Efferent

Chapter 7

"No more." I shook my hands out in front of me once we landed into a small grassy clearing and looked at Clark's already drawn face, "For the rest of the day, we walk."

Clark nodded weakly. "I am okay with that. We just need to keep going east."

"East?" I asked, staring up at the risen sun. "Why? What is east of here besides more trees?" I shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun.

"The coast," he said with a note of finality, "Our sanctuary, and our salvation rolled into one."

"If we can make it there in one piece." I added.

"If we can avoid the scientists and their dogs." He gave a firm jolt of his head in confirmation. "In and of itself, that would be classified as a job for a divine authority."

We began walking side by side, following the trail end of the suns path and avoiding the brambles. "Isn't that what we are?" I asked, staring at my clenched hand in front of my face. "Gods?"

Clark started chuckling dryly, and I glared at him from the corner of my eye. "What?" I grit out, "What are you laughing at?"

"You." He scoffed once more and scuffed the toe of his shoe against the soft earth. "Me. We hardly qualify as gods. We are more like..." He trailed off, searching for a word.

"Freaks?" I supplied in a whisper. His eyes shot over to me, and he shook his head.

"We are not freaks." He spat out, "They did this to us. If they wanted to, they could probably fix it too." He looked to the sky. "But?" He inquired, raising an eyebrow and sliding his gaze over to me as we traversed the terrain, "But I do not want them to. I want what I got. It is a blessing, and it is a gift, Ardyn."

"I do not see it that way." I stared once more at my hands and the blotches of red and veins spiraling under my skin. "It took away my family, drove them away."

"People are afraid of what they can not understand." He shrugged and kicked a stone. "Much of science relies heavily on uncertainty and the confidence in theory."

"Your point, Clark?"

"We embody science. We are science." He paused in his tracks, turning to face me and grabbing my elbows as he leaned down to meet my gaze. "We are uncertainty itself."

I shook my head. "You are trying to romanticize it."

"I did not say it was not, and would not be a burden for us," He turned on his heel and lead the way. "Only that this happened for a reason."

"Did you not just say that we embody science and uncertainty? And yet you are blaming a predestined path such as fate for us turning into fre-."

"Geniuses." He stated, and I thought that I had heard a branch snapping in the distance. "Who ever said that you could not have a conversation including both?"

He stomped forward and I realized how loud our conversation had gotten, how careless we were. What if someone had heard us? "Clark-." I tried to warn him, looking around at the unfamiliar area, but he continued brazenly.

"Fate and God, science and statistics." He muttered, and rustling could be heard behind him. "Life can not be so polarized as to cut one or the other out,"

"Clark-." I tried again, but he ignored the attempt.

"One must challenge predestined ideas or nothing would ever be accomplished," He raised a finger and stopped his pacing, although footsteps could still be heard echoing in the clearing. "But in order to accomplish anything, one must also belive in the uncertain and the theoretical-."