Winter Fire

Ch. 38 [The Fourth Truth]

Winter Fire
Ch. 38
The Fourth Truth

I woke with a pounding headache, lying on my stomach on a scratchy bed. For a long while I didn't move, wallowing in my pain and misery, but then when it hit me that I was no longer floating on rainbow clouds of relaxation, my head snapped up and I lurched off the bed. Archer must have kissed me when I was unconscious. I shuddered at that thought, but quickly abandoned it as anger and fear and apprehension flooded my body and it was all I could do not to attack the first thing in sight.

I glanced around me at the cramped room. It only held one bed, a nightstand, a tiny table and a single chair, a chair which sat at the foot of my bed with Archer's slumped form. I peered closer, but he seemed to be completely asleep, his black hair ruffled, his face serene, his lips slightly parted. There was a small notebook lying open on his lap and after a quick glance at the door I crept towards him and slowly lifted it up. I backed up a bit as I flipped through the pages, but the entire thing was written in a different language. I frowned, the same foreign language that that textbook I'd found in his bedroom was written in.

I looked back up at him, startled to find his electric aquamarine eyes boring directly back into mine. I felt a flash of anger, but it was quickly snuffed out by my curiosity, a curiosity that completely blocked everything else out.

"What language is this?" I asked, and I almost thought he wouldn't reply.

"Russian." His tone was unnervingly cold.

I frowned. "You know Russian? But how did you learn? It's so difficult--"

"I didn't learn Russian, Winter." His voice was sharp, biting. "I am Russian."

My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. "W-what? You're--but--how--what?"

He didn't reply, just snatched the notebook out of my hands. I started.

"Wait--Archer--what does it say?"

"It doesn't matter." He snapped.

For a moment I didn't move, then in a breathless whisper. "Is it yours?"

Archer never really struck me as the journaling type, but then again, he never struck me as the alien type either.

"It doesn't matter." He repeated.

He stood and moved away, but I grabbed his arm and he stiffened.

"Archer, please, don't be like this. You never tell me about anything. I think I'm owed at least one explanation."

He pressed his lips together and I could see him thinking, then finally he glanced away from me and sat down on the bed. I followed. He turned the notebook over and over in his hands. Then after what seemed like forever he set it down on his lap and laid his hands over it, almost protectively.

"What do you want explained?" He murmured.

"You." I replied. "Ever since we met it's like I don't understand a thing about you. And after all this time I just want to know why."

"And you think this will tell you?" He glanced up, his aquamarine eyes small, vulnerable as he held the notebook close.

I nodded. "I know it will."

He turned away. "You have to promise you won't tell anyone any part of what I tell you, okay?"

"Of course, Archer. I promise."

He nodded and took in a deep breath.

"There's five of these. I started when I was seven. I stopped when I was eleven, when I ran away." He hesitated. "I grew up in a small orphanage in Russia. Everything was as fine as it could be, at least until some of the older boys started teasing me. I don't know why. I don't care. That was when I started writing the journals. I wanted to document everything they did to me. I didn't want to forget. I didn't want it just to dissappear like so many other things. I started practicing archery soon after that, too. It was my escape. No one ever came to that spot. But when I was eleven, they took even that away from me. They attacked me, tried to break my bow. I snapped. I don't know what happened, I just--I just broke. I shot them, all of them. And then I ran. They were alive when I left. I don't know if they died afterwards and I don't care." He glanced back down at the journal, quiet for a while. "This was the only one I managed to bring with me. I wanted to get as far away from that orphanage as I could. That was when I learned everything I know about computers. I didn't have money, so I figured out a way to cheat the system. Then I came here."