Naia opened her eyes with a start. She was lying on the ground and knew instantly that she was in a strange place. She felt like molten lead was bubbling inside her. Slowly she looked around. A thick woodland with an early morning hue of sunlight cutting through the trees. Birds twittered without any hint of menace; all felt fresh and calm. Regardless, questions hurtled through Naia’s mind. What did she have cause to fear right now? Who had brought her here, and where were they lurking now? Were they watching? Would they come back for her? Were there other predators in the woods who would come for her? Why couldn’t she remember how she got there? What had they done to her? She wanted to call out for help but resolved to make no sound. What should she do next? Where should she go? She tried to breathe deep to steady herself, but her breath was stilted and shallow.

In spite of her terror, Naia managed to muster her coping strategy for when there was cause for a tumult of emotion; she called in the words that her beloved older brother had once said to her some time after he had discovered Buddhism. “You know, Naia,” he’d said playfully, “according to the Buddha, most of everything we ever think is a total illusion. It’s a crock of crap with very little relationship to reality. So when you’re feeling all fucked up in the head, just remember not to believe in your own beliefs too much. Tomorrow you’ll see that what you believed today was false in the first place, so why get too hung up on all that shit that’s causing you so much pain?” Somehow, these words had endlessly helped in a way she suspected the Buddhist scriptures could never have done.

She steadied herself into taking on the situation. There was no physical pain and her body seemed able, so she scrabbled to her feet. The threads of sunshine shone through from what looked to be less dense woodland. She decided to head that way to try and get more of a view of the surroundings. There were no paths, and the shrubby vegetation beneath the tree canopy was hard to push through.

Eventually, the woodland began to thin until it had phased into a meadow of bracken and grass. She kept going, trying to see where she might be. No one was around; no sign of another human at all, until she came upon a ramshackle little house. The moss-laden dry stone walls were crumbling on one side and the roof had partially collapsed. She crept around it, but it seemed that nobody had been there for years; it was impossible to tell how long ago it had been abandoned.

She entered the ruin and went to the back, where the walls and roof remained intact to some degree. There she found a large old metal trunk and what must have been a pantry built into the back wall. The trunk contained a load of thick old blankets and clothes, musty and unpleasant to touch. In the pantry, there was a collection of rusting cans of corned beef and sardines, and jars of pickled onions. Not exactly appealing, and in any case, she certainly had no appetite at that time.

The rest of the house had very little in it except for a few cooking pans, bowls and spoons, and an old knife. Uncertainty riddled through her. Should she stay here to try and keep safe? She should probably keep exploring to find some trace of other people – there must be someone out there who could help her. She decided that if she hadn’t found help by nightfall, she’d make the house a base for herself to sleep in. The roof was holding up at the back to offer protection from the rain, and she could disappear into a dark corner and no one would know she was there.

There was still plenty of daytime left, so Naia left the house to look further around the area. With every step, she scanned the land for threats. She was relieved to find a burbling stream not far from the house. She scooped water into her mouth with her hand before realising that she had no idea how to tell if the water was good to drink. But what else was she to do? She knew she couldn’t keep a clear head for long without fluids.

After she’d drunk her fill, she followed the stream’s flow until it dropped down towards a large river bay. Wanting to avoid getting lost, she thought it best to explore by following the curve of the river. She walked and walked, but still no indication of a living human and no further trace that anyone had been there. She strained to remain vigilant even as she felt the landscape empty of human presence.

Some unmeasured amount of time later, she returned to the ramshackle old house. By then, she was pretty damn ravenous but still not hungry enough to entertain the possibility of hacking into the corned beef and sardine tins. Tiredness dragged on her. Although it was only around mid-afternoon, she set about making up a bed for herself by shaking out the old blankets and forming them into a thin mattress, pillow and covers.

When it was done, she went outside and sat leaning against the wall for a long time. Her mind was spinning. Were all her thoughts an illusion, or was the whole world around her an illusion? Whatever is going on, just don’t believe in it too much. When the sun finally dipped beneath the horizon, she wrapped herself up in the scratchy blankets for the night. Luckily, she was the type who could sleep just about anywhere, and despite her fear, she quickly sank into a deep slumber.

The next morning, Naia was jolted awake early by her pangs of hunger. She had eaten nothing the day before, and now she knew that if she was going to survive, there was nothing for it but to tackle the tins of meat and fish. She grabbed the knife she’d found and started stabbing at a can of sardines and wrangling with the tight lid on a jar of pickled onions. She hadn’t eaten animal products in years, and when she managed to peel back the lid of the metal tin, she reeled at the stench. There was no clue whether the sardines were still edible, but she had to eat something, so she swallowed hard, followed by unpleasant onions. She went to the stream to wash it all down with fresh water. It all settled surprisingly well in her stomach. She was no longer ravenous, so now what?

She started to follow the stream in the opposite direction from the day before, away from the bay. Strangely enough, it wasn’t long before she came upon another old house. She peered around the corner to see what kind of a state it was in when, as if from nowhere, a voice yelled at her, “Stay BACK!” She spun round to find another human at last, but not the kind she’d been seeking: a wiry, muscular white woman wielding a knife, which she pointed in Naia’s direction from not nearly far enough away. Naia froze in terror, but only a moment later there was another shout from a little further away. “Bronwen! For fuck sake, will you just CHILL OUT!! Drop the knife, for crying out loud!” The cry was from another woman, who looked to be in her mid-thirties – the same age as Naia – and of South Asian descent, with skin a darker shade of brown than Naia’s own, which her mix of Spanish and Columbian heritage gave her.

“I’m so sorry!” the second woman called. “Bronwen is just a little over-cautious. My name’s Aneesha. How about you? How long have you been here? Are you okay?”

