by T. Rudacille
***
We stood, peering around the end of the ship as the first signs of night began to descend. A silence came over the forest that the three of us knew preceded the arrival of the natives.
“I told my other sister that if they come while I'm in here, they need to run into the woods. We'll have to look for them. But we'll find them. If anything should happen to me, they'll find James. I don't know if I can trust the guy, but I know that he's better than my father.”
Alice and I both knew that he wasn't telling us that to supply us with the information. He was reminding himself. Through that reminder, he was reassured that even in the event of his delay or his death, his sisters would be taken care of. I had seen his younger sister Violet many times. She appeared to be only a year or so younger than us, but there was a selfless quality to her that neither Alice nor I had acquired yet.
I watched her hand over a bottle of water to a child dying of thirst. She hadn't known whether her father would give her more to drink, but she had known Brynna would sacrifice her own. I was becoming fascinated with their family. I was fascinated by their quiet kindness. How Daniel Olivier's children could turn out so good when he was anything but baffled me.
“How are we going to get past the guards?” Alice whispered as she craned her neck to see how many were standing by the folded down stairs that led onto the ship.
“Why are there guards in the first place?” I asked, “Do they think someone is going to try to break her out?”
“No,” Elijah replied, “They think the natives are going to try to blow up the ship.”
“But if they want us to leave, then why would they blow up the ship?” I asked.
“Because if they can't get us to leave, then they can blow up our supplies so we won't be able to survive for very long.” Elijah answered in a voice devoid of emotion. “I can't shoot them without people hearing.”
“Wait here.” Alice told us.
“Allie!” I called after her in a loud whisper as she approached the guards.
“Hi!” She called out. She waved cheerfully, and I could hear her smiling, “Hey, I think someone robbed my tent. It's so funny, though. They only took my pads.”
Oh, Lord...
“Your what?” The man asked in slight horror. Typical male response to a woman bringing up that awful thing that happened to them once a month... I would have stammered out a response, too.
“My pads. Like... for my end-of-the-sentence,” Alice laughed in fake embarrassment, “I'm really going to be needing them, though. I was wondering if I could go into the storeroom and get another pack.”
“No civilians are allowed in the storeroom, sweetheart. I'm sorry.”
“Then can you go get them? It's kind of an emergency. The flood gates are opening, if you will...”
To watch those guards squirm in discomfort was more than amusing. It was downright hilarious. I was cracking up and struggling not to clap my hands in triumphant glee. Even Elijah was grinning as he watched.
“Go get them, man.” Another guard told the one Alice was addressing.
“Kids share way too many details these days...” He muttered as he walked up the high metal staircase to the door of the ship and scanned his key card.
Once it was open, Alice's falsely sunny demeanor vanished. If I wasn't in awe of her before, I definitely was when I saw her switch into Tomb Raider mode. She grabbed hold of the first guard and threw him against the hard, metal exterior of the ship. With one hand she held him firmly to the wall, and with the other, she grasped a handful of his hair. As Elijah and I watched with our mouths hanging open, she banged his head into the side of the ship twice with only enough force to knock him unconscious.
The two remaining guards had stood completely dumbfounded at her sudden changeover and at the unbelievable strength that a girl half their size possessed. But after that initial shock wore off, they sprung into defensive mode. The one on the ground grabbed her from behind and held her arms to her sides. She jerked her body forward and flipped him off of her back before jumping down onto him and hissing in his face.
Elijah and I were watching like moronic spectators at a football game. But when I saw the man who had opened the door pull a knife from his pocket, the animal in me awoke as well.
I charged forward at a speed that would make Olympic track stars pack up their gym bags and go home. I leaped through the air and collided with the metal railing at the top of the stairs. I hurtled over it to tackle the man backwards, but we tumbled over the railing on the other side and hit the ground hard. The fall knocked the wind out of him, but I felt nothing. In what seemed like one fluid motion, I kicked him so that he flung onto his back, jumped on top of him, and pinned his arms above his head.
The feeling of my teeth elongating to the shape of fangs was definitely the weirdest sensation I had experienced up to that point. Admittedly, my heart flung itself upwards in nauseated surprise just as my hands flew to my mouth to touch them. The only teeth that had grown were my canines and first incisors; they were almost how I would expect vampire fangs to be. The only differences were that there were four fangs instead of two, and they were much thicker than vampire teeth, and as a result, more durable. In that quick second of prodding my finger into the bottom of one fang, I managed to draw blood. Not only were they long but they were also very sharp.
As I touched the new, very strange additions to my mouth, the guard saw his chance to bring me down. He thrust the hand that held the knife forward, going right for my throat. I dodged the attack in a blur of movement and grabbed his wrist in one hand. I couldn't believe that he had tried to cut my throat; the thought infuriated me. At first, I hissed just as Alice had. Then, a soft growl rumbled in the back of my throat as I snapped his wrist in half with just a slight tightening of my fingers.
