32A felt dry grass on her back. She sat up looked around but saw nothing ahead. She turned her head and saw nothing on that side either. She felt comfortable laying there and decided to stay there for a little bit longer, but after a while she got up.
"I can't stay here forever. I have people who need me." She said to herself and sat up.
When she looked ahead, she only saw flat grassy land as far as the eye can see. She turned into every direction and saw the exact same sight in every direction.
"Anyone? Are you there?" She asked the nothingness, but heard nothing back.
"Right. You're all gone now. I forgot. Ilona is not coming back and the rest I left behind." She then said.
"Those days are over. This is what it is now. I can make it. Just get up and face the world." She said as she stood up.
She looked in every direction and then looked at the sky. There was no sun in the sky to even lead the way. Just gray clouds.
"But where do I go? I guess picking at random has worked so far." She said and then walked into a direction that she just picked at random.
"I have to face life alone now. I can do it. I'm not weak anymore. My affection to old friends made me weak and scared of the world. This isn't too bad at all."
Time passed and distance was travelled, but the sights did not change.
"Am I even getting anywhere? Am I lost? No, there has to be something over the horizon. I just need to have patience. I won't give up. I'll do this and I'll get what I want in the end." She said to herself and stopped herself from saying anything else.
"But what do I even want in the end? What could there be over the horizon that I could even want? There was one thing I wanted more than anything in the world, but that's not possible now. I don't want anything. All I can do is keep moving or staying still. But what's the point of that when either way nothing changes? No. That's not the attitude I'm going with. I'll always keep moving. That's all I have. Keep moving." She said and continued walking forwards towards the horizon.
Once she had walked for a long time and found nothing behind the horizon, she stopped and took a deep breath. She then fell down on her back and stared at the gray sky.
"I truly have nothing."
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32A opened her eyes and saw nothing but the dim inside of the truck's cargo space. The doors were open and the other travellers weren't there with her. She immediately got concerned about it and sat up after getting her head together. She stood up and rushed outside to see the situation. The truck was still where it was last night and the other travellers were outside.
"What's your hurry?" Kullervo asked 32A when he saw her come out in such a haste.
"Just... Making sure everything is okay." She answered.
"You look like a corpse. You should probably take care of yourself. The tent people let us use their water barrels to drink water and clean our faces. You should probably take advantage of that offer too." Another traveller said.
32A didn't say anything back but just got down from the cargo space and sat on its edge for a bit.
"What's that smell?" She asked after a few seconds.
"They're serving porridge to their own people there. They said that they don't have enough for us."
"We'll manage without their help." 32A said and jumped down.
She turned to go to the tent as two other people outside wished good morning to her with a new look of hope in their eyes. She ignored them and went inside the tent. She saw the people in the tent queueing up with their empty bowls to get porridge from a large container where a ginger bearded man was handing it to them. 32A didn't see this man in the tent the previous night. The old man who talked to her last night saw her standing at the entrance of the tent.
"Don't stand at the entrance. Either come in or get out." He shouted to her.
"Oh. Sorry." She quietly said back and got deeper into the tent.
She walked to a water barrel at the corner of the tent. There were two blue plastic barrels. One said "For washing" and the other one said "For drinking" in worn out text. 32A hadn't drank water in a couple of days now and she was feeling it. She took the ladle that was floating on the surface of the water and drank from it like a cup. She refilled the ladle four times before she had enough. She then dunked her head in the other barrel and completely submerged her head in the water. It was cold, and so she pulled her head out immediately and looked at the water.
"Who told you you can use our water?" The tent's old man asked from behind.
32A just raised her had back up and turned around.
"What? They told me..." 32A was about to say.
"I'm just joking. Yes, you can use out water. We have plenty of that."
"Thank you. I appreciate that."
"Of course. But by the way. You told us your name. I didn't tell you mine. I'm Tarmo. I hope you and your people get on your feet without stepping on ours." Tarmo said.
"Thanks, Tarmo. I believe we will. Who's that man serving you breakfast?"
"That's Ilkka. I mentioned him yesterday but he didn't show up until after you left. He always wakes up among the first of us and gets our morning porridge ready. Kind man." Tarmo explained.
"So his own child died. He seems to have gotten over it well." 32A said and saw how joyfully the man was serving the others.
"Well. Life goes on. He seems to appreciate the people he still has instead of letting his loss destroy him." Tarmo said back.
32A thought about that for a moment. She then wanted to talk about something else.
"I know that your food isn't for us, but is there any way I could earn some of it by being of help?" She asked.
"Maybe there is. We can't really spare to waste our food. The next time the traders come here is soon. Or it should be. Maybe if you can find useful things to sell to them, you could sell it to them yourself and earn your own food." Tarmo explained.
"Great. I'll find something useful from this neighborhood."
"We've scoured all of the nearby houses. We've taken and sold everything that isn't broken from those houses, so don't bother looking anything from those." Tarmo said, but it gave 32A an idea.
