"Susceptible? To what?" Amelia asked.
"It's complicated."
"Well, try to explain it," Faye demanded. "If I've been exposed to something, then I'd kinda like to know what it is. Should we be worried?"
"Is it some kind of radiation?" Amelia asked, trying to find an answer that made sense.
"No." Ben shook his head. "Nothing like that. It's not a thing. More like…an event."
"An event." She repeated the words back, confused. "What do you mean?"
He sighed. "It's..." he paused to look at the ceiling. "Time."
"Time?" She felt dumber by the minute.
"Yes. Time." He looked back down at them. "I'm a Migrator. I travel through time."
CHAPTER THREE
"You travel through what now?" Faye asked.
"I'm sorry?" Amelia exclaimed, a slew of questions erupting like fireworks in her brain. The whole light thing was strange. Sure, she'd give him that. But time travel? That was impossible.
"Okay, weirdo." Faye sounded panicked. "You can leave now."
"I know this probably sounds crazy to you." He looked hopefully at Faye. "But please, just hear me out."
"It does sound crazy," Amelia said sternly. "Because it is crazy."
"Well, it's the truth. And you're both in danger."
"Only danger I see here is the insanity coming outta you," Faye said.
Ben took another breath, ignoring her comment. "This sort of thing never happens. Migrators are extremely careful. Normally, we stay hidden. Migrate to a secluded area to avoid this type of interaction, but I needed to know if you saw the light." He muttered a few more swear words to emphasize his anger.
Amelia's mind spun. "Why are you so upset about the light?" she asked. "We feel fine."
"You would feel fine. You wouldn't have any symptoms yet. But if you're Affected, you will soon."
"What the hell does that mean?" Amelia demanded.
"It was an accident." He spoke to himself. "I was so careful. I can't believe this." He turned his arm over and jammed his thumb into his skin so hard it left a white mark.
"Amelia," Faye hissed, "you can't possibly believe this, can you?"
Amelia looked back at her sister, at a loss.
"Being Affected means that your body no longer understands the constraints of time. The first side effects will appear within in the first four to six hours." Ben continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "Your organs will start to experience aggressive or regressive aging meaning, in a short period of time, you could have the heart of a ninety year old, or the mind of a two year old. It's brutal on the body. Fatal, if left alone for too long."
"That," Faye said, pointing at him, "is not a real thing."
He frowned at her. "I assure you, it is. And if either of you start to develop symptoms, the doctors here will not know how to fix them."
"What sorts of symptoms?" Amelia asked.
"Tooth loss. Hair loss. Skin warping." He counted them off on his fingers. "Listen. You both need to come with me. I can help you. Bring you to a doctor that knows how to fix—"
"Well, no thank you," Faye said. "Got all my hair and teeth, thanks."
Ben bounced on his feet. "I'm not sure you fully understand the severity of the situation."
"I think I do." Faye glared at him. "You should go."
"I can't go."
"You can, and you will." Faye shifted into defense mode, reaching for the nurse call button at the side of the bed. "Try me."
His eyes narrowed. "Fine." He put his hands up in surrender. "I'll sit outside until I'm sure. If either of you experience any of these symptoms, you need to tell me immediately. There won't be any time to waste."
"Bye." Faye waved him off with her hand.
With a heavy sigh, Ben walked towards the edge of the curtain. "Any symptoms," he reminded them, pausing mid-step, "you need to find me."
"Okay." Amelia tried to appease him with a nod, and then he was gone.
She looked back at her Faye, who raised an eyebrow at her. "What the hell was that?" Faye asked.
"I have no idea."
"He was crazy, right?"
Amelia nodded uncertainly, her mind still spinning. She thought back to the accident, swerving off the road. The light had come from nowhere. Not only had she seen it, the force of it blinding her, but she'd felt it all around her, through every window, through the roof of her car. The warmth had coursed through her body—warm, unfamiliar, but definitely not unpleasant.
It had touched her. Just like he said.
