Human Untouched: Requiem of the State (Sequel to Human Untouched)

1.

I finally looked up at the two men standing there. Unsure, worried looks on their faces. "Mikhail... Keelan..." I began slowly. My throat was dry. "It's good to see you guys."

Relief broke through their sweat and sand-caked faces. Keelan let out a short laugh as he looked up at the clear, blue sky. "It's more than just good to see you. These have been some very long 48 hours."

"Tell me about it." I sighed, rolling my shoulders as my wings stretched themselves out. "It felt like forever."

"Well, you're back now." Mikhail continued smiling down at me. "Now we gotta walk back to where we were told to abandon our comms and call in the jet." He looked up, squinting at the blue sky. "I hope it's close-by. It's fucking hot."

"Tell me about it." I repeated. "And I'm still wearing these icky clothes. If you two weren't around, I'd have ripped these off the moment I got out of that box."

"You can pretend we're not around." Keelan shrugged. I rolled my eyes, lobbing a pebble at him which hit his chest. He chuckled, raising his hands in peace.

I placed my hands on the ground, pushing myself up to a standing position, but my legs weren't ready. I stumbled a bit, this way and that. My wings stretching out to help me balance out. "There's still some sedative in my system." I finally spoke once I was sure I wasn't going to fall.

My wings slowly closed back up as my shaky steps became a bit more solid. "So, where are we heading?" I asked, stopping in front of Keelan.

He turned, pointing into the desert-ish landscape. "There. All the way until we reach the road where we ditched the truck." Probably for the supplies. "We got instructions to walk in this direction till we spotted a red flare."

"So, you didn't meet any of the Rebels?"

"No. What about you? Did you find out the real identity of the leader?"

I scoffed. "Please, it's not like I was given free roam of the place. He only came to see me when he had a video to record."

"He didn't torture you, right?" Mikhail hesitantly asked.

I shook my head. "Apart from the first video where he tried to tear my arm off, no. A medic came in after that and stitched me up."

"That's nice."

I wiped the sweat already forming on my brow. I hadn't been outside in the morning in ages. "Should we go? I'm thirsty."

"Oh, uh, here." Keelan held out a bottle. I stared at it quizzically. "They'd kept a bag of digging supplies here and enough water."

I shrugged, taking the bottle from him as we started walking away from my dig site. The landscape was pretty barren. Dried, cracked ground everywhere with dried trees that almost seemed bleached white or burnt black. The only place where I'd seen a hint of water had been where I'd been dug up. The soil had been a darker shade of brown. I hadn't even felt the heat underground. That had probably been Terrence's choice, bless his heart. I'd miss him a lot. Again.

"So," I spoke up after a few minutes of silence "what happened while I was gone?"

"Well," Mikhail grimaced "there were... are a lot of disgruntled people. They flew in a psychologist and a doctor who'd been there for your experimentation."

"Doctor... Doctor Blue?"

Mikhail nodded. "Yeah. The man was furious."

I stopped walking, feeling my heart sink to my toes. The other two stopped too, turning their heads to look at me in confusion. "I don't want to see him." I whispered.