They passed through Washen’s Enclave’s gate and into the world outside the enclave. Ashken was ready to leave everything behind him: his father’s failures, his failure to fulfill his father’s wishes, Jeremiah and Samantha’s deaths, their inane wanderings, and the governing councils’ deadly inter-fighting that led to their expulsion. Ashken could not believe that it had all happened so slowly over the last few days. He was ready to start anew. There must be something outside the enclave for them. He had no idea what that something was, however.

The great walls loomed even larger from the outside of the enclave. The walls towered over them, leaning over at such an extreme angle that the top-most part looked like it would fall onto them at any moment. The morning sun had risen while they were still inside the enclave, and the sun now cast its long shadows leading miles away from the enclave. Moses led them quickly away from the gates and the great walls. Sickly looking grass covered the immediate area surrounding the walls and gates. There were no trees or shrubs in this area. The blood that was spilled here had poisoned the ground so only the heartiest of grass could take root.

Even that grass died away a few hundred feet away from the walls. The shadow of the great wall still loomed even at this distance, and the grass gave way to a ground covered with a fine, white sand. The sand looked undisturbed and completely flat. There was no evidence of animal or human footprints leading across the sand. Before he stepped in it, Ashken thought the sand was as solid as rock. But his first step onto the sand disillusioned him of that notion. His foot sunk almost a foot into the sand. When Ashken managed to pull his foot out of the sand, it refilled around where his foot had been, and left the ground as smooth as before he had stepped into the sand.

The disturbed sand did not only refill into the hole, it also filled the air. The fine sand puffed into the air. The sand blew around so much that the world looked yellow when Ashken stepped into the desolate sandy area. It was difficult to breathe through the sandy air. The fine sand filled Ashken and Jessica’s lungs, and they coughed and wiped their mouths, trying to find clean air to breathe. Moses and Joseph kept walking, their heads down, and the air they breathed did not seem to bother them. Moving quickly was difficult because of the strange depth of the sand and the difficulty of finding good air to breathe.

They continued to move forward. There was no returning to the enclave now. There was no way they would be able to open the gates from the outside once the bar was lowered. Ashken doubted that Ariel and the militiamen would leave the gates open for their return. Besides, there was nothing inside the enclave that they desired to see again. It was best to walk across the desolate land and see what their futures may hold. In the distance was a yellowed bank of trees. It was their destination that day. The sand slowed their progress but did not stop it. Ashken and Jessica kept walking and coughing, but they did not stop.

By the end of the day, Ashken had learned the secrets of the surrounding wasteland. If he walked quickly over the sand, not resting his foot in the sand for more than a moment, his foot would not sink. Jessica found this first after watching Moses and Joseph walk across the sand. Ashken followed Jessica and took quick sure steps. He could not take large steps, since the transferring of his weight from foot to foot would slow him down long enough to sink into the fine sand. Instead, he took quick short steps, and he kept moving. Always moving. As he learned the knack of sinking less into the sand, he found that the sand was less likely to be kicked up. The air did not clear but the yellow haze lessened. Breathing was still difficult but it was no longer impossible. They did not talk as they walked across the wasteland. Ashken and Jessica had to save all of their energy to finding air and continuing moving at a stately but constant pace forward.

Moses and Joseph had less trouble travelling across the wasteland. They seemed comfortable on the strange ground and breathing the strange air. By nightfall, the four of them reached the trees. When Moses passed through the first tree, a sickly white tree with a forked branch leading to the sky, Moses held up his hand to stop the group. Near the trunks of the trees, the ground had firmed up. There were still splotches of desolate sinking sand between the trees, but as the trees thickened in the distance, Ashken could see less and less sand. Dark dirt with weeds and shrubs began to fill in the spaces between the trees.

