In the morning I wake up to the sounds of birds chirping. I expect to hear a fire burning or the sound of footsteps or at least the feel of hands shaking me, but I don’t. It still hasn’t dawned on me that Camila is gone. Sometimes at night I can feel her “ghost” lurking around me, never leaving me alone. Whenever I close my eyes I see her face. Her cocoa powdered hair in her usual ponytail and her eyes watching me deeply. She’s my ghost. Every day. Every night. Fear washes over me like an ocean wave as I think about what might be happening to her. She might be dead for all I know. Sometimes you have to find things out for yourself because sometimes you might think that someone is gone and never come back for them and then you figure out that if you had come back and helped them they would’ve been with you today and you can never live with the fact in life that you were the cause of someone’s murder. That’s why I need to find Camila. My heart aches with loneliness. I feel weak. I pause in my footsteps and stand quietly for just a bit, telling myself, Snap out of it Bree! To find Camila you need to be on focus one hundred percent. Just let your mind think about some of your favorite things, like birthday parties and other stuff you enjoyed before the future came.
I cool down and continue to walk, taking deep breaths in and out. After a while my palms start to sweat and my body is sore. I don’t stop when the owls start cooing at night. I continue to walk, not knowing where I’m going. I might even be taking a trip to hell without even knowing it. I pant continuously for each new place I search and find that there is no trace of Camila. I feel that my search is hopeless and Camila might already be floating up in the air watching over me and seeing me struggle on my search to find her. She might even be yelling at me to stop looking for her because she’s dead and that I should focus on living. I watch the never ending woods in front and let the night swallow me whole, for I am a human being and human beings have to sleep.
Eventually.
***
The next morning is dry. My Mother’s words ring in my ear. “‘Don’t let those wanna be’s get stuck into your head and break you into pieces. Break them.’”
I still couldn’t understand how I could break them. Would I physically hurt them? Or would I get to them inside by tormenting all the things they love in a way which ends up killing them? I was really confused but I knew whichever way I broke them I would have to keep my Mother’s promise. I would find Camila and save her and if I was too late, I would never forgive myself.
***
Sometimes when you’re so upset about something you don’t notice the world around you. You don’t notice how the leaves rustle or how the air is filled with crispness. You don’t even notice how everything goes together in unision. Like a sunset on an autumn day where the sky turns a rosy pink and the sun sets in an orange flame. That’s how I feel right now. I feel drained of color. I feel as if I’m a zombie. i reach a point where I see a cottage. It’s a pleasant cottage. Kind of like the ones you see in the movies where you knock on the door and a nice old lady let’s you in for a cup of tea and a package of biscuits. I walk towards the door. I can’t think straight. It’s like my brain switched off. My hand shoots up in the air and I curl my fingers up into a fist and pound the door. Idiot!, I think, but it’s too late. The door clicks open and a woman with long red cherry colored hair stands at the doorway. Her lips are purse and her face is glossed with makeup to perfection.
“Hi.” she says, in a crisp European accent. “How may I help you?”
“Umm… Do you know where the nearest rest stop is?” I ask without thinking. The lady chuckles. “Why, the nearest rest stop is right here. Why don’t you take a little pause while I fasten up some omelettes?” she asks.
“Okay.” I say quickly and hurry into the bathroom. As soon as I lock the door, I load my gun. Just in case if she’s not that sweet lady in those fairy tales I have a back up. I gulp as I reopen the bathroom door and quietly tip toe out. I pause on my way, just in case she’s revealing a plan or something. Instead she just sings a song while she flips an omelette on the pan.
“If we drove all the way to Dallas. Just to buy an Easter dress. We’d take along a Rand McNally…” I automatically knew what song she was singing. It was Automatic, by Miranda Lambert. I listened for a couple of minutes. The woman had a beautiful voice, nothing like her accent. She was like Adele, but her voice was smooth and soft. I cupped my hands to my ear to hear better.
