A/N: Another big thanks to all of you who are supporting my story. I apologize it took a while to get this chapter out and there really aren't any excuses :P Hope you like the next chapter!
Chapter Fifteen – Footprints
My side hurt a lot. Before I was even able to open my eyes I could feel it. It was surging throughout my body like lightning and it only seemed to get worse with every bit of consciousness that came to me. I also knew I was cold. Not “Alaska” cold but fever cold. I felt sick like I was fighting off the worst flu to ever hit a human body. It was making my joints ache.
Finally, my eyelids which had felt so heavy before were now starting to pry open. There was a dim glow from what seemed to be a fireplace to my left and the sound of howling winds outside to my right. It was very dark and blurry at first but slowly my vision started to clear.
Looking down, I was covered in thick blankets. There was a table next to the bed I was resting on with some medical supplies from one of the P. P. A. vehicle first aid kits. The darkness in the rest of the room only allowed me to make out a small kitchen, the makings of a living room area and a front door with two, small windows. The windows exposed the night outside as the moonlight let the white snow covered mountains to expose themselves.
Liam and Ethan were both gone. I didn’t know if there were any other rooms in this odd cabin but they couldn’t have been far. It was then the front door opened and both men walked in carrying something rather large.
“Now hoist it up onto the table.” Ethan’s voice said as the giant thing was shoved onto an old wooden table. Liam let out a loud grunt as they placed it steadily onto the table.
“Who do you expect to skin this thing?” Liam asked as the men shut the door and then began to remove their outerwear. Ethan laughed.
“I’ll do it. You should go check on Pandora.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do! I don’t think I even trust you around our food!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ethan asked throwing his gloves down. Both Ethan and Liam were about the same height and with similar builds and now directly in each other’s faces.
“Hey guys… settle down. I can taste the testosterone in the air from here.” My voice was hoarse when I talked. It made me sound like I was an old smoker and it even hurt my lungs a bit. Both guys stopped at the sound of my voice and rushed over.
“Pandora!” Ethan exclaimed as he pushed the hair from my face back and moved to my left. Liam was at my right pulling out some medical supplies to check my vitals.
“How long have I been out?” I asked. I tried to sit up but both of them stopped me.
“Don’t strain yourself. You have been out for about a week now.”
“A week?!” I shouted and then began to cough. Ethan handed me some water as Liam felt my head. I had cold sweat running down my face, “Where are we?”
Ethan stood up and took off his coat and then lit a lantern to expose the dark corner of my side of the room. There were some old cans and odd paintings as well as a rather large supply of guns and ammo.
“It’s an abandoned cabin we found deep into the mountains. There are P. P. A. agents scanning the mountains like wildfire as well as sightings from those strange robots.” Ethan replied.
“It seems that both parties are working overtime to try and find us.”
I managed to get into a sitting position but it only made the pain worse. Liam handed me two pills and the cup of water which I took without question.
“Are the rest of the guys ok?” I asked.
“They are fine. We got signal from them a few days ago. The base is extremely well hidden but it isn’t safe for us to go back.”
Another jolt of pain traveled up my side and I reached to grab it. I could feel the pain but it seemed to be more internal than a surface wound. I slowly lifted up the jacket and then my sweater to find the skin where the laser had hit was completely healed over.
Liam and Ethan were now looking at one another. They had obviously known about this already. While the skin was covered, it still felt like it was a gaping wound.
“How the hell did that happen?”
I looked to Liam first who simply shrugged. I then gazed over to Ethan who was also lacking in explanation. Another moment passed as I took a sip of the cold water again.
“Just relax. Your healing seems to be accelerated so you will probably feel better after another day or so of rest.”
Liam started to tuck me in again as chills now made their way throughout my body. I could feel my bottom lip now trembling like I was nude in an ice box.
“Just relax.” Ethan now said coming over and taking my hand. He was looking deep into my eyes and was unwilling to break the eye contact. Liam shifted uncomfortably as he watched, “We are safe now and that is all that matters. We will worry once you are well healed.”
I sat back and allowed my body to relax and my lip to stop trembling. I then observed at the two men, exchanging glares and snide remarks for the next few days. Ethan had skinned our meal. Once the disgusting process had finished and my chills had finally subsided, Ethan gave Liam the task of taking the hide out back and preparing it in case we needed further warmth. Once he was gone, Ethan walked over and pulled up a chair to my right.