Just as he let out a wail of pain, I brought back my fist to punch him hard in the face. His scream choked off, and his eyes closed. In a frenzy, I looked around for any curious survivors that might have come around the end of the ship, searching for the source of the noise. I saw no one and breathed a deep, cleansing sigh of relief. In that breath, the instinct to fight and kill soothed itself, and I could have sworn, though this sounds insane, that I smelled the pepperoni, onion, mushroom, and sausage pizza that my mom, dad, and I ordered every Friday night for as long as I could remember.
“Quinn!” Alice exclaimed in a loud whisper, “Come on!”
The amazingly vivid smell disintegrated immediately, leaving me sniffing the air somewhat wildly. I begged for it to appear again from wherever it had come, because I needed the peace that had flooded through me the moment I smelled it to return. Instead, I had only the urge to run, fight, and sink my newly acquired fangs down into the vital arteries of anything that stood in the way of saving Brynna, a girl I had not met, but cared for because Alice did.
Elijah hurtled the railing the same way I had. He jumped into the open space as the metallic door began to slide shut. He pressed his back to one side of the doorway and kicked both feet up to hold the door open.
“Quinn, let's go!” Alice was shouting.
I scrambled up the stairs, and we ducked under Elijah's legs. Once we were inside, he rolled sideways, landing gracefully on all fours before pushing himself up to a standing position without moving his feet at all.
“You have to admit,” He grinned, “It's kind of awesome, right?”
“Hell yeah.” Alice beamed brightly.
All of us were trembling from the adrenaline rush our fight had stirred to life. I could see how people became addicted to thrills; as we faced death and pain, we embraced a perhaps nonexistent invincibility. In that invincibility, we were truly alive. We possessed the strength of bulls and the fighting prowess of lions; we were becoming more like animals every day. For the first time, I was excited about mutating. In the eyes of my two companions, I could see the same enthusiasm for our new animal nature.
I turned my head from right to left. On both
sides, the corridor was eerily lit with dim bulbs. Both ways were identical. We could not be sure which way to go.
“Storage compartment, right?” Alice looked in either direction as I had. “I guess we should split up.”
“Famous last words…” I muttered, and Alice scowled at me in irritation, “Well, it’s true!”
“Do you have a better idea?” She asked, “We don’t have much time before Olivier’s people stumble on the guards we just took out. Once that happens, they’ll be coming in here, looking for whoever did it.”
“Yeah, we may be able to fight a few of them, but he has more people than you guys think. He thinks the only way to survive is by using force. So he brought plenty of force.” Elijah explained grimly, “We can’t take on all of them. We might be able to fight, but they have guns. So, you’re right, Alice. We need to get in and get out of here. You two go on. I’ll go alone.”
“No!” I exclaimed, “It doesn’t matter if we split up, because we have no way of telling one another if we find her! We need to stay together! Look, let’s just take thirty seconds and try to use whatever these weird powers are that we have.”
“What do you mean?” Alice asked, and I could see that her aggravation was growing as she became more frantic to find Brynna and get out.
I realized suddenly that I was sick of feeling like I was running out of time.
“I don’t know. Just…”
I closed my eyes and allowed the creature inside of me to take hold. It was instinctual and at times, close to knowing things that we could not possibly know on our own. They were staring at me, rendered silent by what they believed was just a stupid attempt to tap into a psychic side that didn’t exist. But I knew that I could at least gather which direction was the correct one in order to more quickly find Brynna.
“This way.” I pointed to the left side of the corridor, “Yeah, shut up, fools.”
“We don’t even know if you’re right yet!” Elijah called after me as we all ran down the darkened hallway.
“I am right. Don’t start doubting the powers, man!” I called back.
I stopped running suddenly and thrust my arm back to keep them from continuing on. The three of us carefully moved to see around the wall. With a drop in each of our hearts, we watched as Daniel Olivier began to walk in our direction, his brows furrowed in a question. He thought he had heard something, and he was coming to see if he really had.
“Elijah!” He called down the hallway, “Go back outside.”
Elijah went to move around us, but Alice reached out and grabbed him, shaking her head. However, after looking into his eyes, she let go of him. Though there was rage in them, it was not the rage that we had to embrace before we could hurt someone. The same way Alice had a plan, he did as well.
“Has she eaten?” He asked Daniel sourly.
“She had a few scraps of something. Well, we put a few scraps of something in front of her, and she didn’t eat it, because she’s hard-headed and absolutely determined to do the exact opposite of what I ask her to do. Either way, that’s all she’s getting right now. I know that it seems cruel, Eli. But I need to know what’s going on. I can’t protect you, your sisters, or Maura without knowing what exactly it is that’s happening to her.”
“And you think she knows?”