"Do you believe him?" Faye pressed, leaning forward in her bed, her thick brows furrowed.
"No," Amelia responded too quickly, a blush spreading across her cheeks as she looked down. "I mean..." She looked back up, meeting Faye's eyes. "You saw that light, right?"
"I did, yeah," Faye answered. "But it was probably like, a car with their brights on or something."
Amelia narrowed her eyes. "God damn, Faye. It wasn't, and you know it."
"Well, it sure as hell wasn't time." She sounded frustrated. "Or whatever crazy pants out there is trying to tell us it was."
"Yeah," Amelia forced herself to agree. "I'm just glad we're both okay." She tried to push the strange man out of her mind. "I'm so sorry."
"Will you stop apologizing!" Faye exclaimed, reaching her arm to pull Amelia in for a hug. She accepted it, sinking into Faye's comfort. They had each other, and they'd get through this together, just like they always did.
"Faye Simmons?" A light shuffle indicated a new person in the room, a nurse in blue scrubs. She smiled brightly at both of them.
"Who's asking?" Faye answered.
"Need to take you for a CT scan." She looked at Amelia. "If you wanna stay, there's a visitor's area outside by the nurses' station."
Amelia nodded.
The nurse looked towards the empty chair in the corner of the room. "Where's your friend?" she asked.
"He ain't our friend," Faye answered.
"Seemed awfully concerned with you all."
"Must be because we're so damn beautiful." Faye winked at Amelia. She smiled back at her, happy to hear her sense of humor returning.
"I'll see you in a bit." Amelia brought her arm around her sister for one more squeeze, and then she left the room and walked towards the visitor's lounge.
Bright fluorescents lit the plastic waiting room chairs. The familiar man who'd just walked out of Faye's room already occupied one of them. He sat with his elbows on his knees, head down, staring at the floor.
Choosing a seat on the opposite side of the room, Amelia sat with a sigh, not taking her eyes off of him. He didn't move. He fascinated her in the strangest way. He seemed so certain and sure of himself, explaining the side effects of time travel like it was old news. There was something about him that was different. She couldn't put her finger on it.
She looked to her side at a row of faded magazines and pulled one from the pile. Concerning herself with some crazy guy, regardless of whether or not he had rescued them from a most certain death, was not in her best interest right now. She just wanted to go home.
She began to flip through the magazine, her mind racing, unable to register anything she was looking at.
"Still feeling okay?"
She peered up over the magazine at him. He stared at her with the same curiosity she felt about him. "Yes," she replied, shifting her eyes back to the magazine.
"And your friend?"
"She's my sister," Amelia corrected him. "And she's fine. They're taking her for a routine test." She wasn't sure why she was giving him any additional information. The guy was clearly crazy.
"Good."
"And are you gonna hang around here for much longer?"
"Until I make sure you're both not Affected. Then I can leave."
Amelia slapped the magazine closed. "So you're sticking with that, then?" She cocked an eyebrow. "The whole time travel thing?"
He squinted at her curiously. "Why are you so skeptical?
"
She smiled. She couldn't help it. From the way he was looking at her and speaking to her, this guy fully believed he was a time traveler. He had to be pulling her leg. "Well, time travel isn't real, for starters."
It was his turn to smile. "And how do you know that?"
"I just…do. It's science fiction. Everyone knows that."
"Do they?"
She stared at him, jaw open, unable to relate to his conviction.
"Well," he continued, "for you and your sister's sake, I hope it stays an impossible feat. Time travel is a very delicate thing. Something people from your time can't seem to grasp."
"How about that, then." Amelia rolled her eyes before busying herself with the magazine again. She made her way through some of the articles, then switched to her phone to mess around on social media. Time passed quickly. So quickly that Amelia ignored the beginning of the frenzy happening at the nurse's station. She was distracted when a first pair of running feet went past the small room where she was sitting. The second pair made her put her magazine down, but the third had her standing from her chair. Across the room, Ben already stood, nervously peering out into the hallway.