It was clear that the farmers of the enclave would not have had much luck farming outside the walls as they planned. But if they had travelled a bit further into the tree stand, they would have found fertile ground. The problem with farmers, Ashken knew, was that they did not take care of the land. Much of the land the farmers reclaimed in the enclave from the great families started as wonderfully fertile, and after a decade of farming, turned dry and incapable of supporting life. Even the worst of the land in the enclave, however, was not as bad as the desolate desert they had just travelled through. Ashken thought that there may be worse things than farmers in these places.

“We’ll rest here tonight,” Moses said. He gathered dried branches and leaves and using a flash stick he started a small fire in one of the sand pits between the trees. The sand did not swallow the kindle as Ashken had first feared, and instead a cheery blaze lighted the darkening tree stand, threw dancing shadows across the ground, and warmed the cooling night.

“Where are we going,” Jessica asked. She did not look at anyone when she asked the question, and the question seemed to hang in the air, nobody willing to grab it and respond. Joseph did not sit near the fire, but stood against the first tree they had arrived at after leaving the wasteland. His large stomach lifted and fell quickly, as if his breathing had not slowed after their day’s travels. Ashken had not noticed him struggling while they crossed the wasteland, and it seemed strange to see the giant struggling now. Even with his large belly moving up and down quickly, his face did not give away exhaustion. As always, it looked bored and uncaring.

Ashken waited for Moses to respond with the plan, but he was silent. He used a long stick to poke at the fire and move the branches into different positions for the fire to burn them. The fire had caught strongly, and his efforts seemed unnecessary, and yet he still continued to move the fire around, throwing up dust storms of orange sparks. The wood crackled and cracked and black smoke worked its way up to the star-lit sky.

“Before he died,” Ashken began, his answer to Jessica’s question forming only after the words formed on his lips. “My father spoke about the wandering people. He said that they were our ancestors. He wanted us to find them. He did not say why or what he hoped they would do when we found them. He only told me that they lived outside the enclave. I know very little about them, but I thought it best we try and find them. It was something my father’s father wanted my father to do. My father never found the wandering people, and I think it was one of his big regrets in life. My father had many regrets it seemed.”

“Your father did the best he could with what he knew,” Moses said. “The regrets should stop with me. I should have told him more, let him in on our plans. He might have helped. That is what I would do if I could: go back and give him all the information when he took over the family.” Moses continued to poke at the fire. It seemed there were many regrets in this night.

Jessica listened first to Ashken and then to Moses before responding with a nod of her head in agreement. The bag she carried from the enclave was to the side of her. Her arm was wrapped around the bag as if to keep it safe. It was all that remained of her life inside the enclave and her family. Ashken did not comment on the bag or on their journey.

Ashken slept poorly that night. He was not used to the firm, cold ground or the sounds of the animals and the wind in the trees. The open sky twinkled strangely at night and the air turned cold as they slept. He woke before dawn and stirred quietly, trying not to wake Jessica.

When Ashken looked around, he found Moses and Joseph missing. His first thought was that they had finally abandoned him. It was only when he shook off the aftereffects of sleep and his exhausting day that he realized Moses would not have done that. If there was one person left he could rely on unconditionally, it was Moses. Moses and Joseph must have left the camp. Jessica still slept near the fire. Her arms were wrapped around her bag and her face was streaked with dried tears. Ashken stood up quietly so as not to wake her. He understood that sleep offered the only balm for her grief, and he did not want to take away the few moments of pleasure that sleep could impart.

It was still dark when Ashken crept away from the tree stand. It was difficult to see much in the area around where they camped. Once Ashken’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out the silhouettes of Joseph and Moses in the distance against the star-lit sky. They were an odd pair. Joseph was huge and from the back, he did not look like a person. Ashken was hard pressed to know what he did look like; perhaps a large barn or a misshapen boulder. Moses was a small slight man, his small stature creating an almost laughable contrast to Joseph’s size. Moses’s sword gave him the appearance of a third leg in the shadowy night.

Moses and Joseph were talking quietly when Ashken approached.

“There is much we can still do,” Moses said to Joseph. “You should come with us. It was for the best that we left the enclave. With Tenos dead, Ashken will have to bear the torch of our civilization. I’m not ready to give up on him.”