“I do. I think she knew this was going to happen to her. I think she knows what those natives want. You saw how calm their leader was when he spoke to her. It was only after we interrupted them that he threatened us.”
“That’s ridiculous, Dad. She just knew what she was doing. But as far as whatever made her change over to that, I don’t think it’s a threat. So, you need to go get her something else to eat.”
“No,” Daniel's voice was beginning to tremble slightly. Alice and I looked at each other, both worrying that at any minute, things were going to spiral completely out of control, “If anyone would be going to get her something else to eat, it would be you. But she’s not getting anything else. We can’t waste our food on someone like her.”
“Someone like her?” Elijah repeated in incredulous animosity, “She’s your daughter!”
“I don’t know what she is. But I know that if there’s one thing she’s not, it’s my kid. People are afraid of her. It’s my job as the person that is leading this group to make sure everyone feels secure.”
“And they feel secure while you’re starving them or threatening to shoot them if they walk near the forest or try to go off on their own?”
“I am doing that for our own good! If we give rations to everyone, every day, we’ll be dead in a month! I’m not exaggerating when I say that! We did the math! We never thought that so many people would come. We never…”
“So let people go off on their own, if that’s what they want!”
“Yes, let’s go into the forest, Elijah! The natives have already showed us what they’re capable of, so let’s piss them off even more by going into their territory.”
“This whole planet is their territory!”
“So what should we do? Do you want to load everyone back on the ship, so we can fly around for a few thousand miles, if we even break through the atmosphere at all? Do you want to keep going until…” He stopped and looked up as he took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was firmly calm.
“I am doing the best I can. I have to make the hard decisions. That’s fine, because I know I can do it. Can you say the same, Eli?”
“Are you asking me if I can starve people? Are you asking me if I can shoot people? Because the answer is no. If you’re asking me if I can make the hard decisions…” There was the sound of impact on someone’s face, and Alice and I jumped out from behind the corner to see that Elijah had rammed the butt of the gun into his father’s head, “The answer is yes. But that wasn’t really hard…”
I exclaimed in stunned elation, laughing as I walked out from behind the corner.
“That was badass, man!” I told him after clapping him on the shoulder, “Pistol-whipping him, what you said... You're like Clint Eastwood right now!”
“I feel like Clint Eastwood right now.” He grinned broadly.
“You don't look like Clint Eastwood when you do that.” I scorned him jokingly, “You look like Hannah Montana.”
“Sorry. How's this?” He scowled darkly, and we both laughed again despite the situation. My heart was racing, and I had the weirdest urge to jump from one end of the hallway to the other while laughing maniacally. But then, I also wanted to find my own evildoer to pistol-whip. The evolutionary change was wreaking not-all-that-unpleasant havoc on my brain, too.
“Dude…” Alice whispered as she looked down at Daniel lying unconscious on the floor, “You just knocked your dad out!”
“Did I give you the impression that I was fond of him?” Elijah asked through another slight chuckle that was offset by the way his whole body was still shaking with fury. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
He pushed open the door to the storage room. All excitement and enthusiasm disappeared as he looked into the room where Brynna was being kept.
“Wait out here.”
We didn’t follow him into the room, but we did look inside after he went in. Brynna’s head was hanging forward, her chin resting on her chest. Her face was beginning to swell on one side from where her dad had beaten her. I looked at Alice to find her looking at me. In her eyes, I saw the same question: What had been the point of hurting her? The answers to the questions he asked were lost on everyone who was changing over, including us. If her bruises and cuts were the physical evidence of a brutal interrogation, I couldn’t help but wonder if soon I would be sporting some of my own.
Or maybe it had been personal. Maybe it was just more evidence of her father’s cruelty that was only directed at her.
“Do either of you know anything about First Aid?” Elijah called out to us.
Alice had worked at a daycare on Earth and was certified in both CPR and First Aid. Sh
e went into the room, and I followed behind her.
“Is that normal? The way her eyes are rolling like that?” Elijah asked as he freed Brynna’s hands with the key that had been hanging by the door. The dark part of my brain that made unwelcome suggestions in tense situations told me that Daniel had left the key right in her line of vision to taunt her. I hoped that I was wrong about that.
Alice had her fingers pressed to the pulsing vein in Brynna’s wrist. Her mouth was moving slightly as she counted out the beat, estimating when a minute was up, because she had no clock or watch.
“Her heart rate is a little fast. But that’s better than it being slow.” Alice informed us, “I don’t think it has anything to do with being hit in the head because…”
Alice gently grasped either side of Brynna’s head and tilted it back. Very delicately, she pulled up one of her eyelids. We all watched as Brynna’s bright blue eyes gleamed in the dim light and as her black pupil contracted to the size of a pinpoint.
“Yeah, her pupils are contracting. If she had a concussion, they would stay dilated.”
