The world revealed itself slowly to Hadley. Her fingertips caressed starchy material with intermittent stiff folds. The material smelt clean. There was no other way to describe it. Just that it was a crisp, clean scent. A soap without fragrance. This wasn't the Compound. The ladies working at the laundry room were well-known for crafting linen soap with scents that matched the season, usually something strongly floral for this time of spring. The space Hadley was in was also much larger than any Compound cubicle because the bed she lay on was massive in comparison to a cubicle cot, with a thicker, softer, more comfortable mattress than she'd ever slept on.

She may not have known where she was, but she was certain of one thing.

She was still alive.

"Welcome back."

Hadley's eyes snapped open at the stranger's voice. Green paisley wallpaper. A bed that could fit five of her, with four chocolate brown corner posts connected to a matching frame at the top and cream bed curtains, drawn and tied against each post. The linen on the bed was dark green with the stiff folds and creases in it that Hadley had noticed before all over them. The woman who had spoken sat on a chair next to a vanity table, both made of the same wood as the bed. The vanity had no items on it, not even a mirror.

The woman had a warm smile on her face.

"Where am I?" Hadley asked.

"My home."

Hadley studied the woman for a moment. She had skin only slightly darker than Hadley's, tightly curled hair that was shaved and combed into an immaculate afro, and intense dark brown eyes that pierced through Hadley's. She wore a simple brown long-sleeved frock with a standing band collar and cream-coloured buttons that ran from her neck to just below her bosom. The dress reached her ankles. A simple pair of soft soled brown leather boots peeked from under the hem.

"How did I get here?" Hadley asked.

"I found you collapsed in the forest. I brought you here." the woman replied.

The memory played back in Hadley's mind. The cave of horrors. The battle with the vampire dogs. Ruqwik literally killing the chance to start a new life in Trisca's Enclave...

"...Jamila!" Hadley gasped.

"Pardon?"

"Jamila. My friend. She was in the forest with me! Did you see her?"

"You're the only one I brought back here." the lady said motioning to the room.

"But did you see her? There was a vampire too."

The lady's aura switched, and she snarled her next words. "Are you a vampire sympathiser?"

Hadley was taken aback by the acid in the woman's voice and forced her mind to slow down and focus. She shook her head.

"I care nothing for vampires," Hadley's voice was low and cold, and deeply sincere. "They've taken everything from me!"

The lady's face turned back to the warm, homely, and gentle look it held before. The look softened her. She couldn't have been that much older than Hadley's mother.

"That's good to hear, dearie." The lady said. "Not the part about them taking everything from you. That's all they ever do – take, take, take. But it's good to know you hate them too."

Hate was a bit of a strong word. Hadley was going for more of indifference. Incapacitate and run. Don't give them your undue energy or the time of day. That sort of thing. Hate denoted energy. Energy that Hadley just didn't care to waste anymore on vampires.

But she held her tongue.

"You're not a Wildling, are you, dearie?" the woman asked.

Hadley shook her head.

The woman's face suddenly turned dark again. "Are you one of the abominations they call 'Progenies'?"

Hadley shook her head once more.

The woman sat back in her chair and considered that for a moment, both satisfied with the response and curious. Her face switched back to the warm, homey look. The facial changes were instant and static when employed, which Hadley found highly disturbing.

"There's something different about you, dearie," the woman said, drawling and pulling at the words. There was a disconcerting familiarity in her eyes as she continued to study Hadley. Hadley had seen that same look directed towards her before – on Trisca's face. The woman tilted her head curiously. "Where are you from?"

"I lived in a Compound," Hadley said. "Until recently."

"Is that so? And how are you out here?"

"I escaped."

The lady's eyebrows shot to the ceiling. "From a Barn? I thought they bred out that kind of backbone from the sheeple."

Hadley winced at the insults.

"Why am I here?" Hadley asked, trying not to sound too disagreeable.

The woman shrugged. "I could have left you for dead where I found you. Lord knows it would have saved me the back pain. I'm not as young or as strong as I used to be. I brought you here because... well... to heal."

Hadley wondered what the woman had really meant to say.

"Your shoulder is badly swollen," the lady continued. "And that dog did a number on your foot. Looks like raw chuck."