She mimicked him, feeling suddenly unsettled. Hushed whispers from the nurse's station sent a shiver up her spine. She squinted to see where the crowd of people were heading. Towards the end of the hallway she saw a huddle of nurses at the end of what could only be Faye's bed.
CHAPTER FOUR
A terrified yell echoed down the hall and her heart sank.
Her legs responded first, in some semblance of a walk, then quickly into a run. She flew down the hall, skidding to a stop beside the group of nurses.
Faye sat up in the hospital bed. Tears streamed down her beet red cheeks, leaving a trail of mascara. Her hands clamped around her mouth, nails digging into the sides of her face. Two nurses tried desperately to peel them away. Amelia couldn't think, let alone process what was happening over Faye's hysteria.
"What's going on?" she demanded, looking around the room at the nurses. They turned, eyes wide, faces answering her question. They had absolutely no idea.
"My teeth," Faye mumbled into her hands. Amelia pushed past a nurse to the side of her sister's bed. Eyes full of fear, Faye pulled her hands away. Strings of blood and saliva stuck to her fingers, revealing, in her palm, a slew of bloody teeth. At the sight of them, she let out a hysteric sob, chest heaving as she began to cry again.
Amelia tried her best to stifle a gasp. It was an impossible nightmare. She had just seen Faye less than an hour ago and everything was fine. She tried to think of something to reassure her, to make sense of it, but she was speechless.
A terrible thought crossed her mind, one she was certain was crazy—Ben and his declaration of what was to come. The defiant belief that they may experience a series of side effects. It was too wild to believe. Wasn't it?
"What the hell is going on?" Amelia shrieked at the nurses who huddled together, hunched over a clipboard. "She was fine just a little bit ago. What happened? Why are her teeth falling out?" Her fear was fueling her hysteria. One of the nurses looked up over her shoulder at her fearfully. "Aren't you going to help her?" Amelia shouted at her, determined to get an answer.
The nurse broke away and leaned over, mouth searching for words. "Well..." She chewed her lip nervously. "It could be periodontal disease, or osteoporosis." She looked Amelia up and down, and then whispered, "Is there any form of drug use in your house? Meth, perhaps? Crack cocaine?"
Amelia stumbled over her feet in anger. "How can you ask me that?" she roared. She looked back at her sister, who was spitting blood and what sounded like more teeth into a small plastic container they had given her.
"Ma'am." The nurse spoke calmly. "You're going to need to calm down."
"Calm down?" Amelia shouted. "I'll calm down when you can give me some goddamn answers!"
"Amelia."
A new voice broke through her panicked rage, and she turned to see a figure behind her. Ben. Definitely not who she wanted to see. He openly stared at her, drinking in the scene around her sister.
"What?" she snarled at him. Heat rose from her chest, crept up her neck, landing on her cheeks. She was violently frustrated, trembling with anger. For some reason, she was now determined to fuel it all towards this man.
Somehow, he'd predicted this.
"Please. I need you to talk to me," he begged.
Narrowing her eyes, she stormed up to him and jammed a finger into his chest. "You," she hissed, quietly now so that the nurses didn't overhear. "You knew this was going to happen." She narrowed her eyes. "How?"
"I told you."
Her nostrils flared. "I want some answers." She gave him her angriest stare, but he didn't flinch. Instead, he studied her, finally motioning for her to follow him. Amelia took another look over her shoulder back at Faye, who was being tended to by two nurses. Her crying had subsided slightly, and Amelia suspected they'd given her something to calm her hysterics.
When she looked back, Ben was gone, already wandering down the hallway.
Amelia gave a groan of frustration but followed anyway. The magazine she'd been reading lay forgotten on the waiting room floor, the clear aftermath of her disruption. Ben bent down to pick it up, gently replacing it on the table.
"Okay." She crossed her arms. "Answers. Now."
He turned to face her but kept his gaze at his feet. Limp arms hung at his sides. "I'm so sorry," he said, his voice cracking.
