Isaac

Isaac was tired.

He'd been tired most of his life. Fatigue that had leached into his bones over the course of his later life never left, and now everything felt like a dream. He'd lost track of time a while back. Maybe he had been gone two decades, but it could have easily been four. Not that it mattered. His age meant little to him anymore.

This morning, the fatigue was no different, his trauma feeding from him like a parasite as he sat alone, palms flat and rigid against the kitchen table. He had woken too early. In the dark, the flames of adrenaline licked his blood as he stared out the black window and waited for the sun.

Every time he inhaled, he smelled the Briardark. The rain. The decaying, broken beams of the final outpost, the fungus crawling across the floor before his eyes. Waking to mushrooms burrowing into his hands, the crack of branches, the bottomless growl of a night pregnant with hunters.

The Briardark smelled of rot and iron. It tasted like the salt caked to his face. All the sweat and sobbing. His body leaked sweat and tears and piss when he was afraid, and that fear... that fear was always the worst part, as he wondered if he'd be better off walking into the dark night to end his life than living through another.

Through the window, he deciphered the silhouette of branches. Mossy light streamed into the cabin soon after, and Isaac eased the tension in his hands.

He had survived, again.

Down the hall, a door shut. Siena stumbled into the living room, rubbing her eye with a knuckle. It was clear she hadn't slept. She yawned and wrapped her teal fleece tighter around her body. Isaac was unused to seeing colors so bright.

"You want breakfast?" she asked. "No one else is awake. Cam fell asleep at the radio last night. She won't be up for a while."

"That's alright," he said. "You should save your packaged meals for your hike out. I've already eaten too much of your food."

She furrowed her brow as she poured filtered water into the cooking pot. "It's your food too, technically. You need to eat something."

"I know how to go without eating. I'll forage later."

"Forage," she repeated with a snort. "Sure."

He said nothing, and an awkward silence lingered between them as the water boiled. Siena crossed her arms and paced in front of the table. "I have a theory, if you'll humor me."

Isaac shrugged. "Alright."

"It kills me to even entertain the thought, but this place—this wilderness—is multiversal. Is that a word?" She scratched her head. "What I mean is this Briardark place is a parallel dimension, and for some reason, parts of it are... umm... bleeding into Deadswitch. Time has to move differently there, which is why you're so old." She glared at the floor as her pacing slowed. "I'm not a physicist. I don't even know if theoretical science supports this. And I don't know why a man from that world would know who I am, much less want me dead."

She looked at him now, as though expecting an answer on her accuracy.

He isn't a man, Isaac thought of saying, but that would spark more questions. Curiosity was Siena's weakness, not her strength. It was why he'd been so careful not to relay much to her.

He couldn't give her reasons to stay.

"You won't be able to use science to explain everything the Briardark is," he said. When she frowned, he added, "I know that's hard for you. It was hard for me too."

She grimaced. "That's a load of horseshit."

He took a deep breath. Patience. "You won't be able to use current scientific theories to explain the Briardark. Better?"

She seemed less averse to this idea, but irritated nonetheless. "So who is this asshole who wants me dead?"

Isaac hesitated, remembering the moment he discovered the cards in the kitchen cabinet of this very cabin. He'd been young, bored, and attempting to mitigate the anxiety of finding a body in the woods. The cards would have been a perfect distraction had he been able to play solitaire. But they were trick cards, the kind you'd get at a magic shop, or so he'd thought. No matter how many times he shuffled the deck, the top two in the pile would always be the same, the rest of the deck blank.

The first card, the huntsman with two faces: The Defector.

The second card, nothing but a pitch-black stain: The Shadow.

As a child, his mother warned him of tarot, Ouija, and other sins of the occult. Playing those games was an invitation for the devil. And when Isaac saw amorphous dark shapes looming in the woods, he'd thought the cards were one of those games. That he'd invited the devil to play.

What had happened to him was much worse. He never wanted to think about it again and wished Siena would do the impossible and just listen to him instead of asking questions.

"Who he is doesn't matter," he finally said. "As long as you escape, he'll never bother you."

Siena sneered. "Emmett's right. Maybe you are just crazy." She turned back to her oatmeal, poured the boiling water, and hopped back when it almost splashed on her. Grumbling, she mashed the glutinous mixture with a spoon.

Isaac's shoulders sank. This was what he was trying to avoid—the tipping point between having her attention and her disregard. "Doesn't matter whether I'm crazy, which you know. Because you want to leave, too."

Siena crossed her arms and stared hard at the window, and Isaac wondered if she was deciding whether she was going to trust him. He walked around the table, catching sight of the map on the wall. His map.

Mount Agnes was The Way Back, this cabin its safety box. He'd deposited many secrets here over the years, all to prepare for returning to Siena. He just needed to remember where they were hidden.

He began toeing the kitchen floor planks until a board squealed with his weight. Kneeling, he wiggled his fingers around the edges, prying the board upward after a few attempts and reaching into the cavity beneath.

Siena knelt next to Isaac as he carefully lifted the bow from its hiding spot, running his fingers along the sanded wood he'd cured himself. He plucked the string of dried gut he'd harvested. It was brittler than it had been all those years ago.

"Is... is this yours?" Siena reached out hesitantly, caressing the wood as he'd done. "Did you make this?"

"A long time ago," he responded. From beneath the floor, he fished for the arrows—ten in all, hand-carved dowels topped with earth glass and balanced with raven feathers.

"I'll teach you," he said.

She looked at him in surprise.

"The basics. You'll need something to protect yourself out there. Something quieter than a gun."

Her face was enigmatic, but she nodded.

In return, all he could do was teach her to survive, and pray she'd leave soon after.