The Forsaken

electrical cables. Sometimes I have to crouch and duck underneath them. Tall trees on either side form natural walls of foliage, as dense as a hedge maze in places.
    I realize this is one of the first times I’ve been alone since arriving at the village. Every sound is magnified, my senses on high alert. I quicken my pace. The backpack grows heavier, but I settle into a good hiking rhythm.
    Strange birds trill and call to one another overhead. I tilt my head up and catch a glimpse of multicolored wings fluttering past beneath the canopy of trees. No place with such beautiful birds can be all bad, I tell myself. But I’m not sure I believe it.
    Eventually the path ends in a small clearing that houses the kennels—two long rows of bamboo prison cells, about thirty in all. There’s no sign of a guard.
    Worried, I slow down. From my angle of approach, I can’t even see who’s inside the bamboo cells.
    “Markus?” I call out.
    There’s a shuffling noise nearby, and I startle, making the liquid in the tureen slosh. All kinds of awful visions dance through my mind. Maybe the prisoners escaped and they’re planning an attack! I glance around in jittery panic, prepared to dump the soup and run.
    Then I see a figure stumble out of the trees. It’s a tall boy with curly blond hair. Markus. He’s not overweight exactly, but he’s large and fleshy, with big hands. He’s zipping up his pants and looking around.
    “Hey!” I call out.
    He turns to me. “Alenna, right? Sorry. Just taking a leak.” He motions to my backpack. “You got my soup in there?”
    I nod. I swing the pack off my shoulders and gently lower it to the ground. Markus walks over and scoops up the backpack easily in one hand. He doesn’t look particularly friendly.
    He takes the pack over to a dilapidated wooden picnic table at the edge of the clearing and unloads the tureen. I keep glancing at the kennels, but the prisoners are hard to see in the shadows, silent and still.
    Markus turns to me as he opens the tureen. “Wanna help me feed these bastards?”
    “Sure,” I say. “I can start with the new guy.”
    “Oh yeah, David-something-or-other. They’re all the same to me.” He picks up a wooden ladle and a green ceramic bowl from the table and thrusts them at me. “Knock yourself out.”
    I begin filling the bowl with the thin watery soup. It smells like potatoes.
    “He’s in the isolation cell,” Markus instructs. “It’s at the end of the row on the left, set off from the others. We keep the new prisoners in isolation for a week, just in case they’re real crazy. I’ll start feeding the rest of ’em.”
    Carefully holding the bowl, I move toward the bamboo cages. Thin, sturdy stalks of green bamboo form the sides and ceilings of the cages, woven together to create a strong mesh. Vertical bamboo sticks are dug deep into the dirt at the bottom to keep the prisoners from digging their way out.
    The densely woven bamboo slats make it hard to see inside. I squint as I get closer. I thought the prisoners would be noisily clamoring to get out. But they’re oddly quiet.
    I glance down to keep the soup from spilling out of the bowl. When I look up again, I’m almost at the first row of kennels. I pause, nervous. Inside the nearest cell I see a thin dark figure sitting against the back. The cell is too small for him to stand up in. I can’t tell if he’s asleep or secretly watching me.
    I pass him by. The other kennels also hold silent, motionless figures.
    “They wake up at night,” Markus calls after me. I glance back. “They sleep most of the day. The heat, I guess.” He gestures at the cages. “After sunset they’ll be screeching and banging on the bamboo like monkeys. But the new guy’s different.” Markus points at the isolation cage, that lone bamboo cell near the edge of the clearing. “He’s awake now because he hasn’t fallen into their pattern yet. But he will.” He doles some soup into a bowl for another prisoner. “Oh, and watch your hair. They like to pull it.”
    I turn back and walk the rest of the way to the isolation cage. I can finally see David crouching inside, a shaft of light illuminating his eyes through the bamboo slats. He looks a bit groggy. Maybe it’s from the aftereffects of the truth serum.
    “David, it’s me,” I say, kneeling in front of his cell. I hold the bowl up. “I brought soup.” I lean down and push the bowl through a rectangular opening at the bottom. “You’ll feel