"So you left behind everything that's broken?" 32A asked to make sure.
"We did. The traders don't value that. They've said that they only want relics in good condition."
"Ah-huh. Thanks for the warning." 32A said, fully intending to go repair some things that these people had cast aside.
"But you don't have to go right now. You can stay here and you should let your hair dry before you go outside. You can use that towel on the stool. That's why it's there." Tarmo said and pointed at the small stool that was beside 32A's feet.
She took the towel that everybody else also uses and dried her hair and face with it.
"Thank you." She said and went closer to the unlit bonfire in the center of the tent.
It still emitted some amount of warmth, but not a lot. 32A focused on a burnt piece of wood and got it back in its old unburned state. She looked around to see if anyone noticed, but nobody was paying attention.
After sitting there for a while, she heard a thud next to her. She turned her head and saw that the scarred man who she talked with last night sat down next to her.
"How does our little community seem like?" The scarred man Saku asked.
"Seems like a tight group that cares about one another." 32A answered.
"That's exactly what it is. Times may get hard but with our spirit we can make it through everything. You didn't really introduce yourself last night. You had a weird name didn't you?" Saku said.
"Isn't it a standard name style for those born in the New Tower?" 32A asked.
"Well, it is. None of these people ever lived in the New Tower. My friend had a child whose name was 51C. I wonder how that kid is doing now. Another friend had a child that never even got a name. Being born disabled got the child thrown into the Deadland before it even lived a day." Saku explained and 32A didn't say anything back.
"I know it sounds bad but not tolerating weakness made it a society worth protecting. That's how I hope this little crew builds itself too." Saku said.
"A weak will is a deadly curse." 32A said back.
"That's absolutely true too. My biggest regret is having a weak will on a crucial moment. You see these names on my sleeve?" Saku asked and pointed at the patches on his sleeve that had names on them.
"These are my brothers in arms who lost their lives because of me. Like I told last night, we were badly outnumbered against the rebels, but they wanted to fight to the last man. I didn't think that we could win, so I said that we should surrender to save our lives. They insisted that we keep fighting. They said that we'd just get shot down even if we surrendered but I insisted that we surrender, and out of loyalty to me, they agreed. We all dropped our weapons, came out of cover and raised our hands. I got a bullet in my cheek and then the rebels shot down the rest of my brothers. The only reason I made it out was because they assumed that I was dead. I swore that I'd never surrender again, and never have a weak will again. My fallen brothers wouldn't allow that." Saku said and the bitterness could be heard in his voice.
"You seem to keep their memory alive and well instead of forcing yourself to forget." 32A said.
"Why would I ever forget them? That would be the greatest insult I could give to them!" Saku said and sounded offended by the idea.
"Guess so." 32A quietly said back and thought about what Saku said.
"Do you feel any loyalty to that crew that you came with?"
"I won't do wrong by them. But I have no loaylty to anyone." 32A said back coldly.
"I hope that that changes." Saku said and 32A remained quiet.
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After the people had finished their breakfast, they got up and started leaving the tent. 32A also got up and left the tent.
"So the nearby houses have been cleaned up mostly, but not quite. Let's check out those then." She thought to herself.
She walked to the nearest house to her and just stepped through the front door that was busted open. She stepped into the first room. There was no furniture or carpets in the room. In the corner there was a television with a shattered screen. 32A walked up to it.
"Ella's house had one of these. It helped a lot in learning the language. It's probably valuabe in good condition." She said and then focused on the screen and the cracks started getting fixed until the television looked as good as new.
"Well, this is the easiest job in the world. I'll be fine here." 32A said and looked at what else she could find.
In another corner was a stack of vinyl records in covers. She took some of the records from their covers and saw big scratches in all of them, fixing them as she went.
"I don't even know what these are but the art in the carton is neat. The traders might want these." She said as she put the records back in the covers.
She explored the room more and found nothing else. She dragged the television and the records outside and went back in. In the next room she saw nothing at first but then she looked into a big shoe closet where she saw things that hadn't been taken. She reunited some shoes with their soles that had been torn off. She then saw a fishing rod with a snapped string. She picked up the other half of the string from the floor and put it easily back together with the rest of the rod.
"I wouldn't have even needed to use my abilty for that. A simple knot would have done the job but nobody here figured that out?" She wondered to herself.
In the next room she found nothing more than a cracked teacup. In the next house she found a wooden living room table that was broken in half. She put the two halves back together and dragged the table out. She spent hours searching the rest of the houses on the street and putting smaller things together and carrying them outside.
"I'll need a wheelbarrow for all of this. I think that should earn me some meals for a while." She said to herself and dragged another table outside and then dragged her entire haul to the truck where she intended to keep all of it until the traders arrive.
"You found all of that in that amount of time?" Kullervo asked her at the truck.
