Future

Chapter 11: The Search

Flying on the back of a dragon, you have a lot of time to reflect. A lot of time to snuggle with your boyfriend in order to stay warm, but still. A lot of time to reflect. It's so easy to just get wrapped up in your own thoughts, as the cool wind soothingly winds through your hair, the sky hardly changing even though you're moving so fast. It's easy to just... Forget. Let go even.

I guess that's what happened to Holli. One second she was there, at the front of the dragon, in the same almost sleep-like state as the rest of us, and the next... She was gone.

Pipe was the first one to notice. She started screaming, "HOLLI! HOLLI'S GONE! HOLLI FELL OFF!" The dragon swooped towards the ground, hoping to catch Holli before she fell too far.

But we couldn't find Holli. We circled over the area we had first noticed her missing for hours, our eyes burning from staring intently at the gray scenery for so long, hoping to see a speck of something that might tell us she was alive. Or, at the very worst, dead.

When there was no sign of Holli for four hours, Pipe finally declared, "We have to land. We have to search for her on the ground, there's no way we would be able to see her from this far up."

"Pipe..." Kail gently started.

"NO!" Pipe screamed, anticipating what he would say. "DON'T TELL ME THAT IT'S HOPELESS!! SHE'S DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE, I KNOW IT!"

"...Okay," Kail nodded. We landed. Searching on land was a lot more terrifying than searching from the skies. Without Holli's sleep network abilities, it was impossible to know whether this was safe territory or if we were about to walk into a nest of soldiers and robots.

To make matters worse, I felt like Waylen or someone was trying to contact me, but they kept losing the connection. My hands would glow briefly, for a second, and before I could bring them to my head the glow would blink out. It was driving me crazy. I kept thinking that my hands were glowing even when they weren't, the side effect of a thousand visions that never came through.

Still more hours passed with us unable to find any trace of Holli, and night was steadily falling. We gathered into a huddle, Pipe looking defiant and angry, knowing what we had gathered to say.

"We have to admit that Holli has passed," Raine said gently.

"No. She's out here somewhere, I know it!" Pipe growled.

"Pipe, we've been delayed for too long-" Kail began, only to be cut off by an irate Pipe.

"THAT'S WHAT SHE IS TO YOU?! A DELAY?! SHE WAS MY BEST FRIEND AND DAMMIT I AM GOING TO FIND HER WHETHER YOU CARE OR NOT!" Pipe roared, tears streaming down her face. She punctuated this yelling with a powerful punch into the ground, making us jump back in shock. I had almost forgotten what she can do, the freshly made hole in the asphalt a vivid reminder.

"We have to move on," Kail said firmly, even though I could tell he was scared shitless by Pipe's display of power.

"Fine," Pipe growled back. "Then leave me behind. Leave me behind just like you left Holli."

Raine was softening. "Just one more day of looking couldn't hurt?" They asked, a hand resting on Kail and Pipe.

"One more. That's it. Then we move on," Kail nodded.

"We'll get some rest tonight, then attack with fresh eyes in the morning. Is that okay?" Raine offered. Kail and Pipe nodded their agreement reluctantly.

*

It was a long night, made worse by the grief of Holli's loss and the fear of sleeping out in the open, on cold cement. The latter wasn't much of a complaint, my mind dwelled much more on the thought of Holli.

It felt like emotional constipation. Because on one hand, I wanted to scream and shout and sob my grief out at the loss of a best friend. But on the other hand, if Pipe was to be believed, Holli might still be alive somewhere. Grieving would be premature. More emotions brewed within these dilemmas. If in one moment my brain fully believed that Pipe was right, I would be hit by guilt that I hadn't believed her before, that I had been so willing to sign Holli off as dead. And if in the next moment my brain fully believed that Pipe was wrong, that our search was hopeless, I felt sudden anger at Pipe for being unwilling to accept the inevitable. And then I would feel horrible for thinking those kinds of thoughts, because of course Pipe was unwilling to accept it, she loved Holli and had never told her. And now Holli was gone, if not dead then missing, without a goodbye and making Pipe suddenly regret that she had never vocalized her feelings.

This and more filled my brain, making sleep impossible.

The morning was almost worse. Regi had returned to his (technically Carl's) body sometime in the night. Since he had duct tape over his mouth, we only realized this by the fact that he wasn't glaring hatefully at us anymore.

"What's going on, why aren't we flying? Where's that girl with the pink pigtails?" He asked as soon as Gael tore the duct tape off and Ebony untied his arms from behind his back. He then took in our glum, haunted expressions. "Oh my god I'm-"

"She's still alive somewhere out here!" Pipe insisted. "We just have to find her!" And then the search was on. My hands flickered weakly throughout the day as we entered creepily abandoned buildings (in case Holli was camping there), before they suddenly flared brightly enough and I pressed them to my head.

Waylen's previously composed, stoney face was filled with fear and panic.

"You have to come quickly, please, we were ambushed we need your help!" He pleaded. An explosion echoed nearby and the connection got a lot fuzzier.

"VALENCIA!" Waylen screamed, then his face twisted in agony and-

"They need our help," I said aloud.