It turned out that Aneesha and Bronwen had been there for longer than Naia; Aneesha for a week and Bronwen for ten days. They’d both had the same experience as Naia – of waking up in the woods without any idea how they’d got there, and they hadn’t found another human soul apart from one another. Aneesha was a warm and open type, and Bronwen was, well – difficult. A hard edge. And also highly skilled for the conditions they were in, which was a piece of luck, even if they had to deal with Bronwen’s abrasive personality.

They recounted their stories; when Bronwen had first arrived, she’d quickly taken stock of the situation and set to finding a water source and building a survival shelter from branches, leaves and bracken. She’d come across the knife she held in the house they were in now and had used it to make a wooden hand drill that she could use to spark an ember for fire. She’d collected all sorts of materials for tinder, kindling and fire building. She’d managed to kill, skin and smoke the meat of a deer and had foraged for mushrooms, nettles and wild garlic. All this within the first three days.

When Aneesha arrived, on the other hand, she’d mostly just sat and prayed, until Bronwen found her and poked a knife in her direction. When it became clear that Aneesha was not only no threat but was completely clueless about how to deal with the situation, Bronwen begrudgingly agreed to teach her some survival skills. She had no need of Aneesha – she was fine on her own, without having to deal with others.

Bronwen was reportedly a hard taskmaster, and those first days, Aneesha told Naia how she’d cried from the pain of learning fire by friction, as her hands had not yet developed the necessary callouses to rub the stick back and forth in its groove. “It’s so damn frustrating! But I’ll show you. You’ll be able to do it in a few days. And when you can do it, it’s amazing – you just feel so powerful, even if your hands are blistered to all hell, and all you’ve done is create this tiny spark of fire!”

So then there were three of them. Naia and Aneesha quickly warmed to one another. Bronwen was cold and unfriendly to the point of rudeness. It was impossible to tell what she was feeling. She was the kind of person that if you met her in any other location, you’d steer well clear. There would be no reason for her to be in your life. But here, Naia and Aneesha depended on her. They had not a single survival skill between them for life outside the city. Naia had learnt to grow vegetables from her Spanish grandmother, but out here, there wasn’t even a plant that she knew would be useful to them. But in spite of her lack of practical skills, after the first few days Naia started work on fixing up the house she’d found, making it into a dwelling for herself.

Several days passed before they came across someone else. Same scenario – she’d woken up clueless in the woods. Her name was Juliet, and she came across as a gentle soul, introspective and quiet; unconfident even. She was much older than the rest of them, and she was pallid and gaunt, with long grey hair running down her back. A certain sadness hung about her, but also a kindness; a loving acceptance of others. Juliet joined their baptism of fire as they taught her how to painfully produce an ember. She seemed to laugh and cry at the same time as she rubbed the wood back and forth.

A couple of days later, one other joined them. On Bronwen’s command, the four of them were down at the river that morning, looking for crayfish and freshwater mussels to cook up. They’d collected half a pot of mussels when Bronwen suddenly pricked up at the sight of a figure on the horizon. “Just take it easy, Bronwen. No need to get the knife out,” Aneesha soothed, before calling out, “Hello over there! Are you okay?”

The figure turned to reveal an ethereal-looking face; beautiful fine features, and deep brown skin. The person flashed a large smile and moved towards them with misplaced elegance, exclaiming, “Thank holy fuck you people are here! How on earth is a Queen supposed to cope with such conditions?” The four of them glanced at each other in bemusement.

“I’m sorry,” the person continued, “Do let me introduce myself. My name is Lady Godiva. I am so extremely grateful to meet your acquaintance. And let me assure you that under such circumstances, it may not be clear that I am a lady who is referred to as she and her, but in my natural habitat, believe you me, I’m all woman!” Bronwen visibly bristled. Aneesha offered a warm greeting and introduced everyone.

And so, as they’d come to realise, their little band of lost wanderers became complete with Lady Godiva’s initiation of fire by friction. When her spark emerged, her laugh thronged through the group, even as Bronwen maintained her metallic stare.

When Naia reflected back on those first weeks together, she was reminded of a corporate training session that had been part of her job in her regular life. She’d been subject to plenty of tedious training in her time, most of which she was in the habit of forgetting all about as soon as she’d managed to get out the door. But out here, a bit of the training came back to her – some stupid rhyme for what a group goes through before they can take on the world: first Forming, then Storming, moving to Norming and then Performing.

The coming together of the five of them had been the forming stage, quickly followed by a whole lot of storming. They had fairly quickly agreed that they should stay together as a group for safety, but couldn’t agree on what they should do going forward. Should they stay where they were and wait for help? Give up on anyone else being out there and learn to eke out a life where they were? Keep wandering aimlessly across the land in an attempt to find other humans? Cross the great river and see if anyone was there?

The only clues that people must be out there and civilisation must still exist were the ramshackle houses and the old cans of meat. But if they met anyone else, would they be friends or foes? One thing they were all sure of was that somebody had brought them to this situation and abandoned them. How could it be anything but an act of malice? And what level of self-defence did they need to survive?

As well as the disagreements, there were social tensions, especially between Bronwen and Lady Godiva. There was a particular exchange which stuck in Naia’s mind…

“Why do you insist on being called Lady Godiva?” Bronwen snapped aggressively one day, when she seemingly came to the end of her rope trying to teach everyone a practical task.

“I don’t know. Why do you insist on being so utterly vile?” Lady Godiva had retorted nonchalantly.

Bronwen made a strange, low growling sound. “I can’t believe I’ve landed up in a place with such a bunch of total incompetents, with some man acting like a completely feminine cissy, and rather than focusing on learning to survive, demanding of everyone that he gets called a Lady,”

Upon hearing this, Lady Godiva flared up. She yelled, “And I can’t believe I’ve woken up in the arse end of nowhere with human civilisation supposedly having completely disappeared and still having to deal with some toxic anti-trans bullshit!”