The lady's words seemingly conjured up the pain, as if her brain had just remembered its function, and Hadley could barely think past the sudden agony of her injuries. It wasn't just her shoulder and foot. Her entire body ached after the battering she'd received from the fight with the vampire dogs.

"Not to worry, dearie. Just rest and you'll be right as rain, in the swish of a duck's tail!" the lady said. She put on that warm smile again. Then she giggled, an odd sound coming from her. She pinned Hadley with an amused gaze. "My mama used to say that."

More pain punched through Hadley as her body continued to shake off whatever drug had dropped her to the forest floor.

"Here. This will help." The lady handed Hadley a dark green glass with a sweet, tangy liquid and a sting to it that reminded Hadley of alcohol, but she didn't care. She was in far too much pain to resist anything that might help.

The tonic worked in a few minutes. As the pain faded away, Hadley noticed that, beyond the pain, she was exhausted. The lady was now watching her with an odd smile and slightly wide eyes, which was intensely unnerving, but Hadley's lids slowly fell, giving into the wave of exhaustion.

It was the best slumber she'd had in days!

*

"You're awake! That's good. I thought you'd sleep another day away."

Hadley whipped her head towards the room's door, where the woman from before stood.

"You scare so easy," the woman said, laughing as she walked further into the room. She was wearing what at first looked exactly like the same long sleeved brown frock from the day before, but this dress had a different collar. This one had a shirt collar and a short placket with the buttons done up all the way. "But I bet you feel a whole lot better after all that sleep."

Hadley did feel better. She rolled her right shoulder. It felt fully healed, impossibly so. Swiping the blanket off her, she revealed neatly cinched back and healed skin over her mauled ankle. Another impossibility. The aches and pains that previously chequered her body were also gone.

"Has it only been a day?" Hadley wondered, her throat feeling sandpaper dry. But before the woman could answer, Hadley felt something else against her throat. Her hands shot up to the thick metallic choker. "What is this?"

The woman shrugged. "It's a shock collar. Don't play with it."

"What's a..." Hadley was struggling to pull the confining neck ring off when a bolt of pain shot through her body, the agony sending her into spasms. The few seconds of drowning in excruciating anguish ended as fast as it had started.

"I told you not to play with it." came a dry statement from the woman.

"Why did you put this on me?"

"I don't know you. I don't know if you'll try to kill me or burn my house down," the woman explained as a matter of fact. "That collar is how I keep myself safe."

Hadley didn't know what to say to that.

The woman smiled wide.

"Not to worry though, dearie. All we have to do is change our status from strangers to friends!" she announced, offering her hand to Hadley. "Hello, my name is Mrs. Smith."

Hadley hesitantly shook the offered hand. "I'm Hadley."

"Hadley! What a delightfully strong name!" she said, her voice a notch higher than before. "You must be really strong! I can tell, you know."

Hadley gave her a smile, but she was incredibly apprehensive at the whole situation. She hoped the woman wouldn't notice.

"It's lovely to meet you, Hadley," the woman said. "Now, what will we do today?"

Hadley took a moment to think.

"I wouldn't mind having a shower. Changing my clothes." Hadley said. She'd woken up both times wearing nothing but a long soft nightdress that wasn't hers, and she didn't want to think about how she'd gotten into it.

"Of course!" the woman said, pointing at another door in the room. "The bathroom has both a shower stall and a lovely tub. You can use either. Whatever you wish!"

"And my clothes? My bag?" Hadley asked, hesitating a bit with her words because she wasn't sure the woman wouldn't suddenly change like before.

"I'll bring it right up, dearie! Don't you worry about that." The woman said in a bit of a sing song voice. "Now, go in there and run a bath and I'll be right back."

Hadley pointed at her throat. "What about this?"

"Ah, yes. Of course," the lady giggled. She moved closer to Hadley, who resisted the strong urge to crawl away from the woman's touch. The lady pulled a key out of the cleavage of her ample bosom and fiddled with the collar, using the key to unlock it. "I suppose we can have it off you as you clean up."

Hadley waddled off the bed, testing her weight against her injured foot. A twinge of pain pushed back, but it was nothing close to what it should have been. She smiled at the woman and slowly walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Just like she had in Ruqwik's cabin, Hadley slid to the floor against the door, hugged her knees and tried not to fall apart. And then, just like she had in Ruqwik's bathroom, the first thing Hadley did after pulling herself together was to search for a way out.

