She stood on the hill, the vigorous wind slapping hard at her face and down at the fabric of her shirt. Her hair obstructed her view for a fraction of a second before she tucked it behind her ear. No matter how many times she wondered what could’ve possibly made her friend stay in foreign land for that long, Asli never found an answer, and she’d run away and stand on that same hill instead, looking out into the horizon, hoping if not begging, that Sara would be walking back home, lazily slow walking or running as fast as she could.

But that day, like every other time, Asli could see nothing but the burnt trees and hear nothing but the rustle of ashes and the whispers of the wind.

She sighed, giving up, tucked her hair behind her ear again and turned to descend down the hill, but just then, she heard the sound of rhythmic constant tapping, and stood still.

Footsteps.

She turned back so fast she tripped. A silhouette appeared in the distance as she was getting back on her feet. Her heart screamed of hope and possibility, and her eyes strained to focus.

Sure enough, it’s Sara, who else could it be? She was back, bearing some news, may it be good or bad, but she was back nevertheless.

But just like almost all our perceptions, her happiness was short-lived. The silhouette was that of a man, quite a broad tall one, apparently strong, judging from the heap of something she couldn’t make out that he was holding on his shoulders.

She found herself suddenly alert. Scrambling to her feet, she ran down the hill and straight back into the camp, yelling out orders to the protectors of their little colony. 

“An outsider is approaching, take suitable measures. I repeat, an outsider is in the area, take suitable measures to ensure safety.”

The armed 10 or 15 men and women of their little camp rose to their feet and took their position at all possible entrances that the stranger might take.

And they waited.

Asli stood fixed, her shoulders stiff and drawn back in fight mode. God knows who he might be, worse yet, what he might be carrying on his shoulders. For all she knew, he could be one of the spies the Separators send every once in a while to investigate, or in other words, to kill as many rebels as they can.

“He’s here!”

She heard Christopher announce at the top of his lungs.

“Hold him in place, I’m coming.” She ordered, and his silence was the nod of compliance she was all too familiar with.

And so she strode with all the confidence in her bones, and when she reached the gate, or more like a bunch of charred wooden logs held in place as a gate, she cleared her throat, and the two men slid to opposite sides to allow her to pass through.

Her eyes collided with that of the stranger’s, and far too soon, she felt a cold pressing sinking gut feeling about him. Those eyes, the glimmer in them, the structure, it wasn’t strange to her, and yet she couldn’t place how.

Again, she cleared her throat.

“Your name, origin, section of birth, section of settlement.” A pause, “Now,” she pressed her lips into a thin impassive line.

“Engin Yïldrem, Turkish descendancy, born and settled in Wheatland. Who are you, if I might ask?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. The familiarity, the odd sense of comfort around him. He’d changed so much, she barely recognized him, but there he was, right before her blurry tearful eyes.

Her brother was home.

“Excuse me, Ms, you okay there?” he asked, his face contorted in concern.

She choked on her own sobs, and everybody kept their quiet for a few seconds, she was grateful for it.

Still shaky on her feet, she looked him in the eye and spoke in the language only they could understand.

“I thought you’d never come back.”

Engin’s face went white with surprise, his eyes wide, and his lips slightly parted. The Turkish sentence caught him off guard, or maybe it was the realisation that followed, he couldn’t be sure.

But he knew that the leader who’d just been inquiring him a minute ago was his little sister, and he couldn’t help feeling proud.

He reached out and crushed her into a hug so fierce they could’ve been mistaken for one person.

Asli’s heart cried in relief. He was alive, he was flesh and bones and blood, he was alive, his heart was beating still, he was alive.

He was alive.

And for that moment, she let herself absorb his presence, cherish it.

“I’d never abandon you, Asli.” He muttered out, still embracing her.

She nodded, reassured now more than ever.

And oh God, how much had she missed talking in her mother tongue, listening to these precious sounds that nobody could make out but them, and well, their mother, before alzhiemer ate away all the memory she had left of their ancient history, their ancient beautiful history.

She imagined her mother’s reaction to her brother’s return, and her smile grew slightly hesitant.

“Mom’s different, Asli.” He said the fist minute they were by themselves, back in her tent.

She nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat and shook her head internally at how naive she’d been to think he wouldn’t notice. Of course, he would, and he had.

But when she said nothing for a few minutes, he pushed on, “She didn’t recognize me. Is there anything I’m supposed to know here? ‘Cause as far as I know, it’s not that easy for a mother to forget her child or the looks of him.”

Asli nodded again, taking in a big chunk of air at once.

