The Forsaken

“Being green can get people killed.” She lifts up a vine as thick as my wrist, and we pass underneath it.
    “At least tell me about the vaccine.”
    Gadya looks back at me. “It prevents disease. Trust me, you need it.”
    We reach a wider path, lined with magnolia trees. Gadya pauses for a second, listening. All is silent. We start moving again, wading rapidly through the tangled underbrush.
    “And the island?” I press, trying to gather as much information as possible. “Where are we exactly? The Atlantic? The Pacific?”
    “First of all, no one calls this place ‘the island.’ We call it ‘the wheel,’ because it’s divided into misshapen triangular sectors. Like pie slices. There are six of them. Don’t ask me why—I didn’t make the rules. The UNA did. The Monk controls four sectors—orange, purple, yellow, and red. Our tribe controls one—the blue sector. The sixth one’s called the gray zone. Bad things happen in there.”
    Her grim tone gives me a momentary chill.
    “We used to control the orange sector,” she continues, “but the Monk’s been expanding his territory. More and more kids keep joining his gang, or religion, or whatever he calls it. You picked a hell of a time to turn up here. We’re in the middle of a war. And we’re losing.”
    My head is buzzing as we walk, filled with a million more questions. “A war against the Monk? Who is he?”
    “An old man who’s been here longer than anyone else. He claims he has supernatural powers. He tells everyone that the wheel is a test, and if they do what he says, they’ll get off it one day—or find their reward in the afterlife. Crazy, desperate kids turn to him, looking for meaning.” She lowers her voice. “We call him the Cannibal Monk.”
    I stop in my tracks, horrified. “ Cannibal? As in, like, he eats people?”
    Gadya chuckles. “Not flesh. Souls. That’s what he’s after.” She glances back and sees the stricken look on my face. “It’s a figure of speech.” She increases her pace. “C’mon.”
    The path is wide enough to walk shoulder to shoulder, although it’s hard keeping up with Gadya. “So how long have you been here?”
    “Fourteen months,” she replies, like that’s nothing. Then she points up ahead. “Look, we’re almost at the village. We’re rebuilding from a nighttime raid. If we build huts, eventually the Monk’s drones burn ’em down.” The trees thin as we crest a ridge and approach a grassy clearing the size of a baseball diamond. “This island is allergic to civilization. The Monk makes sure of that.”
    I don’t fully understand, but I’m too dazed and distracted to ask any more questions. We’ve reached the edge of the trees and I’m gazing out at the clearing. I see about a hundred teenagers, my age or older, hammering and assembling makeshift shacks around the edges of the clearing. Hammocks hang between crooked palm trees. So this is how exiles live.
    Most of the kids are dirty and unkempt, with ragged hair. A few even have wispy beards. But none look particularly crazy or dangerous, not like the boys in robes. These kids are mostly wearing T-shirts and jeans, or shorts. I wonder if the blue-eyed boy will be among them, if he’s still alive, and if this is his village. I look for him, hoping to see him, but don’t find his face anywhere.
    A huge stone fire pit sits in the center of the clearing, about twelve feet in diameter. It holds only ashes at the moment, but the odor of smoke and greasy barbecued meat hovers in the air.
    As Gadya and I emerge, some of the villagers stare in our direction.
    “Took you long enough!” a boy yells at Gadya. He’s got muscular shoulders, and he’s lugging a large sheet of warped plywood. Gadya flicks him off with a callused middle finger. He laughs. I barely know Gadya, but I already wish I could be as confident and brash as she is. Especially here on this island.
    I’m surprised there aren’t more people at the village. The island is supposed to hold tens of thousands of Unanchored Souls. So where is everyone? Maybe they’ve joined forces with the Monk already. Despite Gadya’s advice to forget about David, I’m worried about what’s happening to him right now. He probably needs the same vaccine that I’m about to get.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Gadya murmurs. “This village is small, and it looks like crap, right?”
    I don’t reply.
    “There’s more of us in the blue sector than just these kids,”