THREE

Ever awoke, like drifting from a dream

into a waking nightmare.

Her eyes burned at the corners and she knew not to open them.

She was submerged in saltwater. It felt like a sensory deprivation tank... How did she know that? What’s a sensory deprivation tank?

Her mouth ached. Her hands reached to touch her face. There was some kind of mask clamped tightly around her mouth, hissing every three seconds, providing her with oxygen. She rested a moment and allowed herself to breathe, waiting for her body to wake up.

She felt the walls with her extended hands… too cold and smooth to be anything but glass. She pounded at it three times as hard as she could, crying out in pain... felt as though she’d badly bruised her wrist. The walls were iron. So thick- maybe bulletproof or something.

Was it just her… or did each hiss come slower and provide less oxygen?

She counted. One… two… three…. Where is it?

Nothing.

I can’t breathe...

I can’t breathe.

I have to get out of here.

Fear swelled inside her like lava.

There has to be a way to escape.

She felt a weight in her right wrist and felt some kind of heavy, rectangular, object, about the length of her thumb, shaped like a pyramid. She tugged at its casing and winced- it felt deeply embedded in her wrist, integrated with her body. The device was attached to wires and cables which restricted her motion. She felt the cables and tubes, and traced them, following their path to the roof of the enclosure. They felt firmly embedded in the ceiling.

Her head felt faint. Running out of time.

She tugged at them on the side attached to her monitor- they felt looser where they connected, as if they were meant to come apart. After a hard tug, a rectangular tab popped out of the device that all of the wires were attached to, and the device’s pyramid-shaped convexity retracted inwards to make the device smaller.

Immediately all oxygen stopped coming from her mask, which began sucking inward violently. She ripped off her mask in panic, frantically banging on the sides. Then, she noticed that all the water was being sucked up into the oxygen mask, very rapidly draining the whole enclosure. She opened her eyes, feeling them burn from the chemicals, yet confirming that there was now air at the top of the pod. She swam to the ceiling where she pressed her nose and mouth sideways, gasping for fresh air, which seemed to be entering the pod at the same rate the water left it from a few small vents. After around two minutes, the whole tank was drained, and she rested against side of the pod, shivering, naked and freezing cold, her eyesight slowly returning.

She laughed shakily, and after a few shuddery breaths collapsed on the floor of the tube, vomiting. She wanted to go home. She hated this. The device embedded in her wrist sent a light pulse of electricity up and along her arm, making her gasp, more from surprise than from pain.

The pyramid shape of the monitor had folded inwards to reveal a tiny rectangular screen, entirely black except for three words, which appeared one letter at a time, as if they were being typed.

Find the switch.

They’d sent her a message. That must be how to get out of this thing. Light seemed refracted in the pod. It flowed like rushing water around her through the glass. The outside world was blurred and obscured. She was trapped in, but at least she was safe.

This is scary.

She examined the pod. Glass walls, the space inside about two and a half feet in diameter, a solid metal floor and metal roof, with one thin strip of metal seamlessly connected to the glass that ran along the back, connecting the floor and roof. She realized it was much taller than her, maybe 7 feet tall. How tall was she?

I’m short, but I’m taller than my mother…

Mother?

She couldn’t remember.

Anything.

All of it was gone.

Her mind was blank, gone, hollow… but traces of what had been erased remained on the edges of her awareness like smudges of pencil lead on an erased note- faint traces of letters.

She’d been erased.

She began to panic again.

“I’m scared… what’s happening? Where am I? Somebody hel-”

Everything was fire.

An excruciating blast of electricity devoured her arm like a rabid wolf. She couldn’t see, she was screaming, and her body felt like it was shattering. After what seemed like an hour, it stopped.

Her head spun, her voice was shredded and ragged. Her entire body felt weak, tingling and numb.

She looked at the device in total shock.

Find the switch.

They were impatient.

She looked at the roof of the enclosure and saw a large, yellow and black-striped lever at the top of the pod, right in the center of the tube.

She jumped and couldn’t reach it.

“I can’t!”

It sent a second long blast, practically knocking her over from pain.