Lady Godiva looked a bit shaken at her own outburst and took a breath to compose herself. “Okay, fine. You don’t have to call me Lady Godiva. You can call me by my boy name. Go on, go ahead. It’s Graham. Call me that. The name’s literal meaning is ‘gravelly homestead,’ which I can’t say is befitting of a great Queen such as I, but never mind. It’s fine. I’ll deal with it.”

Naia, Aneesha and Juliet all looked at each other before giggling. There was indeed something entirely unfitting about the name Graham, and it became obvious then that Lady Godiva was just who she was, human civilisation or none. Even Bronwen got a slight curl of a smile at the corner of her mouth, probably her equivalent of a belly laugh. From that point on, she remained just as unpleasant in her general tone, but gave in to calling Lady Godiva by that name.

Eventually, agreements emerged within the group about what they would do going forward. Bronwen was right – the rest of them had no competence in surviving the wild and lacked the physical fitness to master those skills or defend themselves against threats. Bronwen would have to train them before they even thought about going further afield, and she agreed to do this only if they consistently followed her lead. More conflict ensued, as none of them could remotely keep up, and Bronwen couldn’t bear their whining. They managed to negotiate two rest days every week to recuperate from the relentlessness of the Bronwen boot camp, which she wasn’t happy about but somehow capitulated.

By this point, it could be said that the group was Norming, or even Performing – according to Naia’s corporate categorisation. They developed routines around fitness exercises, sourcing of food, firewood and other resources, social time and rest time. They divided up tasks and argued less. The four who had come unskilled for these circumstances started feeling more physically fit and able, stronger, knowledgeable about nature and dextrous. They felt proud of who they were becoming.

In the evenings, whenever the weather permitted, they sat around a fire together. Even if there had been conflict during the day, or they hadn’t been able to source enough food and were still feeling some hunger, they’d come together, and somehow, with the flicker of the firelight on their faces, their tensions and troubles would drift off with the fire sparks. Bonds were growing between them. Naia and Aneesha were becoming like sisters, and there was a beautiful connection between Juliet and Lady Godiva, who would cuddle, talk, and laugh with great affection.

Bronwen would break the circle shape by sitting out on the edge; her eyes ever darting across the nightscape, even though nothing ever emerged. But the fact that she was sitting there at all meant something. She might not express it, but there was an understanding between them all that Bronwen was as much a part of the group, even if there was no overt warmth or closeness, and they were learning to be kind to her despite her hardness.

Sometimes they would chatter, tell stories and laugh, and at others, sit quietly or share how they felt about being in that place. Their old worlds felt so far away, and this new life was giving them all something rich and wonderful.

“Do you think that in the modern world, people sit round a TV like people always used to sit round a fire?” Naia said thoughtfully one evening. The fire’s embers were telling her their stories as they merged from one shape to another.

“Oh honey, who even sits round a TV together these days?” said Lady Godiva. “I mean, everyone just sits and stares at their own personal iPad!”

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Aneesha added. “Everyone just being so separate. It was never supposed to be like that.”

Naia flinched as a flash of her old life came to her. Day after day, stuffed into an airless and soulless underground train. Staring at a screen at work and a screen for entertainment when she got home. She shuddered. Was that even a life?

“I’m glad I’m here with you all now,” Juliet chimed in. “Whatever we’re doing here, and whatever happens next, I’m glad we could do this. Just be together and do what humans are supposed to do for a while.”

“Well, I’m so glad you’re glad!” exclaimed Lady Godiva with a twinkle. “I mean, personally, I think the service here is terrible, and I’m totally leaving a negative review on Trip Advisor. Like one star. I mean, you can’t even get a decent flat white out here, my cuticles are a disaster, and my eyebrows must look like caterpillars by now they so desperately need threading!”

“It’s true!” Juliet laughed, “Your eyebrows do look like great big hairy caterpillars wriggling over your forehead!”

Lady Godiva gave a fake gasp of incredulity before joining her in laughter; “Help! The caterpillars are taking over my face! Watch out, or they’ll get you too!”

Juliet and Lady Godiva often took a turn for the ridiculous, and Naia felt lifted at that moment. But she wondered what Bronwen was thinking, sat out there on the edge, rarely looking over to them or joining in.

The day after that conversation was a rest day. Naia wandered out of her house that morning and down to the bay. The sky incited fresh delight as its wildness ebbed to a gentle sense of still, reflecting its cloud creatures into the beauteous expanse of river, which stretched so wide that she could barely glimpse the other side, and certainly not that day, with a light haze rising into the distance.

Naia picked her way to the shore through the scrubby riverside foliage that was happy to spike and graze the bare skin of her legs if she did not take care. She reached the shoreline, where she had yesterday set a net to capture that morning’s breakfast. Happily, there it was; she was getting better at this. The fish was a gorgeous glossy specimen, and Naia felt the pain of taking its life – the fish gasped for air, and so did she, and she could do nothing more than to offer a prayer of thanks for its body being given up to become part of hers.

To become a predator still brought to Naia a state of discord. It was too honest; how she missed the purity of her former days. She felt herself begin to sink into the questions that scrabbled inside her, and she shivered them off. No sense in engaging. There were no answers, and she flipped the large fish into her woven shoulder bag and started back across the shore, harvesting the riverside version of chard and kale leaves as she went, to add to her breakfast feast.

She arrived back at her dwelling and set herself to start a fire to cook on. Some days, the fire leapt to life as if it had just had a deep and healing sleep, but today was not one of those days. Naia couldn’t tell why; it hadn’t been that damp of late, and an ember could still be stoked up from the last fire. Yet it smoked and whinged as she coaxed and cajoled it, all the while pushing down her frustration. By the time the fire finally relented to her will, Naia’s eyes were stinging from the smoke, and she was starting to wonder if the energy she put into securing food exceeded what she would gain from the food itself. Not like the days from before.

