by Eden Wolfe
Continue northward, into Lakes Region. Thick brush and waves to mask identification.
She inhaled down to the base of her lungs, finally slowing as she approached the water's edge. Her reflection came and went with each small wave. She saw enough of her face in the water, enough to raise an alarm quietly in the back of her head.
Deep unconscious. Flesh healing time passed. Open wound. Slight irritation due to inflammation. Cells reuniting across boundaries, crudely cut.
The freezing cold water calmed and soothed. She cleaned off the wound with handfuls of it. The flesh in her cheek remained jagged, but the wound was not entirely new. She ran through her mind the process of healing – her current stage, how long ago it must have happened. The formulas rose and fell in sputters as her head still hadn’t fully cleared the cobwebs of deep slumber.
When she had first opened her eyes, she’d heard her pursuer immediately. Instinct had taken over, and she hadn't stopped running since, not even long enough to consider who may have made her unconscious.
The chill will set in. This place is too exposed. Must locate shelter. Better awareness of the environs immediately required.
She perceived no danger. The only scent she found was her own. Another deep breath in and she willed her cells to find each other again, to grow, to multiply, to find each other and repeat. There was a sting in the cheek wound. But it was only flesh.
Water fell down her torso as she lifted the clingy fabric of her shirt. She saw the scar, touched it lightly, the hardness of it extending deep, reaching her kidney. The wound was well-dressed, well cared for, and had been for days. Perhaps a week. Perhaps even two.
And then the questions came flooding in.
She couldn't heal herself without some level of consciousness. How did she not know? She had no memory of the wound, no memory of the healing, no memory of new blood rushing to recreate. A fogginess, drug-like, settled across her eyes as she tried to remember the period before waking.
A sensation came over her, though it wasn’t quite fear.
Confusion at the unknown.
The word fear had long been shunned in her training.
Questions rolled in as she processed time passed, angle of the waves rolling over her feet, the position of the rising moon, and how many days had passed since she last ate. Her brain recreated itself in the moment, testing pathway after neural pathway, moving through consciousness to deep memory, and there she recalled a feeling of touch.
The hands of a stranger. Eyes closed, she had seen no one but knew someone was there. Flashes of red had moved past her eyelids, red and warm, but she had no answer to the question of who or what it had been.
Who was it? Find the answer. Find it, find it, find it.
Her brain rolled through options and answers and weighed the possibilities in fractions of a second while it processed the time passed.
Movement.
Movement behind her and she swung, landing on the ground, facing it in the stance of spider ready to jump. Her chest grazed the stones below her with every muscle active. Alert.
She perceived no threat at the figure - human, woman - though she didn't understand how it had managed to approach her. She had scanned the vicinity for any sign of life. The woman slowly turned, slow like the earth on the axis of the sun, and all time seemed to hold. Aria watched her spin with the rhythm of the wind, too familiar, like her own body moved, slower than time, undetectable in its movement.
The figure stood.
Their eyes locked.
Time stopped.
45
Aria
Hot and cold. Hot and cold. The flutter of butterfly wings, feathered wings, wings of water, gentle and smooth. Hot and cold. Ariane smelled the dusk. Dew of evening tide beginning its rush across the brush and trees. It stayed only a moment, fleeting, kissing the leaf edge before drifting into the air. Cool night air that touched but didn’t rest. It was still summer. She began to process.
Summer. Evening. Dew. Lakes.
No longer in West Strangelands.
There had been an enemy.
Water kissed her torso. Arms were twisted without pain, but also without comfort and so she pulled herself upward. Righted the angles of her arms. Her brain adjusted to gravity, time, season. Spinning inside the days, weeks. She was not where she was, but where she had been wouldn’t come to her; it was just out of reach as cells collided and re-joined, building pathways, building memory, and then it all came to a stop.
Period of unconscious is unknown. Time to process must be swift; unsure of immediate danger. Where is the enemy?
She did not sense anything nearby, only her own scent of sweat and slumber mingled with the water. She heard no one, only the sound of a lone gull overhead. And so she waited. Eyes closed. Allowing her brain to focus on recreating past days. She was well. Inside, her organs flexed, testing their condition, pressing into tissue, sending signals.
The only discomfort is from disuse. They have been in slumber. Unnatural and necessary slumber.
Someone had put her there, into that slumber, and then moved her here, near Rainfields, horrid Rainfields of her childhood nightmares. She had been deep in unconscious, for there was no memory to rebuild.
Now the pathways re-joined, rediscovered each other, connecting and recreating skin and muscle and memory. Trying to make the days lost visible again. In stillness she rebuilt tissue, triceps, abdominals, knowing her current danger.
Body remains frailer than may be required.
