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Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

I fight to take a breath after I speak. I’m dizzy. The tunnel vision has returned.

I hobble to the riverbank. My body is giving up. It has been burned, bitten, and starved.

Tears are streaming down my cheeks.

“Help!” I scream. “Help! Anybody? Is there anybody out there? Please help us! We need food! And antibiotics! Anybody? Please!”

I look down at my watch.

The numbers swim in front of me.

It’s 3:38 a.m.

I’ve been yelling for thirty minutes.

I take a deep breath, stagger for a quarter mile farther down the riverbank, and cup my hands around my dry, scaling lips.

“Help!”

::::

July 11th

Sunrise 4:05 a.m.

“Opik. Opik.” I crane my neck to the side. I want to get up. To check on him, though I’m certain he’s dead. If I don’t check on him, then I won’t know for sure. And I can’t know.

Know that I failed him.

I lick my sunburned lips and mutter, “So there is this red folder at my house.”

I take a long breath.

“It’s my mother’s file. She did horrible things. To other people and maybe to me. The reason I’m only awake for an hour a night, the reason I only get sixty minutes a day, is because she conditioned my brain. Brain conditioning. Sleep amplification. Who does that to their son? But that isn’t what scares me. Opik? Opik, are you listening to this? I don’t want to know the truth about her. If I never open the folder, then there’s a chance my mom isn’t this monster who they say she is. She is just this lady who walked out on me. Like the moose and the bear. The moose just wanted Silver. He just wanted to eat the fish. That’s what my mom was to me growing up. She just left. Now the bear. The fucking bear wanted to eat me. I don’t want my mom to be a bear. Opik? You hear me? I don’t want my mom to be a bear!

“If I, if we, make it back. I’m gonna do three things. I’m gonna kiss Ingrid. I’m gonna kiss her for like an hour. Then I’m gonna rub her belly. I’m gonna tell her that I’m in. Boy, girl, one hour a day, a hundred hours a day, doesn’t matter, I’m in. Then I’m gonna go buy a cat. A pussi! I didn’t think I would like a cat, but I loved Lassie. He was the best. Kind of pervy sometimes, like this one time he licked Ingrid’s nipple. But can you blame him? Man, he was great. Don’t you think? Opik? Wasn’t Lassie the best? Yeah, so kiss Ingrid, rub her belly, go buy a cat, then I’m gonna open that folder.