This time she fought it. She screamed and gritted her teeth, fighting the blast, taking the punch.

It subsided and she inhaled sharply.

In rage, she tried to smash it against the floor. It bounced like rubber, flinging her entire arm upwards like someone had slapped it. It retaliated, shocking her again for twice as long.

Obey.

She sobbed and strained for the switch, slipping against the wet glass walls, this time just barely reaching it. Her fingers enclosed around it and she pulled with all her might. The lever gave in and clicked. She slipped and fell to the floor in a daze, hitting her head against the glass hard. There was a series of motors whirring in the roof. Suddenly a small portion of the wall began to sink into the ground, leaving an opening just large enough for her to walk out. She stook shakily, undefeated, her mind not comprehending the images her eyes showed her. Her eyes ached.

Ravens laughed raucously in the distance.

She staggered out of the pod and collapsed in the dust outside.

…

Commander Mave Price brushed the tiny crumbs of her salmon and lox bagel off her obnoxiously perfect suit with a gloved hand. Her hollow looking eyes surveyed the room, making scientists and lab technicians cower like mice before a cat.

The observation room was mostly empty, idle, the montitor glowing blue on the main wall. The smokey grey sound of the air vents and life support systems were occasionally punctuated by a beep from a computer somewhere, begging for attention.

She took a large bite. She wanted to finish her breakfast as quickly as possible. Coal was coming, and she’d need to be able to talk when he came in without chewing. There would definitely be words between the two of them.

Dr. Jared’s emotionless face glowed blue in the dark as he fidgeted with his his tablet. He nervously glanced at the commander, then back at his tablet, a nervous twitch in his cheek.

“Good. She’s finally on the move. Took her long enough.” He said, taking a sip from a water-bottle.

“We need to kill the boy. Perhaps the girl could do it.” Price mumbled through her bagel-stuffed cheeks. ”She’s the only one useful to us. We aren’t able to control the boy since he ripped his little tracker out. He’s too much of a threat.”

“Not yet, and technically it’s called a monitor. First we have to lead her to him.” Jared said, a weak grin splitting his blank countenance apart. “Let her get to know him, build up respect for our orders. Then we make her kill him, or she gets tazed.”

The commander picked fish out her teeth and dropped the half eaten bagel on Jared’s desk. She swallowed and crushed the napkin into her palm, turning to face the screen.

A blank map of a huge forest, split by streams and punctuated by rock outcroppings and open spaces.

“Your little lab rats must be ready to be used in two months. If they aren’t, you’ll be the one getting electrocuted. We’re running out of time.” Her accent was bored- lazy and slurred, despite her upper-class status.

Jared swallowed hard.

“I just follow orders,” he mumbled, distracting himself with a game on his tablet.

The door exploded open, filling the charcoal room with tungsten light.

Dr. Coal prowled into the room like a thunderstorm.

“Jared. What are you doing?”

Coal’s countenance was like a silent storm cloud, danger lurking beneath the surface. Jared looked up from underneath his perfect black hair and looked back down at his game, a bead of sweat dripping off his temple under the excruciating gaze of the commander.

Coal quietly removed the tablet from his hand, examining it. He threw the transparent rectangle across the room, shattering it in a shower of sparks and shards of clear glass.

“No personal electronic devices in the control room.” He almost mumbled the words, as if he cared little.

Jared looked both terrified and enraged, shooting the commander a glance, then looking Coal in the eye in a manner that said, watch it or we’ll both get strangled.

“That cost 600 credits.” he coughed out to break the silence.

“Subject 0024 cost around 2,000,000 credits, and 6 months of training and preparation, plus an added 200,000 credits on life support while we waited for subject 0022 to die from infection.”

Jared swallowed hard and glanced at the door.

Coal's eyes narrowed.

"What did you do, Jared?"

"Well, recently I joined a cult," He said dryly as he walked across the room, examining the remains of his tablet.

Price's hand crept towards her abandoned bagel.

Coal tapped a command table, touching and tapping the surface with his fingertips. He scrolled down the page surveying Jared's recent command history and froze where he stood.

