Chapter Text
The winner of this year's Long Walk had become something of an urban legend. No one had seen or spoken to him since the Walk ended. Rumors began to spread, theories were concocted, and everyone seemed to know something no one else did. He was a tall tale, growing more elaborate and unbelievable with every retelling.
“I’ve heard he lives in a giant mansion and spends his days lying in bed with hundreds of servants at his beck and call.”
“I’ve heard his legs were so deformed they had to be amputated, and he’ll never walk again.”
“I’ve heard he screams at shadows and talks to empty air.”
“I’ve heard his mind is so far gone he’s like a ghost.”
“I bet he is a ghost and they’re just pretending he’s still alive. We all know that no one really wins The Long Walk.”
There were slivers of truth in every theory, but only a few people knew the whole truth. Even the winner himself barely knew.
The doctor told Garraty with sadness in her voice that he will never walk properly again. His legs and feet had been damaged severely, and for now, he could only take a few steps without collapsing. With treatment, he would improve, but never like he was before. The doctor sounded as though she failed him — that a horrible tragedy had befallen this young boy. Garraty couldn’t help the bitter laugh he gave in response. The real tragedy was how long he walked in the first place; 99 boys died while Garraty kept walking. Never walk again? Garraty was grateful for the news.
Garraty was frantically holding onto what little sanity the Walk had left him with. He tried not to show it, but sometimes his grip loosened. The black figure would haunt the corners of his eyes, and every time he turned to catch it, it disappeared. Sometimes he felt cold hands creep up his shoulders and shuddered at the sensation.
Voices often plagued his ears. Cries and promises and regrets played like melancholy music. They were the voices of boys he couldn’t forget, for he had tried so desperately to remember them when they were alive. Sometimes Garraty regretted getting to know them. He wondered if he’d be better off with memories of nameless strangers. He didn’t have long to wonder before the voices would whisper to him again, their tear-stained faces drifting into his dreams. There they confessed to him their deepest fears and their greatest hopes. They reached out for him, aching and longing, and all Garraty could do was cry as he walked away from them against his will. They deserved to be remembered… they deserved to be more than just numbers.
Garraty avoided talking to himself at all costs around others. Even when the black figure haunted him and the voices spoke, he stayed silent. However, within the darkness of the night and the stillness of his room, sometimes Garraty would whisper back. He did it with great hesitation, with a trembling voice and shaking hands. It was wrong to give in, but he craved the understanding only these long-gone boys could give him.
Garraty spent most of his days with his mother or Jan, the latter visiting him often despite Garraty ending their relationship. He knew the moment he saw her after the Walk had ended that they couldn’t be together anymore. He wasn’t the same boy she loved, and he didn’t know how to love her as he did before. Even so, she stayed, and Garraty couldn’t begin to express how grateful he was for her.
He occasionally had other visitors, usually kids he knew from school, but they petered out over time. They were so far away from him now, practically strangers. As it had been with Jan, the boy who they knew was not the boy sitting before them now. The doctor had said he would never be like he was before, and Garraty realized that was true for all of him, not just his legs.
Garraty couldn’t care less about the rumors; he spent the worst five days of his life surrounded by hundreds of people. He heard his mother and Jan talk in not-so-hushed voices, wondering how strangers could possibly know these details about his condition. They asked Garraty if he was worried about what people were saying, and he said no. They asked Garraty if he was okay.
They asked him that a lot, and he never knew what to say.
Some days his thoughts were quiet and his body didn’t ache too badly. Those days he would smile. Other days he was frozen, unable to speak even as they begged him to. The eyes of stone-faced soldiers burned into his mind.
So how could Garraty tell if he was okay?
Garraty passively watched the months go by, wondering when things would change. It seemed that every day the mountains only got taller — the graves deeper. Finally, something shifted.
Garraty got his Prize.