The Normals | ✓

F O U R

A R D E N

The girl sighs and rests her head against her knees. "It's complicated."

This only intrigues me more. How can who she is and where she's from be complicated? You're either a person from somewhere or you aren't. "Like I said, I don't have anywhere to be," I say. "Tell me."

He takes a deep breath. "My name is Arthemis, but it isn't. And I'm from an Island called Pacifica."

I arch an eyebrow and let out a nervous laugh. Pacifica? Like the island in the stories? "You're lying. Tell me the truth."

Arthemis-that-isn't-Arthemis shrugs. "That's the truth. You wanted it in two sentences so there you go."

I sigh and cross my arms over my chest. "Well you've just about made me want to stay and listen to the rest of your story so you might as well tell me."

"Can you help my leg first?" she asks.

I glance at said leg, and find it bloody. The fabric is soaked with red and the bedsheets are smudged with it too. She's doing a very good job of staying calm while her leg is obviously very injured.

The sight of the blood makes me feel a little faint but I try to stay calm like her. Gwen would know how to fix it since she works with the nurses, but she would've gone back home ages ago. Without much further knowledge on treating wounds, I retrieve the bandages from the trash where I had thrown them, and hand them to her. She gives me an odd look before wrapping her leg and tying the bandages expertly. "You better have a plan for this later on," she says, gesturing at the wrapped leg. "There's pieces of a bullet in there."

I swallow and make a mental note to get Gwen to look at it as soon as possible. Looking back up at her, I cross my arms again. "So? Your story?"

She takes a deep breath, adjusts her position on the bed, and then proceeds to tell me possibly the longest and most action-filled story I have ever heard. A story of rebellion and escape, of fear and of passion. She tells me things that I can only imagine what it feels like to experience.

When she's done, she sits back on the bed and takes a moment to sort herself out. Sometime around the end of the story, she started crying as she recounted the death of her closest friend who had accompanied her on the journey. I let her dry her tears before I speak again.

"So... you mean to tell me that you lived on the island of Pacifica, the one just a boat's trip away from here, and that there's some sort of secret building there that teaches you to make yourself perfect?" She opens her mouth to speak but I'm not finished. "And that you don't know if you actually lived there your entire life but it's all you've ever known, and that there you didn't actually have a name so they just called you by a number? And that one day you decided to escape with your friend and not only did you crash a plane, but you killed like five people, you slept in a cave thing that was barely a shelter, you got chased by metal-robot-animal-things, you found an entire abandoned city, you jumped on a moving train, and you left your dead friend in a field of flowers, have bullet wounds and multiple other injuries, and you're not completely traumatized yet?"

She laughs through her tears, a sad kind of noise, and wipes her nose. "No, I'm most definitely traumatized. I've seen things that I can never unsee and I've done things I will never forget, but I'm alive, aren't I? And that's what matters to me."

I think for a moment. "And how do I know you're not just making everything up? I've only ever heard of Pacifica in stories."

She shrugs. "You don't, really. But I think me showing up out of nowhere on a train in a puddle of blood is evidence enough that I'm not from around here."

"So what is your goal, now that you're here?" I ask, leaning back. "You've made it this far, so now what?"

"I don't know. For the last few days -- well for the majority of my life, actually -- I have only thought about the present. What to do in the moment, how to survive right now. But now that I'm here, the place that was my destination, I don't know what to do."

"Well, why did you come here anyway?"

"I already told you why," she sighs. "I never felt comfortable at my old home -- at the Core -- and I didn't want people constantly telling me what to do."

I look at her in confusion. "But why did you come here?"

She throws her hands into the air exasperatedly. "I don't know! It was the only other place with people that won't kill me on the spot, I guess? Look, I'm not some hero, and I'm not a person who goes places knowing what they want. I'm just a girl, okay? And the only thing I wanted was to find somewhere where I can be myself, and for Sniper to be there too. And even that got ruined."

I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything. She sits on the bed, staring at her feet and I sit on the chair, staring at her. She is such a strange person, unlike anyone I've ever met -- for obvious reasons -- but my mind also wanders to why she is even here. Here as in the guest room, in my home, with me. Why did I take her in? I could've left her, or even called the authorities. But I didn't. And I don't know why.

I hear muffled footsteps in the hall, coming in my direction. Turning to Arthemis, I wave my hand at her. "Face the wall. Pretend you're sleeping."

She does so, pulling the blankets up to her shoulders. As I thought, the door opens a moment later and my mom sticks her head in. "You alright in here? I heard voices." she says. To my dismay, she spots Arthemis, doing a very good job of pretending to sleep. "Who's that?" she whispers-but-not-actually-whispers. You know, the mom way of trying to be quiet.

I quickly think of an excuse. "My friend. She worked really hard today and wanted to rest before going home. I hope it's alright if I let her stay here for a bit longer."

She doesn't question it, even though it's not a great excuse. Why would she rest here instead of just going straight home? "I thought I heard someone talking."

"I was calling Gwen," I reply shakily, swallowing the lump in my throat.

Mom hmms and glances again at the bed before turning back to me. "Dinner's ready. You can leave your friend here but I'd like it if she's gone by the time you go to sleep."

I look over at Arthemis. Her shoulders rise and fall at a slow pace as if she were actually asleep. I silently hope she understands that I have to go, before standing up and turning to the door. "Alright then. What are we eating?"