Chasing Faith

It was too dark outside to see anything. All you could do was hear. The footsteps, the heavy breathing, the panic as the duo ran for their lives. Darkness was preferred – light meant flashlights, and that meant that the very people they were running from were catching up to them. They knew not where they were running to, just who and what they were running from.

After too long a time spent making their lungs bleed and legs beg for death, the pair saw no flashlight and heard no voice. Without a word needed, they slowed their pace, and eventually came to a stop, praising their lucky stars they were around each other.

They wanted absolute quiet so that they could listen to see if they were still followed by a stealthy stalker, but their breathing overshadowed their attempt to scan the surrounding darkness for an auditory clue. In the darkness, they could barely make out each other’s faces.

Chase was the first to be able to speak, after a long time spent breathing. “I need to sit down.”

Faith, still unable to talk, simply nodded, and the two collapsed where they were. Chase fell onto the ground and lay down, while Faith sat herself up against a tree.

“Do… you think… we could just… stay here for the night?” Faith panted.

No.” Chase sat up, running his hand along the ground. “We must press on and find a safer place before we sleep.” His hand came up from the grass and he rubbed his fingers together. “The grass is short. Cut. It’s being maintained by people. Wherever we are right now, it’s not somewhere people can’t reach.”

Faith was finally able to stop panting. Instead she let out a groan. “Fuck,” she muttered. “Okay. Just, please give me a few minutes first.”

“A few minutes,” Chase repeated. He looked in both directions, attempting to see something, anything in the darkness that would give him any more information than he had. “Do you know how long we were running? I think I might know the direction.”

“I wasn’t exactly counting the seconds, no,” Faith told him, half sternly, half playfully. “I was too busy running for my damn life.”

“I was there too, I can recall,” Chase replied flatly, still looking off.

“They were going to kill us,” Faith softly said aloud, mournfully.

“They still could,” Chase replied. “Especially if we keep talking and stop moving.”

Faith sighed. “Yeah,” she mumbled. She stood up, and tapped Chase’s shoulder to get him to follow suit. Wordlessly, the pair got up and scanned their surroundings for a few more seconds before Chase pointed in a direction and the two began to walk again.

Their first hour of walking was silent, until Chase piped up.

“Are you feeling well?”

Faith chuckled sadly. “No worse than usual,” she told him. “I thought we would make progress by now.”

“We’re two individuals running from an organized system hell-bent on preventing individuals from running from it,” he replied. “Us… existing, that’s progress, and every day we remain here and alive is progress more.”

“Poet,” Faith teased him. She had always accused him of ‘talking more like a poet than a human being,’ and for some reason being called a poet was one of the few things that actually got under Chase’s skin, so of course she was sure to call him one often.

He shot her a look as they continued walking. She saw his expression and playfully mirrored it. At this point the sun was rising and the two could see decently around them, though they had no actual idea what time it was. They couldn’t risk wearing watches, in case they had something trackable inside them. At this point, time was an irrelevant concept anyway. ‘Man invented time, and what was left of man took time away from us,’ or so Chase had said.

“There’s a house up ahead,” Faith pointed out a few minutes later. “We could rest somewhere inconspicuous near there.”

“That brings us closer to people that could turn us in,” Chase rebutted with a stern expression.

Faith shook her head. “The authorities will be looking in places like fields and caves for us. They know we’re on the run now. They’re not going to check every single home, as long as we’re smart about it.”

“That sounds like we’re gambling on knowing the intentions of the enemy.” Chase replied, and Faith shrugged and smiled slightly, not arguing with that point at all. With a huff, Chase silently agreed, and the two scouted the rural property, finding the most dusty, untouched and unseen area outside the house to turn in for a quick rest.

As luck would have it, the house belonged to what looked like some former hoarders – there was a barn on the property, one that had a room so dusty and overrun that it was clear no human had been there in years. As stealthily as possible, the pair made themselves at home inside, accompanied by the morning light coming in through the dusty, warped window.

