When It's Time to Move On

Door 2 - Chapter 22 - Faith

Harris and Jake had exceeded their plan of stay by several days by now. It had taken longer for Harris's wound to heal. The days went by without incident and the two of them had learned much about each other.

"What are you doing?" Jake had asked a few days previously, having walked in with Harris's head bowed down.

"Praying," he replied.

"After all you've seen, what we've had to do, you still believe in it?"

"Why wouldn't I? We're still here, I've been feeling much better and our food problems have been resolved as well. It's not just luck, you know?"

"You think it's God?"

"I know it is." Harris had replied unambiguously. Jake seemed visibly taken aback by the definitiveness in Harris's voice. He didn't any further questions on the matter but was clearly wary of it. On occasion, he would question numerous queries hoping to catch Harris off guard.

"So why do you think God's looking down on us? In a place as this especially, surely you don't think he's here."

"This is the place I'd say he's been in the most. We were down and out, and somehow manage to stumble upon an abandoned shanty town?" Harris asked back to make his point clear. "Somewhere the invaders will definitely not look for anyone, and how do you explain all these crops sprouting? Nobody knew about them, it's like a godsend, wouldn't you say?"

"Fine, you got me there." Jake conceded after a pause. "But what about the rest of the city, what did they do to deserve this?"

"Beats me."

"See? Even you can't justify it."

"I'm a person with faith, not a person with answers," Harris told him clearly. Again, due to the sheer meaning in his words, Jake seemed taken aback.

During the time when they weren't busy tending to the crops or preparing food, the two of them would spend those moments surveying the city skyline. The majority of the time, it would be ablaze in one part or another, but a pattern could be discerned.

"It always starts out from the left," Harris observed. "Then ends up to the far right. But notice that it's never in the center of the city."

"Yeah, those bastards changed their plan of action," Jake said with a noticeable ferocity in his tone. "It's not going well for them, though."

"How do you figure that?"

"I was their go-to guy once, remember?" Jake replied with more disdain. "The plan of action used to be from the center. It means they don't have control over there anymore."

"It also means the central boulevard is protected as we thought."

"Must reaffirm your faith even further, huh?"

"I never said that," said Harris, looking Jake pointedly who merely shrugged. But there was a noticeable grin on him that he tried to mask.

"It's not that I don't respect your concept of faith." He replied thoughtfully a little later. "But I just don't see myself placing my faith in some entity that hasn't proven itself to me."

"Fair enough, but as far as I think, it goes both ways," replied Harris, thinking himself, "How could you put their trust in something when they don't trust yourself?"

"You don't usually answer, you know." Jake turned to him sharply, definitely smirking now. "Just make me figure it out by asking a question of your own."

Harris's thoughts returned vividly to the station, standing under the glass ceiling in the night sky looking up at the orb of light.

The central boulevard was miles in and it would take several days to get there on foot. After their experience with the bandits, Harris's own faith wasn't much when it came to hitchhikers, which meant hitching a ride was out of the question.