"These people seem to leave a lot of good stuff behind." 32A said back while sitting proudly in the middle of all of her stuff.
"So this is how you intend to feed yourself? Can I ask something?" Kullervo asked.
"You just did." 32A said back nonchalantly and Kullervo was not amused.
"When you buy some food with that, can you share it with us others? We haven't eaten in days." Kullervo asked.
"Of course. You brought me here, so it would be fair if I let you have some." 32A said without a second thought.
"Thank you. That's very generous of you."
"But if anything from this pile is missing or broken, our deal is cancelled."
"That's fair. I'll tell the others the same."
"Good. Now I'm going to the tent. Don't touch my stuff." 32A said and got up and then went into the tent.
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Inside the tent nobody looked at her like an unusual sight anymore. She went into the water barrel and drank some. The bonfire in the middle of the tent was lit again. After drinking she sat down close to the bonfire where other people had also grouped up.
"Did you find anything?" Tarmo asked after sitting down next to 32A.
"I found something. I hope it's enough to last until the next time the traders come here. I'll find some more stuff tomorrow." 32A said back.
"The traders are coming here, not tomorrow, but the day after."
"That gives me time to look for some more stuff then." 32A said.
That's when the sound of a lonely trumpret could be heard from a distance.
"That's the trumpet man again, is it?" 32A asked.
"Yep. That's Ilkka every single night."
"Do you get sick of it?"
"A little. But we won't tell him that."
"Has anyone talked to him about it?"
"No."
"Has anyone talked to him about his son's death?"
"Not after the funeral."
"Does he talk with others here?"
"All the time. Even if he doesn't do a lot of small talk, he's always nice to everyone. That's how he was before his son died, although back then he was a little more full of life. Why are you asking these things?" Tarmo explained and asked.
"I may need to ask himself." 32A said and stood up.
She left the tent and went towards the sound. The sound of the trumpet was echoing in the night from up high and the travellers that 32A came with were also looking into the direction of the sound while set up outside. 32A found the three story house where the music was coming from and entered through the busted open front door. She climbed the stairs all the way to the top floor where a trapdoor leading to the roof was open.
"I was wondering why these people don't live in these houses. These are cold as Do I say what?" 32A said once she reached the top.
She climbed the ladder to the roof and saw Ilkka there sitting at the top of the roof. She sat there next to him and waited for him to finish the song. It was a slow and majestic melody. Ilkka finished the song and put his instrument down to take a breath.
"Well played." 32A said.
"Who are you?" Ilkka asked without even turning his head.
"I came with that truck that's down there."
"And why are you here?" Ilkka asked and 32A remained quiet for a moment.
"Well?" Ilkka said and turned his head to look at 32A.
"You've lost someone." 32A simply said.
"Yes. I have. Why does that interest you?" Ilkka asked and 32A felt bad for wording it badly.
"How have you moved on?" 32A asked sympathetically.
"And how is that in any way your business?" Ilkka asked angrily.
"I'm sorry. It's just that I've lost someone too and I'm not sure how to live with it. I've now lost even more people who I loved. And I'm not sure if I've made the right choices since then." 32A opened up and Ilkka calmed down.
"We all deal with loss in our own ways. This is how I deal with mine. I don't like to dwell on it. I live my life and help my people but this is how I remember and honor my dead son. He liked listening to my playing, so now I play my tunes up here so he can hear me better." Ilkka explained.
32A didn't quite understand what he meant by that but she didn't comment anything about it.
"I understand." 32A said back.
"How do you deal with your loss?" Ilkka asked and 32A thought about it for a moment.
"I don't know how I should deal with it. When I found out about my friend's fate, I lashed out at my brother who then walked away and I stayed here and left my entire family behind because I wanted to start again. I wanted to force myself to forget everything that came before. But I can't forget because there's a thing that always reminds me of them." 32A said and felt a painful pulse.
"Just forgetting your past is impossible. You'll just be running away your entire life."
"You think so?"
"I know so. Go back to your family. I'm sure they'll take you back. I'm sure they wouldn't want to lose you." Ilkka told 32A.
"I can't. They're too far away now. I don't have a way to get to them anymore."
"Well. I don't know what to tell you then." Ilkka said.
"Oh. Sorry for bothering you. Thanks anyway." 32A said and felt disappointed.
She then went down through the trapdoor with her head full of regrets and difficult thoughts.
"I'm the stupidest fool in the world. Everything I ever had is in there and I left it. They all probably miss me. And I miss them too. Toivo probably got yelled at, if he even went back home. I hope he's not looking for me. He'd just get lost." She thought to herself.
She then felt another extremely painful pulse, which did not help her thoughts. She went to the truck where the doors were closed.
"My stuff is still here. Good. I guess." She said quielty and opened the closed doors of the truck's cargo space.
"Don't let the cold get in!" One of the people inside said to her.
She understood, closed the doors and lied down in her usual spot.
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