BULAN OPENED THEIR EYES slowly.
The air was clear.
A few sand particles were drifting down, pattering like raindrops on the wagon tops, but the wind had died out completely.
The desert was as bare as it had been before this morning.
Not a deadwalker was in sight.
They looked around, blinking rapidly to make they weren’t imagining it. It had been a long time since Bulan had chewed gajjna; they had been in Vanjhani military school, much younger, much more foolish, and much more willing to experiment. They wanted to be sure this wasn’t some kind of drug effect. Or hallucination. Or dream.
But they were alive, awake, alert. Or as alert as they could be after that grueling battle. Tired, exhausted to the point of wanting to drop right to sleep here on the sand, but in their senses.
They turned a full circle, their heavy feet sinking in the soft sand.
The only people left in Bulan’s view were the living.
They saw the other Vanjhani staring back at them, as dazed as Bulan, also trying to make sense of what had happened.
Bulan looked up at the sky.
It was a clean, unbroken slate of aqua again.
Gone was the gaping black hole, or tunnel or funnel or whatever the fuck it had been.
And the deadwalkers had gone with it.
Bulan began to laugh softly.
It started as an involuntary chuckle deep in one of their chests.
Then it built to a laugh.
A choking, gasping laugh that grew louder and louder till it burst from both Bulan’s throats and into the startled air.
People turned to stare at him. Some with hands raising swords and axes and other weapons, their faces still stunned and confused, prepared for anything.
Bulan laughed until the entire circle filled with their booming laughter.
Another Vanjhani joined in, giving in to the manic release.
Then another.
In moments, everyone was laughing along with Bulan, Vanjhani or not.
The encircled wagons echoed with the laughter of the survivors.
Vanjhani clapped hands together, locked embraces, and slapped one another on their backs, laughing merrily.
People hugged and laughed and kissed one another on the cheeks, some directly on the lips.
A few began to dance, hopping and skipping and singing happily.
“We live!” Bulan said to themself, scarcely able to believe it.
Then, as the realization became acceptance, they said it louder:
“WE LIVE!”
Others took up the cry, repeating it, passing it on, in the instant way all messages were passed on in the train, over wagons, from circle to circle, all around the entire Perfect Circle, until it came back again to Bulan moments later, like a delayed echo.
“WE LIVE!”
They celebrated being alive.