Anna studied the pitted surface of the table in front of her. It was marked with traces left by her generation and those before her. This table was her eating place, and the place she had spent all her schooling, so she knew all the marks, scratches and dents by heart. She moved her hand affectionately over the rich surface.

She heard someone enter the mess room and looked up. Jan. He smiled as he saw her. The smile sent a shiver down her spine—Jan smiling was hardly ever good news.

He approached her table, sat down beside her and laid an arm over her shoulders. "Hey, Anna, I've been looking for you."

She felt her muscles tense under his touch, as if trying to build a shield between her soft self and the possessiveness of his gesture. It was a habit of his, touching the women like that. She hated it. Fortunately, that was all he did—he never went any further.

"I'm still waiting for an answer, you know," he said.

If anything, the words made her even tenser. She knew what he was talking about. She longed to shrink, to dwindle and to disappear into one of the cracks of the table. But she nodded.

"Well, it's not me who's waiting for an answer, you know. It's Adam who's waiting for it," he continued. "Your sixteenth birthday was months ago, so it is time for you to get a man. And Adam's a fine one."

Adam. Jan's big, taciturn friend. His wife died some years ago, and he was looking for a new spouse now. And it was Jan's idea that the two of them would make a good match.

Adam. He reminded her of one of the raw rock walls in the lower parts of the Reduit. Immutable, impassive. impenetrable, inscrutable.

Adam. Thinking of him intimately gave her the shivers. He was an old man. She still felt like a child.

"I've told you," she said, taking a tense breath and trying to cringe away from the growing warmth of his arm on her shoulders, "I'm ... not ready yet."

"You're sixteen, that's as ready as you will get," he replied. "Adam turns 35 in a month. I want to announce your wedding then."

Her desperate search for an answer to this statement was cut short by the noise of yet more people entering the mess room. Jan moved his arm off her shoulders and got up. Anna uncoiled somewhat, but the knots in her stomach remained.

"We'll talk later," he said quietly.

"You're ready?" asked Emma, who had entered with Frankie in tow.

"I am," Anna answered. "My brother is probably still in our quarters."

"Twenty minutes, don't stay out there any longer," Jan said, fixing first his daughter, then Frankie.

"Yes, of course", Emma answered. "And I'll have that one with me." She patted the pistol in its holster.

Jan nodded. "Good. I'll go to the village now to get our food. When I come back, you can go and get your exercise."

The outside never ceased to amaze and to startle Anna. It was so bright, so vast. It was cold or hot. The sky was so far away, she felt afraid to fall into it—she knew this to be nonsense, but she had to suppress a feeling of vertigo.

And there were the smells. Always surprising, always varying. Today, there was a rich fragrance of something herbal, plant-like in the air. She thought it came from the trees. They were firs. The Holy Wiki had images of them—Jan had allowed her to look them up. She drew air through her nostrils, closing her eyes for a moment.

"You love that smell, don't you?" Carl asked. She smiled at her brother and nodded. The effort of smiling a strain for the knots still lurking in her belly. "Yes ... it's wonderful." Her words were tenser than she wanted them to be.

He frowned. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," she replied and let her smile fade. She hadn't told him about Jan's plans yet, afraid that he might push her to agree or, worse, try to stand up to Jan.

Emma laughed at something that Frankie must have said. Anna turned her head towards her, watched her hand briefly touching Frankie's shoulder and her smile briefly touching her eyes. Then Emma's face grew serious again. "Is everyone ready?" she asked.

Anna did not feel particularly ready. In fact, she hardly ever felt ready for physical exertion. But the Holy Wiki ordered everyone to exercise regularly, and jogging was one of the activities it recommended.

"Let's go," Emma said as no-one objected, and with a wave of her hand she turned and headed towards their running track.

Frankie followed her, then Anna. She heard Carl's steps behind her, but she kept her eyes on the uneven ground. It was littered with stones, roots, plants, and a myriad of other things she did not even have words for. It felt so different from the smooth floors of the Reduit. Running it took every part of her concentration.

