The Counterfeit

fourteen

The train rocked lightly back and forth on the tracks as it sped towards its destination. Metal clanked and nervous feet shuffled, but nothing struck the little wispy-haired girl more than the silence.

There must've been around nine other children on this section of the train, all wearing exactly the same clothing and the same sullen expressions. Two heavily armed, masked guards held onto straps attached to the ceiling to prevent themselves from moving out of place.

Then the train faded to a lab. But it was no stereotypical science lab. Treadmills and cameras and microphones were sectioned off in all different areas by transparent flaps. Chemicals, needles, hospital gowns, samples, recordings merged into a reel of images. Flashes and names clouded the images until-

"Jasmine!"
Jasmine inhaled a sharp breath of air as she became alert to her surroundings. Hannah's honest face loomed above Jasmine, her blonde, sandy locks dangling inches away from Jasmine herself. She frowned in confusion at her friend, wondering could've encouraged her to wake Jasmine up.

"What's going o-"
"Look!" Hannah was whispering like a giddy child. Jasmine's head, aching from sleep, spun in circles as she sat herself up on her blanket that was half buried into the grains of sand due to the movement in her sleep.

Her eyes almost immediately caught sight of Adam and Izzabeth kneeling in the sand a few metres away from the gentle waves of the ocean, tending to a furry animal.

Jasmine couldn't tell if it were a very small bear or some sort of squirrel, but it seemed to be in a mild pain. Its squeaks and hiccups made that apparent.

"What is that?" Jasmine murmured, uncertain if she was still dreaming or not. Hannah's expression fell into earnestness as she turned to face Jasmine again. She took a deep breath in.

"What do you call someone with no body and no nose?" Jasmine's mind repeated Hannah's words and worked hard to find an answer, but her face was as blank as ever. "Nobody knows."

With that, Hannah arose from her kneeling position and trod on her toes to join Adam and Izzabeth. Finally making sense of Hannah's random riddle, Jasmine's mouth shaped into an 'o' and she pulled herself up to get a closer look.

She kneeled down in the damp sand next to Adam, who was gently stroking the creature in his arms. It was sort of ugly in a way its face crinkled around its nose, eyes and mouth like a newborn mole. But the pure white fur it possessed looked immensely soft to Jasmine and it seemed to shimmer like waves as Adam ran his fingers across it. It also had a lengthy tail like a squirrel and triangular ears flopped on the top of its head. Whenever it hiccuped or wheezed, its freakishly large teeth became visible. Frankly it was much more pleasant than the snekcrat they'd previously encountered.

"It's okay little guy, we're gonna help you." Adam said soothingly towards the creature.
"Can we give it a name?" Izzabeth asked. Jasmine glanced between her three friends as they broke out into lively conversation as to what they were going to call the critter.

"Hold on, how do we know it's not going to grow into a fifty foot monster and start attacking us?" Jasmine interjected, disrupting the conversation. Adam gasped with mock offense, but Hannah and Izzabeth's expressions were definitely sincere.
"Jasmine, take a good look at it," Hannah gestured towards the creature. "It's hurt, its eyes are cuter than cute and it's not even the length of Adam's arm. Do you seriously see any relation to Susan here?"

Jasmine looked at the squirrel-like creature.
"Not really."
"Exactly. So that's that." Jasmine rolled her eyes.
"I'll leave you schmucks to come up with a name then." Jasmine smiled sarkily before returning to her blanket.

She concisely shook off the sand before folding it and wedging it into the backpack. As she was doing so, Jasmine heard a groan from a couple of metres away. Forgetting about the backpack, she turned to see Blue finally awakening from her slumber. She looked a little less pale from what Jasmine could remember of last night, which wasn't much considering it was dark, but despite the bruises and gnashes Blue looked better. Healthier.

"What's all that bloody noise about?" Blue muttered loud enough for only Jasmine to hear.
"They found an animal. How are you feeling?" Jasmine asked quickly, crawling over to Blue's side to perhaps have a proper conversation with her. Blue gave Jasmine a look that wasn't very reassuring.
"Well whatever the heck it is tell them to keep it down will you?"

Jasmine nodded, slightly disappointed, and watched as Blue buried herself back under the thin blankets. She had so many questions she wanted to ask Blue but Jasmine found her to be so complex she had no idea where to start. Resting her chin on her knees, Jasmine turned her gaze towards the jungle-like area a few feet away from their camp. It never really occurred to her that they had another whole realm to explore. Would it be like the jungle they'd demolished to ashes? Were there other people here or was it just a deserted island in the middle of nowhere?

The more Jasmine thought about it, the harder her curiosity tugged at her hands. She was still exhausted from everything despite having a good night of sleep. Besides the dreams. Or rather memories. What purpose did they have? What good did they do Jasmine if she had no idea what they meant? Her brain couldn't function fast enough to allocate an answer.

Sighing, Jasmine looked over at Blue again, who she presumed fell back into slumber, then her eyes flickered to her wrist. Her fingers grazed over the imprinted word, externus. A part of her wanted to erase it somehow. It reminded her of how she was different - how she didn't belong. She despised the wretched feeling of not belonging. But the other part of her knew that everything happens for a reason, and it couldn't possibly all be bad.