Live, Die, Repeat

Chapter 17

The first time I died in World War 2, I was in the British army defending France from the German invasion. We were cut off by the Germans and their tanks, and our armies were trapped on the northern coast of France. We had enough time to build defenses thankfully and we fought off the attackers as long as we could. I don't know how long that was, but one day ships magically appeared to start evacuating troops.

I knew what would happen to me if I died, so I stayed as long as I could. Getting shot hurt, but I didn't mind dying defending others since I knew I'd come right back.

I woke up as a young man in Oregon, and quickly signed on to join the US Navy. I finished boot camp and got assigned to a destroyer in the Pacific fleet and served in quite a few battles. I had missed Pearl Harbor, but I'd seen action in a lot of other battles. My luck ran out in 1945 when I was killed by a kamikaze dive bomber, that was a mildly terrifying experience, seeing the plane headed for me while we all tried to shoot it.

Moments later, I was reborn as a young Japanese girl helping in the Shima Surgical Clinic. I had mixed feelings about this since I had just been fighting against the same people that I was now a part of. But, so many of the people that were hurt in the clinic were women and children, that I had to continue to help them.

Not that it mattered.

In my new life, I was living in the city of Hiroshima, and the morning of August 6th we all took shelter due to an air raid. The shelter didn't matter to the atomic bomb though, and I didn't have any warning at all before I was back in the inky blackness, only to return as a dolphin swimming in the south Atlantic.

"There are too many missing people for this to be just Ben," Ash said sadly on Sunday evening.

I had come to that conclusion as well, but I didn't really want to point out the fact that it could be her father too. "They go a long way back, when Ben was too young to do some of them, and who knows what could have happened before the internet," I added.

"This is making me a little sick." She went and grabbed some water from the kitchen and sat next to me at the island.

I shut my laptop and put my arm around her. "Come on we can take a break. We need to clear our heads for school tomorrow." I gave her a tug and we moved to sit on the couch.

"I don't know what to do. I thought it was all kind of a joke once we got the flash drives, but now it scares the hell out of me," she admitted softly, leaning her head on my shoulder. "I wish Anna and Zach were back."

"Have you heard from them at all?"

"No, I assumed they spent the weekend in bed again. I would have thought they'd be back by now though."

I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Ben wouldn't retaliate against them, would he? "Why don't you text her, see when she's coming back. I'll make sure we have food for them."

She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text. I debated doing the same for Zach, but I decided to see what kind of reply we got first. It didn't take long before a text came back, and Ash didn't look happy at all.

"She says she's in DC with dad, working on an internship. Why the hell would she do that?" she exclaimed.

"Ash, look at me." I said turning to look at her, our brown eyes connecting. "Look at the text she just sent and compare it to others she's sent before. Does it look like her typing?"

"What are you saying?" she asked, her nerves beginning to show.

"Could Ben have her phone somewhere? Ask her where Zach is."