“So, what do you think it is?”
Once Alice had moved out of the way, Elijah was kneeling in front of Brynna and grasping her face with both hands.
“I think she’s trying to keep herself awake. I think she’s hungry and thirsty, too. Had she been eating or sleeping well before this?”
“She hadn’t eaten or slept since we got here.” Elijah replied as he put Brynna’s arm around his neck and lifted her into his arms.
“Adjust her so she isn’t lying back like that.”
“I’m trying.”
Elijah moved Brynna up so that she wasn’t tilting back in his arms anymore. Her head was rested snugly underneath of his.
“You got her?” Alice asked softly.
“Yeah. Just to tell you, Brynn, I know I’m not rescuing you.” He whispered softly to her, and I could have sworn I saw a small smile appear on her lips as though she had heard.
We walked quickly from the room, stepping over Daniel to continue back the way we came. As though to remind him even in his unconscious state how severely he had pissed him off, Elijah brought back his foot and kicked his father hard in the ribs.
“Well, that’s a new way to say goodbye, I guess.” Alice commented as we hurried along the corridor.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for years.” Elijah replied just as two guards walked out in front of us.
“Elijah, what are you…” One started to say, but Alice had lunged forward and tackled him backwards.
A strange noise, a mix between a grunt and a roar, forced its way from my stomach out of my mouth as I ran forward and dropped to slide on my knees towards the second guard. Once I reached him, I spun sideways and kicked my feet out to knock his from beneath him. As he crumpled to the ground, I heaved myself up and landed on top of him. With both hands, I grasped his head and slammed it down into the floor.
We were running after that. We were ready for an army of them. I didn’t have to look at Alice or Elijah to know their eyes had turned over white; we were all on the hunt. Once we reached the door that led out of the ship, Alice pushed the button, and the door slid open, revealing to us that night had fallen. The second we stepped out of the ship, we heard the screams of the survivors as the natives attacked.
It was those shouts of pain and terror that awoke Brynna from whatever stupor she was in. She rolled sideways out of Elijah’s arms to land on her knees in the dirt. Before we had even turned back to look at her, she had jumped onto her feet, swaying as vertigo overtook her for a brief second.
“Penny and Violet…” She muttered to Elijah as he grasped her arms to steady her.
“I took care of it. They know what to do. Just run!”
None of us needed him to repeat himself. We took off running as another massacre matching the one that had occurred the night before unfolded around us. It took every bit of my selfish willpower to not stop and help those I saw being ripped apart. As I ran, I was sprayed with the blood from a woman’s stomach as one of the natives dug his clawed hands deep inside of her abdomen.
Senseless and evil and sadistic and cruel… Their attack infuriated me but also drove me to move faster.
In the chaos, we were separated.
Violet
Maura knew something was amiss. Though I did have anxiety, I rarely shook my leg rapidly up and down to betray that I was worrying. My fears were always silent and unnoticeable, even to her. But as I awaited the return of Elijah and Brynna, I sat with Penny in my lap and bobbed her up and down on my legs that refused to keep still.
“I can’t color in the lines when you do that!” Penny snapped at me suddenly, and I tried to stop. I also tried to avoid Maura’s gaze.
“What’s wrong, honey?” She asked in quiet suspicion after sitting down beside me.
I shook my head slightly and shrugged. If I opened my mouth, I would spill Elijah’s plan. If I looked at her, I would begin to cry, and that would be enough of a confirmation. I was going to have to drag her off into the woods. A part of me wished that I could leave her, but I knew that I couldn’t.
“I know you’re scared. But your father said all we have to do is run to the door of the ship, and they’ll let us in. Dad is going to take care of all of us. And he’ll come around with Brynna. He always does.”
I don’t know where she found evidence to draw that conclusion. A look back at our history was enough for me to know that he had never come around when it came to Brynna. Since Lucien had died, he had made my sister’s life hell. It hadn’t been her fault. In her mind, she believed that everyone, including me, blamed her. But she was wrong; Elijah and I knew that whatever had caused her daze, her blind ignorance to what was occurring, had to have been serious. She never allowed herself a moment’s peace from her raging thoughts and her constant attention to detail. Her love for Lucien had been strong.
Night seized us like a faceless threat. Immediately, some of the braver people flocked to the end of the campsite to watch the trees that had gone still suddenly. My heart pounded in anticipation as my arms locked around Penny. I was ready to make our escape.
“Maura, when I say to run, you need to run with me.” I told her, and she looked away from the trees to stare at me.
“What are you…”
A native zoomed up to her out of nowhere, evoking a scream of surprise from both of us. Out of reflex, she reached out and punched him hard in the face. It had been a punch thrown with every bit of force she could possibly muster and still, the native didn’t stumble. In fact, hitting him had only injured her. I spun Penny around so she was on my back and ran forward, bringing my own fist back.
