Chapter 6 #2
I can remember us looking at each other when the intercom system suddenly came on. Neither of us dreamed it would be an announcement that our world was only days away from ending. Asher was instantly on the phone, trying to get a hold of Mom and Dad, but we … never … heard from them again.”
I reach up and brush a tear from her cheek, but she is so caught up in the memory, I do not think she notices.
“I was on ANDI before I found out that their cruise ship sailed directly into the storm that destroyed Earth. The only comfort I have now is knowing they were together in the end. Lord knows the days that followed that announcement were pure chaos. Most of the doctors and nurses just up and left, leaving people who needed their care to fend for themselves. I can’t tell you how hard that was to witness.
Asher cared for all he could in the beginning, but then one morning, he came into my room with a look on his face I’d never seen before.
The night before, I had begged him to leave.
I’d heard about a bunker somewhere up north, just before the internet went dead and every television screen went black. If Asher left without me—if he stopped wasting precious time trying to save someone who was already dying—maybe he could make it there.
Whatever they had done to me during those tests had left my immune system shattered.
I could feel my own body turning against itself, every step taking more from me than I could afford to give.
I wouldn’t make it halfway there, I knew that.
And somewhere deep down, I think Asher knew it too.
I have relived this conversation repeatedly ever since I woke on Destiny.
I often wondered what I could have said or done differently. ”
Whispering, she reenacts a moment in time that haunts her thoughts constantly.
“Please, Asher. You have to go.”
He shook his head.
“Asher, please. Save yourself.”
“No!”
“You don’t understand …”
“I understand perfectly, Dawn.”
“Damnit Asher, without me slowing you down, you could actually make it.”
“I still remember the look on his face when he suddenly stood up, and for the first time in my life, he raised his voice to me.”
“Let it go, Dawn!”
“I froze. He had never yelled at me before. Not once. I remember every word, and the look on his face as his chest rose and fell as he stared down at me, his eyes shining with something that looked dangerously close to desperation.”
“I am not leaving you,”
His voice broke as he dropped to his knees beside me. “Do you hear me? I don’t care where this bunker is. I don’t care if it’s the last safe place on Earth.”
He took my face between his trembling hands.
“I will not leave without you.”
“And that was when I realized he wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of living/surviving without me. He needed me as much as I did him. Asher came back in the middle of the night, gave me something in my IV, and I woke up in the back of an ambulance with several others, only to find him driving.
A tire blew about a mile from the place he had been trying so desperately to reach. He covered me with a protective sheet, placed oxygen over my face, and somehow carried me the rest of the way. I was barely conscious, drifting in and out as he carried me toward the scientific center.
Once we were through the gates and settled together in a room, I kept asking him the same questions over and over. How had we ended up here? How did we qualify for the pods? Why were they allowing us inside when they weren’t supposed to admit anyone who was sick?
But every time I asked, he changed the subject. Deep down, I already knew the answer. He had lied.
He must have lied to the people at the center about who I was, what was wrong with me, or perhaps both.
There was no other explanation for how we had gotten past those gates.
They weren’t allowing sick people inside, yet somehow, I was there—barely conscious, barely able to understand what was happening, and completely dependent on him.
And then there were the injections.
Whatever he kept putting into me was pulling me farther away from reality. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I couldn’t think clearly. I couldn’t even trust my own memories. I remember looking at him and wondering what he wasn’t telling me. But he never gave me an answer.”
“Dawn, I am sure Father will let him know you are safe.” If her expression could fall further, it just did.
“I’m sure he would if he’d made it here with me.
Asher strapped me into that pod while I was dazed and barely understood what was happening.
He promised me I would have the life I’d always dreamed of, and that he’d be right beside me.
Whether he made it into a pod himself, I’ll never know.
He was never found, not with the rest of us, anyway. ”
When EvO and Qwin opened my pod, his name was the first word on my lips. They recorded everything I could tell them about Asher and promised me, along with several others, that they would continue searching.
