2050: A Time of Courage

Chapter 12: Lilian

Life.

It's a simple enough word, but its meaning is still a mystery to most people. It's too complicated to really ever understand, even though everyone is always trying their hardest to do exactly that.

I don't know what to do, what to think, now that life has delivered its most recent blow.

I guess I'm supposed to be happy. That emotion makes the most sense. I thought Dimitri had killed Shemik, killed my brother. But they're both relatively fine, though at the same time they're not.

None of us are "fine" right now, because there's supposed to be one more of us and we all let her slip through our fingers.

Poor Brynn.

I keep seeing her on the day the soldiers captured me. I can still see the look on her face when I left that stairwell, went back to the hotel lobby to try and save her. I remember the way she looked at me as she told me those soldiers had killed her father, the way I hardly knew her but still couldn't help feeling sorry for her.

I saved Brynn from the soldiers that night, but now they've won. They've taken away her life, their actions leaving an impact on the rest of ours in the process.

I should be glad that the rest of us are still here, some of us more so than others but at least we're still breathing. I repeat this in my mind over and over, somehow hoping I can make sure the statement stays true.

At least we're still breathing.

~*~

I'm being thrown forward, eyes flying open as the seat belt I wear keeps me from finding harm in the form of the windshield. Emilio curses, starting off in English and working his way through several different languages as I blink, trying to wake myself up enough to figure out what's going on.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, and I've woken up feeling a lot better than I have at any moment in the last four days. Emilio has turned off the radio. Other than the teen's curses, everything is quiet.

"Emilio?" My voice seems too loud, my tone slightly fearful as I turn my head to look in his direction. The dashboard clock is telling me that it's twenty after twelve, and aside from our headlights it is pitch black outside. As I look at Emilio, I catch sight of the figure from the corner of my eye. They're caught in the beam of our headlights,shuffling their way across the road as though they weren't almost obliterated by the car.

"Inhumane." Emilio sighs, "Just an Inhumane."

He takes a deep breath, looking into the backseat before turning back to the road.

"Where are we?" I can't help asking the question, glancing out the window in a feudal attempt to make something out in the shadows. I'm guessing that we've been on the move for about two and a half hours or so, though that isn't very useful to me right now in figuring out where we are.

"The middle of nowhere." Emilio answers around a yawn, "You're probably expecting me to, but I have no idea what I'm doing right now. There's only one place left that I know of to go to, and I told myself ... I swore I wouldn't be going back there."

He takes another deep breath, gripping the wheel so tight it must be at least slightly painful.

I look back to the road in front of us as we start moving again, the Inhumane no longer in the path of our vehicle as we drive down the roadway. I contemplate whether or not to ask the question, gaze moving to the backseat to catch a glimpse of the rest of our group. All of them appear to be asleep, none of them so much as stirring.

I close my eyes, opening them again as I decide that I have to know the answer. I can't stand one more uncertainty in my life right now.

"Where are we going?"