Beyond The Walls (NOW ON AMAZON!!!)

Resilience

Hadley was officially a part of Brielle's Wildling Tribe, which meant being assigned jobs around the Caves. Jamila was a part of Kade's Tribe. Different tribes were usually assigned different tasks, so they didn't get to see each other much during the day, meeting only in the evenings when they headed back to Jamila's room, which was their new home. But by then, they'd be so exhausted from their designated duties with that they'd usually just take a quick shower each and fall asleep. Although, after everything she'd been through to get here, Hadley couldn't complain about falling asleep with Jamila only an arm's length away every night on a thick, warm, comfortable, queen-sized bed.

'Fishers change the world, Hadley.'

Gram Lee's explanation of who the Fishers were, and the expectations automatically placed upon them had shifted Hadley's world view. At first, she'd wanted to join with the Wildlings and eventually generate enough interest in The Cause, thus leading the revolution that would join all humans in Compounds, the Wildlings and the Progenies to take their rightful place as heirs of this world, like they had once been. But this was no longer Hadley's goal, especially after learning more about the humans who lived before the Human Error from the Wildling perspective.

Those humans weren't the flawless model of great power, creativity, and compassion Mrs. Smith had painted them as during her lessons about the past. Instead, they were reckless and drunk with power, greedy and obsessed with consuming as much as they could as fast as they could, killing the planet they lived in, not just for themselves but for every generation that would come after them. There were cracks of doubt in her belief in The Cause.

Hadley was suddenly unsure if humans deserved to rule the world.

She decided to shelve her ambitions to embody The Cause and chose to keep a low profile instead. She kept her head down and worked hard to fit into the Wildling society, avoiding anything that could be construed as her "changing the world". When it was all said and done, the Wildling way of life was as good as it got, and Hadley was happy for her daughter to grow into the society as it was. She would live the normal, unbeleaguered, nonchalant life of a basic tribe's member, determined to ensure that the blanket belief about the Fisher legacy would never burden or plague her daughter as it did her.

'...You will always be seen as a Fisher, and that will either instil fear or hope in those you meet, there's no in-between.'

Her little girl would be free to live as she pleased, learning the Wildling Way, discovering and cataloguing mushrooms of all kinds, enjoying the universe hidden between the trees and shrubs of the rainforest, relishing the night-sky with Hadley by her side as they sipped on mead and herbal tea.

Hadley's gift to her daughter was everything Hadley had missed out on before.

The perfect life.

No matter what it took, Hadley would make sure of that!

It was now two weeks after arriving at The Caves and Brielle's tribe was tasked with tanning hides to leather. These hides ranged from small prey such as wild hare and possums to larger prey, this time including the hides of two vampire dogs brought in by a Wildling Tribe who'd arrived the day before. The tribe had lost a few members in the vampire dog attack, saying that the monsters had changed. That they'd become more dangerous. Hadley wasn't sure how they'd changed, but she didn't really care to find out. She wasn't going to leave the Caves for a long time. At the very least, not until her little girl was sitting up on her own.

The tribe members were spread across the tanning room, broken up into pairs to do different tasks.

"So..." Brielle drawled in a sing song voice, breaking the silence between her and Hadley. They usually paired up for duties that needed pairs. "How's it going with your lady, Jamila?