Naia attempted to shut the thought down, even as the image sprung up of a kitchen with cupboards and an array of neatly packaged food items. What should she have for breakfast? Vegan pancakes or waffles? Fresh blueberries? It was so easy to end up back in the past. She thanked her lucky stars that she’d never been into caffeine – the tedium of listening to the coffee lament that the others so regularly repeated – it was like some kind of collective soul cry for the loss of it.

There was actually no one thing that Naia pined for in the same way. Still, sometimes a cupboard that you could open the door of to find an array of glorious choices was sweet wistfulness for her. She realised in this new life that the glow of her full cupboard was only made possible by a web of uncountable numbers of people, each with their own part to play in the global hive of production, all so that Naia – princess Naia – could have packets of vegan pancake mix at her fingertips, with nothing more to do than to add tetra pak organic almond milk and fry. She’d thought back then that she was one of the ninety-nine per cent, but out here the searing truth came to her that she’d been a member of a pampered, corporate elite, even if she’d bothered to fry her own pancakes.

Naia finally finished grilling the fish and simmering the greens. She served the food and sprinkled it with a pinch of dried wild thyme leaves for a little seasoning. It only took the first bite for her tiredness and frustration to seep away. There was nothing like that feeling – the preciousness of food that she had no sense of entitlement to. Food that she truly laboured for meant there was justice in what had been taken, even as a debt was created in the knowing that in every single thing she took, something must be returned.

She closed her eyes and sighed. Now that she’d achieved a meal, what would the rest of this day bring? She needed her rest days, but they brought up the discomfort of unstructured time. Still unsure, she picked out a piece of charcoal that was cool enough to handle amongst the fire’s dying embers and made a tally mark on the chunky irregular stones of the wall to track the passing of time. How many TV shows had she seen where stranded people had done the same thing? Though really she knew how long it had been – 13 weeks and 4 days. But the mark-making had become a daily ritual that grounded her and gave her the sense that she would not lose her mind.

She went outside and sat on the hill to reflect on where she was at right now, casting her mind back over the last months, trying to take stock and make sense and meaning of it all. There was no need to think long, as Aneesha appeared from around the bend in the hillock near Naia’s house. Aneesha was carrying two baskets she’d woven herself from young willow shoots a couple of weeks back. “Hey Naia! How’s it going? You busy today?”

“Busy as I’ll never be! What’s going on for you, Aneesha?”

Aneesha showed her the contents of her baskets, which she’d filled with different types of mushroom. “I picked these thinking they were all edible, but now I’m not so sure. I thought I’d double-check with you.”

Naia looked them over. Her mind became a fuzz of doubt. Were they edible Field Mushrooms or toxic Yellow Stainers? “I’m not totally sure either. I think we’ll need to check with Bronwen.”

“Dammit,” said Aneesha. “I was afraid you were going to say that. I think I pissed her off yesterday, so I’m trying to avoid her, at least until our rest day is over. But then, she’s always pretty pissed off, so maybe it doesn’t make much difference.”

They headed over to Bronwen’s place together, joking that they expected Bronwen would be halfway through a couple of hundred push-ups when they got there – after all, it was a rest day, so she’d have eased up on her usual routine. But Bronwen was doing something more surprising when they reached her survival shelter – she was riding bareback on a horse with a rudimentary bridle that she must have made of cordage from the plants that grew around there.

“Hey Bronwen, what you doing up there?” Naia called out, and it was obviously the wrong thing to do because the horse startled, and Bronwen had to soothe him to calm him down. So maybe Bronwen had a talent with horses that she didn’t have with humans?

Bronwen jumped down from the horse and led him over to Aneesha and Naia. Without any greeting, she peered into Aneesha’s baskets. “Those ones are Yellow Stainers. You’ll have to throw them out. Thought you’d know that by now. Those other ones you can eat – Blushers and Chanterelles. At least you got that right.”

“Okay thanks,” said Aneesha. “So what’s with the horse?”

“I’m breaking him in. Job’s nearly done. Going on a trip soon.”

“A trip?” said Naia, “What for? What are you planning?”

“Gotta see what’s out there. Can’t stay here forever.”

Naia was surprised by this. “I would’ve thought you wanted to stay out here forever,” she said.

“Well, I would. But that’s not reality.”

“Are you sure that’s the right thing to do?” asked Aneesha. “We don’t know what’s out there.”

Bronwen closed her eyes momentarily. A slight groaning noise emerged. “Look, I’ve got some skills, and I’ve taught you what I know. But right now, it’s the beginning of summer, and things seem fine. I’ve been telling you to always harvest and collect more than we need so it can be dried for the winter months, but conditions for storage aren’t great. I’ve been saving up animal skins for clothing to keep warm, but might not be enough. Don’t know if we’re going to make it once winter comes. Don’t think I’ve got the skills to get everyone through that. We lack enough tools. And anyway, we don’t have any medical care. So far, it’s just been cuts and bruises, but anything more serious – a bacterial infection, a serious broken bone – will not look good. I don’t get on with people. Don’t like them, and they don’t like me. If I was out here on my own, I’d probably just stay here and endure the pain. But I’m not here alone. You people are here. I’ve got a moral duty to try and make sure people survive. Plus, I’m not going to be able to tolerate your whining about the cold when the weather turns. Your complaining is already intolerable enough. We can’t do this alone. We need other people. They’re out there, and we need to find them. Simple as that.”

Naia and Aneesha were dumbstruck. They’d never heard Bronwen string together so many words all at once. And they’d never considered that she might actually care about them. There was no way to fault her for wanting to find out what was out there.

So, a couple of weeks later, Bronwen left on her trip. She said her plan was to return in two to three weeks. By then, she’d have more of an understanding of the land they were in. Hopefully, she’d come back with help or a sense of any threats that lay out there.

