by Nguyen,Peter
I closely follow behind him as we walk towards the gigantic stairways. Growls can be heard from a far. We finally reach to the front desk and there’s scattered paper all over the floor. Just as we’re about to walk outside Rylan pulls me back behind a desk.
“Hazer, get down!”
Black military trucks suddenly arrive at the front entrance. Men yellow hazmat suit walk in and immediately see Seth and the girl he took, Faye. Blood is all over her nose and mouth as he carries her body in the building.
They walk up the white marbled staircase and I start to fear for her. What is she doing with them? Whatever it is she’s in trouble.
“Okay lets go” says Rylan.
“I know her.”
“Okay we’ll go back for her later but right now we have to go. Their vehicle is right there Hazer. We can use it to get to the safe house.”
“I’m not going. I left her before and I’m not doing it again,” I get up and walk towards the stairs.
“You’re going to get yourself killed!” Rylan scold.
I completely ignore him as I run up the stairs. Even though Rylan might be right, I’m willing to lose another friend. I start to remember how I hit her in the head with a rock just to save my mom. It’s my fault she ended up here and now it’s up to me to get her out.
I quietly watch them as they pull out a card key to open a door and walk in.
“Shall we begin?”
“Just hurry up! Kraven is expecting the serum,” Seth exclaims.
I peek into the room that they are in and it looks like a hospital room. They strap Faye down on a gurney and inject a needle into her arm. The blood flows out and into glass container.
“So what’s the plan?”
I look over and Rylan is right next to me. I thought he would have left me by now.
“Do you still have any energy left?”
“A little,” Rylan loads his gun.
I nervously get up and Rylan points the gun at Seth. “Nobody move!” he yells. “Nice plan” I whisper. Seth turns around and I can see the rage in his eyes as he looks at me. “What the hell are you two doing here?” Seth yells.
“A better question would be, what are you doing working from Kraven? Hazer go.”
I walk up to the Gurney and start to untie Faye. I can feel Seth’s glare as I help Faye up. She doesn’t look to well considering she lost a lot of blood already. I put her arm over my shoulder and walk her to the door. “I can’t believe you betrayed us Seth. I should shoot you right now,” Rylan shouts.
“Rylan let’s go! He’s not worth it.”
“You’re both are dead to me,” says Seth.
We walk out into the hallway and help Faye down the stairs. I hear Seth running after us.
BANG, BANG!
I look up and Seth is shooting at us with a pistol. Rylan quickly shields us and the bullets ricochets back up. We run towards the door and Rylan opens the military truck with just a sway of his hands. I help Faye in and we close the door.
“How do you drive this?”
There’s a screen in front of the driver seat and it shows a map. The screen suddenly says “Please select your destination.”
“Where is the safe house?”
“I don’t know. Try this one,” I press a pinpoint on the screen and the car starts and drives itself.
“Is everyone alright?”
“I think so,” I start to feel pain on the left side of my abdominal and I notice my shirt is also wet with a red stain that immediately draws me attention. I lift it up my shirt and there’s a lot of blood coming from a wound
“Hazer!”
I look up to Rylan and I see two of him. I think I’m going crazy, but I realize it’s from all the blood I have lost. The pain becomes more noticeable as cold sweat appears on my arms and neck. I didn’t even realize it. I can feel my vision starting to fog and my mind is slipping away into the dark.
XII
I see my mom. She is facing towards the sunset reflecting shore, wearing a white flowing dress that seems to be drifting in the cold breeze along with her hair. I don’t see her face but I know it’s her. She’s waiting for something or someone but I don’t know what. I curiously walk up to her and tug on her dress. “Mommy, when is Daddy coming home?” I said as I look down at my small white shoes and wait for a response.
“Mommy I want to go home, it’s too cold.”
“He’ll come home. I know it” my mom says to herself.
The sun begins to fall and the dark cloud invades the sky. I close my eyes as the violent wind picks up. I grab my mom’s hand so tight, so that’ll warm me up. I lay my head against her cold arms as she stares into the distances. Ice starts to form around the shore but I don’t move. I don’t walk away. I will never leave her. I’ll never leave her side.
“Hazer please go. I’ll stay here and wait.”
She shoves me back, hoping I would go back home where it’s warm, but I can’t, not without her.
“Mommy I’ll never leave you. I promise.”
I suddenly wake up, realizing it was dream of a memory. I feel my heart pounding like a drum as I place my hand over my chest. I can’t believe she’s gone. I don’t know if I can go on any longer without her. Tears begin roll down my cheeks as I try to walk up from this nightmare. This isn’t a nightmare, this is reality. I wipe my face as I try to forget about my depressing thoughts.
I look around and I’m lying on a soft patch of grass. I can hardly tell where I am though there is thick fog that surrounds me. A sharp pain quickly grabs my attention as I try to sit up. Carefully lifting up my shirt, my wound is all cover up with a white padding. I remember being shot and passed out but I don’t remember how I ended up here. The vehicle helped us escape Seth but it’s now right in front of me but flipped over. The glass is completely shatter as if someone took a wooden bat and swung at each window. The headlights still shine ahead into the fog but I notice Faye and Rylan are both missing.