The bathroom was as large as the bedroom. A magnificent tub lay in the centre. It shimmered white with clawed feet, a copper tap and an ornate drain plug. In the corner was a shower stall made of a gorgeous copper basin with pillars connected to it, rising in a pyramid shape to where it held an ornate copper basin at the top that was the shower head. The wood of the bathroom vanity and linen cupboard was a bold brown that matched the copper fittings and the mirror's round edge. Everything had an ethereal glow under soft yellow electrical lighting and the dancing flames of a few candles. There was a large window against one wall. Outside, the forest filtered rays of the setting sun making it through the window, adding to the theatre.

Hadley rushed to the window and forced it open. She had one leg over when she stopped and thought about what she was about to do. The window was two storeys up, but the forest reached for the house, and she was sure she'd survive the jump to a nearby tree. However, the same thoughts that stopped her running from Ruqwik's cabin plagued her here as well. Sure, she could jump and disappear into the trees, but she was wearing a flimsy night gown, had no idea where she was and was in no way prepared to face a pack of vampire dogs if she ran into one. Not to mention the fact that, without Aunt Zee's diary, even if she found the Wildlings, she had no way to prove to them who she was and why they should take her in or help her find Jamila and the others.

And it was less than three weeks to Conception Day.

Less than three weeks before her daughter began her journey in this world.

Mrs. Smith triggered Hadley's instincts to flee this place immediately, but this woman had a warm home, had a tonic that helped her heal fast and she didn't like vampires, which meant she knew how to avoid them. Not to mention the fact that Hadley had never, in her life, slept in a bed nearly as comfortable as the one she'd just crawled out of. Beds at the Compound were thin and uncomfortable, and she'd been sleeping on the forest floor for weeks now, or trying to, plagued by nightmares from everything she'd witnessed in the last two weeks.

In the end, it was the promise of another good night's sleep that drew Hadley's leg back over the window's jamb.

And it was the promise of having a warm new home for her daughter that had her shutting the window.

"That was fast." The lady said when Hadley walked out of the bathroom.

"I decided on a quick shower," Hadley replied with a shrug, holding up a towel wrapped around her body, under her arms. Her hair dripped onto her bare shoulders. Under the shower, with tears in her eyes, Hadley had braided her hair into thick twists, missing Jamila's touch. Jamila's braids always looked better.

Hadley needed to know what happened to her. Needed to find her!

The lady pointed towards the room's door. Hadley resisted the urge to run to the backpack leaning against the wall next to the door. She looked up at the woman instead.

"Thank you." Hadley said.

Before saying anything else, the lady lifted her other hand, holding up the shock collar.

"Remember, it's for my safety," she said with what she must have thought was a sheepish grin though it came off as bleak and grim.

Hadley inwardly groaned.

Maybe she should have jumped out of the window.

"Water and electricity don't mix." Hadley tried. "My hair is still dripping wet."

"It's waterproof."

Once the shock collar was back on, the woman left Hadley alone to dress. The backpack was free of her whittling knife and what had been left of her medical kit, but that wasn't what concerned Hadley the most. She frantically rummaged through the bag's contents until she finally found it buried inside the main pocket with her clothes. That wasn't where she'd left it, but she sighed in relief when she pulled it out. The little vial with the five apple seeds.

There were little white nubs growing out of the seeds. A new development for the germinating seeds.

Hadley smiled, though tears were falling down her cheeks.

She'd experienced so much loss already. As trivial as it seemed in the big picture, losing these seeds would have broken her. She sat back, wiping her eyes.

"I think I found a new home Aunt Zee," Hadley whispered to the vial. "It's not perfect, but I'm starting to think that nothing really is. That nowhere ever will be. That maybe I destroyed perfection back there with you."

Hadley breathed through a few sobs before she continued.

"I'll make it work, Aunt Zee. For me and Little Zee," Hadley whispered, her voice cracking. "I hope it's alright that I name her after you."

