Silver Lining - The Host fanfiction

Chapter 5 The Forgotten

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certain that just to be alive is a grand thing.”

-          Agatha Christie

 

Emma

They are still there. I can hear their muttered voices, though the rain dilutes the sound. I don’t think they are seekers. Even my paranoid mind realizes that not all souls are after me.

Still, I’m not going to show myself. I don’t want to end up like yesterday, in a stranger’s house with someone I can’t trust.

It’s my own fault I suppose. I should have paid more attention. It seems I haven’t learned a thing since yesterday. Or the day before for that matter. Everywhere I go, I end op being seen. Did my luck run out? Or did the world just run out of hiding spots?
There’s two men this time. The oldest is probably around fifty. I’m not sure if the younger is his son or just another soul. Souls don’t really seem to care about things like that. They just love everyone. For all I know, one of them was just a hitchhiker.

Whatever they are, they stopped the car as soon as the light of the car flashed over me and now they seem determined to find me.

“Are you sure it was a person?” the oldest one say, “shouldn’t they have come out by now?”

“Hey!” The second man holds his hands around his mouth and calls towards the mountains. “Can you hear us?! I’m Jeremy and this is Carves Steel Webs. We have a car here. Come out and you can drive with us to the nearest city.”
As if I would actually do that. I press myself closer to the rock I’m hiding behind and hope they’ll give up.
I’m covered in mud and I’m cold. I want to cry, but I don’t remember how to do that and the sound would probably lead them straight to me, so I settle for biting my lip.
I close my eyes in the childish believe that as long as I don’t see anything, it will all go away.

“Come on Jeremy,” Carves Steel Webs says to his friend, “there’s no one here. We probably didn’t see it right.”

“That’s just your spider mind talking,” Jeremy answered, “I swear Web, you’ve been on that planet way too long.”
“Five life terms is not that long for a spider,” Web answers, “even humans live longer than them. Let’s just go.”

I nod in agreement and stay hidden. Please make Jeremy listen to him.

It’s not uncommon for souls to keep the name of their human host, though a lot of them tend to keep the name they had on their last planet. I’m not sure why that is.
A sneeze makes its way up my nose and I do what I can to stifle it. Maybe I’ve succeeded, the rain is still heavy, so they may not have heard it. I would feel a lot better though if they would just leave.
I’m shivering now too.

“Jer, come on,” Web says again, “it’s cold and it’s raining.”
There is a pause. Maybe this Jeremy is sighing. Maybe he’s looking one last time, but after what seems like hours, I hear the car take off.
It takes several more minutes before I dare to move and even then I’m not coming out of hiding. I can hear my own breathing and wonder if this is what a panic attack feels like.

Slowly I lower myself to the muddy ground. I don’t have the strength to go on. I just want to sleep.
Vaguely I remember once hearing that when you fall asleep in a snowstorm, you’ll never wake up again. Does that go for rainstorms too? I wonder if I care. Does it really matter if I never wake up again? There’s no one left to miss me. And that on its own is a very lonely thought.