I slowly stand up and the pain intensifies. I don’t know if can get to the safe house by myself but I have to try. I suddenly see movement from the corner of my eye, but as I turn around there is nothing there.
“Hazer?” I turn around and it’s the same school girl I saw when she led me to the red smoke. How is she here again? “You!” I said as I back away.
I curiously reach out to touch her head and she doesn’t feel real. It’s like my mind is telling me I can’t press down any further.“What are you?”
“A memory” she replies.
“A memory of who?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” she says.
“Faye, how is this possible?”
“I don’t know but you have find me,” she says as she starts to skip into the fog where I quickly follow her. It’s possible she’s leading me into a trap but she’s my only way out of this place. I try to keep up with her but she seems to be fading with the fog.
“Wait up!”
I start to hear crying from a distance but it’s hard to see who it is. I try my best to follow the sobbing sound. I duck under a branch and then I see her. The same girl who saved me from the Gamma wolves is now sobbing. Her knees to her chest and cheeks wet. I reach out to her but she screams.
“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” She pulls out a sharp glass that seems to belong to the vehicle. She points it at me as if I’m going to hurt her.
“Faye it’s me, Hazer,” I reply. “Who is Faye?”
“You are” I slowly reach out to her but she quickly tumbles to the side and swings her blade but misses. “How do you know me!?” Faye shouts.
“We meant in the forest and you helped me find the Nightshades, remember?”
I realize from her confusion that she has no idea what I’m talking about. Did I hit her that hard in the head to make her forget who she is?
“Look I’ll help you but you need to help me.”
She takes a deep breath as I move the sharp glass away from me. She finally drops it and I reach f
or her hand, helping her up. “What happen to my brother Rylan?”
“He saved us,” she replies
“What are you talking about? Saved us from what?”
“He saved us from….”
A car suddenly drives towards us and I quickly pull Faye into the tall grass. The car stops at our flipped vehicle and a man walks out.
It’s Seth.
He pulls out his pistol and flashlight and shines around. I can hear my own heart pounding as he gets closer. He knows we’re around here but he doesn’t see us.
“Come out! We can either do this the easy way or my way.”
I look over to Faye and she nods. She know what I’m about to ask her to do. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She opens them again and her pupil is violet.
“Over here idiot!”
Seth turns around shoots the two illusions of me and Faye. The illusions both run into the fog while Seth chases after them.
“We have to go before he turns back.”
She nods and we run in the opposite direction.
“Something was chasing us!”
“What are you talking about,” I ask.
“Your brother led it away from us.”
I can’t believe I let this happen. The brother who I was reunited with, just sacrifice himself again in order to save me. I hate myself and wish it the other way around.
“We’ll have to find him!”
She nods with a concern look.
By the looks of the vehicle, something must of caused it flip like that and the first thing that comes to mind was the picture I saw in Chris’s journal. The one Garrett and Alex was completely petrified of. I remember the beast’s name “Havore,” the words comes out quieter than I expected.
“What exactly was chasing us?”
I can see the fear in her eyes and her face becomes paler before she replies “It wasn’t just any animal. I can’t really describe it. It was too fast. I know they went this way.”
I start to slow down as the pain in my abdominal starts to hurt again.
“Are you ok? Do you need to take a break?”
“No we have to keep moving.”
Faye puts my arm over her shoulder and we quickly walk out of the forest. In front was tall building with shattered glass. Everything looks crumbled, blowing into the wind where it looks like a minor sandstorm.
I can’t believe Faye lost her memories because me. I don’t know if I should tell her I;m the reason he doesn’t know who she is. I guess I’ll have to eventually, knowing she’ll hate me but she can’t hate me as much as I hate myself. I know right now I have to focus on getting Rylan back and then rescue Kala.
I’m not going to let him die for someone like me. He already did it once and I already live a life with self hate, I’m not willing to do it again.
“C’mon we have to keep moving. Your illusion must have worn off by now,” I say.
“Where are we?” ask Faye
“I don’t know. I think we’re in a city or use to be.”
The suns warm our skin as we step out of the shade. I never experienced heat like this, it’s like I’m placing my hand next to a fire place. I look around and notice crooked rusty green highway sign. It reads City of Melbourne.
I heard of this city in one my school lectures. It was the day when Garrett and Carter were fighting over a football during recess. My teacher says something about the country Australia, being cut off into the Cyto Field. Hearing the stories of people that lived in the center of the supercontinent was depressing because they all ran for the lives to the closest gate before it closed. The ones who were too later were now bound to a domain of destruction with no citizenship.
I carefully observe the dilapidated building that looks unstable, leaning in strange direction. Even the road is hard to walk on, inhabiting large craters. We carefully walk on the cracked crumbled road where I notice there’s a large hole the size of my house. One of them seems to have no end almost as if it leads to the center of the Earth.
All of a sudden an explosion can be heard from above. I nearly jump as the burst of flames behind the clouds ignites into a large ball of fire.
