Crimson Dawn

They drove through the jungle all night, eventually continuing their journey on foot. The rebels walked ahead and behind the prisoners. At dawn, they crossed a wide, shallow river; the water rushed past their knees, icy cold. Somewhere beyond the treetops on the other side, waterfalls cascaded into unseen depths. Far beyond the shimmering cataracts, the forested mountains emerged from the golden morning mist. The journey took them deep into the heart of the jungle, where the rebels had to wear headlamps to navigate. After many miles, they took their first break late in the afternoon. Tau Ceti hung high in the zenith, but not a single ray of sunlight pierced through the thick canopy above. They set up gas lamps on the forest floor so the prisoners wouldn’t have to eat in the dark. Lex sat cross-legged on rotting leaves and moldy twigs, surrounded by wide-fronded ferns covered in spores and towering bioluminescent mushrooms. The prisoners ate cold beans and bread, forbidden to speak under threat of beatings. So they stayed silent, and even the rebels spoke little among themselves, the sound of their chewing the only noise for miles around. All that surrounded them was the heavy, humid air and the oppressive silence of a primordial world.

The cloud forest they crossed the next day was located in the Luvanda Basin, seeming impassable due to the dense undergrowth and thick fog. For the first time on their march, the rebels drew their machetes. Even the trees were covered in moss, and vibrant flowers and mushrooms grew on the branches of the jungle giants. The plant life fought for every ray of sunlight in this jungle, and now, mankind fought here as well—against nature and each other.

For days, the rebels hacked their way through the dense vegetation, progressing meter by meter. Late one evening, they emerged from the forest and came upon a stretch of tall grassland leading to a tributary. Thirty miles to the north, the river flowed into the Luvanda River. On its banks was a rebel camp made up of a few mud huts and a floating raft, large enough to hold several tables and a decorated bar, where three members of the DFLL were sitting, drinking shots. All around the raft, wooden cages stood half-submerged in the river. They were filled with prisoners, their shoulders submerged in the brown, filthy water. Just as the group was about to step onto a wooden dock, made of two planks tied together, that led to the cages, one of the prisoners panicked. He turned and tried to flee into the forest. With his hands bound, he couldn’t use his arms to gain speed, so it was more of a frantic scurry. He had barely made it twenty meters before the first volley of gunfire tore through his shirt in three places on his back. Fine droplets of blood hung in the air as he collapsed, and two or three more volleys made his body jerk in the tall grass before he lay still.

A gaunt local untied the ropes of a cage and lifted the lid while two other rebels shouted, kicked, and shoved the prisoners inside. Lex was the next to jump into the water. The spring source was only a few miles away, so the water was almost as warm as the air. No one would freeze, but some prisoners had been in the water so long that their skin had turned jelly-like, starting to peel away from the flesh. Of the 58 prisoners (he had counted them during the first hour of his capture) some tried to offer words of encouragement, but many were consumed by fear of death. Others seemed to feel nothing at all anymore, pressing themselves against the cage bars with blank expressions, their arms hanging hopelessly outside, staring out at the river.

The next morning, after a sleepless night spent standing in the water, the rebels opened the cage and dragged two of the prisoners out by their arms. They took the men onto the raft, which slowly came to life in the early morning light. Some of the rebels had a drink at the bar while others sat at wooden tables eating breakfast. No one batted an eye when one of them shot the prisoners. Their bodies hit the river with a splash, and the current carried the corpses away. Even the sound of gunfire didn’t disturb any of the rebels from their breakfast.

In the evenings, the DFLL followers were usually in high spirits; colorful lanterns hung over the raft as they drank, chatted, played cards, and placed eager bets with high stakes. One night, the river's tidal flow stopped after just a few hours, leaving the prisoners standing ankle-deep in mud. Exhausted, they crouched down, with no room to lie flat, leaning against each other and falling asleep on the spot.

With his back against the bamboo-like cage bars, the boy crouched in the cold mud, trying to undo the plant-fiber ropes that held the cage together using a sharp-edged stone. His eyes were fixed on the two guards on the raft, his movements slow, deliberate, and quiet.

"Think no one’s tried that before you?" Ron whispered.

Lex froze. The only sound he could hear in the silence was the warm, strong wind rushing past his ears. And he hoped it would stay that way. That Ron wouldn’t say anything else. Lex glanced at the guards dozing on the raft in the moonlight. Then he went back to scraping the rope with the stone.

"That’s never gonna work," Ron muttered.

"So what?" Lex whispered. "I’m not waiting for them to drag me out and shoot me like the others."

"If they catch you trying to escape, they’ll shoot you for sure."

