2 weeks before forgetting
“And that’s why you can’t trust Oranges,” Raiden concluded his story.
“Okay, well, I’m sure that not every Orange will mess with your brain to make you do stuff.” The story of how an Orange almost made Raiden beat another kid did not impress me. Or actually, it did, but I just didn’t want to judge all Oranges based on that. I was sure that there were Oranges that weren’t that cruel.
Raiden’s absent-minded face was reflected in the windshield. “Maybe not. But the ones that like to be in control are.”
Blaze, who was seated on the back seat, managed to switch the topic. “What happened to her?”
It made Raiden look up again and he shortly gave her a look through the rearview mirror. “She got shot by a PSF and that’s how the other kid and I got caught and put in a camp.”
I glanced to the side. That was new information. Though Raiden and I had gotten very close the last few weeks – it was unspoken, but we all knew that there was something between us – Raiden never spoke about his time in the camp and he also didn’t mention how he got there. “The Orange, did she die?”
“She did. Oranges are shot on sight.”
“Why?” Blaze asked from behind us.
“Because mind control is considered very dangerous. People don’t like it when they are being controlled.”
As they should. I could only imagine what that would feel like. You’d become a spectator of your own life. You do actions you don’t want to do and all you can do is watch.
“So there were no other Oranges in the camp?”
Raiden bit his lower lip while he kept his gaze on the road. “There was one. He was even creepier. somehow, he could see people’s memories. Every time someone from the camp found out he was Orange, he would erase that memory before they could warn another guard. That way no one knew he was Orange.”
Raiden continued to tell about how that Orange always got whatever he wanted and how he walked around the camp as if he owned it. Apparently, all of the other kinds of the camp knew him. And everyone was terrified. “He played tricks on your mind. He would tell you things about your past. Embarrassing things. Your most treasured memories.” He swallowed. “Your worst memories.”
“Sounds horrible.”
“It was. He made you relive them and would tease you with them. And whenever someone wanted to tell it to the guards, he’d threaten to erase their memories.”
I didn’t know much about the camp, neither did I know Raiden’s experience of it. But by the way he was talking about it, it became clear to me how much he hated it there. How terrified he must have been, being locked up like an animal. He never deserved it.
No one did.
Yet every child in this country could relate to that fear. You were either faced with the fate of dying because of IAAN or subjected to the cruelty of anyone willing to hunt down a child. If this was our country now, then what would the future bring? Surely they realized that they couldn’t keep us in camps forever, right? There had to be a moment where they let us go. We are the future, yet they are denying their future the right of freedom. Even worse, they were denying us the right to live.
But I knew why no one thought of this. Because why would you look at the problems of the future when you are already dealing with so many problems in the present, right?
And at that moment, my problem existed out of trying to find a new camping place in Virginia while Blaze in the backseat was looking like she was about to throw up.
It had been a few days since Blaze had gotten sick. We suspected that it was caused by food poisoning from a can of beans that only she ate. Whatever it was, it made her feel horrible and also unable to focus on her talent, which could be dangerous. Sometimes, she wasn’t able to use it, but other times, she accidentally set things on fire. So far, I had lost a shoe and a t-shirt. It had been a while since she first felt sick, but she still felt horrible, and though she was distracted by Raiden’s story, she still looked nauseous.
“Stop the car,” Blaze suddenly said with a trembling voice. Raiden pulled over and Blaze immediately opened the door after which she quickly put a few steps away. That’s when she bent over and threw up.
I already opened the door when she put her hand up towards me to let me know that it wasn’t necessary. Closing it again, I sighed and started to bite my nails. At this rate, we were gonna have to spend the night in the car or try to find a new camping site in the dark.
Raiden, who I saw looking at me from the corner of my eye, grabbed my hand and wrapped his around it. “She’s gonna be fine. It’s probably gone in a few days.”
I gave him a look of appreciation. “I know. It’s just… I don’t know.”
“You can’t protect her from everything. You try, but you can’t. Of course it’s stupid that she has food poisoning, but that’s gonna be over soon."
I knew he was right, but it was still annoying me. As a big sister – definitely after everything we've been through – I just wanted to help Blaze as much as possible. And though it wasn’t my fault that Blaze got food poisoning, that didn’t make seeing her sick any better.
Blaze at that moment entered the car again and took a few sips from the water bottle that I gave her. She quickly got rid of the disgusting flavor in her mouth and gave it back. Determined not to talk about it, she pointed at our intertwined hands. “I know you haven’t made anything official or anything, but can we just clear this up? You have been twirling around each other the last few weeks, yet no one ever said anything about it yet.”