He turned, his eyes blazing. Jared stoot up to face him again. Price took a bite, examining her watch.

“You shocked her four times, in direct disobedience to my orders.” Coal inched closer with each word until Jared was pressed against the wall, feet crunching on the broken glass. He moved even closer until their foreheads touched, stepping on his toes. Jared’s expression morphed from indifference to discomfort and acrid fear.

Coal swallowed and closed his eyes.

“I told you explicitly to allow her to escape and to give her zero instructions. The poor girl just woke up. You hurt her again, I hurt you,” He growled, backing up slightly. He kicked him in the shin lightly and grabbed a remote, pulling up her stats on the main monitor.

Jared mumbled something about the bathroom and walked swiftly out of the room, glancing back at the Commander, who raised an eyebrow at Coal.

“Hello, Price.” Coal spat.

“That’s Commander Price, Dr. Coal.”

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t have time for long titles, and your people need me so bad they wouldn’t fire me if I flipped you off.”

To prove his point, he flipped her off.

The Commander seethed.

Dr. Jonathan Coal was the only person that the Commander’s earth shattering presence didn’t seem to remotely intimidate, which made him the only man she feared. Coal was ingenious, but he was also a loose cannon. His tenacity was the only thing that could hold the project together in a disaster, and she hated him for it.

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“You get my order?” She said, sliding her tongue over her sharp canines like a reptile.

“Of course I did.”

“So? Is he dead?”

“Well, I’ve gotta find him first.”

Coal pulled up a topographical map overlay on the screen. Tiny red triangles glided across the screen in several areas, and one blue circle slowly plodded across a sector marked A-20.

Coal scanned the map.

"Arent you going to direct her to the last place the Rogue was seen?"

“That’s unnecessary. It should happen organically...” He muttered under his breath.

Lauren wandered into the room with a tablet, rapidly typing commands and adjusting settings.

She was by far the most brilliant scientist on the team, rivaling Dr. Coal, and was the only person Dr. Coal seemed to respect enough to behave himself for her sake.

“Well, she already hates us, and fears us, and I think she’d comply if we bossed her around, but we’d miss the opportunity to simply observe her natural behavior.” She mumbled, eyes still examining maps and statistics. "I saw that Jared shocked her... brutal."

Price snickered.

"Hello, Commander." Lauren took a seat next to Coal and raised her eyebrow at him.

"What happened with Jared?" she said quietly.

"Don't worry about it." His pupils dilated, drinking in the light of the monitor.

“We might need to shock her a bit every now and then anyway to show her we’re not just all bark and no bite,” she mumbled sadly through the last bite of her bagel.

“Wait.” Coal said.

“What is it?” Lauren looked up from her tablet to the map.

“You said he was last seen in A-24, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s headed towards him already. Extract drones from A-20, 21, 22 and 24. We don’t need a wasp to find Bay when Ever can lead us right to him.”

"Coal, did you hear me?" Price moaned.

"Grownups are talking," Coal mumbled as he zoomed in on the blue dot on the map.

He wondered how long she would survive.

…

Bay drank from his hand, cupping water from the cold, clear stream. Icy droplets slithered across his face, trickling down his chin and neck as he drank. It was delicious, refreshing, unlike any water he’d ever tasted. So clean.

He splashed water on his face and cleaned off his hands and arms, sticky with sweat and smeared with blood, mud and dust.

His shoulder tingled, and he knew the bullet-wound had already begun to heal. He was thankful, even though it felt no worse than a nasty bruise.

The sky remained veiled in clouds and mist. Bay looked back into the stream, reaching his hand into the water to pick up a small stone.

Something silver darted through the water and startled him, making him jump backwards into the grass.

Holy crap.

He looked through the water, eyes focusing intently through the distortion the ripples and flowing contours of the stream created for the thing that had scared him.

There... some kind of freshwater wildife.

It was big, at least three feet long, and a few inches thick. Its silvery green scales glimmered and it moved like a bolt of lightning. He grabbed his spear and searched for it in the stream, spear-tip aimed towards the water. Maybe he could catch it and eat it… he was starting to get hungry.

