Chapter 35: Chapter 35: The Stray Girl

"How much further?” Clementine could feel her voice float out of her mouth, suspended briefly in the frost-laden mist, before disappearing into a white vapor. Surrounded by the dull sound of nothingness, snow drifts in shades of white damping her every word. Nothing but the biting crunch of crushed snow at her feet as they walk.

“I said, how much further?,” she repeat. She grow irritated at the silence. Hated it even. They had been at it now all morning. This interminable adventure her companions had described as “a little winter jaunt.” Each step up the mountain now seemed a ferocious battle with gravity.

"The journey will end before you know it." 

These were the words Hiro speaks before the trip. The promise of hot cocoa, and a view that would take your breath away. But his words now hang hollow in the air, empty in the mist of her mind. Promise? How can you promise such things? The path is strewn with icy patches and craggy rocks, upward and still again upward. Gravity has begun to take its toll on her, and she feels the heaviness in her legs. Every step now seema an endeavour. She regrets now wanting to pack so much into her backpack. Like the promise, it too weighs heavily on her.

"Can’t we stop just a moment?,” she asks, knowing full well the answer. They dare not take too long a delay at any point, for the journey would take all day. To stop too long would make the journey more difficult, as the late afternoon would be retreating to their backs. Then it would be dusk, and the path would become more icy, more difficult to make out in the freshly-fallen snow.

She begins to think to herself how cozy it would have been to simply have stayed indoor. There would be a warm cozy fire, a blanket on the mattress, maybe a hot cup of tea with three marshmallows, her favourite. She would sit and gaze at the warmth of the blaze, orange tongues flicking up from the fireplace and disappearing into the chute above. Why did she agree to go again? There was the promise of a view, one magnificent and grand, beyond description, she was told. Is it worth all this trudging? Is it worth the strain in her legs, the dry perspiration on her neck, the cold wind biting at her nose? She wonders why she obeys this man's desire readily.

They pass a thicket of trees, all trunks and branches, their leaves all but a memory from the previous fall. Naked and cold, they seems to shiver in the wintry breeze. She looks up at them for a moment, remembering to steady her boots on the icy patch beneath her. They are beautiful in their own way. It is as if each branch of each tree had chosen it’s own path to the sky. And as they made their way to catch the sun, they meet in a little dance of thicket above. She spots a nest and stops suddenly. It is small and compact, made of twigs and covered in snowflakes. Maybe a robin or a lark, she wonders. They are cold too, she suppose.

Looking upward, she takes a few steps back, and suddenly the snow gives way beneath her. She find herself tumbling down a slope, her backpack jostling, her arms flailing to protect herself from the fall. Try as she might, she could not stop the sliding. The snow dampens more than the sound. She feela herself falling in slow motion, like a rolling stone turning into a snowball. With an abrupt thud, she skid to a stop at the bottom.

Disoriented, she quickly realizes that she isn’t hurt. She picks herself up and begins brushing herself off. Above her, she could see she had fallen maybe 50 or 100 meters into a slim ravine. Her blue backpack lay in front of her. She wears only one mitten. The other had deserted her.

"Hey!,” she called out loudly. “Hey there! I fell down! I’m okay, but I don’t know where you are! Do you hear me?” For a moment, she pictures herself in this frosty aloneness. A wave of panic goes through her. “Hey!.” She repeats. “I’m here! Do you hear me? Where are you?”

She feels the heavy silence. Then she could hear only her heart. It beat like horse hoofs in a stampede.

"We see you!,” she hears Kurotsuchi's voice faintly. “Don’t panic! It’s okay!”

"Where are you?,” Clementine shouts. Though Kurotsuchi's voice is reassuring, Clementine begins to feel abandoned. “I can’t see you!”

"See you!” this time Ivanna replies in a faint echo. It startles her for a moment.

“Listen, we can see you and you’re fine!,” the man, Hero bellows faintly. “You just need to keep walking straight ahead!” Hiro commands. As usual, no matter how illogical and irrational his words are, Clementine whole-heartedly adheres. She always wonders why.

"What? What do you mean?!” Arguing his words is really killing her. Every time, she doubts his words, something pierces her heart, it's very sad and painful.

“The gorge you fell into meets up with the trail up ahead. Three, maybe 1,000 meters or 2,000 meters. Just keep walking!,” He encourages.

His words freezes her. 1,000  or 2,000 meters. To call her an adventure novice is generous. She doesn’t know the area, doesn’t know the first thing about being in a forest, much less in the dead of winter. But she doesn’t want her doubt to betray Hiro's words that she is beginning to feel. “Why can’t you come down here with me?!" Clementine shouts.

There’s no way down! Except for falling, I guess!” Sekrit's voice echoes. 

“But I can’t see where you are?!”

“Don’t worry! We can see you! Just stay in the clearing, and walk straight ahead.” Hiro consoles her which makes her heart calms down.

Clementine stands there silently for a moment. She begins to feel sorry for herself and angry at herself at the same time. 

"I don’t want to be here!,” she blurted. “I want to go home! Do you hear me? I want to go home!” 

"You no longer have home, you silly barbaric girl!" Sekrit barks at her from distance.

There is a momentary quiet after Sekrit, her comrade from Negara condemns her. Then the faint words from above, from the man he obeys unconditionally: “Trust me!”

The words rile her at first. But there is nothing else to do. She brushes the snowflakes from her short blond hair with bob hairstyle. She picks up her backpack and brushes it off as well, then takes a drink from the bottle attached to its side. The icy water goes through her body and gives her a shiver. She takes a deep breath, and waits for the panic to subside within her.

"Okay!,” she yells. “Okay! I’m walking!” And with one final brush of her parka, she begins again.

