(It's) Always There
Copyright© 2026 by Daniel Tors
Chapter 3
Movement drew Navy awake; it was the car wobbling a little on its suspension as someone left through the side door. Kept on the edge of drifting back off, Navy heard indiscernible rumblings of people talking outside, her backpack hugged close as the crick in her spine worsened and brought her closer to fully remembering where she was. Dragging her mouth open and smacking it a few times in a confused, displeased manner, Navy swallowed dryly, the stuffy interior and dust-laden air, along with old sweat she hadn’t washed off, making her feel generally disgusting.
As the smallest, she slept in the abandoned SUV’s trunk, knees bent uncomfortably to accommodate. Initial thoughts of it being better to sleep there than outdoors weren’t entirely wrong – there were walls again, at least – but, overall, her rest wasn’t much better than the two nights before. Similarly, she slept no more than a couple hours, every time they switched posts at night sending her eyes wide open again, and every time, she’d be forcibly met with the same, unsettling window view. However miserable it may have been, though, it made the most practical sense this way, and it’s not like Navy got shunted from conditions that were much better.
Near the open door, Case ordered, “Get up; we’re leaving.”
Doing as she was told, Navy sat up and rolled her neck to help with the tension, then awkwardly gathered her things. She climbed over the back seat, the rear door not an option because of noise concerns, and was given a half-full can of food at the precipice. Several joints popped in ways they really shouldn’t as Navy sat and stretched.
Their map – likely one of many, as it looked to only cover the state – spread-out on the hood, Hane and Red discussed their route going forward; what they said in words wasn’t hard to follow, but a lot of the conversation was done through sign language, and some pointing she couldn’t see the target of wasn’t making anything clearer. While Navy couldn’t understand the extent of their talk, Hane once seemed irritated at something Red told him and eyed Navy before responding. She turned mostly away, then, so it could simply be a misunderstanding ... or she’d done something wrong again.
Signaled by Hane that they were ready to decamp, Navy, though it felt quite wrong, left the empty can on the ground as they’d instructed her to, and followed close behind.
Initial surges of repulsion from looking around were hardest to get over in the morning, when the gap between tries was largest – a night “inside” probably not helping. Nevertheless, it could be pushed through. When she did, there’d be an inevitable sickening feeling which grew and grew, she’d get her balance thrown off now and again, and looking straight at the sky was out of the question, but every try was easier; just keep bashing against it and things’ll work eventually. Providing some consolation once it could be appreciated, the sincere beauty of her surroundings had won Navy over during the daytime, its allure present in every aspect. When darkness fell, she longed for its return.
Earlier than all her other senses, hearing normalized, the consistent yet scattered sounds of nature standing prominently on their own to her, each new one piquing her interest whether its origin could be seen or not; on the first day or two, this sheer volume and lack of visual clarity was more concerning, but the experience had softened to something she partially liked. Excluding a certain type of – usually sharper – noises which remained worrisome, Navy thought it calming to listen to and identify what she heard. Most constant were their footsteps and the crunching that often resulted, Navy seeming to generate twice as much noise as the others, who occasionally “dropped in number” or even borderlined on silent altogether. Under that, a placid, cool breeze stirred all. Her occupation was mainly kept, of course, with the less expected; animals of various kinds were the usual culprits. Bugs were pretty common and buzzed about, Navy, both surprisingly and not, getting over the instinctual flinching they caused rather quickly, as she was fond of them, even letting a friendly dragonfly ride on the back of her hand for a while as she examined it with fascination.
Unfortunately (not to diminish that bugs alone thrilled her well enough), she hadn’t spotted anything larger. Some woodpeckers could be easily heard drumming to attract a mate but were lost in the brush, and Navy was convinced she’d seen the antlers of a stag as it scampered off at one point, though that certainty faded. Disappointing as those might have been, the ever-changing environment she traveled across could hardly be more awash with compelling sights; slanted or generally uneven terrain made trees grow at strange angles, shrubs and other little plants ranged from blanketing the entire ground, to huddling in clusters, to being almost absent, and red wild fruits – she’d passed raspberries, strawberries, and bittersweet nightshade close enough to name them – dotted between bright greens and often subdued browns. The couple times she’d been high enough on a steep hill, and could stomach it, Navy saw a veritable ocean made purely of treetop leaves that rolled out to the skyline. Whether that or a simple rock formation, their images would stick in Navy’s mind until and after she spotted another, their every unique bit that intrigued her thought over, then over again.
It wasn’t clear for how long she’d missed it, but the sound of water flowing had grown just enough to grab her attention; in not too many feet, Navy walked close beside a narrow stream. Lying in a small divot and flowing opposite her direction, the mellow waters were thin enough to be seen right through to the bed, smooth rocks covering that very place while more jagged, mossy ones jutted out of it and others flanked the sides. Amidst the pleasance of this stream, and far more important to her at that moment, slim fishes – minnows of some kind, definitely – scuttled about under the surface. Multiple schools made up by dozens of fish went this way or that, kept themselves still against the stream, or leaped tiny waterfalls; to her, though details couldn’t be seen well, they seemed like different species doing whatever their business was, but thinking of it as a poorly organized dance was considerably more amusing.
Navy bumped into something ... nope, someone, so began to apologize. “Sor–”
Red turned and gave a black look, one so utterly vindictive it sent her whole body rigid. The cavernous pit bored deep into Navy’s soul spiked her fight-or-flight response hard yet any will to act on it was completely gone in the whiplash; she could only interpret it as a death threat.