality. We need the ones who can put anger, fear, and hate aside and analyse data independently of their own wants and needs. We want the excellent observers, the ones who are so sensitive to their surroundings, to the mass of normal people with all the ignorance they spread, that it destroys them. And of these few, we choose only the ones who never externalise their frustration. Never the ones who torture others — the weaker, the smaller, or animals in their care. We almost always choose the ones who take it out on themselves.’
He bends over the table and tips his fingers to my chest. My scars begin to hum.
‘I want to see yours,’ I whisper.
‘I didn’t cut myself. I tried to drown myself, three and a half times. Unsuccessful, though. I was a coward, I guess.’ He offers a tilted smile.
‘I’m glad you were.’
‘May I see yours?’ he asks and I begin to tremble. My gaze flicks here and there. ‘Micka, all I said is I wish I could see them, not that you have to show me.’
I pull up my sleeve. Of the ones I inflicted, this is the scar that counts the most. He looks at the small 1/2986, puts a fingertip there, and asks, ‘What happened?’
‘I…’ My throat shuts down. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to show it to him. I cough to get my words out. ‘One day, Father whipped my brother so hard he soiled himself. For years afterwards, I dreamed of it every night. When I learned about the Great Pandemic in school, I cut the 1/2986 into my arm, because I found it unfair that ten billion people had to die, but my father was alive to terrorise us. I was little. I didn’t understand a thing.’
‘Your brother?’ he asks and I shake my head. I’m not ready to talk about him.
‘Did the dreams stop?’
I nod, thinking of Father and his idiotic passion for the military. He loved great-grandfather’s antique army belt. He loved talking about a soldier’s discipline, although there have been neither armies nor soldiers since the day he stopped pooping his diapers. I can’t remember what my brother had done or how often the leather hit his bare behind. But I clearly remember the diarrhoea that leaked from there. I remember that clearer than the screaming and the slap of leather on skin.
Runner withdraws his hand. ‘Think about this apprenticeship, Micka. Think hard. Think of the day you cut this into your skin. Much harder days will be coming, should you choose to be my apprentice. Think of the day you dragged me across the snow and you wished I was dead and you could go on.’
How can he know I thought that?
He leans closer. ‘Think of your darkest memory. And know that what is coming will be unimaginably worse. All your days. Every night. You’ll hate me for it. You’ll hate me as much as you can hate. I promise you that.’
He doesn’t know my darkest memory. It can’t get any darker than that.