Step. Step. Step. The crunching of the snow below her boots keeps her company. She looks up occasionally to get her bearings. As she has fallen so far, she realizes that the slope of her path has now increased. She has to take smaller steps to compensate for the steep ascent. Her legs, and her pack, feels heavier now. She has taken her scarf and wraps it around her face to conserve heat, and her breath now warms her cheeks. Every few minutes, she would yell, “Can you still see me?!,” to reassure herself that she is still on the right path.

“Yeah! Keep going!” is the reply. Each "Can you still see me?!" is replied by different person, Hiro, Sekrit, Ivanna, Kurotsuchi and Mirai. 

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Only that girl who was raped by orcs, Sylvia has been silent. What's so special about her?

The man Clementine adores, Hiro is known to sleep with Sylvia after knowing her for a day but Hiro never touches Clementine and even Sekrit. Jealousy suddenly heats up her cold body.

Step. Step. Step. She continues on, determined not to quit. She reminds herself that soon, this would be over. Soon, she would be at the top of the mountain. Soon, she would be inside and warm and toasty. Soon. But something doesn’t feel right. The path has begins sloping downward. She could feel it ease in her legs. And it has veered to the right, skewing away from where she had fallen. She is walking down and away from the mountain. Something is definitely wrong now. Did she stray from the path?

"Hey!,” she bellows. “Hey! Something’s wrong! The path is sloping down now!” She stops abruptly. The panic begins to well inside her again, like a sudden wave on the beach that knocks you off your feet. She listens for her companions, for some assurance. But there is nothing but silence.

"Hey!,” she yells again. “Where are you! Can you hear me?!” Her heart begins to race. “Damn it. Answer me!,” she storms. “Answer me!”

In reply, a deafening stillness. She stands there for a moment, trying to scan the tops of the ravine for any sign of her friend. But there is none. “This isn’t fair,” she mutters quietly to herself. Then she shouts again, loudly as if to the entire world, “This isn’t fair! Where are you! Answer me!”

"…Answer me!,” the ravine echoes her voice plaintively. Then a long silence. It is the silence that hurt the most. She sinks to her knees. And cries cold tears. How many years since the great warrior Clementine last cried? Was it when she her noble family handed her to be raped by someone else, for the sake of strengthening her heart.

The raping scenes flash back on her current memory. She cries like she was eleven years old.

It is as if time has stopped. She discovers herself still on her knees many minutes later. It has begun to snow again, lightly, and specks of white floated like fireflies. Wiping her face, she looks behind her, her eyes tracing the footprints that fell into the distance. Then she turns back to the snowy haze in front of her. She pushes herself off the ground, and stand for a moment. And she begins again.

She trudges for what seema like hours in this silence. A white settling fog now cut her visibility significantly. She couldn’t see beyond the next bend, the next clump of trees, the immediate horizon. She feels so tired, so forsaken. Every step now is simply an act of the will. She doesn’t know if she is going in the right direction. She only knows that the next step is away from where she has just been.

But the path has began again to slope upward which encourages her. And an old lullaby surprisingly has began to play over and over in her head. Subconsciously, she begins to sing to herself quietly. "Here comes the sun, do do do do. Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right." She smiles at the conspicuous irony.

Step. Step. Step. “Little darlin’, it’s been a cold and lonely winter,” she continues, louder now. It is as if she sings in defiance to the silence. “Little darlin’, it seems like years since it’s been clear.”

Then comes a familiar voice singing in the distance. “Here comes the sun!” It stops her in her tracks. “Here comes the sun!,” the voice declares. Up ahead, above the ravine and atop a cliff, is Sekrit. Beside her, Hiro and Kurotsuchi.

Her heart seems to leap out of her parka, and she reaches her hands high to wave. The two girls run down to her now, laughing and singing and skipping down a thin path between trees. When they reach her, they slid to a stop, and Clementine gives them a big hug. “You okay?,” they ask urgently, still panting from the run. “That was quite an adventure, wasn’t it?”

"Where were you guys?,” Clementine asserts accusingly. “I was yelling for you, but you guys weren’t there.”

"We were up above you the whole time, you silly girl,” Sekrit explains, pointing up the mountain. “You couldn’t hear us, cause we were so far away, but we were waving my arms like crazy. You sat there for a long time. Maybe a half hour. We wondered if you were hurt.”

"You could see me? When I was sitting there all alone?”

Kurotsuchi, the white skinned girl with short black hair, smiles;

“You weren’t alone. At least not in that moment. But we were too far away for you to hear us, I guess. Later, after you got up and started walking again, we hiked beyond where you were so we could double back and meet up with you here.” 

The tall Sekrit put her arm around Clementine and they begin walking slowly up the hill. “You sure you’re okay?”

She looks down at her feet. Her boots are scuffed from the rocks and her toes feels like ice. But she is still moving forward, taking one step after another. “Yeah,” she replies. I’m fine.”

Slowly, they made their way up the serpentine tree-lined path, and up to the top of the hill, meeting up with Hiro and the others.

That girl that she can't, Sylvia looks at her blankly. On the other side, Hiro is approaching her worriedly. 

Clementine turns away from Sylvia and jumps towards him.

He embraces her tightly. After a while, he let go of her. Just when that happens, Clementine leaps and her hands embraces him. Her feets are now hanging in the air as she hugs the much taller Hiro. Clementine is around 165 cm and Hiro is 180 cm.

He is open-mouthed when her face is just beneath his face and her straight Greek nose touches his droopy nose.

Now Clementine feels so aroused that she ignores others and kisses him. Her lips and tongue invade his inner mouth, licking everything inside and sucking his tongue. She swears she won't stop this until her hands loose strength.

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