It was a long time before the little creature reared its ugly head again and Bay's feet were freezing in the water. Finally he saw it zip by again, and he shoved his spear into the water as hard as he could, missing the fish and splashing himself.

“You stupid little cote. I can’t believe I missed… I was dead on,” he growled out loud.

He dropped his spear into the water and wiped his face.

“Oh crap, I broke my spear.” The stick was bent sideways in the water, its tip embedded in the mud at the bottom. He pulled it out… and suddenly it was straight again.

He noticed that when his spear was in the water, it looked bent, but when it was out of the water, it was perfectly fine.

“Refraction. I’m an idiot, I should’ve known. I have to aim below whatever I see.”

He moved upstream a ways and tried again. This time, there were dozens of the slender creatures in the water. He aimed directly below one of the large ones, and jabbed at it hard. Immediately he knew he’d got it, his spear writhed and jolted in his hands as the creature wriggled.

He pulled his spear out of the water, bringing the flopping creature with it, sending flecks of bloody water everywhere. It looked like a snake with gills and fins by its head.

Some kind of eel?

He pulled his knife out of his belt loop and set the weakly flopping eel on a flat rock, not sure what else to do. He grabbed it by the neck and placed his knife just below the gill. He clenched his gut and started cutting.

It was thick and meaty, and felt like cutting through a roll of wet newspaper, until he reached the spine, which scraped against the knife blade as he severed its neck. It jolted and then was still. Blood seeped out, flowing over the rock.

“Ohh… jeez that’s disgusting.” Once he’d hacked through the spine, he stopped and examined his dinner.

It was actually pretty appetizing considering he’d just speared it out of a creek- not too slimy, clean, firm, grey meat with thousands of tiny grey/green scales. He pulled his knife out of the carcass and built a fire. The fire took the longest to build, and most of the wood still seemed damp from the rain an hour or so before-hand. It smoked like crazy, burning his eyes, until finally he coaxed a stubborn flame out of the damp branches and built a fire good enough to cook over. He wasn’t sure how to gut it, so first he pulled hard on the tail, pulling the skin off like a sock.

Nasty.

He made two rough cuts on the side of the animal, pulling out the small handful of the eel's innards and got the bulk of the edible looking meat off of it in two slightly sketchy-looking filets, chucking the mangled spine of the eel back into the woods. He attempted to pick out the various minute bones within the eel and tossed them aside, he then proceeded to suspend the eel over the fire with two sticks. One turned out very charred and nasty looking since he dropped it in the fire. He ate it anyway. The other turned out just right, save a bit on the end not cooked all the way through. That bit he cut off and threw away, no despite his stomach tempting him. It was firm meat, with a good flavor.

Finally he put out the fire and spread its ashes all over, dousing the wood in the stream and then throwing the charred branches as far as he could in every direction to cover his tracks.

Not bad, Bay. You might not starve to death in here.

An ear piercing scream cut through the woods, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. He jolted upright, listening intently as the whispers of the scream's echo dispersed into the woods.

He craned his neck, turning in a circle, searching for the source of the noise. The scream sounded human.

Another sound cut through the woods like a bullet. It was so terrible it made his bones ache… a raspy shriek ending in a guttural growl.

It did not sound human. It sounded like Godzilla was eating a hyena.

The human screamed again.

Not too far away. Young… probably female unless it’s like a five-year old.

Someone was in trouble.

Maybe they know what's happening.

Or, maybe they're screwed and I'm about to die.

Torn about whether he should run towards or away from the sound, he chose running towards it. If he could find whoever made the mark in the tree... if he could get answers... it was worth possibly getting eaten by godzilla.

Bay snatched his spear out of the water, gritted his teeth and bolted towards the sound.

…

Ever ran.

Hard.

The forest around her felt as if it were blueshifted with the speed she ran. A blur of dark trees and black ground and pounding in her lungs and heart and feet and head. A stick scraped arm and leaves caressed her face.