“Back before everything became automatic, automatic.”
It was the end of the song. I sighed as I leant against the chipped, rough wall behind me. The blue that had once been there bow looked like a grayish brown and the floor was dusty. I had already clicked the gun in preparation just in case, but there was something different about this woman. It felt like she was a person I could trust, so I walked into the living room casually and waited for her to say something. She didn’t. She was busy cooking another omelette.
“Ahem,” I coughed. “I guess I better be going. It was nice to meet you.”
The woman turned around. “Already? You didn’t even have your omelette yet!” she said. “How about you stay over for the night, Cheryl… Lacee… I never learned your name did I? Silly me, I’m sorry sugar, would you mind telling me your name?”
“My name is Bree.” I said strongly.
“What a nice name.” the woman said as she smiled. “My name is Maria,” she said as she set down the omelettes on the table and we each dug in. I watched Maria while I was eating. She could have a weapon on her and I couldn’t take the risk. I noticed during the entire meal she left her right hand on her lap. She didn’t seem to have trouble eating with her left hand, so either she’s a lefty or she’s ambidextrous. She soon noticed I was watching her right arm because she moved her arm on the table. Phew! I thought. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.
***
I stayed over that night. Maybe she wouldn’t be so bad. Maria slept very quickly. Maybe she was a fast sleeper. Or maybe she’s sleeping quickly so when I fall asleep she can wake up and kill me. People are so unpredictable these days. You can never tell who’s good and who’s bad.
For the rest of the night I stay awake. I don’t want to take any chances about losing my life to someone sweet and even though i kind of trust her, half of me is telling me to leave while I can. Camila would probably grab me out of the pink floral covers I was buried underneath and make me walk with her to find a new place to rest. That’s the difference between me and Camila. Camila can figure out what she’s gonna do at that moment and I can’t. Sometimes I wish I was her.
***
The next morning when I wake up Maria is frying some bacon in the kitchen. As soon as I walk in, Maria notices me.
“How you doin’?” she asks me.
“Fine.” I reply ruffling my hair. Maria gestures to a seat at the table and places two plates on the top. Both with three slices of bacon and one fried egg.
“You eat a lot of protein.” I say, chuckling.
“I’ve always tried to be a healthy eater since I was a child, but I just love the protein.” she says taking a crunch out of her bacon.
I look down at my plate. She could have poisoned the food. I then look up at her trustworthy face and see her adoring smile and beaming brown eyes, and can’t resist but take a bite.
***
I think I was knocked unconscious because when I wake up I’m in a different place. I’m sitting on a chair with a rope tied around me. This is weird… I think, staring at the room around me. I’m still in Maria’s house but the lights are dimmed and there are blood stains and scuff marks plastering the floor. I cringe. If that’s not my blood, whose blood is that? I try to break free but the ropes are too strong, like they are made of pure leather. I hear footsteps later. A clicking sound of heels hitting the floor. A woman appears out of the darkness. She is not Maria but another lady with a similar face. Unlike Maria though, she has blue eyes and curly maple brown hair.
“Hello.” she says. “We’ll be running a few tests on you, just come along.” she turns around and walks a few steps, then turns when she figures out I’m not following her. She then chuckles. “Oh, I forgot to untie you, didn’t I?” after the strange woman inties me, I quickly reach into my hoodie pocket where my gun should be. It’s not there. While I was knocked out someone probably found it and took it. The lady continued to walk with her fancy clipboard and throws a piece of wintergreen gum into her mouth. She finally stops at a room which wasn’t there before and leads me inside of it. The room is plastered in a color of white. People wandering around were even wearing white.
“Please sit in this chair while Ms. Monro comes to start the procedure.” she says, grinning gleefully like she had done her job perfectly. The woman later turns around leaving me waiting in a seat for the so called “Ms. Monro”. I mean who could that be. A few minutes later of waiting time, a woman with a kit comes my way. I immediately recognize her. She is Maria. As soon as she sees me she frowns.