"If you’re so desperate to say something, sneak over here, but stop yelling."

"I’m not yelling," Ron said, wading noisily through the mud with his old boots, then squatting beside Lex. "You wanna run," Ron said. "But the truth is, there’s no way out of a hopeless situation. They’ll catch you if you try to escape."

"So what do you think I should do then?"

Chiron broke through the veil of clouds, briefly illuminating the landscape around them. The silver light flickered across the forest on the far side of the river, reflecting in Ron's blue eyes. "Give it up," he said. "Make your peace. We’re not getting out of here alive."

The boy paused, looking up at the moon. The colonized side glimmered in the planet's shadow. After a moment, he shook his head. He had no idea if Ron even understood the crimes he had committed in the jungle when he started running with Vasker and the others. Was it Ron’s fault? Or had life shaped him into this? Had the same thing happened to Vasker before him?

"Back that night," Lex suddenly began, "before the DFLL attacked our camp, I was thinking about joining the rebels. When I saw what we were doing to the settlers, I wanted to fight against that kind of injustice. And now…"

"…Now you see that the rebels are treating us just as cruelly as we treated the settlers," Ron finished.

Lex said nothing. He dug the tips of his boots into the mud, while Ron shrugged indifferently, as if he had just solved a complicated question with a simple answer.

"When something starts like crap, it ends like crap," the redhead said. "At least, that’s been my experience. If you think I’m a bad person, I’d say I was made into one. And I’ve accepted it. That’s why I’m not trying to escape. That’s why I’m going back to sleep and waiting for them to drag me out. I’m done fighting."

The boy raised his head and glanced at Ron from the side. After a while, he stood up and trudged back to the other side of the cage. One of the guards on the raft had noticed the noise and was moving toward them in the moonlight. The boy quickly shoved the stone into his jacket pocket, but it was already too late.

Another guard rose from his chair, muttering something half-asleep to the first one. Heart pounding, the boy turned his back to them, leaned against the cage bars, and stayed still. He closed his eyes, pretending to sleep, all the while praying that no one would shoot him in the back.

The next morning, the water still hadn’t returned, and the sun gradually dried the prisoners' sore, softened skin as the muddy riverbed turned into a cracked, clay-like surface. The guard who had approached the boy’s cage the previous night was already completely drunk by morning, staggering across the raft. He stopped in front of the cage, slurring and laughing, before unexpectedly pulling out an old revolver and firing into the group. Six shots, until the chamber was empty. The rebels' shouts and laughter were drowned out only by the terrified screams of those crammed into the cages, like cattle fearing for their lives. The drunk guard let the casings fall out of the revolver's cylinder, tucked it into his waistband, and stumbled back to the table where he had been drinking.

Silence settled over the camp as the clay ground darkened with blood, and the dead man beside Lex slumped to the side.

******

It took almost a week for the water to return, and this time it rose so high that the prisoners had to cling to the top bars of the cage to avoid drowning. The rebels tossed breadcrumbs into the cages; if the prisoners didn’t want to starve, they had to snatch the crumbs before the current swept them away. The rebels would smack the top of the cages with long, thin, flexible sticks, hitting any hands that clung to the bars. They took pleasure in this.

That same evening, a patrol marched in single file across the grasslands to the riverbank. Half a dozen DFLL rebels were being replaced. The first prisoner they pulled out after dinner was Lex. Soaked to the bone, he fought back with kicks and punches against the inevitable. As usual, all the caged prisoners watched the unlucky chosen one. The gaps between the wooden bars were wide enough to see what was happening on the raft.

Lex stood in the colorful glow of the lights strung up around him. In the confusion, he didn’t realize at first that he was the only one they had pulled out of the cage. It wasn’t until they shoved a dented bottle of water into his hand that he started to suspect they weren’t just going to shoot him. He looked around, his heart racing.

"What’s this? What am I supposed to do with this?"

But the boy couldn’t understand a word of the chaotic language around him, nor did he notice what the captain was scribbling in his notebook. When the captain looked up from the book, he spoke with a heavy accent, "Come. Loa. Now."

Lex said nothing.

Did nothing.

His legs were trembling.

"You. Come. Loa."

But the boy didn’t move.

The rebels next to him shouted angrily in his ear. From behind, the painful jab of a rifle barrel pressed into his back. After more hesitation, the captain kicked him in the back. Lex crashed face-first onto the wooden boards, quickly scrambling back to his knees. Through the gaps in the raft, he saw the murky brown river current below.

In that moment, kneeling there, he wondered if Ron had been right. For people like them, born into misery, there was no happy ending.