Despite rather looking forward to Bronwen’s departure, the four of them bid her farewell with a certain loving tenderness, wishing her well and a swift return. Lady Godiva insisted that Bronwen name her horse before she left, and with her most deadpan face, Bronwen said, “Fine. His name’s Graham.” The name Graham suited the horse as poorly as it did Lady Godiva. Maybe even Bronwen had a sense of humour.

Once Bronwen and Graham had finally disappeared over the hill, the rest of them breathed a sigh of relief. “Phew!” said Juliet. “Maybe we can have a bit less intensity for a while!”

“Boot camp is off, baby!” said Lady Godiva with a huge smile. “And I’m heading to the beach! Who’s with me?”

The four of them went down to the river together, where there were sandy banks that could pass as tiny beaches. It was a gloriously sunny day, and they spent a good hour splashing about in the water. Lady Godiva still didn’t know how to swim properly, and Naia gave her a lesson. Juliet skulked in the shade of a bush to prevent her pale white skin from burning, and Aneesha attempted to weave her a sun hat from the rushes growing there. Naia’s heart surged that day as the four of them laughed and played. Lady Godiva somehow seduced them all into creating a cabaret. Juliet taught them songs. They all got too much sun, no matter how much melanin they each had in their skin.

That evening, at the fireside, there was peace in the air. The four of them started to talk about the past and remarked, as they had done many times before, that none of them could really remember what they had been doing right before they’d woken up in the woods. They each sensed a gap between the last thing they remembered from their old life and the start of being in this place.

They drifted into talking about what they missed from their lives and what they were glad they’d left behind. Naia was extremely glad to be out of her corporate office building but missed her partner and best friend terribly. Aneesha missed her family and community, even if she hadn’t been getting on with her husband and she sometimes felt suffocated. Lady Godiva was dying to perform on stage, but was also relieved not to be working such late nights. Juliet was glad of the break from the daily intensity of occupational therapy.

Though they didn’t like to think about it, they wondered how the people in their old lives were handling their disappearances. People must be worried sick…if they were still out there. Would anyone come and find them? Had the group done the right thing in staying put, training up and learning skills? Was this just an excuse they gave themselves because their lives felt so much better here?

The next day, the four of them had a slow morning, but they decided together to start their own boot camp. Deep down, they knew they couldn’t let their fitness levels go, and they needed to keep up with practising their self-defence. And the trouble they’d get into with Bronwen upon her return if she found they’d returned to their slovenly city ways. Not that there was much hope of doing that anyway. Without a single modern convenience apart from old tins, they needed to keep engaged in constant food collection and preparation, which was still preferable to the corned beef.

Bronwen did not return after two weeks; neither had she appeared after three. By this time, the four of them were fending off a sense of dread about the possibility that something awful had happened. A feeling of listlessness and demotivation spread among them. It felt as if a family member had disappeared, and they didn’t know what action to take. Should they go out and look for her? Did that make any sense when they had no idea where she might be?

During the fifth week, when they’d started to give up hope, the unmistakable figure of Bronwen on horseback appeared in the distance. Lady Godiva saw her first.“She’s back! There’s Bronwen over there! She’s come home!”

The four downed their activities and ran towards her in jubilation to welcome her. When they got nearer, however, they realised that something was wrong. She didn’t just look like her usual miserable self. She was obviously struggling to sit upright, and she was sweating with a fever. She also had a very swollen ankle.

“Bronwen, what’s wrong?” asked Aneesha. Bronwen only mumbled in reply.

“It’s okay, you’re home now,” Aneesha said. “We’re going to take care of you; we’ll make sure you get better; you’ll see.” She encouraged Bronwen to rest on Graham in an almost lying position, and they led him back to Aneesha’s house. Graham was laden with packs of tools, which they guessed Bronwen must have found on her mission.

They laid her down in Aneesha’s house and made her as comfortable as possible. Naia brewed up some Elderflower and Yarrow tea and made her a poultice from mustard leaves to reduce the swelling of her ankle. Bronwen had taught them these simple tricks. Aneesha mopped her brow with cool water. Between the four of them, they made sure there was always one of them with her. They talked gently to her and sang her songs.

Some days later, Bronwen started to show signs of improvement. She could eat small amounts, and eventually, she started talking. “Just give me some space now,” was the first thing she said. “It’s been bugging the hell out of me that there’s always one of you lingering around.” And there you had it. Bronwen was back to her old, unpleasant self. They were all so relieved.

It took a while for the full story of Bronwen’s trip to come out. She’d covered a lot of ground on horseback and never found a soul. There were a few more ramshackle houses around, and from these, she’d procured the collection of tools and found a good variety of seeds that they could try and grow for food. She’d then headed towards a range of mountains and was determined to climb up to get a good view around. The lack of paths up the mountain meant that Graham couldn’t get very far, and she’d left him in a meadow on a long rope so that he could graze and drink from a stream. From there, she climbed high and could see that all the way around the land was surrounded by water. She saw they were on an island in the middle of a giant river.

On the way back down, Bronwen had slipped and tumbled into a ravine. The fall was not nearly as bad as it could have been, as it was far from a sheer drop, but she suffered a mild concussion and hurt her foot. It had taken some days to drag herself back up the mountain and find her way to Graham again. She’d spent several days with him there in the meadow as she didn’t feel strong enough for the journey home. To make matters worse, there was little in the way of food, and in her delirium, she’d mistaken Yellow Stainers for Field Mushrooms, which made her ill for days. She’d resorted to drinking copious amounts of water to flush everything out and started to find green leaves such as Sorrel and Pennywort to get some nutrients into her. She recovered her strength to some degree by eating small fish from the stream.

Eventually, she managed to mount Graham and travel toward home, but she couldn’t go far each day, so the time stretched out longer than she’d ever intended.

“I’m sure now of what we need to do,” she told them all. “The tools I found on the journey can be used to build a raft to cross the river and find people. They must be out there. We can use the axe I found to fell poplar trees – they float well, and we’ll bind those together with rope we make. The raft will be big enough for all of us. Might have to leave Graham behind. We’ll see. We can use animal skins for a sail. Won’t be as good as canvas, but it should survive long enough to get us across the river. And we can make paddles to help as well.”

