Blinded

3. A Memory

A memory

After a few minutes of running we slowed. The sun peeked over the horizon, the sky around it tinged with saturated red and yellow hues. Cam held a bag, a black backpack with a couple of pins for bands that had split maybe a decade ago. The thing was that I thought I'd seen that bag somewhere before.

"The diner," I blurted out, the memory slamming its way back into my head. "I've seen you there."

"The one on Spilsbury?" He asked. "If so, yeah. Probably. My sibling works there. They're a cook and waiter there, and- Hey! I have seen you there! I didn't recognize you at first."

"I knew it. Well, at least you're not a total stranger." That little moment of light talk brought what we had just done into perspective. My mood changed straight from oh-hey-that's-cool to oh-wait-i'm-a-criminal "So, let's get this straight. You just broke me out of an interrogation room where I'm pretty sure two old guys were about to kill me, and I'm running away from them with you, a person I only met a half an hour ago."

"That's pretty much it."

Well, that settles it. I'm an absolute idiot. What do we do now? I couldn't really turn back now, considering what happened in Interrogation.

"Uh..." Truth is, I didn't know what to do either. We didn't know where to go or what to do or how to do it-

"I had a dream last night," He said. Well, that's genuinely helpful. "My brother and some other girl were stuck in a forest."

"Did this girl have black hair? Did she wear blue glasses?"

"I don't remember her, specifically. I was a little preoccupied- I was running from something, too. But that sounds right." He looked over at me. "Is that your sister? Laurie, you called her."

"Yeah." I hope she's okay.

Cam nodded. "Okay. Well, they were in this forest, right? And some guy was talking to them and these...trees? Cocoons? These things grew around them and they were gone."

That doesn't tell us where they are, I thought, but I had a suspicion that he wasn't done.

"Then, it changed," Cam continued. "We were on a street. I could only feel things at first, for some reason. The place was cold. As I began to be able to see things, there were buildings. Really tall ones. You were shivering and I was, too. You didn't have a coat."

"Cam, focus. Not on my coatlessness. The street."

"Sorry. They looked odd- some of them. But most of them were modern, and really tall. A lot of them were pretty much glass and metal, not even any concrete. You looked excited."

I had an idea. Excitement. A busy street. "Did these buildings have screens on them, by any chance? Were there advertisements on them? For, like soda or something?"

He thought for a moment. "Some of them, yeah. Why-"

"I know where we need to go."

"Where?" Cam looked confused, but a rush of adrenaline ran through me. However scared I felt of what awaited us, at least I knew the place we'd be going to.

"Cam, get ready for a little trip to New York."