Hunting by Stars

Seventeen-year-old Francis “French” Dusome has been captured by Recruiters and taken to a former boarding school that has been converted into a sinister facility where the marrow of Native people is extracted. French is so named because of his Métis (Native and European settler) heritage. Concussed and confined to a dark, windowless cell, French dreams of his older brother, Mitch.

In the dream, Mitch and French are still children and are playing in a treehouse with a plastic figurine of an army man. French alerts Mitch that the Recruiters are coming for him. The dream segues to the post-apocalyptic reality of the world, which has been ruined by climate change and environmental degradation. Most non-Native people have been infected by a lethal plague that takes away their ability to dream, and thus, their sanity. The bone marrow of Native people is believed to cure the effects of the plague. Suddenly, infected people begin to pounce on French and Mitch, who are healthy and full of marrow.

In the present, French screams and wakes up. He notices that his cell is pitch-dark. French misses his found family, the group with whom he lives and travels. He consoles himself that at least he is not yet dead, and cries unexpectedly for his biological mother, who left him and Mitch a long time ago.