Miranda

It was an easy decision to follow Hannah and Kevin as they embarked upon leaving Prospera. We were choosing freedom, to be ourselves and to live our lives without them being directed all along the way by Prospera. The five days that Lisa and I had spent without being physically intimate had been torture. When I grabbed her by the hand to bring her along with me was the first time that I had touched her without worrying about anybody watching us and how they might interpret the physical contact between us. That night, running through the orchard behind Kevin and Miranda, I felt the freedom that awaited us once we left Prospera.

After exiting the apple orchard we ran around behind one of the sheds that housed the apple juice storage tanks. There Kevin told us that the spot where he had been sneaking in and out of Prospera was in the short valley that led to the cabins where we went for the camping trips and that we wouldn’t be getting there by taking the road, we’d be darting through the processing plants where fruit was made into juice and the warehouses where it was stored to avoid detection.

Upon reaching the valley we followed Kevin through a dense layer of spruce trees on the left hand side of the path to the rock face of the mountain. The three of us stood back and watched as Kevin began his ascent of the rock face. The gradient and surface of the rock face were favourable for climbing, the slope was manageable and the rock was craggy like it was at the sea cliffs; grip was not going to be a problem. Above this first section of the rock face was a ledge, above which was a second section of rock face that we needed to climb to get to a second ledge from where, Kevin informed us, we would be able to all but walk to the top of the mountain. Kevin flew up the rock face to the first ledge and as you would expect Hannah was the first to follow Kevin in undertaking the climb, fearlessly grabbing onto the rock face and climbing up toward the ledge where Kevin was waiting for us. She made it up to him without any problems; not once did a hand or a foot of hers miss a mark or slip from where she’d placed it. Lisa insisted that I go next; she wanted to remain at the bottom to be in a position to catch me should I fall.

I approached the rock face nervously; my placement of my hands and feet on the protrusions and in the notches that Kevin and Hannah had used to climb up was unsure and I returned to the ground a few times before committing myself to making it all the way up. I made my way up slowly, scared of falling but determined not to disappoint the others. Hannah and Kevin both reached down and helped to pull me up when I was near the ledge, leaving Lisa as the last one to scale the first section of the climb up the mountain. Just like Kevin and Hannah she was fearless and confident and ascended the rock face in what seemed like less time that what Kevin had done it in. You wouldn’t know it from looking at her but Lisa was actually very athletic, in strength and endurance she was a match for people like Kevin who had a much more imposing frame. We scaled the second section of rock face in the same order in which we’d scaled the first and were able to make it to the second ledge without any problems. Getting from the second ledge to where Kevin said we’d be able to walk to the top of the mountain from was the most dangerous part of the climb. To get to it we had to first get to a third, narrower ledge that was ahead of us and slightly above us. Reaching the ledge required us to place our left foot on a protruding piece of rock, leap to the ledge and quickly place one of our hands into a notch in the rock face to secure ourselves. Kevin went first; both to demonstrate how to do it and to be there to grab and secure whichever one of us needed assistance. Hannah went next. She didn’t need Kevin’s help getting up to the ledge but she did need his help to get around him so that Kevin could remain at the edge in case Lisa and I needed his help. I went after Hannah, and like when I’d started climbing the rock face I was apprehensive and my movements lacked confidence. My left leg was shaky as I placed it on the rock protrusion and my right leg, which I was to leap with, was even shakier. The second I made the jump, I knew I’d done it wrong. I hadn’t pushed off the protrusion with enough force and I could feel, as I was travelling through the air, that my trajectory was all wrong. Sensing impending disaster, my mind went blank. When I came too a moment later I had no firm ground beneath my feet; Kevin was holding onto my arm, and Hannah was shouting words at me that, in my paralyzed state, I couldn’t hear.

“YOUR HAND! GIVE ME YOUR HAND!” I eventually heard her saying to me.

I did, and the two of them pulled me to safety. Kevin and Hannah had looks of enormous relief on their faces when I was safely on the ledge next to them. Below us, Lisa was in tears and covering her mouth with her hands; my perilously close brush with danger had been nerve-wracking for her to watch. There not being any time for us to dwell on anything, Lisa quickly composed herself and perfectly executed her jump up to the ledge. The ledge led to a crevice in the mountain, the gradient of which was gentle enough for us to walk the rest of the way to the top of the mountain.

From the top of Guardian Mountain we were afforded a view of Prospera that was truly breathtaking. All of the streets were lit by the lanterns, revealing the perfect concentric circles in which the four residential areas were arranged in the middle of which was the conically shaped schoolhouse. With the illumination from the full moon we were able to clearly see the entire village: from the bucolic beauty of the pastures where the livestock grazed, the orchards and the grain fields to the architectural splendour of the Central Administrations Building, the library and the schoolhouse; from the engineering marvel of the mill turning under the power of the waterfall to the waves of the iridescent ocean striking the pristine white sands of the beach; Prospera was undeniably a magnificent place, as an accomplishment it was something to be immensely proud of.

