The rock is smooth against Noia’s palms and the cool surface is a relief when she is soon panting. There is less dust and debris around the chamber than she expects – even less than when she volunteered to lay down here so long ago. Something tickles the right side of her jaw and she reaches up to discover an earring shaped as a slanted Z.

“Z” for what?

She presses her warm calves against the stones for a break. When she starts towards the light again her bare feet scuff against something prickly. Noia jumps back. She squints down, ears straining for movement.

A frayed rope trails out from under a pile of rocks. She shoves aside the coverage with a foot to reveal a faded rucksack in a clear bag. The bag has been chewed through by scavengers and through there are shiny wrappers scattered across the floor there are no longer any crumbs. Long gone critters had also pulled some of the supplies out of the bag and the materials succumbed to time; the cloth of the rucksack is thinned like her robes and there is rust crawling across the metal gear. A logo on the rucksack catches her attention: a lightning bolt and a tree. It is familiar. She recalls someone’s words from the edges of a half remembered dream:

What about a bolt of lightning striking a tree – or the ground near it? We should make the tree bright green, thriving with energy. That’s all lightning is after all, right, Noia? Energy. We all need it in various forms to live. Food, water, flesh, amrita…

Noia frowns and bites the inside of her lip. What is this? Who managed to find her hiding spot and leave supplies?

It is the deep terribly wrong feeling that drives her past the mysterious supplies. She gets down on her hands and knees to advance through the narrow exit from the chamber. Her skin tingles with warmth on the way and she examines the surrounding area for traps.

Nothing.

Beyond the narrow opening the rock under her feet is rougher and there is debris and a layer of fine rock dust. It is brighter and the way the shadows slant would obscure the entrance to her hiding place no matter the time of day.

Eventually Noia finds herself crouching at the entrance of a mountain cave. Wind gusts by and the afternoon light is heavily filtered through storm clouds that drift overhead. A ledge leads out of the entrance to one side but it is too narrow for support. Below her is a sheer drop of red and brown stone. There is an outcropping only a few body lengths overhead but there is nowhere with purchase to climb. A tree stretches out overhead across the long drop. If only she had a length of rope to toss over the trunk–

The rope… Noia turns back into the cave and wriggles through the hidden entrance. Perhaps if she can make a loop on one end she could anchor a foot in it, sling the other end over the tree trunk, and somehow find the strength to haul herself onto the ledge. She extracts the rope from the rucksack–

Oh, you’re as useless as a catapult in a bullock pen, Noia laments when she discovers critters have chewed the rope into too-short sections. She searches the rucksack for anything else useful.

Nothing. If only the clear bag had stayed intact.

Sighing, Noia stuffs the disintegrated supplies back into the rucksack and drags it to the entrance. She pushes her hair back against a gust of wind and hefts the load experimentally then swings it.

One, two, three!

On the third swing she releases it, sling-shooting it overhead.

It clangs back down by her feet. Noia clenches her fists in frustration and snatches up the shoulder straps again. She cannot remember the last time she felt so weak, her muscles so atrophied.

Five more tries finally lands the rucksack over the ledge with the scattering clatter of empty containers. One of the still full cans clangs down a curve of rock, bounces, bangs her in the shoulder, then flies by over the edge.

“Ow!”

Noia examines the smarting skin and finds dried blood on the robe over her shoulder, blackened with age. She touches the fabric and gasps.

Bloody fingers clutch her shoulders – but they are without weight. They are phantoms from a memory or a dream, she cannot tell which. The owner of the fingers shake her and a voice muffled by time and sleep yell at her in first angry then pleading tones.

“Is someone down there?”

Noia jerks herself back to the present. A part of her cringes at the voice overhead, thinking it may be an old foe after what she was guarding –

I was guarding something…the location of…what was it? She struggles against the cobwebs of long sleep. How many decades had she been deaf to the world?

She could worry about fending off opportunistic foes later. First she needed to get onto the overhang. “Here!” Noia calls. It comes out as a croak and she tries again. “I’m down here!”

“Hellfire, what a mess.” There is a clatter and then a woman leans her torso over the edge at an angle to where Noia stands waiting.

The hair on either side of the woman’s head is close shaven and black but at the top of her natural hairline is a shock of red hair reaching back towards her crown in a column. There is a gold piercing in her right nostril and multiple gold rings piercing her ears.

“How did you get down there?”

“I…can’t remember.” It is not a lie. Not yet.

“Where’s the rest of your hiking party? You guys aren’t supposed to go this far into the preserve.”

“Hiking party?”

The woman purses her lips and unzips the collar of a dark blue jacket. “You think if I toss you a counterweighted harness you can haul yourself up?”

Noia looks down at her hands and flexes them. “I don’t know.”

Another dream-memory surfaces.

If I help you to sleep do you think it will stay safe? You are the only one who knows where it is and keeping it out of proximity is best.

If it is disturbed I will wake?

Yes.

Will I remember enough?

I think so.

Will I remember you?

…I will remember you. Noia? What’s wrong?

I don’t know.

“What’s that?”

Noia raises her head and repeats herself, “I don’t know.”

“Hold on.”

The woman disappears and Noia listens to her shuffling around. There is the sharp clink of metal, the dull smack of wood, and the low hiss of knotting rope. Then, a harness attached to a length of rope is tossed over the fork in the tree’s trunk and lowered to Noia.

“Strap it on and tug when you are ready.”

Noia tries twice before catching the dangling harness and examines it. She has never seen anything like it. Was this loop for her arm? Did she stand on this band?

“You know, take much longer and we’ll definitely get a soaking. ‘Course, from the look of you, you might need it.”

Noia glares at the edge of rock above her. Upon turning the harness a few times it finally looked like a seat and Noia steps into then lifts it experimentally. One more yank to test its support and she tugs on the rope. The woman hoists her several spans at a time, barely grunting with the effort. Noia keeps one hand on the bright rope and uses the other along with her feet to brace and help pull herself up. When she can finally see over the edge the movement stops. The woman anchors the end of the rope beyond her line of sight and, kneeling, offers a hand to Noia. Noia looks at the hand, up to the woman’s green eyes, then back at the hand before grasping it. Together they haul Noia over the edge.

Noia kicks off the harness and lays panting on her back. “Thank you…?”

“Deline. And you?”

“Thank you, Deline. I am Noia.”

Deline answers with a nod and offers her an open container of water. Noia levers up onto one elbow and sips the cool liquid. At first she tracks Deline in her peripherals but she only pulls a hand-sized rectangular item from her rucksack and offers it to Noia. Noia recognizes the oddly reflective material from what was scattered on her cave chamber floor and exchanges the water for it. After a short examination she rips the corner and takes a bite. The sound she makes next is of appreciation; the bar is a combination of grain, honey, raisins, and a creamy substance.

While Noia sits in silence Deline packs away the harness and rope in her rucksack.

“So,” Deline says, “where did you come from?”

What does Noia say? Follow the link below to select what you think Noia should do!