To the Well-Organized Mind

Chapter Twenty-Six

[Nia/Fen]

With all the natural disasters happening, insurance couldn't keep up with the costs to help people rebuild homes, replace cars, bury their loved ones, pay out regular monthly life insurance payments. The cost of produce skyrocketed because drought and heat and cold and hail continued to ruin the crops. Countries began to cease exporting crops that previously had done so because they needed everything for themselves. Other countries in the sea, on the coast completely vanished, their people displaced with no one wanting them, from rising sea levels.

Of course protests started. Of course countries fell into martial law. It was supposed to be temporary, but with feralism on the rise, even military ceased to hold onto civilization. Borders ceased being country lines, even state lines, and instead, the individual line you could protect and be safe within: your world became solely what you could see with your eyes.

The wealthy individuals fled to their bunkers or safe havens they had kept secret from the world and now had huge walls to hide behind. Or else they too fell into feralism and wandered the earth in their rich rags and sunburned, botoxed skin.

-from Ridge's history lessons

***

[Nia]

And that's it—that's my Ridge story everyone has been waiting to hear. I sit in the firelight, cradling my legs to my chest. I would rather be sitting naked in the Barrens or surrounded by ferals; I would feel less exposed than now. But at least if I had to tell one person, it would be my shadow.

Fen is silent, His figure on the opposite side looks pale and exhausted by the shadows from the fire. He has been careful not to move—or so I assume. I don't know how anyone can be that still and not be a wild creature.

Or feral.

"I stayed at the cave a few more days, just to see if he'd return. But when he didn't show, I returned to Asis. I found his collection of vaccines on a later visit to the cave. He had a special place in the cave where he'd stash his valuables. Usually it just held his spices or vegetable seeds or a collection of his writings he'd been working on. But later when I returned—I'm not sure how much later—those items were gone and the case of twenty vaccines was there instead. He must've returned to the cave to make sure I'd find them, along with a note." I stare into the fire, which is burned down to embers. The rippling orange light make the coals seem alive. "He'd had a small stash of vaccines all this time and had never used them. Never. Used them."

Frogs trill and a few determined birds still sing against the darkness, filling the night with a soothing backdrop at odds with my tale. As if the animals are eavesdropping, I whisper, "That's the part I can't fathom or accept. I don't want to accept it. That he willingly chose to turn feral rather than giving himself more time to be sentient and enjoy his life with me."

Fen stirs, and almost unwillingly, he says, "How do you know he didn't have more and left you half or something?"

Scowling, I run my hands up and down my arms even though I'm not cold, this close to the fire. "Don't defend him. His note specifically states that he never used any. Like he was lording it in my face, making sure I realized that point."

"Trust me," Fen replies, "the last thing I intend to do is defend him. Understanding, though, that's my cursed personality."

I don't have any capability of understanding him either. So I rise, stifling a yawn. "Well, if we ever get there, you can read his note to see if it sheds any light for you. But half of it's ripped away." I shrug. "I'll leave that to you to decide what it means." After all, I've wasted more than enough of my life trying to translate what the torn sheet of paper could represent. Maybe Fen will have a new idea.