Fog by Annelie Wendeberg

Author:Annelie Wendeberg [Wendeberg, Annelie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dystopian, Romance, civil war, child soldiers, pandemic, strong female character
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Rain is pissing down on me. My fingers twirl thin wires around the contacts of a control unit. Five minuscule dollops of C4 cling to each wire pair; ten pairs trail to the controller. Explosive squirrel droppings on a string.

‘Ready,’ I whisper and a small crack sounds in my ear. Runner doesn’t speak now. He’s too close to the BSA camp, compressing soil to the sides and bottom of the fourth and last of our foxholes. Or maybe he’s already smoothing dirt and leaves over the bamboo lid.

I crawl back to our hideout, a two-layered shelter made of a tarp with a grass-covered netting a few centimetres above it. The tarp blocks our thermal signatures. Should the tarp begin to warm up — it hangs a mere twenty centimetres above us — the netting and greenery above it will cloak and diffuse the thermal signatures of our bodies and muzzle flashes to an undetectable blur.

I wait, scanning the camp through my night-eye and trying to find Runner, but there’s no trace of him. He must be on the way back already.

In these past days of reconnaissance and preparation, the Taiwanese forest has begun to feel like home. It’s not too different from where I grew up. Mountains, beeches, maples. The firs look a bit different, though, and the red cypresses are impressive — taller and thicker than any tree I’ve ever seen. I love these ancient giants that seem to touch the sky with their crowns and grab the Earth’s belly with their mighty roots. The bamboo forests freak me out; they feel like a trap — nothing to climb, nowhere to hide, only a too-evenly spaced mass of slender stems.

Even the birds here are familiar. Some of them, anyway. I’ve seen nuthatches and great tits, red tails, and dippers. Others look like odd versions of the birds I knew. There’s a blackbird with a white head, and ravens with blood-red beaks. I’ve yet to find out what sings like a creaking door — that thing is so loud, it grates my eardrums. Or the creature that sounds as if someone is rasping a piece of metal over a comb. I’ve never seen it, but I guess it’s an insect.

‘On my way back,’ sounds in my earbud. ‘At the stream, now. I’ll wash and find us some food.’

‘I’ve got your back,’ I answer, and scan the small river until I find Runner stepping out of the woods and stripping naked. My gaze is stuck to his skin. The night-eye paints his caramel body white as marble with a greenish glow. His long hair is tied back; one strand escaped and now rests on his collar bone. His beard is cropped; short black hair covers his chest, a thin black line trailing down to…

I tilt my rifle a fraction to scan the forest behind him. It’ll be kept in my crosshairs until he’s on the move again.

Two hours before sunrise, Runner returns. All is prepared, the rucks are packed, rifles and ammo are in position.

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