When my fist hit him, he flew backwards and landed on his back. Remembering that I had Penny attached to me was enough to stop me from going after him and finishing the nasty, bloody work.
“Run, Maura, run!” I shouted at her.
Before she could obey my order on her own, I had grabbed her hand and began pulling her with me as I took off running at a speed that she couldn’t achieve, being only human. I was forced to slow in order for her to keep up.
“Do not let go, Penny!” I yelled over the symphony of screams, running feet, slashing skin, and the pounding of bone on bone.
Penny was crying through her own high-pitched wails of terror, but her grip on me was strong enough to pull my skin away if anyone tried to snatch her off of me. Even my little sister was beginning to gather the inhuman strength that had awakened in some of us.
“Where are we going?!” Maura screamed frantically over the overlapping, deafening sounds.
“We’re just running! DUCK!” I reached back and forced her onto the ground as a native soared through the air towards us. I whipped around, waiting for him to turn and charge us again. But his target hadn’t been Maura, Penny, or me; it had been a man five feet behind us whose throat he had just bitten into. I went to jump up, only to see several of my dad’s guards stormi
ng towards us, machine guns in their hands.
“Stay down!” I yelled to Maura.
I pushed her down below the fallen log that I had only just seen kids practicing their balancing skills on the day before. I pulled Penny off of my back and wedged her in between Maura and me before laying both of them on the ground. Just as the gunshots rang out, Maura forced her way up from beneath me and covered Penny and me with her body.
The guards jumped over the log, firing blindly, and through Maura’s arms, I saw more of our number being taken down by the spray of bullets than the natives, who moved in a blur so quickly that shooting them was nearly impossible. I can’t begin to describe how horrifying it was, to see people I had begun to recognize by both name and face struck down by my father’s guards. They were good people who had survived the end of the world only to be shot by cowards firing blindly into the dark at targets they could not see. I knew that my father would not grieve their untimely, accidental demises. In fact, a part of me knew, and was sickened by knowing, that he would see their deaths as an all too welcome relief.
Once the men with the guns had passed us, I held Penny to my chest, waiting for her to wrap her legs and arms around me before we took off running again. Our hearts pounded, and our lungs threatened to collapse with each deep, heaving breath, but we didn’t stop. Our legs propelled us forward until we had broken into the cover of the trees.
“We need to keep moving!” I shouted over my shoulder to Maura as my eyes scanned every shadowed corner of the forest frantically.
“I can’t… I can’t…” Maura gasped out after collapsing onto the cold, pine-needle covered ground. I turned around and watched as she struggled for breath, knowing that until she had gathered her strength back, we couldn’t continue on into the trees.
“Maura, I know it’s hard, but we have to keep going.” I urged her as I continued to look all around. “If they want us, they’re going to follow us in here!”
“They live in here! We just have to wait them out. We can’t go any further!” She managed to exclaim despite her growing inability to breathe normally.
“We can’t stay at the campsite! They’re going to keep coming back! They’ll kill us all, Maura!
“Elijah… your father…” She paused for a long time before adding, “Brynna…”
“Look, I love Dad, but he made this worse for us!” I knelt down so that I was level with her and able to look imploringly into her eyes. “We can’t stay here with him!”
“So what are we going to do, darling?” She asked, and I was stunned to see that her eyes were ablaze with anger, “You’re going to do what Brynna tried to do and abandon him? You’re going to leave him the way Brynna left your mother?!”
Even as my need to keep moving stayed firmly rooted at the forefront of my mind, an animosity I couldn’t comprehend took hold of my heart. Maura was suggesting that Brynna’s abandonment of my mother saddened her. It took no intensified understanding of things for me to know that that was simply not true. Through my mother being left behind to burn on the earth, Maura had gotten my father. She was now the “wife” of the leader. After years of being beaten down by circumstance, she held a privileged position.
“If you want to stay, then you can stay.” I shot at her after standing back up. “I want you to come with me, because you’ve always been there for us, Maura. But if he’s more important to you than we are, then you can stay.” I turned away with tears welling in my eyes as I realized that Brynna’s dark feelings towards Maura might have been warranted. It’s a tough thing, seeing someone’s darkness at such a young age when before one had seen only light.
“It’s not that!” She told me after walking forward and grasping my arms, “Darling, you need to come back to the camp with me. Come back, and we’ll talk, alright? Of course I want to go with you. I don’t want to be anywhere else. But we cannot leave him to fight this on his own.”
“Do you really still see good in him, Maura?!” I shouted at her. Penny broke down into tears again. “Shh…” I whispered as I ran my hand down the back of her hair, “I’m sorry, Penny. I’m sorry.”
“I do. I do, because it’s still there. What he’s doing…” She shook her head slightly. I knew that she was trying to think of a convincing explanation for his heartless actions. “It is the difficult decision, but unfortunately, it’s also the right one. He has to keep a firm hand on these people, or there will be chaos. You are young. You do not understand that.”
