The sudden hiss of a voice behind Anna nearly made her heart stop. A female voice, one she did not recognize. A villager?

She turned her head and saw a young woman. Short, irregularly cut, greasy hair framed a face with a fierce expression and an ugly scar on her cheek.

"Just be quiet," the woman said, moving the tip of her spear towards Anna's nose. "And get up, slowly."

Anna got to her feet, scrutinizing the stranger. "Who are you?" she asked.

"This doesn't matter now". The words were scathing but whispered. She moved her spear in front of Anna's face, much too close for comfort, then pointed it downslope. "Let's move. Down there."

Anna stood frozen, unable to do as requested. The intense stare, the clenched jaw, the urgent words—this woman was not a villager. She was not chipped. She was not from the Reduit either. What was she?

"Go! Move!" she hissed. "I've killed larger things than you."

Whatever she was, she had to be on the edge of madness, or beyond.

"Go!" she repeated, nearly stabbing one of Anna's eyes.

Anna cast a wistful glance towards the trail where her friends had left. They were nowhere to be seen. She was alone, alone with this madwoman who seemed perfectly capable of killing her with that spear.

Slowly, Anna turned and took a step downhill. The slope was steep, much more difficult to walk than the jogging trail. She reached out for some branches to steady herself while her feet sought purchase amid the roots and dirt.

"Keep moving," the madwoman said.

Anna felt a painful stab of the spear tip on her shoulder. What did that woman want? She felt new tears well up in her eyes as she turned her head to look back at her once more.

"Don't whine!" the woman said. "Just move!"

The descent was a nightmare. The ground was slippery, and the roots and plants kept snagging her feet. The woman hissed, cursed or growled whenever Anna slowed down.

Finally, the ground leveled out, but the woman was driving her on. Anna felt like the cattle that the villagers prodded with sticks to move them to the fields.

The trees in this part of the forest were huge, Anna had never seen anything like it. The trunks soared skywards, supporting a roof of greenery incredibly far above. Her eyes kept wandering up, neglecting the tricky ground below her, so she kept stumbling again and again.

"Watch where you go, dammit," said the woman, obviously still in a foul mood.

What did she want from her? Who was she? Anna had no clue. But she did not dare ask. She was afraid of her.

The others must be missing her by now. What would they think? That she had ran off on her own? Would they search for her at all?

She walked on, trying to concentrate on her steps.

They reached a group of decayed buildings, a place where Anna had never been before. She must be further away from the Reduit than ever. Her legs hurt, and her hands were scratched from the plants.

"Sit down there," the woman said.

She was pointing her spear at a block of crumbling concrete that stood at the entrance of one of the buildings. With a sigh of relief, Anna sat. Her legs were trembling. Exhaustion, or fear? Probably both.

The woman's clothes were different from those they wore in the Reduit, but also different from those they had in the village. Colorful, but torn and dirty. Clearly old technology.

She looked thin and in need of washing.

"You're Anna," the woman said.

The woman speaking her name astonished her. How did she know Anna if Anna had never seen her?

The woman sat down. Only now did Anna notice the stuff scattered on the ground. More old technology. An orange cover, probably for sleeping, and a backpack.

The woman still looked angry, but a similar feeling was starting to rise in Anna. What gave her the right to abduct her, to bring her here? "What do you want from me?" she said.

The woman just stared. "You'll see, in time," she finally answered.

"Are you a villager?" Anna asked.

"What do you think? Am I a villager?"

"No ... I don't think so. You're not from the village," Anna said. She was definitely not chipped.

"And why not? What makes you think that I'm not from that village?" The woman's words sounded strange, a bit like the people in the videos that were on the Holy Wiki.

"You ... you're different, different from the villagers. You're angry ... aggressive."

"Aggressive? Aren't they aggressive, the villagers?".

The woman obviously had no clue. How could she not know this?

"They're chipped," Anna answered.

The woman stared, not giving the impression that she understood a word of what Anna had said.

"They have a chip in their heads," Anna said, slowly. Was she stupid, retarded?

"What's a chip?" she asked, squinting her eyes.

"Technology," Anna replied. The woman surely knew about technology, about machines. She had such stuff herself. "We have an old machine that makes them."

"And what does it do, that chip?" she asked. "When you have it in your head?"

"It makes you calm ... it makes you obey," Anna replied.

The woman had to be from someplace else. But Jan said there were no other people outside, only the villagers.

"Are you chipped?" she asked.

"No, 'course not!" Anna replied. How could she think that? Didn't she see the difference?

"'Course not!" the woman echoed, nodding and displaying a grin as if making a joke. "Why's that? Why don't you have a chip, but the villagers do?"

"The members of the government aren't chipped." She surely had to know about the Reduit, and the people there, the government.

"And you're government?" she asked, again with a quizzical smile on her lips.

"No, 'course not. But I'll ..." Anna answered. But she would be government, one day—unless she fell out with Jan. "But maybe I'll be, one day."

"And who decides? Who decides who's to be chipped?"

"The government," Anna replied. "The government decides on the chipping."

"How convenient for the government."

The acid in the woman's tone was apparent. She seemed scornful, and Anna understood why. She never had liked what Jan and Robert did to the villagers.

"How many of you are there, in your bunker? I mean in the mountain ... in your cave ... or whatever you call it," the woman asked, her voice angry again, demanding.

What did she want? Why did she want to know all this? This woman was an outsider, after all, and she was obviously scorning them, maybe even hating them. And she was seeking information about them. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm asking the questions here," she replied.

This reply sounded like something Jan might have said. And as if in corroboration of that impression, the woman retrieved a knife from her filthy clothing and drew her finger along its edge. Then she started cleaning her fingernails with it. Anna was disgusted, not only by the act, but also by what it implied. The bullying.

"So, how many of you?" She said while her eyes were on her nail cleaning.

In a next step, Jan would start beating his victim. Anna wondered if that woman would go that far. With Jan, changing topics would sometimes help.

"What's your name?" Anna asked.

The woman looked up. "Leona," she said.

A strange name, Anna had never heard it.

Leona froze for a moment, then lowered her eyes. Was she blushing? She put her knife away, letting it disappear in her jacket, then she sighed. She started rummaging through her stuff, some seconds later retrieving an apple. She held it out to Anna. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

This sounded like an offer of peace, or at least of a truce. Anna welcomed it with a sense of relief. "Thanks," she said.

-----

A/N

I know that this was not very exciting. In contrast to the previous chapter, which provides some action that is not found in the actual book, this one is just a nearly 1:1 replay of a scene that is in the book, but it is from Anna's POV. For me, it was very interesting to write because it showed me some points where the original version did not work. I've fixed them now.