I Am Alone

Chapter 15: Cave of Confessions

Fang hauls the load of crystal and metal back to the house, he's too big to fit into the cave, but he's big enough to haul the stuff we mine out.

Crimson is smaller than Fang, Aphmau is small enough that she could ride her, but there is no way I could. She came up to my side, and I am almost as big as she is.

She could also see in the dark, so she is the ideal mining partner.

We had been mining for a couple hours, in which time Aphmau refuses to speak to me, I know why, I know how badly the Implant incident hurt her, and by someone she trusts.

"Aphmau. We need to talk." I try and get through to her, she gives me the cold shoulder, I know she didn't realize that I didn't do it on purpose.

"Aphmau." I stress her name, she sighs and looks my way, a very disgruntled and almost sad look in her face.

"Will you believe me if I say that It was an accident? I didn't mean to hurt you." She rolls her eyes and turns away swinging her pickaxe into the cave wall.

I sigh in defeat and start mining at the wall. My pick breaks through the stone slowly, and my mind starts to wander to how I can make it up to her.

I don't realize that I broke into a cave system until I feel myself falling forward. I hear Aphmau gasp and yell for me, the only sound from her that I had heard in a couple days.

I crash into a moss covered floor, luckily I don't hurt anything, I need to start paying attention to where I walk.

Aphmau slides down next to me, helping me up, once she knows that I'm fine, she quickly releases me, and continues not to speak to me.

We look around.

The cave was illuminated by glowing green and blue mushrooms. Huge deposits of moss and vines climbed up rusty metal walls, trinkets of all sorts littered the cave, a desk and flasks of strange blue liquid bubbled.

A cracked window was covered in dried blood, letting the moisture from outside grow moss, an instrument was blinking in the corner. My Implant burned, we weren't supposed to be here.

"It's an old lab." I say, mostly to myself as Aphmau is still ignoring me.

The blinking object makes a soft beeping sound. The closer I get to it the more intense my Implant burns, the louder the beeping becomes.

I pick it up, the burning and beeping stops, and I hold it up to a glowing mushroom to get a better look at it.

The device has a short antenna, it looks like a motom, but only one light, it has a small hatch, I open it.

Inside is an Implant with wires hooked up to it, it's not glowing, it seems to be deactivated.

I close the hatch, and stuff the device in my pack. I look around some more, walking on the soft and wet moss.

I step on something hard, it cracks underneath me, and I look down.

I'm stepping on someone's skull.

I jump backwards, the skeleton is fully intact and wearing a blood stained lab coat, something is triggered in the back of my mind, but I can't quite remember, like it had purposely suppressed.

"What happened here?" I hear Aphmau ask, it brought me out of my daze, and I turned to look at her.

"By the damage, something big was held in here, but it didn't really like being caged." She huffs at my voice. I get a little annoyed.

"Why are you so mad at me? I was in just as much pain as your were!" I raise my voice, my blood is starting to simmer, I was through with being treated like dirt.

"It's not that!" She raises her voice back, I'm still on the edge of exploding though, and I get even louder.

"Then what! What did I do to make you so mad at me! Because I can't stand not talking to you!" I immediately shut up after voicing my anger, my cheeks flush red and I shrink from my dominant stature.

"Be- Because I can't stand not having you around." I say under my breath, my face heating up like it was on fire.

"Aaron....." I feel the tension in the room reach it's peak, I couldn't look at her, I stood defeated in the trashed room.

"I'm sorry for the Implants touching, I didn't know." My voice is cracked from yelling, and my blood slowly starts to cool.

"It's not that Aaron," She starts in a soft tone, her voice cracks, almost sounding like she was about to cry. I feel some of the tension leave the room.

"I just, remembered something that....that would have been better off forgotten." I dare to take a glance at her, she is looking down, she shakes with reluctance. I take a step closer.

"What....What did you remember?" She takes a step back from me, and I see a tear fall from her face.

My heart breaks in half.

"Aphmau. This is tearing you up, it breaks my heart to see you like this. Just tell me." I walk a little closer, she doesn't move back this time, and I crouch down so I'm eye level with her.

"You......Hate me, he said you did. That's why you left." I am struck with the urge to just hug her and tell her it's all going to be fine, that I would never hate her.

But this is not the time.

"Who said that, Aph, we are the only ones here." She breaks down in front of me, I catch her, she tries to struggle out of my grasp, but eventually gives up and leans into me.

"The man who drilled this.... thing into my arm. He said you hated me, that's why you went off on vacation and never came back, and that was why he was doing this, so I'd forget you." She doesn't sob, her voice is cracking, and she is crying, but it seems that she has already semi-excepted this fact.

"A-Aphmau. No... No. No. No." I tip her chin up to look at me, she sniffs , and she's pink, like she is embarrassed to be crying.

"I would never, ever do that to anyone. Much less to you. I don't remember what happened to get us here. But if my memories don't deceive me I loved you very much, and you know me better than that." I see her smile and she blushed at her own expense, she wiped her eyes and I sigh in relief.

I hold her until she calms down a little, which only takes less then a minute for her too, she likes to make people believe that she was tough, but I know better.

"Thank you. Heh, I can be such an idiot sometimes." She nuzzles into my chest, and maybe it's the moment, or maybe the fumes from the mushrooms. But I embrace her tighter.

"No. Your heart was broken, you couldn't think straight. I understand." I ruffle her long black hair and she chuckles, before slipping out of my grasp.

"Let's finish up here. Then we can start on our plan." She picks back up he pickaxe and climbs out of the room. And helps me up.

            "Yeah. Let's get off this Island."