Amelia struggled to find words that made sense. Part of her wanted to tell him to go back to whatever hole he'd crawled out of. But it was too coincidental.
How could he have known this was going to happen to Faye?
"Can you tell me what's happening?" she asked.
"She's Affected," Ben said. "And it's going to get worse."
"What's going to get worse?"
Ben shook his head, cupping his chin with his hand in thought. He sighed, then sank into a chair behind him. "She's in the beginning stages. But being Affected, it's detrimental to the human body, especially without protection. Her body will begin to deteriorate."
"But they can help her, can't they?" she asked. "She'll be okay. Right?"
Ben paused. "Think about it," he said. "Her heart could age decades in a matter of minutes. Her brain could regress to that of a six year old's. Migrating in general takes a toll on the body, and Migrators take precautions to avoid that harm. Being touched by time without any protection, like your sister, it's sure to be deadly."
Amelia's eyes widened. "Deadly?" She crossed the room to stand before him. She leant down and grabbed the arms of his chair, bringing her face close to his. "Well fix her!" she hissed at him. "If you did this to her, then you need to fix her!"
He glared at her. "It's not that simple."
Amelia released the arms of the chair in frustration and stepped away from him. A lump formed in her throat. "Well," she tried to rationalize her thoughts as she spoke, "then we'll just have to see what they can do for her here."
"I have a doctor," Ben offered. "At the place I need to travel to, the Compound. My whole team is there. There's a doctor, Johan. He'd be able to treat this. But we need to leave now."
The offer angered her. She wanted tear him apart, limb by limb. Rationally, she knew what he was saying was absolutely impossible.
But what if?
"I don't want your doctor," she growled, the impossibility of what was happening touched her last nerve. "I want my sister to have a full set of teeth."
The lump in her throat was relentless, prompting a prickle at the corners of her eyes, so she stormed away from him.
Back in Faye's enclosure, her sister had given up her struggle, exhausted from whatever they'd given to her to calm her down. A lone man dressed in a white lab coat stood in the empty space. He turned to Amelia as she entered the area. He was a pleasant enough looking doctor, with silver locks and deep dimples. "Miss Adkins?" he asked.
"Yes," Amelia a
nswered apprehensively. She looked at Faye. Her face had puffed from all the crying, eyes now nothing but closed, swollen slits. The skin surrounding her mouth was red. From blood or all the poking and prodding, Amelia wasn't sure. "Can you tell me what's wrong with my sister?"
The doctor gave a heavy sigh. "We're not sure," he admitted. "But we'll do a few scans and some tests. Figure out what the problem is. We've given your sister a light sedative to calm her down while we run some blood work." He nodded reassuringly. "We'll get to the bottom of this, Amelia, don't you worry."
It was difficult not to believe him. The man laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezed it, then smiled before exiting the room. As badly as she wanted to feel better, she didn't. Instead, she sat at the end of her sister's bed feeling extremely sorry for them both.
Amelia had never seen this kind of hysteria and fear from her sister. Watching her now, drugged into sleep, short breaths from a frail body, scared Amelia. She curled up, knees to her chest, and let a few tears fall before she herself fell into a deep slumber.
CHAPTER FIVE
A tug on her shoulder woke her. Still drowsy from sleep, Amelia sat up and wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
"Miss?" a voice beside her whispered kindly. "We'll be needing to take her for tests now."
She nodded blearily, stumbling from the bed to find a nearby chair. She watched helplessly as they carted Faye out of the room.
Reality hit her then, square in the chest. The emotion felt tight and terrible, and a small sob escaped her. She hated to cry, hated the whole ordeal—the tears, the feeling of not being in control, the heaviness of it. She pulled her knees in again, wrapping her arms around them, and bowed her head between them, wishing this was all a dream.
"Amelia."
She looked up towards the hall to see a familiar face. "Ben." Hastily, she wiped her face with the palms of her hands.
"How are you doing?"
She shrugged to show her indifference. He came around the bed to squat in front of her so that their faces were level.
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