ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

72: I'm Tuning

Ella 72

Leo isn't sleeping. I only know because I can hear her crying. When I crack open her door though, she stops sniffling to look at me.

"Ella?" She asks, tentatively, as if I'd have forgotten my own name.

Granted, I might have. Whatever Clint's been giving me to keep me calm has me seeing the world in muted colour. Somehow the situation is worse now.

"Hey Leo," I close the door behind me. Today is the first day I've been able to stand up in a long time. I don't remember much, except for Zart, the Med-jacks, and the girls. Some boy came in to check on me today. It was their leader, and I recognized myself in his skin but could not remember his name. Nor could I digest his words.

"How are you feeling?" She sits up, groaning. It never occurred to me she must be injured.

I shrug, since I am not feeling bad or good. Moving carefully, I lie down next to her on the bed. "Leo, I remember."

"I know," she places one of her hands-on mine. He skin is rough in certain spots, but the feeling makes me realise we are real. All of this is real. I can't keep hiding behind these visions and searching for the truth when I am ruining the mission. "I figured, since Clint has kept you locked up for days."

I nod, happy that she believes me.

It isn't like the Changing. Those boys remember things I don't, and forget things I do. I remember the four of us, and I remember our goal but not our plan. I remember the boy who I believe is to come up tomorrow morning, and I remember the girl who still lingers on my skin.

"Do you remember how the four of us got here," she stares up at the ceiling, and every breath she takes causes the air to crumble around her. "why just us girls, and why all four of us at once?"

"I catch glimpses that I don't understand," I tell her. "Conversations with no bodies anchoring them to reality, and scenes with no dialogue to support them. I remember Michelle carrying me through a hallway. We were fleeing. I remember you picked a lock."

"But you don't remember why?" Leo's mind is elsewhere, but she continues to let me speak. She is too wrapped up in situations with no gravity. Her voice is cracking, as if she has more questions to ask, but her lips quaver and her eyes water.

"I can assume," we were running to come here. I can remember the metal gun in my hand. In the center of the base of their necks, although just to the right on mine. It didn't attach properly, which is why I imagine no one has stopped me from saying anything. They have partial control over my actions, just as I have partial memory of mine.

I don't think it's really sinking into her head. She seems like she is drowning in the Glade. Not panicked, like I know her to be, but overwhelmed. Two nights before we left, she was like this.

"I don't know if this is right," her chest is tightening and compressing in on itself as she struggles to breathe. "I mean, he says they aren't that bad."

"He lies," I have no time for her niceties. If she is going through some crisis as she decides where her allegiances lie, I have no time for it. They are sending up the next boy. It is now or never, regardless of her feelings.

"Take it up with one of the others if you have a problem," I try to move past her, since I am supposed to meet up with him soon. I need to go.

"Ellie, you know I can't," her pleas stop me, although I know she can, she chooses not to. This choice jeopardizes all which we stand for.

I forget why I didn't empathize with the girl in front of me. Though I currently find myself upset that she fails to recognize what is and isn't important, back then the feeling was magnified and amplified three decibels louder. It was the only thing I could feel; passion for the cause.

"Michelle, doesn't get it, and you know Dawn..."

It was to avoid the possibility of losing her.

"Don't talk to me like I don't know pain."

"I remember you," I tell her, quietly, so as to distract her from all that is happening. And to distract me from knowing who I was. "You didn't look much different, except you looked somehow happier. You were the happiest out of all four of us, actually."

"Not Dawn?" She asks.

I shake my head. We have all lost things, and she had lost most out of all of us. I still had hope. I still have hope. Dawn... was complicated. Besides, maybe it is best they forget somethings. Not I though, since I can handle it. No matter what the truth is, I must know.

"I have to make a choice," she begins her story, calmly and quietly. Every word slips off her tongue until it compiles on the ground. It fills the space, since there are no drains, until we are drowning in her thoughts. They pour out the window and on to the ground deep below, and when she is finally done, there is nowhere for the thoughts to drain. Instead, they pool and around us and I try to stay afloat.

"None of this will matter in two days," it is the only answer I can give her, because I am trying to keep my head above water. Now, she is the one who others must come to me for help. I don't understand how everything has been lost and found within four weeks.

For some reason, the fact that it doesn't matter makes her sink into the mattress beneath her.

"We don't have two days to wait," she doesn't bother to ask why it won't matter. I don't even think she believes me. No one ever believes me and I hate this. This disgusting feeling possesses me and traps me down to the ground. "No one else knows but me, and I have to do something."

She doesn't have to, and although I hate it, she can die and we will move on. As long as one of us stays alive, our goal will be achieved. If I can wait just a few weeks longer, I can have her again. If I can wait it out a few days, I can find her.

In any lifetime, in any alternate form of reality, in any world where there are more Cranks than men, I will find her and love her.

For I hate that the world had to take her away for me to realise exactly how much I needed her to breath.

It's his fault. Though they say his name, I can't stand it.

He watched them burn. Although he said it killed him, it didn't kill him enough. He would've let four more boys show up and take them all. He would've let them be destroyed and melted away in the rain that never hits the ground, since we are under ground.

I am a coward.

I blame his partner, although she could have been me. She did nothing wrong, but I could feel her ruthlessness in my skin.

It doesn't matter though, since some of us were just as cut-throat.

It is a matter of sides, and we are going to die. We are going to burst in flames, and some will become cranks and others won't live long enough to even understand the word.

All I can hope is to see her once more. For she is a violet sunset on my long and painful journey.

~~~~~

Oh Lordy Lord. We are almost at the end. SO SO CLOSE! Are you excited? I can promise you someone will die. Just a forewarning.

Who is your favourite out of the girls? Who is your favourite boy?

I'll see you soon, in Leo and Sacrifice.