“Why do you insist on putting your faith still in these great families,” Joseph asked with his voice full of regrets. “I was not with you when the protectors met and decided on the great families. When I learned of what you discussed at the gathering, I located my family, and, at the time, I was proud to call them my own. Through the generations, however, things changed. It seems obvious now that wise men would not always beget wise men. That was where we made a mistake. We relied on teachings and genetics, and both failed us. You saw my last master.”

“And yet you still served him,” Moses said. “You must have still believed.”

“It’s not that I believed—I’m beginning to doubt that I ever truly believed. It’s that I didn’t know what else to do. I was designed to protect humanity, and except for the gathering’s plan, I did not know how else to fulfill my mission. When I saw you standing there, protecting that pathetic looking man from the great family, I believed you were of the same mind. I thought two great protectors fighting to the death would at least give my life some meaning.”

“Did it?” Moses asked, his voice dropping in sadness or regret at the memories that Joseph brought about.

“Of course not,” Joseph answered, his voice losing the emotion it had for that small moment in time, returning to his apathetic tone. “All meaning is gone now. We are remnants of the past. The dream we keep alive died long ago when the great families began to disperse and when they began forgetting why they had been separated away from the rest of humanity.”

“You knew why we had to do that,” Moses said. “We could no longer guarantee their protection in large groups. We had to separate the families to have a chance that at least a few of them would survive. We did not understand how much the chaos would engulf the world, and how the chaos would seek out those who were not affected by it. Our lessons in chaos were strange, chaos is like water: it always searches out the areas without water until those areas are drowned as well. We thought we could protect the families, but we were too small a number. Everything would have been lost if we didn’t break apart the families, assign protectorates and disperse ourselves amongst the remaining world at key locations where the chaos did not yet hold sway. You know that. You know all of that. Look even now, the remaining civilization offered by the enclave is in the process of being swallowed by the chaos.”

“Why do you bother to go on then?” Joseph asked. “Isn’t it time we put down our flag, accept that we were wrong, that we could not do what we were programmed to do.”

“We go on because we can do nothing else. We were designed to protect humanity, protect them from the world as it came apart at its seams. And, most importantly, we were designed to protect humanity from the chaos until humanity was ready to protect itself.”

“I know what you say is true,” Joseph said. “I also know that I will go with you and try to help you fulfill your goals. They are no longer my plan—I do not have any plans anymore. But if I can help you with yours, I think that would be enough to keep me moving for another day. On the day after that one, however—on that day I’m not sure what will keep me moving.”

Joseph nodded to himself and Moses did not speak. They both were silent and still for many minutes. Finally, Joseph turned around and looked at Ashken. “Your boy over there doesn’t know the first thing of protecting himself,” Joseph said.

“At least not with a sword,” Moses said. “And, if you remember, that is what we wanted. But he has other abilities, abilities that are more powerful than swords or shooters. His father had those abilities as well.” Moses turned his head to face Ashken and raised his voice. “Ashken, come join us over here. There is nothing we need keep from you now that we have left the enclave.”

Ashken did not think he could have hid himself from Moses. Moses must have known that he was hiding there the entire time. It did not matter. Nothing that they had said had made much sense to Ashken. They spoke of humanity as if they had some influence over its survival. Ashken realized over the past few days that his family and he in particular had no influence over what or how the enclave did, let alone what humanity did. The most he could do now was to fulfill his father’s final wish, and perhaps find a place where Jessica and he could survive for awhile, a place far away from where the chaos was now. It was the most he could offer her. Even though he knew that it would never be sufficient to keep Jessica safe. The chaos would always find them.

Ashken walked over to where Moses and Joseph waited. The sun was rising on the horizon and a pink stain drenched the sky with color.

Word count: 2,729

Words remaining: 3,725 (words so far: 46,275)

Thoughts: I’m biding my time trying to finish. Isn’t filler great? I can say the same thing four different ways and call it progress. Less than two days to go. I already hear them carting the fireworks into position.