through this damn rock. He couldn’t die down here when he was so close to getting out.
Blinding sunlight streaked through the cracks above him. If only he could get the opening big enough to fit his arm through, he would wiggle out. The cook was wrong, that funny little guy. Julian was okay. His body felt okay. His head really hurt, though.
The crack became a crevice, then a hole, and finally, after some increasingly desperate hacking, a bright opening big enough for his arm, his shoulder, his aching head. He shoved one boulder after another out of the way, and crawled out.
For many minutes, he lay on his back in the dirt, his eyes closed, panting, sucking in the hot air, trying to catch his breath. He was out! That was the most important thing. It had been scary for a while. It was silly to admit it now, but there were intervals when he felt he might never climb out.
The sunlight blinded him, literally blanched his pupils, and it took him a while to adjust to the daylight. Even when he could see, he couldn’t focus well, especially out of his left eye. Things were murky and blurry. Well, sure, didn’t he get blinded in that eye?
No, what was he talking about? When would he get blinded? Julian sat up, hugging his knees. He was so happy to be out of the cave. He was never going into a cave again, he pledged with solemn honor.
He didn’t feel strong enough to stand up yet. He looked around. He didn’t know where he was. Nothing looked familiar, and it was very hot. There were no rolling hills, no hawthorn hedges, no buildings, no pubs, no rookeries, no observatories, no antipodean flatlands, no collapsing streets. He was in the highlands this time, in the dust of pampas grass. It wasn’t recognizable. But it wasn’t unrecognizable either.
He stared at his forearms, looking for damage, for the tell-tale signs of injuries, old or new. The arms were smeared with mud and dust. With his right hand he rubbed the dirt off his left arm to see the marks but couldn’t find any. Was it his imagination, or were there supposed to be marks? Wasn’t one of his arms engraved with lines, dots, symbols, a map of where he had been and where he was going? He stared into his hands. He clenched and unclenched his fists. His hands were sore, his right hand especially from digging so long with a multi-tool not made for digging, but otherwise they weren’t too bad. No broken bones, thank God.
The top of his head hurt. When he touched it, it really hurt. His fingers came back bloody. The back of his neck was sticky with blood, the back of his shirt. Ah, so he had a cut on his head. No wonder he wasn’t feeling great. The hot sun that was nice a minute ago after being in darkness for what felt like forever was now making everything worse. Julian was fruitless and weary.
When he thought he could bear the pain, he felt around the top of his scalp again. Under the swelling, he found a groove under his fingers, a compound depression in his head. Oh, no—he had an open head wound! He had to cover it with something quick—before dust and dirt got in. He didn’t want to take off his shirt in the sun, so he searched his pockets for anything else, and that’s when he realized he had dropped his multi-tool. Probably when he was moving rocks with both hands to get himself out. No, no. He must find it. It was a Leatherman tool and expensive; it had been a birthday gift from Ashton, the first thing Ashton ever gave him, or as Ashton put it, “the first thing he’d ever given anybody.” Julian didn’t want to lose it. Look how it helped him just now. On his knees, with his bare hands, he plowed through the excavated sand, searching for it. He glimpsed something faintly red in the dust and rocks. He brushed the dirt away, flung away the pebbles that covered it, pulled it out of the earth, flattened it out.
It was the red beret.
He couldn’t believe he had brought it with him. What luck. He must have stuffed it into his pants’ pocket at the last minute, and it had fallen out. The beret was dusty but otherwise in pretty good shape. The leather was soft. Carefully, Julian fit