I walked for days. Or hours. Time stopped meaning anything.
Sometimes I found food. Sometimes I found water. My body kept working even though I wanted it to stop.
Survival instinct. Even when you want to die, your body keeps trying to live.
The wasteland went on forever. Broken buildings. Dead cars. Empty places where people used to be.
Sometimes I saw other people. They looked at me and saw nothing worth taking. Just a broken kid in gray coveralls walking nowhere.
Nobody stopped me. Nobody helped. Nobody cared.
That was okay. I didn't want help anymore.
Help just made things worse. Connection just led to loss. Caring just led to death.
Maya had been right all along. Love makes you stupid. Caring makes you weak.
I should have stayed nobody. Should have stayed invisible.
Echo was just a name. Just another tool to hurt me with.
At night I heard Lily's voice sometimes. Telling me to rest. Telling me it wasn't my fault.
But it was my fault. I knew it was.
I'd wanted to matter. Wanted purpose. And that wanting had killed everyone who tried to care about me.
The processing room had broken my ability to care. But somehow I'd started caring again anyway. Started hoping again.
That was the real mistake.
Hope was more dangerous than any torture. More painful than any punishment.
Because hope made you think things could get better. Made you reach for something better.
And reaching just meant falling.
I walked past a sign once. Couldn't read all of it. But one word was clear: HOME.
With an arrow pointing down a road.
I followed the arrow. Not because I thought there was actually a home there. Just because walking in one direction was the same as walking in any direction.
The road went on and on. Past more broken things. More empty things.
The sun came up. Went down. Came up. Went down.
I kept walking.
Home. That was a word that used to mean something. A place where you belonged. Where people wanted you. Where you were safe.
But that place didn't exist. Never existed. The department store wasn't home. The facility wasn't home. Maya's promises weren't home. The car with the man and Lily wasn't home.
Home was just another lie.
But I kept walking anyway. Because stopping meant thinking. And thinking meant remembering. And remembering hurt worse than walking.
Function. Quota. Pain.
No function now. No quota to meet. Just pain and walking and the road going nowhere.
Sometimes on the horizon I saw light. Sunrise light maybe. Or city lights. Or just my broken brain making things up.
The light looked warm. Looked safe. Looked like home might actually exist somewhere ahead.
I walked toward it.
Walked and walked and walked.
The light never got closer.
Every step I took, it stayed the same distance away. Always there. Always unreachable.
Like the horizon in that story. The one Maya had told me about. The boy walking toward hope that would always stay exactly one horizon away.
My feet hurt. My body hurt. My chest hurt from breathing and walking and being alive.
But I kept walking.
Because maybe. Maybe if I just walked far enough. Maybe if I just kept going. Maybe maybe maybe.
Maybe I'd reach it.
Maybe I'd find home.
Maybe the last mile would finally be the one that got me there.
The light stayed on the horizon. Warm and golden and impossible.
I kept walking toward it.
One foot. Other foot. Repeat.
This is what broken looks like.
This is what hoping costs.
This is the last mile.
The one you never finish.
The one that never ends.
I kept walking.
The light never got closer.
And somewhere behind me, everyone I'd ever cared about was dead.
But ahead, the light kept promising. Kept lying. Kept glowing.
So I kept walking.
Because what else was there to do?
Function. Quota. Pain. Purpose. Home.
All just words.
All just lies.
All just one more step away.
Forever.