When Bronwen had recovered more of her strength, the five of them started work on building the raft and preparing materials for their journey. It took them several weeks before they felt prepared enough. They tried and tested various approaches to constructing the raft before they felt reasonably confident it was stable enough to cross the river. They tried to work out how to get Graham on board, but he always destabilised the raft, and they speculated that the water would get too deep for him to walk through alongside him. So, instead of making space for Graham on the raft, they made a bench area in the centre, where they could take turns to rest while they were journeying across.

In addition to the raft, the sail and the paddles, they prepared a simple leather bag for each of them, packed with some basic pots for cooking and scooping water, knives, fire lighting materials, some dried fruits and mushrooms, and not much else. They guessed that the month must be September, which felt late to embark on the trip; it would only be some weeks before the weather turned.

At sunrise, they met at the water’s edge to start their journey. Graham followed Bronwen down to the shore, and she put her arms round his neck most tenderly for a moment, before ordering him back up the slope of the shoreline. Any sign of emotionality vanished as she turned back round and barked at the rest of them that it was time to get a move on.

The day went well as they paddled across. The river current wasn’t too strong, there was enough of a breeze to catch the sail, and four paddled while one rested on the bench in the middle. It wasn’t going to be possible for them to stop during the night, as they had no anchor, and they needed to keep making their way without being dragged off by the current. After the sun went down, they orientated themselves with the stars to keep track of the horizon on the other side of the river.

By this time they were already weary, but they had to be able to sustain themselves. They agreed they could manage with two of them as paddlers and three sleeping on the bench for some hours before swapping. Bronwen and Aneesha took on the first stretch, and Naia, Lady Godiva and Juliet passed out quickly on the bench.

An unknown amount of time later, Naia awoke from her thick slumber to Aneesha shaking her gently. “Please can we change?” implored Aneesha. “I really need to rest now.”

“Yes, of course,” Naia croaked, not properly awake. “I’ll wake up Lady Godiva, and she can take over from Bronwen. I think Bronwen should also be resting – she’s not as strong as she used to be.”

Naia and Lady Godiva took up the paddles and moved the raft further into the night. There was something even more beautiful about starlight from the middle of the river. The sky was emblazoned, and shooting stars fell around them. She and Lady Godiva started to sing together. It was a time that Naia knew she would never forget. She felt swallowed up by the whole universe in a way that she understood her exact place in it, even though it was so dark that she could barely see the outline of her own hands.

Uncountable hours passed, and the two of them joked that their weariness was so heavy it must be weighing down the whole raft. “We should stop,” Naia said. “Let’s wake them to swap over.”

And then, from nowhere, there was a great thunk on the side of the raft, followed by a loud splash. Naia realised in a flash what had happened. A tree log floating in the river must have bumped into the raft, and Lady Godiva had lost her balance and fallen in, before yelling for help. Naia knew that Lady Godiva was still far from a strong swimmer, and plunged in after her to help. But in spite of the celestial bodies, the night was deep black, and as she jumped in, she had a terrible feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong…

Naia came to consciousness like she’d been electro-shocked back to life. Her lungs tried to grasp at the stale air, and she bolted upright as she heard Lady Godiva’s cries. Everything was dark, but it wasn’t like the dark of the night. She reached to her eyes and found them covered with a mask, which she tore off. A brazen kind of light flooded in. She was no longer in the river, nor even in that world she had come to call home. What the hell was happening? As the new reality crashed over her, she realised she was in some kind of – what was it? Not a hospital, more like a facility of some kind. She was in a bed and had all sorts of wires attached to her. Lady Godiva’s cries could still be heard, so Naia called out to her. She couldn’t yet work out how to extricate herself from the wires or the bed to run and find her.

A woman in a white coat with a bland face and a blunt fringe strode into the room, looking like she was pretending not to be panicked. “Lady Godiva is fine, Naia. You need to calm down. Shouting after her isn’t going to do any good. That’s it, just calm down. Breathe. You’re in a safe place, and everything will be explained…”

“I don’t know who the hell you are, but I need to see Lady Godiva. Please, just let me see her. I need to know she’s okay…”

“She’s okay, and you’ll see her in good time,” said the white-coated woman. “But first, we’ve got to get you reintegrated…”

Reintegrated into what? thought Naia before bursting into uncontrollable sobs.

Later that day, in some sort of consultancy room, Naia sat in a padded chair, waiting. It was the only comfortable thing about this extremely uncomfortable situation. There were still no answers. The staff at the facility had helped her out of bed and given her a luxuriously soft towel and fresh clothes to change into. She’d had a hot shower, washed her hair and brushed her teeth with an actual toothbrush for the first time in months. None of it felt that good. This place felt weird and fake.

As Naia waited, she stared out through the large window at the grounds of the facility. The lawns were neatly clipped and the hedgerows carefully manicured. At last, the consultant arrived: a tall, slender white woman with bouncy blond hair cascading around her like she’d just stepped out of a shampoo advert. Her face would probably have looked beautiful if you could see it beneath the slick of make-up. Naia felt her stomach clench as the woman sat down.

In a tone as smooth as caramel, the woman said, “Good afternoon, Naia. My name is Dr. Frankland. How are you feeling?”

“I have no idea what’s going on yet. No one’s told me anything, and I don’t know if my friends are okay. How do you think I must be feeling?”

“That’s absolutely understandable, and that’s why we’re having this consultation right now. Please understand, Naia, this project is still being trialled, and we’re working on the best ways of reintegrating people…”

Naia cut her off – “I’ve heard that word used before, and you have to tell me what that means, and I want to know right now.”

“You’re a very important part of a project, which could be life-changing for humanity…”

“An experiment?”