Her brand new white v-neck was already stained with dirt and blood from the slash marks on her back, which burned like habaneros with every movement she made. The small backpack over her shoulders that she’d found on a tree felt dis-satisfyingly empty and light, and its contents bounced with each step.

The forest ground reached up to try and sieze her ankles, their scratchy, damp hands scratching and tickling her calves, but her feet were too light and fast, dancing over the ground like a fawn being chased by a lynx.

Trees stood like silent guards in her way and she dodged them as she scrambled by. She was used to navigating the forest somehow, but she didn’t know how, since it also felt new to her. She’d been in a place like this before, years ago when she was a child, but now that she was back it felt as is if her old home rejected her. She was a stranger to this world of rain and pain and monsters.

Monster.

It roared.

30 feet behind her and gaining ground fast.

She jumped off a fallen log and somersaulted on the ground. She pushed her self harder, clambering up a hill using rocks and branches and any handle she could reach. Behind her the demon darted up a tree and fell on the ground to her left. She stopped to breathe and threw a rock at the creature's maw as hard as she could before running again.

Breathe.

Run.

Don't stop.

She looked over her shoulder and realized the monster wasn't behind her. It was running almost adjacent to her on her right.

She pushed herself even harder.

She’d been climbing a tree to gain a visual of the size of the forest when the demon had launched its massive body out of a neighboring tree, slashing her back with its claws that felt sharper than steak knives. It crashed into a tree and shrieked. She had a head start, bolting away as fast as her feet could carry her, which was quite fast. Thankfully it hadn’t bitten her- its long, boxy snout dripped with thick saliva and its teeth looked serrated, she’d have gained a nasty infection if she didn’t bleed out. The miser was at least 7 feet long, maybe longer, with thick leathery skin that was a marbley, green-grey color marked with white patterns on its back and tail- a long, powerful tail that swung like a battering ram as it ran. It was a reptile- cold blooded, meaning it conserved energy then released it in short bursts. Judging by its size, she’d hoped she could’ve outrun it by now. Humans were designed to run slowly for long distances. This was a sprint.

It was gaining on her. She had to push as hard as she could.

Panic welled in her throat and her body screamed in pain.

Her throat was raw and her lungs and back begged for air. Her monitor felt heavy in her wrist.

Water droplets from the above trees and from the dew on the ground trickled across her skin.

Her heartbeat pounded like drums to the alien rhythm of the birds, insects and forest creatures chirping in the mist-veiled forest.

Everything was not okay.

Goooo go go go go.

It’s so dark in here, I’ll trip… rrghhh keep pushing, you might outlast it.

She could hear it crashing through the forest behind just behind her.

That horrible shriek rose out of its chest and ricocheted throughout the woods again.

Fear chased her like a cackling demon, nipping at her heels as she bolted through the woods.

These woods freaked her out. They felt comforting and familiar to her, yet also strangely distorted and warped, as though they were a corrupted image on a tablet.

This world that was almost entirely identical to one she’d seen before save a few unnerving details.

It wanted to kill her.

Breathe.

Sense.

Keep going.

It’s right on your tail.

The trees were young and small, yet their bark was draped in damp black moss and lichen. The soil was black and heavy and littered with wet leaves, small green plants breaking through the ground. The sky was white and grey- eerily, it was totally veiled by clouds like a white computer screen.

It’s supposed to be blue.

Where am I?

Why was all of this landscape so familiar to her, yet simultaneously so alien? All her memories evaded her like trying to catch an elusive fly.

I can't go any more.

THUD.

She tripped and fell hard on her stomach. She tried to get up and slipped back on her stomach, trying to breathe, the wind knocked out of her. The monster roared 20 feet behind her as if in delight, catching up with her too quickly for her to escape. She desperately got up again, sprinting, her body screaming for oxygen.

No, no no no no, this is not how I go out…

“HEY!”

Like a wild animal, the most stupid, crazy, and maybe the most fantastic boy she’d ever seen exploded out of the trees and into the side of the monster, throwing it wildly off course and sending them both tumbling. He was carrying some kind of wicked looking spear, and he slashed the monster’s side with it, doing absolutely bubkis to the creature, but distracting it long enough for her to collapse and breathe.

