The Fallen

Blake

I wake up again, but I'm not screaming this time.

I look around for Dom but he's nowhere to be found. Instead, I see the man doing behind a computer.

I stretch and quietly sit up. I pull away the small tubes on my left arm and get up. I get a little dizzy once I stand, but it quickly goes away.

I suddenly shiver. The ground is cold under my bare feet and the room has a cold breeze. I hug myself to keep the cold away and notice the clothes I have on. Leggings? I touch the baggy shirt I have on. They seem scratched up. As if I just fell through tree branches. I'm surprised not to see any scratches on my skin.

I slowly start to walk up to the man in the blue and white clothes. I look around the room and on the right side of the room, I see a girl on a table. I freeze.

I'm not the only one? Where did she come from?

I look at the girl on the metal table. She's asleep and has tubes on her left arm. I look over at the man to see if he has noticed me. He hasn't, so I quietly walk up to the girl.

She has so many scratches covering her gentle face. I slowly brush her hair, careful not to wake her up.

I smile and whisper, "I love your hair." The waves on her hair carry light brown highlights that shine under the little light there is in the room. This mixture of highlights moves around in between the dark brown waves. Her light rose skin seems darker under the dim lights.

Remembering I have a bracelet, I look at her wrist to see if she has one, too.

She does.

On her bracelet, in nice, red print, it says "Kat." I smile when I see this.

For some reason my muscles relax. It sure is nice to have someone by your side. Even when they're not like you.

I hear a sudden squeak from behind and I jump. I turn around slowly to see the man standing in front of me with a wide smile.

"Hey!" he says while touching my cheek tenderly.

"Hi," I quietly say. I try to smile as I pull my cheek away from his hand. His frown creates a pit in my stomach, so I quickly look back at Kat as I try not to make eye contact with him.

"Her name is Kat. She's your sister."

I turn around when I hear this and finally look at him.

Kat is my sister?

As if he could read my mind, the man nods and I turn to see Kat again.

But...how are we even sisters? I try hard to remember a sibling, but the only thing I see in my head is darkness.

"H-how did I get here? Where am I?" I have so many questions to ask him that it's impossible to say them all at once.

Those bright grey eyes seem to burn through me as he looks at me with a smile. "We found you." His face stern and I'm confused that he doesn't seem as surprised as I am. Is that a normal thing here?

He starts to pace around as he explains it all to me. "Us, scientists, try to get the new people that come every month. We take turns helping them adapt to this place. This is my first time and I got you, Kat, and Emms." He smiles, trying to read my face but I just stare.

His gentle voice can almost convince me that this is something normal. That it happens everyday. I try hard not to chuckle in disbelief when I say, "So you mean...I fell out of the sky or something?"

The man doesn't have a smile on his face anymore, but his eyes are wide in surprise. "You remember?"

I study his surprised face. Am I supposed to remember something?

I stay silent for a moment, trying to remember anything, but once again I see pure darkness. Nothing.

"No. I don't remember anything. But am I supposed to remember something?"

The man's face relaxes a little. "No. I suppose you don't have to remember anything. It's usual to see that in our newest members. Especially if they go through the same trauma you went through-"

"Wait." I narrow my eyes in confusion at the man. "Trauma? What trauma?"

The man swallows and scratches his neck nervously. He searches for the right words until he sighs and finally says, "We don't know if you fell out of the sky like Kat, but we believe that you did. So let's just say you fell out of the sky." He puts his hand on my shoulder lightly and waits for me to say something. His patience with me is amazing.

Tears start to swell up in my eyes as I start remembering the same blue eyes holding me back and injecting something in me. I thought I was dreaming, but I'm still here. There's no escape anymore.

The man sees the despair in my eyes. He's probably not the type of person that's good with feelings because he scratches his neck nervously again; leaving me with my thoughts. Finally, he clears his throat and says, "You have two sisters. The eldest is Emms. The youngest is Kat."

I look back at Kat. Her chest going up and down and her face calm. Without taking my eyes off of Kat I ask, "How do you even know if we're sisters?"

The man laughs, as if the answer is so obvious. "Well," he says, "let me explain in a few sentences, but don't say anything until I'm done. Deal?"

I nod and listen to how he explains the way he found Emms floating on a lake, he found me hanging upside down on tree vines, and he saw for himself how Kat fell from the sky and dropped on the ground with all the tree branches helping her painful landing. His voice echoes far away in my head as he explains that he determines who's the eldest and who's the youngest with just the reaction we had when we woke up.

After all this talk, the man sighs as if he has held his breath this whole time and says, "Okay. Now that I've told you everything, any questions?" He looks at me expectantly.

I let all of this sink in. Most of it makes sense but one question does creep in mind. "What is the injection for? What's it do?"

The image of the needle makes me shiver but the man doesn't notice when he says, "Well, that's to keep you calm. Like...morphine? Sort of in a way to give vitamins to enter this...place." He brushes his hair with one hand and asks, "Any more questions?" He finally smiles lightly; trying to push aside the last question I've made. I narrow my eyes at his sudden nerves at this and I open my mouth to ask him about the injection again.

Suddenly, a noise comes from the dark hallway that startles me. It sounded like...laughter?

I look at the dark hallway and a shiver goes through my body. I wouldn't dare to go in there alone.

"Do you want to go meet your sister?" His voice makes me jump. "Don't worry. I'll go with you."

I smile at him and nod. But before I go, I look at Kat one more time.

She is still asleep, and I let her be. I touch her hand lightly. Her freezing hands surprise me when the room isn't even that cold anymore. I start to look for her pulse, but I can hear the man's footsteps walk away.  So I quickly squeeze Kat's hand, and whisper, "I'll be waiting for you."

This time, my smile feels real as I start walking with the man through the dark hallway to meet my sister. All the confusion and doubts for some reason seem to disappear as excitement fills my heart.