“No. Contrary to what you may believe, I understand more than you do.”
I wanted to remain firm and angry. I wanted her to see no signs of pain on my face as I realized that she cared more for my father than she did for us, the children she had raised. But I loved Maura dearly because she had always been there. She had stepped into the role my mother had so willingly abandoned. For Elijah and me, at least, Maura was the only constant in our lives.
Tears streamed down my face as I turned to her and whispered, “Goodbye, Maura.”
Like the naïve child I was, I expected her to follow me. Even if she was cursing me under her breath, I still believed she wouldn’t let me walk away.
Her sobbing was drowned out by the noises that had come back to the forest. My feet moved me forward, carrying Penny and me closer and closer to an uncertainty that would never become clear. I knew Elijah and Brynna would find us if they had survived, but then what? What would we eat? Where would we sleep? How would we avoid the natives?
I forced my tears to stop for Penny’s sake. But inside, a terror as old as Earth and Pangaea roared as it took its first breath.
Brynna
I did not care if the natives heard me. The sounds in the forest had resumed their deafening musical number, and I screamed over the noise for Elijah, Violet, and Penny. Once or twice, I even called Maura’s name, though to see her when I expected to see only my siblings would have been truly sickening. I almost chuckled at the thought of vomiting right on her designer tennis shoes.
I had been walking for hours, knowing that the attack on the campsite was over and that the natives were back in the woods. I was exhausted beyond feeling any degree of fear. I was hungry enough that when I passed by a bush stocked with orange and black berries, I actually stopped to pick a few. I held them to my nose, sniffing them for a reason that I could not fathom. It didn’t matter how they smelled; I did not possess any length of knowledge on plants that were edible versus plants that were deadly. However, my heart began to beat erratically fast, even tripping over itself a few times. The second I dropped the berries to the ground to grasp my chest, my heart had resumed its normal gallop.
Alright, instincts. Message received.
“Elijah!” I called as my eyes widened in the darkness. I could see the clear outlines of the trees and the shadows that moved between them. I looked up, seeing the twinkling of a billion stars overhead. The canopy created by the clustered mass of abnormally large willows blocked their light. I was seeing in the dark because my body was forcing itself to see.
The space around me was open, and yet I felt as though I had been shut inside of a coffin. All around me, I was surrounded by the hodgepodge of trees. Their age yielded a silent knowledge of all that had passed, from the beginning to the present. Despite standing for thousands upon thousands of years, they still smelled as youthfully fresh as they had when they were mere saplings planted by the Gods.
Such strange thoughts to be having…
I broke into a clearing, knowing I had put miles between the campsite and myself. There was no turning back now. My sense of direction had always been skewed, but in that case, it was downright nonexistent. I would die of dehydration or starve before I found my way back to the campsite. Not that I wanted to return, of course…
My thoughts turned to my mother quite randomly. If my father had been on the ship, then common sense would dictate that he had not been with her. They had been living together even though their marriage had long been over. My father had so many
mistresses, I used to say he had a harem. His age did not diminish his good looks, and as a result, many women, even those my own age, had desired him. Power certainly had something to do with their attraction. Thoughts of acquiring a fraction of his wealth surely aided their ability to devote themselves to him. They had disgusted me, those dirty little girls. How they could look at such a terrible man with even fake affection in their eyes, I did not know. But then, for once, I did not want to know.
My mother had an on-again and off-again relationship, as they are called, with a good and honest man named John. I had been stunned to learn that he was the foreman at a construction company that specialized in building expensive homes. That was how they had met; he had built the sprawling fortress that we called our house. Their relationship had begun shortly before what had happened with Michael. I remembered how he was the only male I trusted enough to allow in my presence after those unspeakable events with my godfather. In fact, my mother had taken me to stay with her at his house several times, just so I would feel safe. Once there, I spoke and laughed as though nothing at all had happened. I was, quite simply, a normal nine-year-old girl once again.
Remembering this makes me very sad.
I had always liked him. Despite his sex, I had trusted him. For a moment, I prayed to God, the Gods, or the empty space above my head that he had been with my mother when the event had occurred. I prayed that even though they had not been on good terms in many years, he had held her and assured her that they were going to be alright. They would not feel any pain. Everything would be over in just one millisecond, and he would hold onto her even after they had passed over to the other side.
I stopped abruptly, almost tripping over my feet in the process. Tears had slid out from the corners of both eyes in a rushing, violent, and almost unstoppable assault. I breathed heavily for a moment, swatting at my eyes to wipe them away. From the bottom of my stomach, I felt a bubbling, gnawing scream clawing its way up my chest and into my throat. My harried breaths hitched in my throat, and I struggled to continue breathing as my heart raced; it beat my insides to a bloody pulp as an agonizing punishment for what I had done. My hands flew to cover my mouth as I stomped my feet; to the audience of trees, I must have looked like a child holding her breath during a tantrum thrown to acquire some coveted prize.