He was silent for a while. The only sounds were the howling from the winds outside and the fire crackling to my left. The glow over his face was a fairly good mask for the worry in his face. The smile he forced, one I had seen plenty by now, didn’t fool me anymore but the glow of his face was a soothing reminder that around Ethan things seemed to be ok.
“I am sorry you are a part of all this. I wish there was something I could do to get you back to the life you were accustomed to.”
“What good would that have done me?” I interrupted followed by a harsh cough. My cup was empty so Ethan dunked the glass into a bucket near my bed and filled it again. Once my throat had cleared I took a sip and continued on, “It was all a sham anyway, right?”
He shook his head. I was confused as this entire journey seemed to point to anything but the normalness of my life before.
“Your experiences and friends aren’t a sham. What other people did behind closed door was not your fault. Weren’t you comfortable and content? Wouldn’t you want all of that back if you could?”
Even in the orange of the fire’s glow his eyes were bluer than any ocean or sky anyone had ever seen. It was a little more haunting in the darkness but equally as brilliant. That sort of blue wasn’t a color you just saw but you experienced.
I looked down and began to fiddle with the blanket which now kept me perfectly warm. His question had indeed crossed my mind several times over the past week but I didn’t think of it as a life I had wanted to go back to but just the life I was living.
“What I wanted on a larger scale has always been out of my control. While I am stubborn and obnoxious in small areas of my life, overall I am just floating from one home to another.”
He leaned forward and took my hand again. It was still cold after he had washed the blood from the animal off his hands but it didn’t bother me. He was very serious, very intense now. While I had spent my years growing up as a professional teenager, Ethan had spent the last century being tormented and alone. He had grown up over and over again to the point now that he was just… Ethan.
How I could tell you all that, I couldn’t quite understand myself. It was like he was in my mind and I was in his. I could feel his pain as well as his concern. He was so strong. I could honestly say, while I put on a smiley face and joked around, inside I was scared.
“So you didn’t know your parents?” I asked. He sat back again now, his hand still holding on tightly to mine. I could tell this was a topic he had not touched on in a while.
The wind outside hit the cabin hard enough to cause creeks to echo throughout the room.
“I had seen a picture of them once before I moved to the States but it was so long ago and such a different time that I really couldn’t describe them to you.”
I swallowed hard at the idea of getting even the smallest of glimpses at my real parents. There were a million things I wanted to ask but instead I allowed him to continue on.
“Originally I am from France. I am sure you can’t tell seeing as I don’t have an accent however I have had years to perfect the one I have now. As one could imagine, growing up… or should I say NOT growing up… in France in the early 1900’s was seen as a sign of the devil. My parents had given me up when I was seven, when they couldn’t bare the thought of moving again, to a German couple on their way to the new world.
“From there I was switched from parent to parent. It was mostly supernatural loving weirdo’s who thought that by keeping me around it was a good omen or that I would one day have some special, magical reward for them. As we evolved, the superstitions grew weirder and weirder but when I was finally able to function as a young boy with the face of a seven year old I finally just started running away and lived like a nomad for a while.
“It was scary and lonely at first but eventually I saw it as an opportunity and an adventure. I traveled back to Europe just before World War II and found myself stuck in the heart of the Holocaust. Escaping, I made my way over to Asia in the sixties and then experienced life in the States again during the seventies and eighties. It was more fun as a young adult at that point.”
He shifted slightly in his seat. I realized I hadn’t been breathing in that moment and took in a deep gust of air.
“After a while, thought, it seemed boring. The parties, the people… everything began to get so bland. I decided that the world could no longer bring the knowledge I craved and desired and buried myself deep into the Rockies where I hoped I would die. That was when Jinx started coming to me in my dreams and nightmares.
“It was just her voice but I knew she had been there with me for a long time. Eventually I was introduced to another son of her revolution, Chandu or chief as you know him as, and we knew from that point that we had to find and save you from suffering the horrors which would come if we didn’t.
“You are lucky you were sheltered and kept young and innocent. We had seen things that nobody should have to see and live with for all these years. Even in such a small lifetime, Chandu had survived war after war before he finally made it over here and even then he was on the losing side of a rather large battle within himself. I had known a similar battle.
