The Visionaries

7

The helicopter instantly turned invisible and I took my helmet off. My neck was killing me and my face hurt. Also the back of my head. Bree removed her helmet and sighed. She was praying or something. Dany walks up to me.

"How are you still alive?" Dany said.

"Probably the ancestor's will." I look up. I'm getting dizzy. I see two Danys and then her voice echoes.

"Alma? Alma!" she says. I fall down as Aaron, Bree and Norrin dash towards me. Norrin grabs the first aid kit from the side. Bree is yelling something at the pilot and Aaron is shaking me, yelling something blurred. Dany dashes to me, yelling something.

"Stay with me!" she yells, or at least I think she is.

"Alma, stay awake!" Aaron said.

I can't. I really can't.

I dreamt of home. It was my nanita cooking sopa de fideos, or tomato noodle soup and boiling eggs, or the poor man's meat as my tata called it. I was helping her make tortillas with my tiny press. I dreamt of my other home where my mom was making frybread tacos for us. I was playing house with my siblings, pretending to make the soup I longed to eat again.

Then it hit me.

"Alma!" she screamed. "Alma!" It was my foster mother, Ciara. She was being dragged away by a current, trying to hold on to a door.

"Mom! Mom!" I say. I try to swim to her. The current is dragging me away too. I try to hold on to something.

"Alma! Dany! Thomas! Jace!" she said.

"Mom? Mom!" I scream. I try to swim towards her as she catches a glimpse of me.

"Alma!" she says, as she's dragged under. The current drags me under too but I manage to float again.

"Mom? Mom, where are you?" I scream. "Mom, please!" I turn to see Dany, unconscious and in my dad's arms.

"Dad!" I try as the current drags me to the roof of the house. He slams Dany into the highest part of the roof and looks at me.

"Where's your mother?" he asked.

"I don't know...I think she might have been dragged under." I say. "Grab my hand."

He manages to lift his torso to the shingle and tries to grab on to my hand. Suddenly, a tree branch hits him.

"Dad!" I scream. "Dad, no!"

"I love you both! Please take care of each other!" he said.

"Dad! Dad, no!" I scream. I tear at my hair, screaming like a wounded animal.

I wake up, drained. There's Bree and Aaron standing above me, looking very concerned.

"Are you alright?" Bree asked.

"I'm fine." I lied in a scratchy voice. Of course, I did. They just thought they saw me die."How bad was it?"

"Well, it seems you had a concussion and he left a few marks on your neck." Aaron said. "And your whole right side of your face....." He hands me a mirror. My entire right side is swollen and my eye is weepy. My right side has scratches and bruises on it. My neck has hand marks on it and it's hurting to see it. Yikes. Major yikes.

"If it wasn't for our powers keeping us around it would have been way worse." Bree says. Dany enters the room with Norrin who is carrying a tray of food.

"Alma!" she hugs me.

"Ouch." I say as her face brushes against my neck.

She jumps back. "I'm so sorry, Alma!"

"It's fine. I'm fine." I say. Not really, my neck hurts. Someone please knock me out again.

"So who was he?" Aaron asked. "Do you know, Norrin? Since you're Maddy's favorite one out of us."

They gave him a funny look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You guys seem to know each other from before or something." Aaron said. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Well, we're both from the same tribe." They put the tray on the side table. "We're not common around here, much less back in our homeland."

"Sorry, that was stupid of my part." Aaron said.

"Apology accepted. But on a serious note, they think he's some kind of experiment." he said.

"Like...what's that guy's name?" Dany asked.

"Um....Deadpool?" Bree scratched the back of her neck.

"Yeah, but he looks normal." Dany put the table on the side and then flipped it to face me. It's chicken noodle soup and a slice of bread.

"It would make sense, none of our attacks seem to faze him. But then again, adrenaline covers up a lot. Any updates?" I put the spoon in the soup.

"He's alive. And we don't know much about him. We didn't find anything in the files we got about him. So he's either ultra classified information or they know we know." Norrin said.

"Why not both? They don't want the mean scary Indians to find out they got shit to kill us with." I start to eat.

"You're right, you're right. But to be fair, they probably only recently found out about our gifts." Norrin sat down on the bed next to mine. The doctor comes in.

"Miss Alma Hernandez?" he asked.

"Yes?" I ask.

"You had a mild concussion, some lacerations and bruising on your right side of your face, and neck. The strangulation didn't really do any major organ system damage but you will have a sore throat and issues swallowing for the next few days." he said. "I prescribed you some mild painkillers if you want them but you're out of mission work for the next two weeks. And I want you to relax, rest, and heal up."

"So you're not giving me the nano-healing shots?"

"I would not recommend using those on your concussion nor on your neck. Those are for limb and torso injuries. And the reason is that we inject those into the site directly. Anything that would go into your neck or brain is dangerous and we want to avoid any major harm." he said."With that being said, you need to heal naturally for this one, trust me."

Oh well.