My cheeks turned red, but Raiden just laughed at it. He started the car again – which he was getting pretty good at using – and our car drive continued.
Blaze was right and I knew she was just trying to play matchmaker, but it made me feel a little uneasy.
“No, I’m serious. I want to know what the deal is. It’s pretty obvious you both like each other, right?” Blaze continued when she realized we weren’t gonna answer her.
“I have said it before, remember?” Raiden said with a grin on his face.
“Ah yes,” Blaze responded “you did. So now it all comes down to Morgan, doesn’t it?”
I laughingly shook my head while looking out the window. The forest we were driving through made place for another landscape. At our left, there was still a forest, but the right side was completely open and allowed the light to come through. I squinted my eyes from the sudden sun.
“So what do you say, Morgan? You still haven’t answered my love declaration."
My smile widened, but before I could answer, my attention was pulled to something behind us.
“Okay, okay, I get it, the pressure right now is too much,” Raiden teased when I remained silent. But I was too focused on the rearview mirror. Since we were out of the forest, it was lighter. And that also made me suddenly aware of the car that was driving behind us.
I gave a little push against Raiden’s arm, making him look up at what I was looking at. He squinted his eyes, and when he realized what I meant, he accelerated the car. Blaze was also immediately alert, and she swiftly turned around.
How did they get to us? Did they trace the license plate of our stolen car? Or did they just accidentally stumble upon us?
Whatever it was, they were closing in on us and they seemed to crash into our car. Instead, they only softly bumped into our car, making a shock go through the vehicle. It proved to be enough. Though Raiden had practiced driving many times before, he wasn’t prepared for another car bumping into ours. And so, it didn’t take much for Raiden to lose control over the wheel. He lifted his foot from the acceleration and the car naturally came to a halt.
But that was the problem. We came to a halt.
The other car stopped right behind us and the people inside it rapidly started to come out. I tugged Raiden’s arm, who was still sitting behind the steering wheel, and motioned him to get out. Blaze was already opening her door and I quickly followed.
I rushed to Blaze and Raiden’s side of the car and saw that they were already busy trying to keep the PSFs away. We were with the three of us. They were with four. We had only our talent, which in Raiden’s case right now did not help, because the car was already broken. The PSFs, however, had guns, batons, and years of training.
I decided that I needed to get rid of their advantages, and immediately threw their guns through the air, one by one. They landed somewhere on the other side of the road. I kept one and made it float towards Raiden so that he would have a weapon as well.
In the meantime, Blaze was trying to make fireballs. She didn’t have much luck though. She only managed to make a few small ones, too little to cause any actual damage.
It was chaos. Trying to make a calculation in my head, I was trying to push back PSFs while Raiden was firing shots, and Blaze was trying to start a fire. I soon realized that with how it was going, it was a hopeless case. Definitely when I saw another car approach us at high speed. That could only mean one thing: More PSFs.
All the odds were against us; Without anything for Raiden to use his power for, he could only shoot at the PSFs, but they were wearing protective gear. Blaze was unable to control the fire she was making because of her being sick.
So that only left me.
And that gave me the only idea that I could think of. I pushed Blaze towards Raiden while I made a PSF fall to the ground. Raiden stopped firing his gun when he felt Blaze stumble against him.
“You need to run!” I yelled over the sounds of the PSFs screaming to the approaching car.
“What?!” I heard Raiden reply with wide eyes.
“You need to leave. Run to the trees! I’ll try to hold them back long enough.”
The other car was now also coming to a halt and four more people jumped out. It was now three against eight. I needed to get Raiden and Blaze away.
So, after getting rid of the guns of the new PSF, I turned to Blaze and grabbed her shoulders. “Listen. You need to run with Raiden while I keep them away from you, okay?” I shook her shoulders when I saw tears welling up in her eyes. “Blaze, listen to me. You can do this. You are strong. I promise you will be fine and so will I. We will always return to each other, I promise.” I gave her a quick hug while Raiden was firing the gun again.
Then I turned to him. “You need to take Blaze with you and you need to promise me that you take care of Blaze and don’t leave her.”
He turned to me with determined eyes. “Morgan, I am not leaving.”
“Promise me,” I forcefully repeated.
Raiden's face fell when he saw that he couldn’t talk me out of it. His eyes let go of the positivity and he instead got a sad face. “I promise.”
“Good.”
The force in my mind unraveled and I pushed them away from me, towards the trees on the side of the road. At the last moment, Raiden pushed his gun in my hand. Then he grabbed Blaze and ran. I turned back to the PSFs. They were now only a few feet away from me, but I held them back so they couldn’t follow Raiden and Blaze. Without their guns, they could only use their batons and bare hands, but I managed to push them away every time with my talent.