A stirring in the bushes snapped me out of my reminiscences, noncommittal yet truly heartfelt prayers, and my somewhat maniacal fit of suppression. I ducked down, falling onto all fours and taking a huge inhalation of air. Where only a moment before, my lungs had been filled with something heavy and acidic, now they were clear and clean. The rustling in the bushes had snapped me back to the common realm where I did not have to feel.
I knew it was a native. They had been hunting me the whole time. I looked up, my breathing becoming heavier as I stared into the bushes that were moving sporadically but forcefully each time. Whoever it was, they were big. They would take me down easily. I would have to fight with weakness, as my strength had long since fled me. I would be killed without a doubt…
Instead of a person walking out, though, a lion the size of a small car came strolling towards me. In the silver light streaming through the break in the canopy, her huge blue eyes gleamed. I did not know whether to run or stare.
From her throat, she was emitting a low rumbling sound that sent a wondrous feeling of comfort through my body. It was not a growl of warning. It was more of a purr. I fought it for a moment, but a smile spread across my mouth as I stared with the awe of a child. I pushed myself up so that I was standing again. I knew not to approach her, though I could not be sure whether she would attack me or not. She was a monstrous beast that should have wanted to consume me for dinner, though I would have been less than an appetizer given her massive size.
The blue of her eyes was the strangest. Like glowing sapphires in the dark, they looked back at me searchingly, as though she had silently posed a question. When her head tilted sideways, I chuckled; I did the very same thing when I was confused.
“It is alright, beautiful.” I told her, “Though most people do not like me, most animals do. I’m pantheistic. ‘Humble before the smallest ant.’ I mean that in all sincerity.”
As though to tell me that she believed what I was saying, she sauntered forward a step. I backed up, gasping in surprise and slight alarm. But then, when her tail swished and the quizzical look resumed on her face, I squeezed my eyes shut and reached out a hand.
I laughed before I had even looked over; she had pressed the top of her soft head against my palm. When I scratched her ears with both hands, she laid down on the forest floor, purring loudly.
On Earth, we had feared beastly creatures. Though I was sure that many animals on Pangaea would gladly eat me, I sensed an innocence in most, because they had not yet learned to fear us. I wondered briefly if my views on wildlife had been accurate, if we truly were meant to share the earth with them by participating in a symbiotic relationship until we departed the world.
After a long while, a yowling far off in the distance drew her away from me. I was able to recognize her instinct to protect and care for the small cub that was making the noise. Through that rabid protective instinct, she would kill me if I followed. I knew better than to tread into her territory when her babies were resting there.
I turned to keep walking, smiling ever so slightly still. To look into that creature’s eyes, to see a mutual respect there between us, had been odd. But it had also held a degree of magic that I had scarcely been aware existed on this planet or the last. Seeing her had soothed that charged, frayed, electrical eruption that had overtaken me so suddenly.
Perhaps I was just tired, and as usual, reading too much into things, but a strange recognition had been present in the lion’s eyes. In fact, her eyes had been the same shade of blue as mine. It had been so clear to me that this creature had seen me before…
No. I was allowing the mysticism of the encounter to cloud my rational judgment.
The first blue light of dawn was beginning to stream through the leaves of the varied trees; that light illuminated my path for me. Morning was the time of day when the air smelled the cleanest. I breathed deeply, my head angled upwards towards the lightening sky as I walked. When I looked ahead, I stopped abruptly once again.
A tent, branded with the letters “USA” in black on the side of its green plastic covering was set up in my path. Outside, there was a chair, three books, and seven boxes of rations, two of which had been devoured.
I did not know for sure, but I suspected strongly…
I would venture to guess that no one but him had managed to escape into the woods, least of all with a tent and seven boxes of rations.
He was dead. If he were still alive, he would have come out of the tent. He would have sensed me moving ever closer to him as I walked. My legs moved forward, forcing my body to approach the sight I could not bear to see. I could close my eyes, but I knew that they would only force themselves open again in response to their own grim sense of curiosity. My heart was what I could not control most of all. It would shatter into jagged, cutting pieces upon seeing him dead.
But before I could begin to unzip the tent’s door, it flew open. I realized that I was pinned on the ground before feeling the pain of being held down so firmly.
A native! A native was hiding in there! I would be dead in seconds, ripped apart like a pig in a slaughterhouse… A knife was pressed to my throat, and I struggled to free my hands so I could swipe it away…
“Brynna?”
His voice stirred me out of my panicked stream of thoughts. I stopped fighting, and my eyes snapped open. I could have cried at the sight of his handsome face. I reached up, my eyes dissolving back into the shade of blue that matched the sky above our heads.