It whirled around, just missing him with its jaws, its blank white eyes practically flaming with rage as its tail slammed squarely in the boy’s chest. He flung backwards 3 feet or so and slammed into a tree, screaming and cussing loudly as the monster turned back to its original target.

It was closing in.

“Catch!” the boy choked.

He tossed her his spear and time suddenly transformed into molasses.

The heavy, dangerous looking stick made contact with the palm of her hand.

The beast leapt into the air towards her like a fox after a rabbit, shrieking.

Instinct took over. She felt something like her own monster inside her chest roaring, baring her own wicked fangs as she drove the stick as hard as she could directly into the animal’s open mouth.

…

Bay coughed up a victorious-tasting combination of dust, eel, saliva and blood as he staggered to his feet. He felt at least one cracked rib and every single body part ached or throbbed in some way.

Totally worth it.

Godzilla shrieked and retched, clawing at it's own throat, reeling backwards, unable to extract the harpoon from its mouth.

It gagged, choked and shrieked like a devil, shuddering and bashing its own head against a tree for about five minutes. The girl pushed herself backwards, wincing with each shove.

Nice job, stranger. You ended that little cote.

Well. Big cote.

Bay jogged with a limp to the girl and helped her to her feet, the two staggering away.

“You okay?” She whispered.

Why are you worried about me?

“Yea, cracked a rib. You?”

The girl answered with a weak sob and her knees buckled. He caught her.

She clung to him unsteadily, her calf bleeding from long, deep claw marks. It looked painful. She must’ve gotten scratched when she stabbed it.

“That miser cut you bad, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said weakly. The warrior that killed Godzilla had been replaced by a scared little girl, and the wild animal that had saved her had turned into a scared little boy.

“That’ll need to be cleaned and stitched up… you found a backpack too?”

“Thank God, yeah.”

Her voice was gentle despite the circumstances.

The two let go of eachother quickly, Bay extending a hand to steady her whenever she swayed. They stood together in silence, watching the giant lizard die.

It retched out a last gurgly shriek and rolled over on its side.

Godzilla shuddered and was still before them.

Its glowing white eyes suddenly faded to black, blood trickling from them.

She winced and limped towards it, ripped out the blood-soaked harpoon, dripping with filthy saliva, and vomited.

Bay looked away and gagged.

She kneeled, breathing hard.

“You alright?”

The girl nodded.

He helped her up.

They stood, looking at each other for a few seconds, breathing.

“Where are we?” the girl whispered.

Bay shook his head.

“I think I have amnesia.”

She nodded.

“You too… I was hoping you might remember…” He shook his head again. “Hey… good job.”

The girl looked at the ground and flashed a grin.

“You too. Haha… No idea how I did that,” she laughed quietly and winced.

That cut has to really hurt.

“Remember your name?”

Her eyes moved back up to his. They caught him off guard.

She’s pretty.

“Ever... Braid. I think. I don’t remember my middle name. You?”

“Bay,” he said. It was the first time he’d really thought about his name since he woke up.

“Just Bay?”

He paused, frowning at the dirt. He felt a sting of a memory beneath the surface. It wasn’t like he couldn’t remember it, that it was still there beneath… instead he felt as though he never had one.

“Yeah… Just Bay.”

“Nice to meet you, Just Bay.” Ever’s eyes smiled at the corners. She seemed almost happy.

She was tougher than he was and it bugged him… he could still feel his hands shake.

“You too.”

Bay smiled warily. He didn’t trust her yet.

Suddenly they realized how close they stood to one another and backed up a bit.

Bay hesitated.

“Hey… do you wanna…” She started.

“Stay together?” He looked up. He’d been thinking the same thing. Somehow he had a feeling they were the only ones in this forest.

“Yeah.” she said, smiling.

Bay coughed and ran his fingers through his hair, which already seemed to be growing back. Maybe it was another side effect to his regeneration powers.

Strength in numbers. We can share supplies. I'll have a better chance of survival.

“Yeah...”

He looked her in the eye, locked in her piercing gaze.

“...stay together.”