{"id":1907,"date":"2013-10-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=1907"},"modified":"2013-10-27T09:50:06","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T13:50:06","slug":"sixteen-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=1907","title":{"rendered":"Sixteen – 03"},"content":{"rendered":"

He was two days on the road before he began to think that he should have taken a horse.\u00a0 He was footsore already and there were days of walking still ahead of him.
\n\tYou’ve gotten soft,<\/em> he chided himself.\u00a0 You’ve gotten soft while you were sitting there with them in their makeshift fort, in their imaginary castle on a hill.<\/em>
\n\tHe shivered.\u00a0 Why had he thought of it that way?
\n\tBecause somehow you know, that’s what it will become.\u00a0 Someday, somehow.\u00a0 <\/em>He swallowed bile.\u00a0 That’s part of why you’re running, isn’t it?\u00a0 You’re afraid that if you stay, it won’t happen–that you’ll somehow, by your presence, prevent it from coming to pass.<\/em>
\n\tPhelan squeezed his eyes shut against tears that began to sting, tears that didn’t come from the stiff wind off the lake to his right.
\n\tTwo days out and you miss them already.\u00a0 You <\/em>have gotten soft, Wanderer.<\/em>
\n\tHe bit the inside of his cheek and lifted his head.\u00a0 There was the scent of woodsmoke on the wind, a scent that made his stomach feel hollow.
\n\tMust be another settlement nearby.<\/em>
\n\t“Just keep walking,” he mumbled to himself, glancing sidelong toward the lake to his right.\u00a0 There was ice nearest to the shore, the deep blue of the water visible far beyond, dark against the gray sky.\u00a0 Lake Michigan had swelled its normal banks since the end of everything and had showed no signs of sinking again.
\n\tThe lakeshore in the city’s underwater,<\/em> he thought.\u00a0 What’s left of it, anyway.\u00a0 Water all the way to Michigan Avenue and beyond, swamp the museums and the low-lying places.\u00a0 Just as well that there’s barely a soul still breathing there.<\/em>\u00a0 He shuddered.\u00a0 He still had nightmares about his escape from the ruins of Chicago, nightmares he hadn’t breathed a word of to any of his friends.\u00a0 There was no reason for them to worry about things that they couldn’t change, that they’d have no control over.
\n\tThom seemed to be handling the idea that his parents were probably dead well enough anyway.\u00a0 He wasn’t sure if any of the others had family there, but no one had asked and he hadn’t told.
\n\tIntellectually, he knew the odds were slim that he was the only<\/em> survivor of a city of almost three million souls, but he didn’t hold out much hope that there were many others who’d lived.
\n\tHe squeezed his eyes shut.\u00a0 Everywhere you go, everywhere you make your home, people suffer.<\/em>
\n\tThat’s why I can’t make my home anywhere.\u00a0 I am the Taliesin, the Wanderer.\u00a0 I am doomed to wander for all time, les I endanger those I love.<\/em>
\n\t<\/em>He thought of Jacqueline, of Thom and Marin, Neve and Cameron, J.T. and Matt and all the rest.
\n\tI can’t be selfish anymore and endanger the ones I love.\u00a0 I have to keep moving–always moving.\u00a0 There’s no choice anymore.<\/em>
\n\tNo choice at all.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He was two days on the road before he began to think that he should have taken a horse.\u00a0 He was footsore already and there were days of walking still ahead of him. You’ve gotten soft, he chided himself.\u00a0 You’ve … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,55,14,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-4","category-chapter-16","category-story","category-winter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-uL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1908,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions\/1908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}