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MY WALK helped me sort out the thoughts that swam through my head. Walking wasn’t as good as going for a run, which the darkness prevented, but it helped me to calm down. The darkness also kept me from feeling exposed.
Living in one room with three other people behind the Fire Falls was hardly a private experience. It wasn’t like we could shut the door when we needed to bathe or use the latrines. I envied my father for having his own small cave, but I didn’t have a seemingly endless supply of light sticks to start up my own little cave space; and it wasn’t like his cave was exempt from the open-door policy.
The days passed and we made do with what we had, happy to at least have each other.
Ray slowly got better. He began to communicate again, first in nods and headshakes, then with one to two word responses. But the smile behind his eyes was gone. It was as if the Fire Falls had transformed him too, only instead of changing him for the better, the way it had with me and Valcas, the transformation had been for the worse. It made no sense to me.
Then one day everything became clear.
Just a few days after Ray had started speaking in complete sentences again, he offered to help make dinner. That evening we’d attempted to make a large layered dish, like lasagna... if only. I lined up leaves, while Ivory tossed on thick slices of fish. Ray added handfuls of seaweed. We continued to alternate between the fish and seaweed until we had a stack the size of a casserole dish. After wrapping the whole thing in dry leaves, we placed it inside a pile of light sticks that my father activated and left it to bake.
We quietly sat around the light stick “oven” until Ray broke the silence.
“I know how to get out,” he said.
My father, an increasingly ever-present accessory to our team gatherings, narrowed his eyes at Ray. “Out of what?”
“The Falls—we can go back through, and live.”
“What are you saying?” My father’s eyes looked and his voice sounded like they’d been possessed by a wild animal, which worried me. I’d never seen my father be anything but warm and patient with Ray.
Ray breathed in a long, slow breath. “Like our dinner,” he said, “the Falls are layered.”
My father’s face fell, defeated. “We know about the layers, Ray. But the outer layer is made of fire, which is why going back through the Falls is an expedition to our deaths.”
Had my father not sounded so serious, I would have chuckled. He was melodrama personified, not to mention an alien with a serious case of cabin fever.
“No,” Ray said. “There is a way.” He looked off into the distance, as if he were remembering something, watching something inside his mind.
I reached out and grabbed his shoulders. “Did you record something? What did you see inside the Falls?”
“I saw four layers,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I recorded the entire time. I couldn’t turn it off.”
The idea of Ray experiencing the fire layer—all that burning—in excruciating detail made me shudder. Trembling, I said, “Ray, please tell us... if it doesn’t hurt too much. Tell us everything you saw.”
He groaned, and then grabbed his head. Gulping, he said, “I saw it the way I see during travel. The outer layer is pure flame—” An ashen tint covered his face. Sweat beads formed and drizzled down his forehead, as if he were in the fire layer in that moment. He looked physically ill.
Then it hit me—what had happened to Ray and why he’d come through the Fire Falls speechless and shaking. He’d been traumatized, not just once by the experience itself, but by reliving every detail of it in his mind. Repeatedly.
“He’s been replaying his recordings of going through the Falls, over and over, inside his head!” I hissed. “No wonder he’s been so sick!”
Ivory’s lips puckered into a frown. She knelt down next to him and rubbed his back. “Here, drink this,” she said, handing him a leaf of water.
Ray sipped without looking at the leaf, seemingly focused inside his mind, still traveling through the Falls.
“The next layer inside the Falls is the healing balm,” my father prompted.
“No,” replied Ray. “There’s a layer between the fire layer and the balm layer. Only you can’t feel it because you’re covered in flames. All you can feel is the burning. But what I saw—”
Ray gulped, letting the leaf fall to the ground like a leaden feather. “The second layer is the thickest, but offers no relief from the pain. That layer is just air. I could see where the fire layer ended and the air began. I never thought I would make it to the next layer. But I saw the blueness and felt the coolness up ahead, and kept going.”
My father’s eyes hardened. “Are you sure about this?”
Valcas placed his hands on my father’s shoulders. “He’s a Detail Technician, Plaka. He has no reason to be unsure. If you need proof, we could have him record his memories in a pair of travel glasses and play them back.”
My father considered this. Then, nodding, he patted Valcas on the back, and then nudged Ray. “Go on, my boy.”
Ray blinked. “The air layer offers no relief from the pain; it feeds the flames. And then there are the layers of balm and water. Four layers.”
He hunched over, exhausted. His face and shoulders relaxed. He looked like he was finally at peace, as if surrounded by the healing aloes in the balm layer. We sat there staring at one another as we let him rest.
Valcas looked over at my father. “Do you remember the air layer from when you tried to go back through?”
“I do not. I was mad with solitude. I ran through, thinking that if I rushed without stopping, I wouldn’t feel as much pain. I never stayed inside any one layer long enough to inspect it more carefully.” My father looked at Ray with wonder and shook his head. “And here I’ve remained this entire time.”
I frowned. “But you can’t hang out in the air layer forever. Wouldn’t you still need to go through the fire layer to get outside?”
Valcas and Ivory exchanged a glance.
“It’s worth a try,” Ivory said.
“What is?”
Ivory shrugged. “We may not be able to travel outside here in the caves, but maybe we could travel within that air layer.”