Every time a new shuttle docked, I was there, especially in the beginning. Most of the time, I stood beside Ricky, who was just as convinced his wife was still alive. He was eventually proven right when they found her in the Void.
I was both happy and sad the day she arrived.
Their reunion was a tear-jerker, and for just a moment, I let bitterness creep into my thoughts.
But I quickly pushed it away. Losing a brother and losing a wife are two very different kinds of pain, and I had no right to let my grief diminish their happiness.
I wish them nothing but happiness now.
Asher is out there.
My heart refuses to believe anything else, even though I understand how slim the odds are that we’ll ever find each other again. I just hope he’s happy. I hope he’s finally getting the chance to live his own life instead of mine.
Anyway, sorry HaL, I got off subject. My mind seems to be skipping all over the place.
The Destroyer … I mean, Destiny’s medical team, LeX and Rylie helped me more than I can put into words.
Most of my symptoms improved enough that I could interact with everyone on board, and somehow, the ship was easier to keep sanitized.
They even installed stronger filters in the air ducts on both ships and programmed my communicator to warn me whenever I was approaching a possible pollen or allergy hotspot.
For the first time in my life, I was eating with everyone else.
Participating. I wasn’t always watching from the sidelines.
I improved even more when we moved to ANDI. Maybe it was because he was smaller, or because he could provide an environment better suited to me. Whatever the reason, he gave me the closest thing I’d ever had to an ideal living environment.
Then I boarded a shuttle and went to Ethra with everyone else.
I almost died.
They stabilized me and got me back aboard ANDI, but I kept trying.
Time after time I tried to go planetside.
I wanted so badly to be normal. One serum after another.
One inhaler after another. Each time, my symptoms would become tolerable for a little while and I would get my hopes up, only for them to come roaring back worse than before.
I’m telling you all of this, HaL, not just to get it off my chest, although that’s certainly part of it. I’m telling you because the moment I crawled out of that pod onto your icy world, something happened that I still don’t know how to explain.
My chest wasn’t fighting to pull air into my lungs.
Yes, my eyes were watering from the frozen wind, but whose wouldn’t be out there? My skin was a mess, but it didn’t erupt into a rash the instant it touched the ground. I could breathe. I could stand there. I could exist.
And it was incredible.
For the first time in my life, I experienced a moment without affliction. Not a moment when the symptoms were controlled. Not a moment when the medication was working. Not a moment spent waiting for the next reaction.
For just a moment there was nothing wrong with me!”
I jump to my feet, pacing along the side of her bed. A growl leaves my lips as my mind recalls the shape she was in and how close I came to losing her for good.
“Dawn, you almost lost your fingers and toes. Your face was burned by the icy cold ground I found you lying on, and you were only a tic from death. That was not a positive moment!”
“Maybe that’s how you saw it, and I won’t pretend you are not correct, but the cold can be dealt with … especially now that I know that I can flourish in a world designed to kill me.”
“Dawn, no soft skin has ever made it on Hallister for long. The temperatures even at their highest are still too cold for you.”
“Then you’d better find a way to cover me up, because I’m done pretending that the worlds everyone calls ‘ideal’ have ever been ideal for me. I’ve lived in those places. I’ve tried to belong there. And all they ever gave me was suffering.
So, if the worst thing I have to endure here is the temperature, then bring it on.
I can handle it. You have no idea what it feels like to be afraid to walk from one room to another in your own home.
To wake up every day knowing you’re a burden because you can’t work, can’t provide for yourself, can’t be what everyone expects you to be.
I want what every other girl in the universe gets. A life. A chance. Someone to love me. Somewhere I belong. But I never got that chance before, and right now I feel like you are dangling a carrot in front of me, teasing me with a dream that is still unreachable.
I’m almost grateful those stinking bastards took me. I’m grateful I crash-landed here. I’m grateful I was only minutes from death, because somehow—it brought me to you/here.
I also know what those symbols on your chest mean, HaL. I know enough to understand that they matter to you and your kind more than you are letting on. But the real question is, why haven’t you told me about them? Is it because I am a soft-skin and an inconvenience to you, too?