Faith stared out the window, glancing at the countryside, the morning sunlight hitting her face. The sunlight made her Native American skin glow, at least to Chase. He knew that a mild-to-moderate manmade apocalypse wasn’t the time to develop feelings for anyone, but he couldn’t help what he felt for his fellow survivor. He put on a tough facade for her, but he knew that his heart jumped every moment her brown, bold, vivacious eyes rested on his. Every time her smile, blessed with a slight overbite showing her beautiful teeth with the slightest parting of her lips, showed the world its presence. The way her eyelids relaxed when she was truly content. Her freckles, each one representing another point on a list of reasons she should be adored. It would be irresponsible of him to show it, but she truly was his sunlight.

He knew he couldn’t compare, but genetics hadn’t exactly been unkind to him either. While his black hair had gotten a bit shaggier than his usual modest look given his last haircut was a while ago, it still framed his face well, and complemented his hazel eyes, the kind with a light brown that made people stop and stare at them.

He found himself wishing, from time to time, that Faith would be one of those people to stare into them, for her to be like one of those girls from back home that fell in love with him purely due to his eyes. He’d take a shallow love over an unrequited one, any day, had their situation only been different.

He was staring at her again. He shook his head and cleared his thoughts as her gaze turned away from the morning sun. “I used to love sunrises,” Faith mumbled, almost to herself.

“You can still love them,” Chase pointed out. “Perhaps now more than ever. Loving what we love and allowing our humanity to shine is perhaps what separates us from them.”

“Poet.”

“I’m just saying…” Chase followed up with an exasperated sigh. He looked around the room. “We should be able to sleep there behind the table. Even if someone were to come in, they’d have to be actively looking for us to notice.”

“Which they could do.” Faith replied uneasily. “Do you really think these guys don’t have access to heat-seeking satellites or something?”

“I wouldn’t want to overestimate just how much of a nuisance we are to them,” Chase replied, the two of them making themselves comfortable on the ground. “Besides, if they decided to resort to that, they would have used them already.”

The two shed their outer clothing, used to being in a modest amount of clothing around each other. They used their clothes as bedding when they could. Any comfort was a welcome one to them, given the situations they found themselves in.

“What do you think they are prepared to do?” Faith suddenly asked.

“How do you mean?” Chase asked, staring up at the ceiling.

“The men last night… I’m ninety-nine percent sure they had guns,” Faith replied.

“If they did, they would have used them. Same point I made earlier.” Chase shifted to look at Faith. “Are you scared?”

Faith scowled and laughed at Chase. “Am I scared? Bit fucking late to ask that, I’ve been scared for weeks. Now I’m just… numb.”

“Sounds like you’re not scared then.” Chase shifted back to look at the ceiling. He felt a bit bad being so callous towards her, but he was doing what he could to make sure ‘callous’ was the only impression she got from him.

“Y’know, for a poet, you’re really unemotional,” Faith told him, huffing.

“I’m not planning to publish my anthology anytime soon,” Chase simply replied.

Faith chuckled. “Yeah,” she mumbled. Silence filled the air. “If I’m bothering you or something, we could always go our separate ways.”

“What?! No!” Chase sat up. “We’re safer together. We don’t know who the hell else we can trust, we – there’s no way of telling who else could be on our side, or if anyone else is on our side in the first place!”

Faith gave a cocky smile. “Hey look, emotion,” she teased. “See? It’s not that hard to care.”

Chase said nothing for a bit. Eventually, he got up and walked over to the other side of the room, facing away from her and folding his arms.

Faith chuckled awkwardly. “I mean,,, really?” she asked clumsily. “I’m just saying, a-”

“I know what you’re saying,” Chase replied seriously, without looking at her.

Faith swallowed nervously. “You know, I was kidding, but this is kind of convincing me maybe we should go our-”

“I’m not upset.”

“Well, in traditional Chase fashion, it’s hard for me to read your feelings,” she replied softly.