There was a moment, standing up there and looking down on the splendour of the only home we’d ever known, that I wondered if we were doing the right thing. What were the chances of us ending up in a place that was as safe and comfortable to live in as Prospera? There was every possibility that we were making a huge mistake, and the more I looked down on the outward perfection of Prospera lit brilliantly by the moon the more I doubted the decision to leave that, only minutes earlier, I was fervently in agreement with. The touch of Miranda’s hand as she slipped it into mine and firmly took hold of it relieved me of these doubts by reminding me of why I’d been so eager to join Kevin and Hannah in leaving Prospera.

“Come on,” she whispered to me, pulling me gently by my hand.

I turned my back on Prospera expecting never to see it again and walked in the direction Kevin was leading us. It was time to climb down the mountain and enter the forest.

Lisa

I knew after one day of not sharing any physical intimacy with Miranda that my love for her was real and that my jealousy over Darren and Penny’s closeness was nothing more than mere pettiness. The five days we spent effectively separated from each other were interminable. All I could think of every second was Miranda; how much I missed her touch, how long it would be before I felt it again. These thoughts grew increasingly torturous as the days went by and were threatening to consume me until we got the news about Kevin and being there for Hannah became our only concern.

From the moment I heard about Kevin’s disappearance I had no doubt that he was fine and that he was probably in hiding someplace where he could plot a way forward, nor did I have any doubt that what happened to him was not an accident. I was pleased to discover that Hannah felt the same way. The calm and composure that she displayed following her initial breakdown upon receiving the news of Kevin’s disappearance was quite remarkable. It was thanks to her excellent suggestions that we were able to put together a comprehensive collection of supplies to aid Kevin. It came as no surprise to me to hear Hannah say to Kevin that she wanted to leave with him; she loved him and as such it was impossible for her to forgive Prospera for trying to kill him. The big shock was Miranda stepping forward and saying that she wanted to go too. I knew that she had changed but I had no idea that she had changed so much that she would want to leave Prospera. I agreed completely with all of her reasons for wanting to leave Prospera; my hesitance in agreeing to go with her was the result of the shock that I was in from hearing her say so confidently that she wanted to leave, not of any misgivings I had about leaving Darren or Prospera behind.

That night I was easily the most anxious one in our group. Watching Miranda imperil herself by climbing up the side of a mountain put every one of my nerves on edge; watching her jump for the final high ledge and miss and almost fall was more than I could handle. When we were all safely on the third ledge my nerves were able to settle down; the climb up the final part of the mountain was easy and so was the climb down from the top. The part of the mountain that Kevin led us to was one that had suffered an enormous amount of damage. Huge amounts of rock had broken off in what appeared to have been a massive rock slide; to get down to the bottom all we had to do was step from boulder to boulder; we descended to the ground in a fraction of the time it took us to climb up the other side.

“Stay close to me, the forest gets darker the deeper in we go, even with the moonlight we’re going to struggle to see,” Kevin said to us before we entered the forest.

“We packed a lantern and a small bottle of oil in the bag, we can use it to light our way forward,” Hannah responded to him.

Using the hatchet and the piece of flint, Kevin lit the lantern and led us into the forest. I’d be lying if I said I had complete faith in Kevin and wasn’t at all afraid. Unlike the last time we’d ventured into forest, when our greatest fear was getting caught and the consequences that might entail, my fears this time were of the unknown into which we were proceeding. The forest around us was eerily still and quiet, the only sounds we could hear were our footsteps and our breathing. Kevin had not encountered any dangers during the five days that he’d been living in and moving around the forest but maybe he’d just been lucky, maybe there was danger lurking farther in the forest than he’d been. Should we encounter any danger the only means we’d have for defending ourselves was the hatchet and knife that we’d brought along with us, which, as weapons, were not very reassuring. Fortunately that night we didn’t encounter any dangers, the walk to the cave where Kevin had been sleeping was long and entirely uneventful. We arrived there physically depleted from the journey and wanting only to get some sleep. The floor of the cave was smooth and the two blankets that we’d packed were thick, enough to provide us with a reasonable amount of comfort to bed down on with our thick winter robes providing us with the warmth we needed. Miranda and I would be sharing a blanket and thought that Hannah and Kevin would be doing the same. Hannah asked Kevin if he’d like to share the other blanket with her, but he declined.

“You get a comfortable rest, you’re going to need it, tomorrow we’re going to be walking all day,” he said to her.

There was no time for us to dwell on what Kevin’s decision not to sleep next to Hannah meant for them; we were so tired that almost the second we bedded down we were asleep.