“Ahh!” I look down at my hands and sun is literally burning my skin. The heat becomes so intense that my skin instantly becomes red, blistering in the hot sun.
Faye pushes me into the shade and I notice she’s burnt on the arm as well.
“What is that?” she ask.
“I heard the Cyto Field forms unstable weather that humans had never experienced before. This must be one of them. The sun must be releasing strong heat waves,” I said looking down at my burnt skin.
“It’s getting hotter, we should move.”
I’m surprise the burn isn’t bothering Faye as much as me. Either the injection gives her a high tolerance pain or I’m just a wimp.
We start to walk on the side of the buildings where the shades are. There are cars driven into the walls of the buildings. This city probably had bad drivers or they couldn’t take the heat. I guess I would have done the same if the sun scorched my skin while I was driving.
I notice the tall building that I saw from the moment we came here is getting shorter and shorter, almost as if it’s slowly melting from the top. The paper and trash that scatters the cities walkway start to ignite in tiny flames and the torrid heat intensifies. I quickly take off my jacket that is soaked from my sweat. I throw the jacket on the road and keep moving.
“We have to get into a building, it’s too hot out here” I say.
We run towards a glass building and Faye quickly breaks the glass with a press of a palm. I almost forgot how strong she is. Right in front of us are unopened wooden boxes, stacked on top of each other. At the end of the room, a torn black cloth is hanging over a wall. My sweat starts to cool and I notice the vents are working.
“Why were trembling,” Faye ask.
“What are you talking about?”
“When you were asleep, I notice you were trembling.”
“You were watching me sleep?” I gave a curious look.
She scold and says, “I-I thought it was weird.”
“I just had a dream. It was nothing,” I say.
The confusion on Faye’s face didn’t go away as I want it to and I’m not sure if I want to talk about this especially to a girl who’s suffering from amnesia. “I had a dream about my mom,” I confess.
“Where is she?” she ask.
“I don’t really know where she is right now. Bad people infected her with some virus and now she’s running around the Cyto field, spreading it,” I say.
“Are you okay? Faye ask.
“Of course I’m not okay!” I shout. I’m surprise the words came out louder than I expected, but no one understands, no one will ever understand.
She looks away, trying to avoid eye contact.
“Look its fine; I’m just not use to talking about it.”
I walk over to her and place my hand under her elbow to have a better look at the burnt on her arm. The burnt doesn’t look as bad but I roll up her sleeves anyways to avoid contact.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she says.
She glances up at my eyes. I notice how light her brown eyes are. We both quickly look away and I clear my throat.
“I know the feeling, because I got burnt when I was younger. I was trying to cook something for my mom’s birthday but I guess I couldn’t maintain the fire. My mom rushed into the kitchen and places my arm in cold water. I basically ruined her birthday that day,” I say, trying not make things awkward.
She looks up at me again with a few hair strands covering her left eye. I carefully brush it to the side and I can’t help but notice how enchanting she looks.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
I want to tell her it was me, the one who made her lose her memories. I want to tell her how much I regret leaving her in the woods, but I stay quiet as we both quickly look away at the same time not knowing
what the other person is thinking.
“Do you hear that?” ask Faye.
I listen carefully and I hear the laughter. The laugh echoes from afar. It sounds like children almost. I think I’m going crazy but the sound becomes clearer and clearer.
“It’s coming from the walls.”
I place my ears closer and mover towards the direction it’s coming from. The sound eventually leads me towards the torn black drapes. I start towards the cloth and Faye follows me from behind. I don’t have a gun with me and I figure Rylan took it with him to fight the creature that was after us.
I don’t know if this is some sort of trap but I have to say on guard. I slowly pull the curtain aside, revealing a small dark hallway. The laughter gets louder and louder as I hold my hands out, hoping I won’t run into anything.
“I see light,” I say.
We walk out of the dark hall and I notice the wooden floors as it creaks with each step. The lights hang from above while the dusty red curtains sway from the side of the stage.
“Where are we?”
“We’re in some sort of theater,” I say.
I never got the chance to watch a play or show but I learn that people back than would act like different people and portray them up here where everyone can see. We pass the red curtains and I suddenly see two young children around 6 years old playing at the center of the stage. The boy is chasing the girl while she runs in her white dress. They seem to be playing some sort of game, maybe tag. They’re laughter fills up the entire room like the world outside these walls doesn’t exist to them. I’m shock to see people actually living here in the hunting ground, especially kids like them.
I want to step forward and ask them if they live here but the floors creek as I place a step forward. Their alert eyes see us nothing more but danger. Without thinking they run towards the front stage.
“Wait I just want to ask you something,” I say hoping to calm them down, but they quickly jump off the stage and run pass the red seats. “Come on let’s follow them,” I say.
We step out into the stage light, jumping off the stage. We run out of the auditorium and we’re now in some sort of hallway. The lights are off and it’s almost total darkness. I reach out in my pocket to pull out a flash light, hoping we’re not surrounded by Cylers. Thankfully we’re alone but the two kids are nowhere to be seen.