‘“That crazy Cathy,” she mutters under her breath. “never doing her job.”
Maria then takes some rope from her kit and ties it around me.
“There!” she says wiping her hands on her lab coat like I’m carrying something contagious. She stares at her kit pulling out syringes both empty and full, bandages, and a microscope with lenses.
“What are you doing?” I ask, breaking her concentration.
“We are testing to see if you are the one, Ms. Suvil.” she says impatiently, gritting her teeth as she gets back to her work.
“How do you know my name?” I ask.
“I know everything, Ms. Suvil.”
“How do you know everything?”
“I just do.”
I keep quiet, watching as she fills one of the syringes with some blue liquid.
“What’s that?” I ask curiously.
“Something.” she says, anger rising. “Now will you please shut up?”
“What happened to when you were sweet and stuff?”
“It’s called acting, Ms. Suvil. You should try it some day.”
“What’s the blue liquid?” I say directing the topic.
“Shut. Up.’ she says again, her face turning red as her hair.
“Why should I?”
“Because, I said you should.”
“I don’t have to listen to you.”
“Argh!” she screams. She then takes a piece of white duct tape and covers my mouth.
“There, that should keep you quiet.” she mutters, flipping her hair onto her left shoulder. I muffle through the duct tape, wanting to scream at her.
“You pathetic humans from the past.” she says at last. “You think you can outfit the future? Well, you can’t. You don’t have the technology, the smarts. Nothing. That’s why we’re killing you off one by one.” she snorts a diabolical laugh.
She then inserts the blue liquid into my shoulder, sending pain blast through my body. I feel my head wobble back in forth unnaturally. Then as soon as it starts, it stops.
“Good.” she says. Then she takes an empty syringe and injects blood from me. The loss of so little blood should not feel the way it’s feeling now, but it does. My feet start shaking like I’m hyperactive and my body rocks back and forth violently. Maria watches in a smirk. She puts an ice pack on my forehead, making my body stay still.
She then takes a sample of my blood, which looks darker than normal, and puts it in a testing vial. Maria pours a drop of my blood into a testing tube containing some gooey purple liquid, which makes the chemical steam and sends a shock to the computer in her kit, blinking with green lights. She stares in disbelief.
“You’re the one…” she mutters. “No, it can’t be…” she presses the reload button on the computer, thinking the computer was glitching.
“Ugh!” she yelled when she figured it wasn’t. She then steered her concentration to me.
“You little muskrat, you think you’ve won… You’re lucky it’s you or you would’ve been dead by now, just like your pathetic family. Still think your sister’s alive?” she smirked. “Well think again.” she walked off making a click clack of her heels. My world was spinning upside down with her words. Did she mean that Camila was dead? The thing that made me most awestruck is the fact that I am “the one”. The one for what? The one that’s going to die, because that’s something everyone is “the one” for. Maria later comes back with a man.
“You sure she’s the one.” he whispers to her in a hoarse voice.
“I’m sure.” she says. “I was just as surprised as you are when I figured it out. She just doesn’t seem… You know.”
The man stepped closer to me and took the duct tape off my mouth.
“You’re the one,” he pauses to take a breath. “did you know that?”
I shook my head. The man lifted my chin.
“Well, it means that you’re the missing piece to end the human race.”
I stared at the man in awe.
“What do you mean, ‘the end of the human race’” I ask quietly.
“I mean,” he says. “that you have a special genetic type of dna in your blood that can act as a poison to other humans.” he says calmly.
“Does it work on any human?” I ask again.
“Yes. So that’s why we’re going to suction up one vial of blood from you every day so we can build a special weapon that will wipe out you race in one shot.” he says.
“Bree, do you know what my name is?” he asks me.
“No.” I reply weakly.
“Dr. Chandler Sullivan, your future son.”