It worked for a while. I fired the gun a few times, which didn’t do much, but only scared them a little. Next to that, I tried to do any damage with my talent. A few times, some managed to hit or kick me, but I didn’t back down.
They were fighting for money, but I was fighting for my friends. That made me way more dangerous than them.
But then it went wrong. One of the PSF got a yellow device from their car. I recognized it from when the man in the store chased us. But the sound coming out of it was like nothing I had ever heard before, and I was glad that I hadn’t. I immediately realized why Raiden had been so anxious when he had seen it on the man in the store.
The loud sound seemed like it was penetrating my head and was directly attacking my brain. My vision became blurry and I immediately lost all focus on the situation while a loud scream of agony came out of my throat. The weird thing was that none of the PSFs seemed to be affected by it. And only when I realized that, I remembered that I had to fight it. So while trying to ignore the horrible sound, I pushed back a woman that was trying to run in the direction where Raiden and Blaze disappeared.
As if it wasn’t enough before, the sound became even louder. I shuddered from the pain that seemed like it was melting my brain, determined to fight the urge to give up. I wanted to crawl to the ground and cover my ears, but I couldn’t. Not when Blaze and Raiden weren’t safe yet. Trying to yank the device from the PSFs hands, I knew it was hopeless because the sound penetrating my brain kept me from focussing on that force that only I could control.
Two PSFs approached me, but I lifted the gun that Raiden gave me and pointed it at them. They immediately stumbled back. It was a small victory, but I would soon lose. That was fine, but I needed to make sure that Raiden and Blaze were far enough removed from us.
Only a few more moments and they would definitely be safe. Good, because I wasn’t gonna hold it much longer. The pain was unbearable and I finally gave in to the urge to put my hands against my ears. When one of them tried to pass me to get to Raiden and Blaze, however, I forced myself to lift my hand and push them back. It didn’t work. My talent wasn’t helping me anymore. Not when all I could think about was the pain and about keeping my friends safe. So instead, I pulled out my leg and made the PSF trip. Not enough, but at least it would give precious seconds. That was all I could give them.
But it was hopeless, and I knew it. I knew that I would eventually fall down from the pain and the PSF would take me somewhere. Where, I didn’t know yet. Maybe they wanted to kill me for making it so difficult for them. Otherwise, they would bring me to a camp. From Raiden’s attitude towards the camps, I didn’t know which one would be better.
But I knew that I needed to go to a camp. Not for me. For them. Because I knew that only then there was hope that the three of us would meet each other again. That would be the only hope that Raiden and Blaze would have.
The pain grew even more, something I didn’t know could be possible. I knew that that stupid road was the place where my freedom would get taken away. The place where I would last see my friends. My family. And I also knew that Blaze and Raiden would come back there. Not just for their backpacks, but for me. To confirm what they already suspected; that I wouldn’t be there anymore.
I knew what they would do. Blaze would be a little lost at first, and it had to sink in before she would be angry and sad all at once. Raiden would feel guilty and be furious. But he would be angry with himself, not with the people who were gonna take me. Because he would blame himself for leaving me behind and for listening to what I said.
But they would get over it. Blaze would straighten her shoulders and continue. She was strong, and she knows that that is what I would have wanted her to do. What I would have told her if I was there.
And Raiden knew that he had to at least fulfill his promise. He had to take care of Blaze and watch out for her. He would teach her how to climb trees and he would help her control her fire.
They would both be alright.
And in the meantime, I would keep my head up. If I was going to a camp, I wasn’t going without a fight. And if they would kill me… then so be it. I would look them in the eyes while they would do it because I would know that Blaze and Raiden were at least safe. And that was all I needed.
Yes, that was all I needed. For the only people that I cared for to be safe. The only people that I still loved, though I didn’t say it. And I should have. I should have said it earlier. I should have said to Raiden that I loved him and that I liked having him around. That meeting him and letting him travel with us was the best decision of my life. But I didn’t.
And I should have said to Blaze that I loved her. I knew that she knew it. After all, we were sisters. But I should have said to her that I loved her as a friend too. Of course, she was the only family I had left and the only person that I ever considered family, but she was more than my little sister. She was my friend. We knew each other better than anyone and we were always there for each other. And I should have said that before we parted ways. But I didn't.
Was I ever gonna be able to say any of this to them?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know what the future would bring. All I could do was think all those things while falling on my knees.
And eventually, it became too much.
A scream escaped my lips.
The dark spots in my eyes grew.
Until I only saw the darkness.