“Who am I? What am I? When will this all be ok? I can’t think of a morning I didn’t wake up thinking these things. How could these men possibly relate to having been 12 years old in the body of a 2 year old? They couldn’t but I also couldn’t relate to watching my mother and family carried off by the same men out to destroy anyone else like me.”
He stood now, releasing my hand and pulling me from my daze. I watched him as he stood at the window where the snow fell heavily all around us. He was upset now. Remembering these things and feelings were rushing back to him all at once. I felt guilty for the pain but I also never thought it would bring me such relief hearing these words come from his mouth.
He turned to me with an odd, silver tear coming down his cheek. I rubbed my eyes for a moment as he brushed it away and smiled. The only way to explain that must have been how ill I had been feeling.
“You know, during the war I was living here” I spoke now as he remained silent, leaning against the windows, “My parents at the time wouldn’t let me watch television and kept me inside. It was the longest I had spent with a couple because the government thought it was too risky to do a transfer for me. But I saw the way peoples faces looked when they walked by on the sidewalk and how my parents would whisper about it at night.
“I felt as if I should know what was going on, I was an adult too. I wanted to be a part of what was happening in the world around me but I just kept being shut out. I was just a little kid to them. And so, it was then I decided that trying to bother with this whole mature stature and thinking like one of them was pointless. I would just mold myself into what they would see and take it out in immature, petty ways.
“I never knew that living like this could be so… hard.”
I felt like I blacked out or as if a moment of my life had gone missing. It seemed like, in just a short second, Ethan was now leaning over me, one hand on each side of me with his face just inches from mine. I could feel his hot breath on my nose and the bed sink under his weight.
He was the only other person in this world who was just like me. I didn’t feel scared or nervous around him now. He had opened up to deepest part of himself and now we were just here, waiting for whatever was going to happen next to just… happen.
“I have known you for such a long time, Pandora.”
Suddenly now, we were no longer in a cabin. The two of us were sitting on that log in the middle of the dully lit, white and black forest surrounded by snow, traces of blood at our feet and dressed as if we were going to a romantically Gothic ball.
I had been leaning back on the black wood of the log as he was hovering over me as he had been on the bed before we got here. His left hand was stroking my long dark hair as his eyes were digging deeper into me, reading my every thought and memory for the past 90 years.
“Wh-what is going on, Ethan?”
He laughed as he sat back now and looked deep into the dark forest outside of the circle. My feet were still chilled by the snow but other than that I had been perfectly content, even as the snow seemed to fall down around us in the open circle.
“I first found this place when I was very young. I would come sometimes if I couldn’t find a place to sleep or I was lonely. It seemed that while I was here nothing could harm me.” He pushed some hair from my face and let out a deep breath, “I had seen your footprints not long after and from that moment I knew I wasn’t alone.”
This weird chill crept up my spine. It wasn’t the cold or even what Ethan had said but it was more of a strange and uncomfortable feeling like what was happening was wrong and it needed to stop.
I stood up and looked back at Ethan now letting out a long sigh which was followed by my breath as a mist, hanging in the air. He tilted his head, confused by my movements and leaned forward.
“What’s wrong?”
I looked around. As my steps seemed to follow me in the snow, where his feet sat seemed to make no imprint on the snow beneath then.
“What is this place, really?” I asked moving back another step.
“What do you mean, Pan-Pan?”
I stopped breathing again, only for a moment, “Why did you just call me that?”
Angrily almost, he stood and walked up to me placing both warm hands onto my arms. He then shook his head, “That’s what he calls you isn’t it? Pan-Pan?”
Pushing away from him, I turned to the forest. It was dark, scary and alone. It seemed like it represented every fear and nightmare I’d ever had. Inside the circle, however, was a place of entrapment and discomfort I simply could not overcome.
“Stop, stop this Ethan. Just stop it!”
I blinked and we were back in the cabin again. Pushing him back from me again, I fell from my bed and tried my hardest to stand but my legs could not yet bare to weight of the rest of my body yet. Quickly, Ethan rushed over to help me but I denied him again.