“I thought you were…” I stopped, unable to finish, because what I had thought had been so terrible. I was still lying on the ground when his arms wrapped around me quickly. My own were grabbing onto him as my l
ips moved feverishly over his face. He came down, kissing me hard on the lips with a longing and a passion that matched my own. When his mouth moved to my neck, I knew that our reunion was headed down a physical path I had never been comfortable with enough to actually tread down before. The first several times had not been my choice. I had been too afraid and too sickened to try it again after that. I will admit that I had been afraid for years, and as I locked my arms around James, even though I wanted to so badly, I was still afraid.
He sensed that in me and pulled away so he could put both of his hands on my face.
“We don’t have to.” He whispered to me, and I saw in his eyes that his concern was genuine and far more critical in determining the outcome of the situation than his sex drive was. That moment was enough to convince me that James was the man I was meant to do that with for the second, but also the first, time. I sat up and pulled him back to me so I could kiss him again. I grasped both of his hands and placed them on me, telling him without words that I wanted, more than I could say, for him to touch me.
“Just rip it!” I ordered as he attempted to pull my tank top off, only to be stopped by the built-in bra that kept it firmly rooted to my torso. He grasped the fabric in both hands and ripped it down the center.
My entire body was trembling; every part of it that was not shielded by his body was left utterly numb by the frigid morning air. My muscles were locked; my entire body was frozen, preparing for pain, because there would be pain, wouldn’t there? I could not be sure if it ever felt alright; I was so intelligent, but so clueless about those sorts of things…
“Look at me.” James said gently, because my eyes had dropped closed by their own will. I tried to become aware of my limbs again, and after a second, I felt the back of his neck under one of my hands and a fistful of his shirt clenched tightly in the other.
“Brynna…” His lips pressed to mine more gently than they ever had, and the warmth that stirred inside of me caressed the muscles that I was holding so tautly, massaging them until I was able to relax, however slightly.
“Look at me, baby.” He said again, and I did, “We don’t have to do this. I don’t want to, not if you’re not absolutely sure.”
I brought one of his rough hands to my lips. I nodded, kissing it once, before whispering, “I am sure.”
He saw the pure fear that I could not hide. It was not of him; it was of the vulnerability such an act required of me. I had never been able to have sex with anyone, because I had never allowed myself to be seen as weak. Giving myself over to another human being was a thought so terrifying that it could have stopped my heart without warning or prolonged pain.
But James’s warm brown eyes comforted me, assuring me that he was a good man with no intention of hurting me or using that vulnerability against me once it was over. He would be gentle and mindful of my fear, self-consciousness, and inexperience. He would prove to me that what I had experienced as a child was a perversion of an act meant to be used only as an expression of love.
He was less than honest, but he was good. The majority of his heart was admirably kind, and that kindness was part of the reason why his touch filled me with that peculiar but brilliant warmth. I never would have allowed any of what had occurred between us had he not been so good.
“James…” I whispered, and my throat locked up, but I shed no tears. “Is it going to hurt?”
“No.” He assured me softly, “I won’t let it. I promise.”
I nodded, looking into his eyes again. Simultaneously, I pulled him down towards me gently and rose to meet him halfway. The joining of our lips sent that warmth spreading outward rapidly in undulating waves over every inch of my skin. It plunged past the surface, far down into the deepest parts of me. His hands moved from my hips that he was grasping up my back, and he unhooked my bra. My breathing deepened suddenly, and when his kiss moved down my neck slowly, my lips parted, and a half-moan escaped me. I was barely aware of the cold ground under my back when he laid me back down again, because his mouth was going further down than my neck now. My hands were on his shoulders, and my fingers locked hard on them when his mouth enclosed over one of my breasts. The half disappeared; now I was moaning outwardly, in between deep breaths.
My legs parted for his hand when he reached down to rub me gently, first over my underwear and then, when I began to physically ache for him to touch me completely, he was. He kissed me from the bottom of my stomach up to my lips again, all the while rubbing me slowly, perfectly.
“Are you ready, baby?” He whispered gently. For the first time, I became aware that he certainly was ready.
I nodded, holding onto him with my shaking arms.
“Just relax. There you go. That’s it.”
Very gently, he pulled my underwear down. I was shaking so terribly and holding onto him so tightly.
“Are you absolutely sure?” He asked me again.
“I’m sure.” I nodded, “I trust you, James.”
And I did. Truly, I trusted him more than I had ever trusted a living soul in my life.
He looked at me for a long second, and then he kissed me again, more passionately than before. I squeezed his back when his forehead rested against mine. His hands rubbed up and down my thighs, the muscles of which were held as stiffly as they could possibly be held; with each movement of his hands, they relaxed a little bit more, falling apart for him again…
I gasped.