“We are still going through experimental phases, yes. Things are rapidly developing. That’s why your willingness to come on board – the bravery you demonstrated in entering into something so new – illustrated your depth of character and your desire to serve.”

“But I was never willing to come on board. I have no memory of that. You must have got something incredibly wrong to think that.”

“We’ll come to that. The first thing to appreciate is that this project is being developed as a form of therapy for people. A way to help them deal with their pain.”

Naia twitched. What had happened out there had indeed made her deal with all sorts of pain. So why did she now feel like her insides were addled with rot? She put her head in her hands. There was something she needed to know, at the same time as being terrified of hearing it. “Where were we? And why could none of us remember how we got there?”

“We’ve created a world for people to enter into. Or, more accurately, multiple worlds, and we enter people into the world that will best serve their situation…”

“A simulation? So this is some kind of fucked up Zuckerberg Metaverse bullshit?”

“We’re a competitor of Meta’s. However, our offer will be far more powerful in terms of what it can achieve. We’ve learnt to create worlds down to the finest details. And we’ve learnt to suspend the mind’s current reality and engage all the senses so that you’re fully immersed when you’re in your alternative world. We create a situation that will be profoundly healing for each individual. More effective than therapy will ever be. All the issues caused by modern life, all the pain we humans live through, this kind of simulation will help to deal with that.”

Each word Dr Frankland spoke felt like a drop of acid on the skin. She closed her eyes and called in her brother’s words. Everything we ever think is a total illusion. It’s a crock of crap with very little relationship to reality. So when you’re feeling all fucked up in the head, just remember not to believe your own beliefs too much. But in the last months, she’d found something to believe in – she’d believed in her own thoughts and the world around her. She’d forgotten to not believe. And it was all a fake?

Naia could sense Dr. Frankland was still holding back information. “You need to tell me straight up. How did I come to be in that place? Tell me now.”

“I’m going to tell you, and then I’m going to leave you with the papers that explain the project and the contract you signed. And I have a recording here. We asked you to make a recording before going into the Immersion. Listen to it to help you anchor again. When you came here, you were so unhappy. And you knew that you needed change. You wanted to help develop this project. It’s what you wanted.” Dr Frankland handed a wodge of papers to Naia, along with a device to listen to Naia’s own recording, and left the room. Naia flicked rapidly through the papers. Sentences jumped out at her.

The Vita Nova project has the potential to exponentially improve workplace productivity via advancements in cutting-edge therapeutic treatments.

Part of the trial is to use newly developed techniques to suspend traumatic memory. This is under development, and only memories formed over approximately the last two years of life can be suspended. Longer-term memory is hard-wired.

…Participants will be informed that, as yet, these memories can be suspended but cannot be unsuspended. After the Immersion, any traumatic memories formed in the two years prior to treatment will not return…

Vita Nova algorithmically matches participants so that they can encounter new group experiences lacking in their own lives.

…the Technology has every chance of fully compensating for the experiences that have been crucial to the development of the full human, which are currently absent from modern life due to ecological damage and atomisation.

Naia’s head swam with nausea. How could she have done this to herself? She pressed play on the recording device. Her own voice came back at her. It was thin and tired-sounding.

“I’m doing this because…I don’t know. I just…need to. It’s been all this time, and I still haven’t got over the betrayal. My own partner and my best friend. They were most of what I had. Behind my back, for all that time. The dishonesty. It’s broken me. It’s broken my life…” She heard herself break into sobs. “…I just can’t do this any more. I’ve been so depressed, and it led me to lose my job. I’ve lost my home. I’ve run out of money. I’m sleeping on my brother’s couch, and there’s no space, and I don’t know what to do or where to go. I need something different, and I think this is it. This project. Vita Nova. So this is a message to…my future self. I just can’t stand this pain any more. It’s not shifting, and I want it gone. I want those memories gone. I want to be a new self in a new life. I hope I understand why I did this. I hope I’m better by then…”

Listening to herself say these words was just so awful, and as she heard the recording of herself weeping, she started to cry with herself, and her mind began to burst with angry questions. How could she have been so unhappy that she could have done something so stupid as sign up for this? How had this fucking crazed corporation been allowed to prey on her vulnerability like that? And now…she had to grieve something that she didn’t even remember had happened. And that was before even thinking of her friends of the last months. If this had happened to her, what had happened to them?

They were all there already when Naia walked into the room. Aneesha, Juliet, Lady Godiva, Bronwen – and none of them looked great. It was strange seeing them again. Just too much to process. Was this now real, or just another simulation? Aneesha looked particularly awful. There were strange darks furrows that Naia couldn’t remember from the Immersion. True to form, Bronwen sat apart from the rest of them. She rested in an uncomfortable-looking position on a window ledge, staring out at the sky. No eye contact.

“I’m so glad you’re all here!” Naia exclaimed, breaking down into tears again. She embraced each one of them in turn, even Bronwen.

She had just sat down when Dr. Frankland entered, wearing an overbearing perfume. “Thank you for meeting here today,” she began. Naia sensed that she was attempting to project confidence, but a sliver of uncertainty came through in her voice. “This is an important part of the process, coming together with those who you’ve had your Immersion experience with.” Four of them gave her a metallic stare. Bronwen continued to gaze out of the window. A silence ensued. The air felt taut enough to snap. Dr. Frankland attempted to continue. “Now, as you know, you’ve bravely taken part in pioneering this project, and I’d like to express my gratitude on behalf of everyone at Vita Nova for taking this forward…”

Naia cut her off. “Were we the first ones?” she asked.

There was a moment of hesitation. “Yes, you were absolutely the first ones. At the cutting edge of this innovation. From a pool of thousands of applicants, you five were the ones that were selected to work together, to help one another build new lives from the ashes of the old…”

This time it was Juliet who cut her off – quiet, humble, self-effacing Juliet, who boomed in a voice that Naia wouldn’t have known she possessed, “If this process is supposed to make our lives better, why do I feel so FUCKING SHIT?!! What have you done to us?” She started to cry. Lady Godiva took her hand.