“What is wrong? What did I do?” He asked his face was full of concern. Now that we were back I didn’t feel the chills and the entrapment. Instead I began to feel guilt. Guilt over pushing him away when he had been most open with me and guilt towards Liam.
I didn’t know why but I had heavy guilt now with his name and face in the back of my mind.
“There were never any other footprints, Ethan.” I began with a whisper and then grew louder, “I never saw anyone else’s footprints. I was always alone!
He ran over and grabbed my arms again only this time I could not and did not want to push him away.
“I am here and I have been here the whole time. I have been waiting for you, Pandora and despite how you feel or not having even seen your face or known your name… I think I even began to…”
The sound of the door shutting caused both of us to jerk our heads in Liam’s direction. He had two bloody gloves in his hands, a dead stare in our direction. I tried to stand but still could not.
“What is going on?” Ethan stood back and offered to help me up but I simply gazed at the ground now.
“We were just talking.” Ethan replied offering me a hand again. Liam rushed over and pushed him aside as I grabbed onto his shoulders and he hoisted me back onto the bed.”
“Are you ok, Pan-Pan?” He wiped a tear away from my check and I nodded my head. In another moment, much faster than I would have expected, Liam turned around and threw his fist into Ethan’s face.
I saw the shadow of his blood in the light of the fire and heard the thud of Ethan hitting the ground. Liam turned to me unaffected by his action and pulled up the same chair to my left he had been sitting at before. He then began to check my vitals and ask me doctoraly questions about my pain.
You could say there were many reasons why that punching Ethan would have occurred to him, and I am sure finding me on the ground in tears as Ethan yelled a confession of… whatever he was about to confess at me, that he probably even had it coming. You could even say it was something Liam had to do.
When Ethan awoke later from the blast, he left to another room in the cabin where he would rest both his body and his ego from the humiliation. The two were silent and didn’t speak to one another for two days afterwards until finally communication was required of them again once I was able to regain myself.
In that time, Liam didn’t leave my side even when Ethan gave him orders like before. If Ethan would have ordered Liam to make a boat which would save our lives in the event of a flood, Liam would have risked it to monitor my health in that chair to my left.
Instead, Ethan took it upon himself to engage in any manual labor for the time being until I was better and things got back to the level of normal they had been before.
Finally, on the third night after the event the ability to walk started to come back to me. Once I was able to stand and make it across the room by myself I knew it was only days now until we would be making our next move in this war. I could also feel like someone or… something was getting closer to finding us here.
“And you don’t feel dizzy or sick at all?” Liam asked me. Both men were at my side now in case I were to fall over as I had just hours before.
“I feel a little wobbly like I just got out of bed after a bad dream but other than that I think I am back to normal.”
“I will go radio the chief and get our next orders.” Ethan was ecstatic at the sight of me walking again. As the door shut when he made it out to the radio which he had hidden in a strange shed outside the house, Liam helped me to a chair so he could take another look at my wound site
“Ethan wasn’t trying to hurt me, Liam.” I said as soon as we were completely alone again. Liam let out a deep breath an acted as if he didn’t hear me. However, I knew these things had to be said, “He’s just like me.”
“He is nothing like you!” Liam snapped. I sat back a moment as I watched the shock in Liam’s eyes calm at his own outburst, “I mean, you are two completely different people. What genetics you share take no part in the fact that I will never trust him and I will always worry about you.”
I placed a hand over Liam’s as he turned to get a bottle of Aspirin. He turned to me confused as I shook my head. Before I could speak, the sound of thunder outside caused both of our heads to turn quickly.
“What was that?” I asked standing. We walked to the window only to see the same snow as before falling from the sky.
“That is an odd noise to be hearing out here. It’d doesn’t really rain in this part of the Alaskan wilderness.”
From the back door, Ethan rushed in. He was out of breath and pink in the face.
“New plan, we need to get out of here!”
Ethan began to pack our belongings up into a large duffle bag before I placed a hand onto his shoulder and stopped him.
“What is going on? Is this because of that thunder.”
His face went pale now as he looked at both of us in sheer horror.
“That wasn’t thunder. It was a bomb!”
You have got to be kidding me.
~
A/N: Also, sorry about the confusion last chapter. As you can see, Pandora didn't die.
Also, once again give my editor Red_Snow a big thanks from me for all the great work she does for the story! You guys rock XD