The Annihilation of Foreverland

be. He went into the Haystack and endured the suffering without taking the needle. After Danny went to sleep, Reed stayed in that dreadful room. He’d done it before, Danny had been told. Reed was a sick puppy, he was told.
    “How do you know that?” Danny asked.
    Reed remained still and quiet. “You can trust her,” he finally said.
    “Do you know her?”
    “I did, once upon a time.” Again, quiet. A slight shrug. “Or maybe I just think I do. It’s an ocean of thoughts, Danny Boy.”
    Danny wanted to ask him a hundred questions. Everyone on the island was buying everything the Investors were selling, gobbling it up like a bunch of hungry fish, and here was a kid that seemed to know something. Danny wanted to know why they were on the island and why Reed didn’t take the needle and who the girl was…
    But then a cart came over the dune and began driving down the hardpacked beach, the water skimming beneath it. Reed never looked at it, just continued staring. The cart stopped in front of them. Mr. Jones rested his hands on the steering wheel and stared at Reed. It was the first time since Danny had come out of the Haystack that the old man didn’t look happy. He patted the empty seat next to him.
    “Come along, Danny Boy. Your camp is looking for you, they’ve been waiting at the game room. You don’t want to disappoint, now do you?”
    Mr. Jones’s eyes flickered at Reed when he said that. Reed didn’t notice. Or seem to care. He just stared at the ocean, not looking for anything, almost like he was waiting for a ship to arrive. The girl said to tell Reed that they found him. He did that.
    Now what?
    Danny got on the cart. They left Reed behind. He’d stay there the remainder of the day. Maybe longer.
    The next time Danny would see him was through the bars of his cell.

12
    Reed had spent time on every section of the island. Most were sandy beaches; a few sections were cliffs. At first, he explored these areas in search of an escape while all the other boys wasted time in the game room. It didn’t take long to see the futility of the choppy surf and rocky coral. Of course, he hadn’t seen the south end where the old men lived where hope may still exist.
    But hope was no longer in Reed’s vocabulary. He extinguished it. Twenty-five trips – now, twenty-six – through the Haystack will scrub that out of any person. Boy or man.
    Reed spent his time on the north end because no one else did. He would remain on the beach for days while the sun spread warmth deep into his bones where the cold torture felt unreachable.
    He rarely saw anyone on the north end. Not even Mr. Smith, especially since he wasn’t talking to Reed anymore. Mr. Smith didn’t show up when the last round ended. Reed walked back to his room and curled up under the covers, chattering in and out of fitful sleep where he dreamed of turning blades and endless rain.
    Reed came to the beach just before the sun rose, when the sky was glowing orange and purple. He sat, watching the waves come in. There was a time when he decided escape was impossible but still looked for a sign that he was wrong.
    Not anymore.
    Now he just watched the waves crash, reminding him of the one sustaining lesson: h opelessness.
    Reed had given up hope that he would one day find a way off the island, to discover home somewhere out there, to be rid of the ceaseless random thoughts churning in his head. Because to hope was to reject the present moment, the only thing that was real, regardless of its misery. Reed clung to the present moment like a buoy. Reality had frayed. He didn’t know who he was.
    He hadn’t given up, only the hope that things would be different. He found his suffering was bearable when he did so, that he accepted the totality of life, regardless how he felt about it , whether he liked it or not.
    And like it, he did not.

    Reed couldn’t look at Danny. If he did, he would risk clinging to hope again.
    He wasn’t surprised he’d come. He had an intuition that he would seek him out. Reed’s intuition didn’t come in words or thoughts, it came in dreams. The only consistent thing about them was the image that followed them: r ed hair.
    He didn’t know who she was. He sensed her presence the day he woke up in a lab staring at Mr. Smith’s hopeful grin. Her essence warmed him. At first, he thought he’d imagined it like all the other random thoughts, but the essence that accompanied her was different than all the others.
    It was