Her throat choked up too much to continue, so she just stared at the germinating seeds through a waterfall of tears until she was so broken that she didn't know how to feel. In this numb state, she soullessly pulled on a clean set of clothes from the bottom of her bag and crawled into the large bed, trying to ignore the shock collar, chasing that good night sleep that made her choice to stay. All she craved was a few hours where she was lost to her emotions, to her pain, to the world. Just enough to recharge.

It was too much to ask for.

Despite the darkness pulling at her emotions, her brain revolted, a cacophony of voices, scenarios, feelings, and lost dreams screaming at her for hours.

"Knock, knock?"

Hadley sat up and faced the door. She was beyond exhausted, her mind stretched to the limit. Sleep still taunted her, playing at the edges of her frayed mind, but gleefully twirling and dancing away again every time she desperately reached for it, no matter how slowly and carefully she tried to approach and coax it. Even the abyss failed to disconnect her from the horror of the past few days.

The woman walked in with a tray laden with food.

Aromatic tendrils wafted over to Hadley, painfully twisting her empty stomach.

"I thought you might be hungry." The woman said in a pleasant voice as she placed tray on the empty vanity.

Hadley slipped off the bed and took a seat next to the vanity. She shoved the steak, potatoes, and wild vegetables down her gullet, annoyed that she had to waste time chewing and cutting up the meat so she wouldn't choke. It was a much larger ration than was allowed at the Compound at her age, more suited as a ration for the sixth month of pregnancy, but she only felt a little guilty about that.

"Woah," the woman laughed. "It's not going anywhere."

Hadley looked up, her mouth so full, it couldn't close.

"Take your time, Hadley," the lady said, walking out of the room. Before she shut the door behind her, she turned back to face Hadley. "I have something special to show you after dinner."

The lady came back about an hour later carrying a massive box. She struggled with the weight, but the excitement in her face showed that she didn't care. She was a lot more eager to showcase the box's contents than lift with her legs to save her lower back.

Hadley stayed silent, watching the lady huff and carefully place the box on the ground near the bed.

"I think you'll like this, Hadley," the lady said, unfazed by Hadley's silence.

The box was filled with colourful paper. Hadley's curiosity got the better of her. She leaned in as the lady displayed her treasure.

"They used to call these 'magazines'," the lady explained. "They're old now, but I've done a great job of keeping them in almost mint condition, if I do say so myself."

Hadley accepted the plastic coated and sleeved pages, staring at the pictures in awe. Most of the words on the pages made little sense to Hadley when stringed into sentences, but she still perused through as many paragraphs as she could, hungry for understanding.

"What's this?" Hadley finally asked, pointing to one of the images.

"That's a car," the lady replied wistfully. "The world was once filled with them. That particular car is a TVR Sagaris. Four-litre, six-speed engine, and a five-speed manual transmission. A true classic. In my opinion, one of the best cars to have ever existed."

"What was it for?"

"A car gets you from one place to another, fast. There were billions of them. Cars, trains, planes, and ships span the globe when humans ruled. But they've all been swallowed up by nature now."

"That was before the Human Error!"

"And a little bit after. Not that you or any of your friends would know anything about that, being Barn sheeple and all."

Hadley bristled at the words.

"My..." Hadley hesitated, rethinking her words. "There was a Wildling at the Compound. She told me about the time before the Human Error."

The lady scoffed, then cocked her head and narrowed her eyes.

"I thought they cut the tongues off those Wilding heifers before using them to fix their Barns' disgusting pool of DNA making up their GMO humans." The lady said.

Hadley hated every word in that sentence, even those she didn't understand, the derisive tone grating on her nerves.

"She could write. I can read." Hadley murmured, hiding her resentment, and not bothering to explain that Aunt Zee could speak.

"Speak up dearie," the lady said. "It's so lovely to have someone to talk with. I can't have you mumbling."

Hadley stayed silent.

"Anyway, what do the Wildlings know? It's all Chinese whispers for them," the lady said, laughing. "But you can trust me dearie. You see, I was there. I saw it all."

Whatever the woman meant by 'Chinese whispers', Hadley's suspicion that there was something very wrong with the woman was confirmed. She was barely older than Hadley's mother and she was clearly human, yet she seemed convinced she had been alive two hundred and fifty years ago.

Unease churned Hadley's dinner, contorting her insides.

She should have jumped out the bathroom window after all.