She rebuilt the cells, first to exist, second to strengthen, third to remember the training. Training infused into muscle fiber and she inhaled. Still, no memory to be found of how she came to be where she was.
Scent. It struck from afar, out of place.
It was her own scent, but it was distanced from her at the same time.
Impossible. Or did I do that? Have I traveled to this place so recklessly that I left my scent behind?
Questions ran through pathways seeking answers, but none came. She had been in West Strangelands. She had been told of an infiltrator. She had been out there somewhere. Her scent still lingered.
Where? Close to here, but not where I now stand. I can't be in two places at once.
Unless…
The pathways broke, a brief second of pause and she lifted her head higher like a hare in a field of hounds. Without daring a muscle, she swept scent first and failed. Ears aware: water lapped to touch the rocks, birdsong. The earth rolled silent and she turned with it, turning to face away from the water, slow as dead time but alive in every pore. Only one grain of sand shifted in her spin, the sounds of it echoing in her excited, alert state. She was softer than gravity. Turning, she arrived unto herself.
She was staring herself in the eye.
46
Aria
Neither of them dared to breathe, their eyes locked as the rest of the world, the lapping water, setting sun, sand under their feet, all faded into the background of this moment.
I am out of my body.
The shape in front of her, so perfectly herself, was more perfect than her own reflection.
Aria's mind paused, emptying itself in waiting. She was standing across from her body and couldn’t explain it, couldn’t even form a question for it. The rising red sun made it surreal. So she waited.
"A perfect reflection," said the other-self.
"Yes."
They stood in this way, both contemplating the unconscious and measuring the possibility of an out of body experience.
"You have a deep wound," said the other.
"I have," she said.
"Mine has healed better than yours," said the other, and then it became clear: they were not the same.
Each an individual woman, but sharing a single scent, sharing a movement as slow as the earth and as fast as the stars.
They adapted their stance, each seeing it happen in the other. The indication of it was subtle; a slight change in the angle of their shoulders wa
s perhaps the only sign, but they both recognized the distrust at once. They blinked their eyes; their shoulders relaxed again. They shared this moment across their gaze, telling and listening in silent communion.
I can hear her heartbeat.
They quietly listened to the double beat become one as they unintentionally fell into rhythm with each other. And then there were words.
Who are you to me?
It was clear and unmistakable - the words having been shared between them, across the silence. Questions slowly start to rise as pathways in their brains snapped into action, a willed movement of knowledge and memory crashing into each other deep in the rear lobe.
Have I known you before?
Where do you end and I begin?
What are we?
Stepping closer to each other, they each watched the healing, drying, and regrowth of the other's body.
And they felt it inside themselves.
Minutes passed in this state of active healing, skin growing over wound, vein rediscovering vein as new blood rushes, replenishing, cells dividing without immediate consequence of death.
“I know you.”
"Yes."
Sister? The silent question between them.
No, the common answer.
"The same."
Questions decades-old reformed in their minds. Answers to some left stronger silence to others. Neither woman spoke for the many moments it took to compute any memory of the other, of having seen more than one of themselves. They sought within for an answer before attempting to communicate it aloud between them. Words, they both knew, couldn’t explain.
"I operate at more than seventy-seven percent."
"As do I."
And with that much was answered.
They were of the same moment, born at the same time to the same mother and of the same design. That was the only remaining answer with any scientific sense. The "how" of their existence was no longer a question, but the meaning of it would demand a new level of reflection. Both fought it; both felt the other fighting it. As it bubbled up from deep within, they pushed it back, assuring themselves the urgency of the moment called for more practical questions to be asked. Feelings could be explored later, if necessary.
"I am the Future Queen."
"I am the Future Queen."
They paused, again in silent computation of risks to realities, often arriving at a blank.
"I am Ariane."
"I was Ariane since before I was born."
“As was I.”
Each leaned the slightest of degrees back, chins lifted. Their dark brown hair glistened in the rising red sun, casting fire colors across the whites of their eyes.
Both were now dry but for their clothing. They each intently watched the other continue to heal, feeling inside themselves the subtle changes that came so obviously from the other’s body.
Something in the sensation of the other across space was as familiar as Aria’s own body.
The gash on her face was closed on the surface; safe now from the risk of infection, but the scar tissue in her gut would take longer to break down.
Aria was more acutely aware now of the implications, as she inwardly explored the surface of the scar, the uppermost edge grazing her lowest rib, extending to her oblique, down and across the start of her kidney.
She explored the moisture of the scar tissue, the only indication of how long she had been unconscious. Five days, at natural healing speed, for without memory of the moment, she could not have accelerated it beyond the normal rate. It should have only taken a couple of hours.
"Five days. I’ve been out five days," and the other, Aria, nodded, running the calculations.
"Deep unconscious?"
"Must have been. I have no memory of the period. I did not accelerate the healing."