Dr. Frankland’s voice wobbled slightly as she attempted to hold the line… “As you know and signed up for, this is the very early stages of a huge project. There may be some areas that need honing and refining. And you’ve only just come out of your Immersion. It will take some time, but the new you is blossoming as we speak…”

It was now Lady Godiva who flared wild-eyed into fury. “You need to GET OUT!” she yelled. “I don’t want you here! I want to be alone with these four! Not with you. We need to figure out what’s happened to us!”

Dr. Frankland opened her mouth as if about to continue her empty drivel of positivity, then thought better of it. “Yes, of course, that is an important part of the process too, which we had planned for slightly later down the line…” By now, the atmosphere in the room was on the verge of causing an earthquake. Dr. Frankland slipped out of the door and closed it behind her.

For a while, none of them said anything. Naia knew there was just too much hurt and pain to speak. Usually, Aneesha opened things up before she did, but Aneesha looked hollow. Her warm glow was gone. Eventually, Naia ventured, “I think we need to talk about why we each chose this. We’ve shared so much all these hundreds of days together. We need to share this, too. I can start if you like?” Almost imperceptibly, the others nodded to give Naia the go-ahead.

She closed her eyes and tried to stop the tears from coming again. Just do it, she thought. You need to do this. She kept her gaze low as she told them. When she finished, she looked up to find Juliet and Lady Godiva had tears in their eyes. Aneesha just looked ashen. Bronwen stared out of the window.

Juliet and Lady Godiva went next. They had both been assaulted. Badly. Sexually. Very different situations, but in their own ways, just as painful. No wonder they needed each other so much.

Then Aneesha. Naia knew something awful was about to be spoken. Aneesha spoke so quietly that it was hard to hear the words. “I…I had a child. And a husband. They died together in an accident, but I don’t remember now. I remember my husband. We were married for years. I don’t remember my daughter. The memories of her are all gone. She was only one when she died. I can’t remember her living or dying. And I did this to myself…”

By this time, Naia, Lady Godiva, and Juliet were all crying together with Aneesha. They held her and cried and cried.

Time passed. When they’d got through the crying, they remembered Bronwen. Something had lifted from Aneesha, and she turned to Bronwen and said, “Please, Bronwen, will you share with us?”

Bronwen shifted a little. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she said flatly. Naia expected her to go on in her usual monotone way. But after a few words, Bronwen broke. “My father, he – he means the world to me. I mean, he meant the world to me.” She started to howl with pain and tears in the most unimaginable way. “I can’t do this!” she cried, “I can’t be in the world without him! He was the only one who understood. He taught me everything. It was always just me and him. He was the only one like me. I can’t bear to learn he was gone, even though I – I don’t know, I can feel it in my body; I can feel that I knew before that he was gone. I just turned away from it because I didn’t know what it was…”

As Bronwen cried those words, Naia realised she could feel the same thing – the pain of the loss was still there, even if she didn’t have the images of the memories. Her body still carried it. The lack of the memories was no way to dislodge the grief and loss.

The four of them went and sat on the floor at Bronwen’s feet. They knew she would not want to be touched. “We love you, Bronwen,” said Aneesha as calm descended on the room.

A gleam appeared in Lady Godiva’s eye. “And you love us!” she said to Bronwen. “You can’t help yourself! You love all of us!” A smile spread between them, almost a laugh. It was the right moment to tease her. Then Bronwen smiled broadly, the first time they’d ever seen it. It looked like she couldn’t help herself.

“You’re all a pain in my ass,” she said. “And I can’t say those words. But yes, I do…”

It was time to leave that place. They were all so ready. And they were each walking out with a large cash payout. Not only what they’d been offered in payment at the outset. Naia had been able to negotiate for a large payment for each of them. As she knew about corporate law, she’d demanded to view the ins and outs of their corporate ethics procedure on the trial they were in. There were huge grey areas around the legalities of the trial. And the fact that the initial participants experienced a compounded sense of trauma was enough to push for something big.

Naia had wanted to go further – she’d wanted to take Vita Nova to court. But it’s not what the others felt they could handle; they wanted to get as far away as possible. Vita Nova would only give them an out-of-court payout if the five of them all signed a non-disclosure agreement. Naia didn’t feel able to fight it out in court alone, and didn’t want to prevent her friends from receiving their payout. She understood them. Ultimately, their traumas were on another scale to hers. No one had died in her world. No one had assaulted her. She felt shame at not having handled her relationship break-up better. She knew she could be stronger than that.

So the five of them walked out into their big bad world once again. Huge and terrible but also real. What was next? Were they now a little tribe? Would they stay together? Would they even stay in touch?

“I don’t even know what to do with all this money,” said Aneesha as they walked out.

“Well, darling, I most certainly do not have that problem,” Lady Godiva replied. “I may never work another day in my life. Unless it’s to do something fun and fabulous, of course.”

“Ironic that the whole point of Vita Nova is to try and increase worker productivity!” Naia laughed.

“Can we…” Juliet began tentatively, “Can we actually do something…together? All of us? We’re good together. I feel that if we don’t stick together, we’re all just going to lose each other. But we don’t need to be so alone any more.”

They all looked at each other. “Bronwen, what do you think?” asked Naia.

“I’m going to buy some land. Live on it. Makes sense. Join me if you want. Or don’t. But it’ll be back to boot camp, I’ll tell you that now.”

“Ah, boot camp. Love it, really do. Just can’t wait,” said Lady Godiva.

They walked down the street into the polluted, chaotic, heaving urban sprawl. Naia had never felt so good about how ugly and discordant things were. At least it was real, and whatever was next, maybe it wouldn’t be this.