Uranium ➵ The Old Guard

➵один

Booker opened his eyes, scrambling for his friends. They all stirred awake, fitting the pieces of their dreams together.

"A white woman," Nicky explained. "She had black hair, and was kind of short."

"She was fixing something; a tank," Joe added, beginning to draw a picture of the woman. "Science stuff?"

"They were speaking Russian," Booker groaned. "Why does she have to be Russian. Especially now with Kennedy."

"Hey, we don't know if it was the U.S.S.R. yet," Andy countered. She sighed. "I don't get the pattern."

"We shouldn't worry about it too much boss," Booker said. He took a swig of alcohol from his flask. Nicky poked his head over his husband's shoulder to look at the drawing.

"Your drawing skills never cease to amaze me. It looks just like her." The woman wore a look of fear and strands of black hair flew about her face. A busted tank sat next to her.

"Let's go find her."

-

Quiet was not the first word Aleandra would use to describe death. She had always thought she would go out in a whisper or a scream, not silence. Bursts of color and people blurred in her vision. Who knew she could dream in the afterlife.

Death was painful. Her bones cracked and churned as her skin stretched itself. She had to admit, the afterlife was way different from what she was expecting. She screamed. It was just as bad as actually dying. 

Someone–she couldn't see who–ran to her. "Are you alright?" She was suddenly suspecting she had survived.

"No," she choked out, gasping as she started to be able to breathe again. God, life was easier before she had been born.

"Let me help you." She looked up, trying to see them, but her vision blurred in and out of focus. Smudges of brown and black wavered in her eyes.

"How–" she coughed, "did I survive?"

"I don't know yet. Let's get you to a hospital." She nodded and saw other figures walking about, most likely checking for other survivors. She had been rolled onto a stretcher and she bounced every time her carriers took a step.

Why hadn't she called the meeting earlier? What had made her wait so long? The answer came faster than lighting, sending a shiver through every vein in her body. Her colleagues, her friends. Were they really her friends though? They were gone now so she couldn't label them as such anymore. But were they once upon a time close enough to one another to call each other friends?

They had scared her with their boisterousness and love for comical things. So much so that she had feared they would label her as comical and not take her seriously. She had every reason to fear what they would do. They had already done it. As they went through the plans, no one but her stopped to evaluate the situation and conclude it was impertinent they finish. Then maybe they wouldn't be dead.

The people carrying her did a horrible job of keeping her comfortable, swinging her in odd diagonal movements like a child playing on a swing. They obviously didn't much care for her well being as much as they did their job. If only her dead colleagues had shared the same ideals.

There was a helicopter above the facility she could hear making her focus solely on the choppy noise it made. She tried to remember the protocol if there was an explosion, they had it just in case but nothing came to her overwhelmed head. She knew for sure that any of the survivors should definitely stay out of a hospital and dead bodies should be cremated. Something was not right.

"Who are you?" she asked the men carrying her. One of them gave out an exasperated groan. The carrier jostled more and Aleandra was pretty sure he had done it on purpose.  

"It's not our business to say," the other one answered. They brought her closer to the helicopter and a tall man walked out.

"Hello Aleandra, it's nice to finally meet you."