"Nor did I. But you were left to die with such a wound."
"No, the wound was dressed."
The other raised her eyebrows. Someone knew what had happened.
"I've tried seeking the memory, I hit a black wall."
"As do I."
She should have been able to replenish the cells in acceleration, even in regular unconsciousness. Someone had interceded, put up a black wall of forgetfulness, a treatment strong and unnatural, its effects ongoing. Someone had disconnected Aria from herself, for there was nothing there to retrieve.
"I've been made to forget."
"As have I."
They let their voices drop to silence; both held each other’s eyes as they sought answers to the questions. Both sought a way to imagine this moment as temporary, fleeting, a brief crash of worlds that would soon dissipate back to reality.
Is she a living reflection?
Is she a shadow? Is she my shadow?
Could something be ruptured? Could she be false?
Continually the questions rose and fell again. A shared future was no part of their training.
They both heard the sound.
Without word or thought, they were both down, ground level, active, and still.
Movement, 100 degrees southwest. Human.
Both were aware of their common reaction, but they filed the observation away.
Survival was their priority.
And someone was trying to kill them.
Their ears sought evidence.
Breaking branches less than a mile away.
No discernible scent beyond our own.
Both found it difficult to interpret beyond their own mutual scent, but both were sure there was something in the distance.
The other hissed, her anger apparent. "Why are we being hunted?"
"I do not know."
"How can I believe you?" she spat out.
“You have no other choice.” Aria did not look at her.
Ariane's eyes opened wider; she heard the truth in the other.
Danger had a sound, and they heard it blasting against their skulls. She was not alone in this danger. They were both being hunted.
“We have to move.”
They ran.
Side by side, their legs lifted like deer strides over and above the brush and fallen logs. Pushing past branches, hardly touching the forest floor of damp leaves that would have made anyone else slide uncontrollably to the ground. They ran, crossing miles in moments arriving on the north crags, pulling themselves with ease into the high pines that masked their footsteps and heartbeats. One above the other on the trunk, their fingertips braced their weight effortlessly in the tree.
Ariane, below, said, "My vantage point west, clear for four point two miles. Some forest animals, known, normal."
"My vantage point east three point seven miles, unknown scent, moving further eastward. Otherwise clear."
Aria, above, climbed down hand-over-foot to eye level with the other and they shared the same thought.
Find safety.
Cutting across treetops, moving with the wing brush of birds, they were near-silent as they leaped their way, unsure still of their pursuer's abilities. Until that day, both had been sure of her individual superiority.
Now, they were not sure of anything.
In animal-like single-mindedness, they focused in deep concentration for the singular goal.
Shelter.
They found a mid-forest cavern, uncharted and natural. They covered it with leaves and branches, and animal dung to throw off their scent. Like fish into coral, they shimmied their knees and hips, elbows, and neck to find themselves twisted, but able to make eye contact.
Here they waited for hours. Silent, still, and thinking faster than they had ever thought in their lives.
They processed memories, seeking any evidence.
There was a series of recollections, lived experiences from infancy, the physical changes that came from some external force. Little had been difficult for them in the exercise of making meaning, a testament to the advancement of Central Tower's quest in genetic design. But when they had raised these questions with their carers, languag
e having been in place from eight months of age, they had never been given a sufficient answer.
Their collective experience and unique experience blended into one now.
Hip to hip and head to head, memories passed between them like crayons as they began to draw joint histories. Locked eye to eye, they exchanged their childhood through single phrases.
"Phase one."
"Language and feeling. Phase two."
"Unique thought against collective thought. Phase three."
"Physical endurance and regeneration. Phase four."
"Meaning remaking. Phase five."
"Human connection. Phase six."
"Danger."
“Current age: eighteen years.”
“Eighteen years, three months, four days.”
“Yes.”
The secrecy, the betrayal, of two Arianes in the world - it did not fit with what they’d been taught.
Their brains wove through years of experience, seeking a chasm, a moment when they knew each other to be real, something more than a fantasy, this other-self.
"You held my hand."
Neither knew which of them had said it aloud.
They snapped back to a place from long ago. The memory overtook them.
Before language and coherence, before meaning and relationship had sense.
Wrapped in the dark warmth, we were inseparable, unborn infants rolled into each other to feel the other's heart.
More dependent on our shared beat than on the fluid fed from the body above.
We moved world-ward.
We could not see.
But I felt you.
We held hands.
Held hands as we floated ahead.
Life and light.
But what we were to each other was unknown.
You could have been my own consciousness.
You could have been my beating heart.
There, in their burrowed safety hole, they found each other’s body and rolled themselves in. Grasping, clinging, seeking that beat.
Together but longing.
A longing they had felt for so long that they believed it part of their existence.