Focused on navigating that soil, she skipped, jumped and dodged. From the corners of her eyes, she saw the trunks of the trees passing by. She lost herself in a flurry of motion, images, colors, sounds, and smells, avoiding the unpredictable touch of the branches reaching into the path.

When Emma and Frankie stopped, she was taken by surprise and crashed into his back. He stumbled but caught himself, and her. "Oops!" he said, "slowly".

"Sorry," she apologized. She did not look at him, her eyes were drawn to her right, where a gap in the trees opened a view towards the valley. She had been here before, but the width and depth of that view always took her aback. It made her dizzy and frightened her, yet it pulled her in, too.

"Does anyone want to go further?" Emma asked.

Anna silently shook her head, while she heard Frankie and Carl declining the offer. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree close by, briefly wondering what could be strong enough to topple one of these giants.

The knots in her belly had taken root and grown. And the view before her felt magnetic.

She could give in to that tugging force, which drew her into this unknown, terrifying world of wilderness. She could run down that slope and get lost somewhere in the greenery below. Away from Jan, away from Adam. Away from it all.

A piercing cry arose somewhere in the valley, a sound unfamiliar. A gust of wind tousled her hair, taking off the warmth of the sun. It made her shiver, and not only for the chill it brought. There were never any scary sounds or winds in the Reduit, not like this. There was the steady hum of the ventilation, and the currents of the air were predictable and reliable. There was none of that capricious stuff. No screams as if something were dying, nor the sudden strokes of wind as if caused by the wings of a mighty, invisible bird.

This world out here was so unknown, unpredictable, unexpected, unfathomable. No, she would not run off, could not. She'd return to the Reduit, to Jan and to Adam. They were inevitable.

She felt tears pooling in her eyes.

"Let's go back then," said Emma

"Hey, sis, what's the matter?" asked Carl with a worried voice. "Something's worrying you. Tell me." He sat down beside her.

She felt his hand on her shoulder. His touch was gentle and tentative, so different from Jan's pawing. The knots in her belly remained, though, their knit obviously inextricable.

She did not want to draw him into this. That she was sure of. She pushed his arm away. "I'm just tired," she said, "you go ahead. I'll sit here a moment longer."

Carl got up. Anna's eyes were glued to the valley. She didn't turn her head when he addressed her once more.

"You should not stay here alone."

"I'll be fine," she answered. Then she looked at him, at his worried face. "I know the way back. We've been here so often. You just go ahead." She waved her hand towards the trail they had come from. "I so love the quiet and peace here. Let me enjoy this some longer."

"Are you sure?" Emma chimed in.

Anna nodded.

"Well, that's up to you. If Jan minds, you'll hear your part when you get back." Emma then also waved along the trail. "So let's get going." She looked at Carl. "Don't worry about your sister, a woman needs some space every now and then."

He hesitated and finally nodded. They started moving. Only Anna remained, seated on her tree trunk. Before they disappeared into the forest, Carl stopped and looked back once more. "Anna, were' leaving. Don't stay too long."

Anna briefly nodded, then looked away. The human-made noises ebbed off, leaving her alone with the whispers of nature. She rested her head on the palms of her hands and returned her attention to the valley. There was so much detail there, bathed in that brilliant light of the sun. The endless sea of trees with the occasional ruin poking through it. Stretches of water, the river. And behind it, there were the mountains on the other side of the valley, soaring up and up, yet never reaching that infinite sky. Azure, patched with white clouds.

And all of it ripe with strange sound and smell.

It was breathtaking, but it was all so vast it made her want to coil up. Never could she go there. But she did not want to return into the Reduit, where darkness waited.

Her sight blurred, and a sob escaped her lips.

"Don't make a sound!" said a hissing voice behind her, "or I'll stab your guts!"

A/N

What do you think of Anna? Is this how you imagined her to be?

The chapter is dedicated to Perci_Snickedy for her great comments and support. She wrote a book (G.A.L.E Force) who features a character that has interesting parallels to Anna. I can recommend it.