Somewhere in the distance a ruffed lemur howled, and the bamboo stirred in the breeze; but I could only watch as my precious brother crumpled heavily to the floor.
I could see Max’s lips moving, but my head was filled with a muffled drone. It had to be at least a minute since Eli were taken by the long arm of a Sweeper, and I could only assume it didn’t have time to scour the undergrowth for us. I couldn’t focus. It felt as though I was underwater again, and everything was distorted. I struggled to breathe, fighting the weight of my own conscious desire to stay under and pain-free. But it was impossible. An image of Eli’s stony-white face surfaced, and grim reality swiftly followed.
Gasping for air, I pressed back against the tree trunk and felt Max’s grip finally relent. I exhaled, and something between a guttural sigh and a racking sob came out. He caught my hand, trying to offer comfort, and at once it was wrong. All wrong. I brought my feet up beneath me and, in one swift movement had spun on the branch to face him, my pain morphing into blazing anger.
‘What the hell do you think you were doing?’ I yelled, not caring if we were overheard, my fists railing down furiously on his head and shoulders.
He pulled away from my attack, and eyed me cautiously as he stepped backwards onto a less stable branch.
‘Doing, Tal? I was doing exactly what Eli asked me to do – protect you!’
The words resonated with his usual unapologetic honesty, only making the situation worse. Fury scorched my lungs, followed swiftly by new steely purpose. I needed to move fast if I was to stand any chance of rescuing my family, assuming any of them were still rescuable. I scrambled up through the tree, needing to get away from his uncertain gaze, aware I’d never looked or felt so feral in my life.
‘Don’t follow me!’ I spat, watching his green eyes narrow with hurt before I leapt onto the accommodating branches of a nearby oak. My years spent running and melting into trees took over instinctively, and it wasn’t long before I’d picked up the Sweeper’s tail. It wasn’t hard to track it, and I knew the route to the Lifedome better than most. I also knew Max would be keeping pace a safe distance behind, but all I could think about was Grandpa and Eli.
I reached the Great Oak on the edge of the forest as dawn was breaking, and halted before the brown dirt stretch that separated my world from theirs. I’d overtaken the Sweeper a while back, and had time to prepare myself.
Across the vast expanse of soil lay the Lifedome, reaching up beyond the colossal security wall, the white metal of the closed roof glinting in the iridescent light. I could never work out whether the security wall was intended to keep the Insiders in, or the Outsiders out. Either way the colossal, imposing structure had always been there – familiar and yet a world apart from the forest in which I’d grown up.
Watching now, its ivory silhouette seemed almost ethereal, but I knew that was just an illusion. There were so many fragmented whispers of what life was like on the inside, and they did little to form a cohesive whole in my mind. The truth was: no one in Arafel had any idea about life on the inside. And how any human being could choose a life shut away from the warm sun and red earth seemed unfathomable. Grandpa had always said my feral nature would lead me into trouble. Well, perhaps that moment had arrived.
The rumble of the Sweeper alerted me it was close and I crouched in my treetop position, assessing my chances. The barren land surrounding the dome was under constant surveillance, and trespassers from the outside were either lasered or ripped apart by the many land mines buried in the area.
We’d lost a number of foragers in the early days to the vaporizing effects of the dome defence systems, a reality Grandpa still found hard. We would have retrieved their bodies, had there been anything left to retrieve, but their loss had taught us one thing at least – the Insiders considered us as game as any of the other animals in the forest.
Judging the Sweeper to be seconds away, I scuttled midway down the tree. There was no thinking to be done. Grandpa and Eli were on board. I shimmied along a branch as far as I dared, ensuring I was concealed by foliage, and made myself wait until the monstrous tank crashed into view.
I was always taken aback by the Insiders’ armoured vehicles. They were solid, and bulbous green, with caterpillar tracks rotating over their entire base. This seemed to enable them to drive even in the roughest forest terrain. There was also a black viewing window, beneath a fringe of laser guns on the roof, and their accuracy left little doubt as to the precision of the onboard scanners. My only chance was to stay high, to time a leap perfectly, and to hope the lasers weren’t capable of turning one hundred and eighty degrees.
As it continued to rumble towards me, I offered a silent prayer and briefly closed my eyes. Eli’s face flickered into focus, and as I prepared to jump, I forced myself to count as he had always made me.
‘… three, four, five.’
I touched the Great Oak for the last time before taking a deep breath, and then took the biggest, longest leap of my life. My feet touched down dead centre and I broke my fall with a short tumble. I exhaled with relief as I came to a halt beside one of the large front lasers. The surface was strangely warm, but not uncomfortable, and thankfully the gun seemed uninterested in my arrival. I flattened my body out, aware I could still attract the attention of the surveillance equipment outside the Lifedome. Then, just as the Sweeper exited the perimeter of the forest, there was a heavier thump behind me.
‘Max!’ I whispered through gritted teeth. He must have closed his safe distance at the last minute. His only response was to thrust a large armful of thick, densely covered branches in my direction.
‘Quick, cover yourself with these. With any luck they’ll just assume the Sweeper went through some rough territory and we’ll be camouflaged.’
‘I don’t need you with me,’ I hissed, adrenaline chasing my veins. We were both in real danger now. This wasn’t a village tree-run, and for once his trademark optimism wasn’t enough. I couldn’t forgive him for saving me over Eli.
Whatever else was on the tip of my tongue was lost in a mouthful of sweet-smelling pine needles and downy birch. I inhaled deeply, hugging the foliage to me; it was the scent of home, and as far as I knew I might not be returning any time soon. I blinked hard as the Sweeper rolled forward into full, piercing sunlight. There was a rhythmic, painful thump against the inside of my ribcage and I swallowed to ease the sudden pressure in my ears, willing Max not to feel my fear.
Fragments of every nightmarish story I’d ever heard about the Inside rattled through my mind. I tried to ignore them, reasoning there was no way any of them could be factual, especially as none of us had ever been inside before; but still they continued like debris caught in a storm. And then the questions. Would we be spotted? Would I struggle to breathe? Was height just the beginning of the differences between us? Was there time to save Grandpa and Eli? Nausea scorched my throat as the questions continued, leaving me dazed and breathless, until rough, warm fingers reached beneath the sweet-scented foliage to squeeze mine. I returned the pressure and was instantly beset with a wave of guilt and resentment. What comfort did I deserve? I’d stood by and done nothing to defend my family when they most needed me.
I pulled my hand away. Despite our shared predicament, a new wall had grown up between Max and I that would take more than a Sweeper ride into the unknown to remove.
We slipped into shadow as we approached the giant Lifedome structure. I lifted my head to peer through the branches and, for a second, my courage deserted me. We’d bypassed the security wall, and were now travelling parallel with the Lifedome itself. Apart from being gargantuan, it was the most unnatural building I’d ever set eyes on.
The Sweeper followed the curve of the