“It’s Alzhiemer, Mark diagnosed it a while back. I have to remind her that I’m her daughter every single day, and she wouldn’t remember, she’d just go with it, accepting the fact that she has two daughters and a son.”

Engin stayed quiet, as if listening to his sister’s words over and over again even though she’d finished talking for a good while now. He was grateful for her giving him the time to take it all in, absorb it.

“Okay.” He said at last, not knowing how to put his jumbled furious confused thoughts into words. They’re disappointment and relief, anger and sadness, frustration even, he just couldn’t put all those in the right places, and okay seemed like the right way to describe it then.

“Okay?” Asli repeated, her tone inquisitive.

“Yes, okay, ‘cause at least now she wouldn’t have to know about her missing daughter and how we don’t even know what happened to her for years now.”

“What do you mean don’t? You haven’t heard of her at all while you’d been there? You found nothing, are you serious?”

“Oh, yes, I am, and your friend probably won’t either, it’s that hopeless.”

Friend?

“You know about Sara?” she asked back, she was asking more questions than answering them these days, her constant confusion was starting to nag her.

He nodded, “I met her there, and she was with some girl called Kris, a pallid born with an authentic British accent.”

Deep inside, Asli sighed in relief. At least, Sara wasn’t alone, she had some company to guide her through.

But her mind dragged her to one thought; he’d only meet her if he weren’t in prison, but he’d been captured, hadn’t he?

As if reading the confusion in her eyes and her furrowed brows, he said, “No, I was never captured in the first place, Sara had that look on your face when we’d met, too. Why you’d think so is way beyond me.”

What?

“What? But you crossed foreign territory to look for a figure of suspicion, it’s illegal, plain out against the Separation law, how were you allowed to roam around free?”

“Oh God, Asli. Of course, I didn’t enter Pallid through authorized gates. I took the journey on foot and stolen boat rides, I got in through the thick abandoned forest surrounding Pallid. It was safe there, it’s where I found Sara, too.”

“You were never found?”

“No.”

“And during all these years of your stay, you couldn’t find anything about Evran?”

It was a statement that strangled itself into a question, as if not allowing herself to believe it, not yet.

“No, I mean yes, I couldn’t.”

“And Sara is there, I’ve sent her there in vain.”

“You have.”

“I have.”

She had, she thought, been a selfish jerk to put her friend in such a situation despite the dangers they were both well aware of. The minute a pallid officer recognizes her as a Wheatlander, she’d be questioned for her reasons, asked to show her passport and ticket, and of course, they’d find out that both of them are fake, and she wouldn’t know what they’d be talking about.

They would throw the passport and the ticket in her face to read it, and next to her photo, it would say:

Mary Anne Debenham
British descendant
Pallid born, Wheatlander resident.
Date of birth: 17/03/2041

And the reason behind her visit would be an annual visit paid to pallid parents.

She would protest, swear to God that she hadn’t faked it, it didn’t belong to her, it never could.

But, of course, they wouldn’t believe a word she says, they’d shake their heads and put those shackles around her wrists for the act of manipulating official papers, impersonation, and crossing sections without an authorized permission, which the court would eventually translate to ‘Attempts at spying, spreading chaos, and going against the system and the Separation Act of 2035’.

“Asli? You spaced out, you okay there?”

Engin’s voice dragged her back to consciousness.

“I have to get Sara back. Damn it! I shouldn’t have sent her there all alone!”

She started to panic, pacing around the room and throwing things in her pack back; a navigator, a licensed gun, another fake passport, a stolen credit card she found on the street the other day, and a ragged sweatshirt with a burnt hole in it in case she felt cold. Then she threw in two of Sara’s headscarves and long shirts in case her friend needed them.

Engin was taken aback, shaking his head, and saying something about her mindless panic, something between the lines of what are you doing and stop and talk to me for a second, goddammit!, but she couldn’t make out most of what he was saying, her heart was beating so fast she thought it was coming out of its case, the throbbing in her ears was a hurricane in her insides.

She zipped it up and swung it on her shoulders. Despite her brother’s protests, she strode out of the tent and made her way to her little rusted out car a feet away from the camp, shouting back a STAY HERE AND TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING! DON’T YOU EVER LEAVE, ENGIN, EVER!

It was the same car she’d used to drive Sara to the airport. She’d gotten it out of the ruins and worked on repairing it herself. Even though she’d have to kick it every now and then, it was functioning well enough for its unstable condition. Asli felt that familiar adrenaline rush when she turned the key into ignition.

And when her foot pressed on the accelerator, her heart sunk a little bit at the thought of abandoning it at the airport parking lot for some thugs to take over.