Events on the Horizon: A Stargate Sequel

Chapter 3

Eleanor

I believed a month had passed, and at this point my hopes that Daniel, or anyone would come were now falling and I was growing restless. I'd ventured out past the supercenter of my first trip outside the bunker, but the further out I went I noticed the trees were decaying, bushes drying into husks and the grass had died and gone brown. I went to Daniel's apartment and found the houseplants I had brought over just a month prior when our lives were normal and happy, had turned black and shriveled. There was a soft film of dust on the surface as if the apartment had been evacuated for years.

In the attempt to get my own clothes and a few comfort items I found I looked over at the dresser we shared, his spare glasses resting there on top next to the pair I used for reading late in the evenings. I swiped both pairs, putting them in the pocket of his military issued jacket I had grown fond of wearing on my outings. The pockets were exponentially useful when finding little trinkets and items I thought would come in handy for future projects. My feet wandered into the kitchen rummaging around for any canned goods and found a grimy jar of blackberry preserves I had made that summer.

I tucked it into my pocket and said allowed to an empty room, "you better be eating Daniel."

"You know me." I heard his voice mutter in my ears and a smile pricked at my lips.

"Take away I'm sure." I scoffed back.

"I'm trying, and food is food. You spoiled me, I can't go back to calling grilled cheese sandwiches a meal."

Of course I was going crazy having conversations with him in my head. I was attention starved. Hallucinating was the only explanation to missing him, missing any connection or contact. Sometimes I would hear him ranting in that way he had when stuck in his own head and I couldn't help but laugh out loud to his frenzied questions. My mind was going delirious from all the crashing information the Ancient library fed into me as well as the solitude, and all I could think of was his times of  frustration.

I went through our former library to find any novels I could ingest before bed and tossed a couple into my pack. I could only watch the DVD's I had smuggled from the nearby store so many more times until the batteries wore down, and I knew by the rate the organic material around me was rotting and dying the batteries wouldn't have much life left. My body turned around and I took in the rest of the apartment before me. A faint whistling sound came from the kitchen and as I turned to check on it a leather bound notebook fell from the shelf I had just pulled a novel of medieval English fables from. I didn't remember seeing the notebook on the shelf, and picked it up to put back, as if anyone would notice the clumsy mess.

But, something pulled me to the tidy binding of it, and I checked the pages, seeing if it was anything that I would be interested in taking back with me. What I saw had my heart stopped. Allowing my fingers to trace the pages of his hand writing, his words I started reading.

February 24th

It snowed again today, and I couldn't help but think of the evenings we spent watching the same snow drift through the windows onto the street. Wrapped in a blanket in each other's arms, and talking long into the night. She used to make herbal teas, take three sips and forget about them to go off and do something else. I'd go behind her, taking the cups to the sink after an hour or so and she'd come back looking for her tea she's swear she was working on. I miss seeing those half-sipped cups, now the only ones are mine...

I ran back over the words to make sure I wasn't missing something. The ink smeared along with my fingers where the writing was and a small gasp escaped me. I turned to see if there were any more entries but that was it. The resentment, the frustration of him not coming to find me finally broke through. What if he thought I was gone, he didn't even think to come look for me. What if he was happy with an alternate timeline me, that would be good enough, but I had to know. I had to find my own way out.