The Belgium border was just a mile or so away. Derrick had said that we would rest once we got there, since we were traveling for an entire day now. The fact that we had fallen behind didn't seem to bother him too much. It was because of him that we were behind, or at least that was the way he thought it to be. Either way, he didn't seem to care when we got there now, but it didn't mean he still didn't want to get there as quickly as humanly possible.
Night was about to take over, just as we finally made it into Belgium. I could tell we all felt secretly accomplished from the sudden happy mood we all expressed as we talked to each other and ate our fill. I could especially tell that Naomi and Mac were the happiest out of the five of us. The Netherlands didn't seem to come to their liking and being able to explore a different place might have given them a bit of hope.
The setting sun in the distance seemed to warm all of our hearts, seeing it glide past the horizon and darken the world, giving the moon its turn to shine. Our eyes sparkled in the slight moonlight of the waning moon that gave off a distant glow.
"Well, this certainly all paid off." Derrick grinned softly.
"No kidding. Going through what we did, it's nice to have finally made it to Belgium." I replied, speaking in a low and relaxed voice.
"It's just one more country to go, and we'll be in France." Angeli whispered, closing her eyes as if to imagine it herself. Mac remained silent, while Naomi hummed softly to a strangely familiar tune.
"Naomi? What are you humming?" I finally recognized it. The song from my nightmare - the one I couldn't remember. She glanced up at me with a confused look.
"Humming? I wasn't humming." I felt my warmed heart become a frigid and cold block of ice.
"T-that wasn't you?" I stuttered, clambering up to stand on my feet.
"Mathias, something's wrong about you. You've been acting like this for days! What is going on?" Angeli stood up and faced me, a demanding look on her face. It looked like she had finally had it with my panicked mood at strange things.
"I'll explain later." I mumbled, trying to walk away, but she grabbed my wrist before I could turn.
"No." She shook her head sadly. "If you keep this inside, forgive me for saying this, but you'll end up just like your brother. And honestly, I don't see you as a murderer." Her voice became silent at the last sentence. "It's just not you."
We stared at each other for several seconds before she finally just let go of my wrist and sat back down quietly, continuing to stare at the sky. No one said anything and I felt a surge of guilt rush through me. I was not only unable to recognize my strange connection with The Bomber, but I wasn't able to talk about it to anyone either. All the while, it was starting to make them worry. Even if Derrick never expressed his worries, I knew he at least must have felt something towards by jumpy and paranoid change of character.
I gave out a soft moan, causing them to stare up at me. I only slumped down to the ground, my face buried in my hands. Then, my hands moved up towards my hair, disappearing into the mess of the light brown strands. I stayed like that for a while, before hearing the humming again.
"Alright, that's it!" I screamed angrily, abruptly standing up again. "Who the hell are you?" I asked the wind, a deep rage surging within me. It was such a rage, that I cursed without even realizing it. I couldn't see the other four's faces, but they were probably scared out of their minds, because I was just yelling at absolutely nothing. Or so, it seemed.
To our surprise, the hooded figure I had seen twice before this time walked out from the shadowed bushes and trees, stepping into the moonlight.
"How sad." She shook her head softly. "You really don't remember me, Mathias?" Immediately, they stood up and formed a line beside me, the five of us staring at her with a mixture of anger, confusion, and disbelief.
"If you think I did, would I be asking you who you are?" I let that question sink in before subconsciously grabbing one of the throwing knives Angeli had in her holster and rushed towards the figure. I didn't strike at her, but stood facing her directly, still unable to see her face.
"You're as reckless as ever." She said quietly, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Who. Are. You?" I asked one more time, planning to stab her if she wouldn't answer this time. Good thing it didn't have to come to that.
Instead of answering, she uncrossed her arms, lifted the hood that covered her face, and flipped it back to reveal someone I still couldn't recognize. "Does that answer your question?" Her arms went back to her chest, crossing them once again.
I shook my head. "No, not really." She gave me a small smile before grabbing the knife from my hand and walking over to Angeli, handing it to her.
"You won't be needing this." She assured and Angeli warily took it, replacing it where it once was.
Meanwhile, I was searching through the files in my memory, trying to recognize her. Deep honey-colored eyes and long, curly, blonde hair... Where had I seen that before?
She turned back towards me, seeing the completely focused look on my face. "Don't try too hard, you might break something." I gave her a questioning look, which she returned with a slight shake of her head. "You really haven't changed one bit."
"Ok, I seriously don't remember you, I'm sorry. Could you tell me who you are?" Her smile didn't falter at all.
"I know you don't remember me. You couldn't, even if you tried, but I'm not telling you. You'll have to figure it out on your own." I sighed.
"Hand over the knife." I stretched out my hand, waving it over.
She rolled her eyes slightly before sighing. "I get the feeling you won't be able to remember anyway." She glanced at the four who still stood, shocked, then back at me. "Fine. I'll tell you, but I can't assure you that you'll remember me."
"That's fine." I said, crossing my arms and staring at her through narrowed eyes.
She seemed to hesitate for a moment before speaking. "I'm Samantha, Sam for short, or Sammy, as you used to call me." I stared at her for a while, trying to search back in my mind for any Samantha I could have possibly met and then, just like that, it instantly clicked.
~@~
"You have to be faster than that, Mathias! Come on!" My aunt pulled at the collar of my shirt, tugging me along with her. "We'll miss the boat!" She yelled, running alongside millions and millions of people. She was the only family I had left and I really couldn't scold her for treating me like a dog.
"Hold on, hold on!" I took her arm lightly and pulled it away from my shirt.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm just panicking. This was on so much of a short notice." She panted heavily as we ran down multiple streets, heading towards the docks in Baltimore, Maryland.
"Don't worry about it. I'm scared too..." I said quietly. She looked over at me and seemed to have settled down a bit. She wasn't the only one scared out of her mind.
Her black hair waved behind her while her amber eyes were widened in alarm. The boats were huge - military boats, to be more specific. They towered several feet above sea level, able to hold many, many, people, but they wouldn't hold the whole country, as we all knew. Only a few would make it out. The cold and straightforward truth? They were going to be left here to die.
"Let's go, pick up the pace!" A soldier yelled strongly, urging the citizens to pile onto the boats.
"Wait." My aunt looked at me with worried eyes at my remark.
"What is it?"
"Sam." I muttered. She instantly understood and nodded.
"Go, I'll be waiting right here, but don't take too long." I smiled and hugged her.
"Thanks." I whispered against her hair and ran away quickly, heading into the large crowd as I searched for one person out of the thousands of them.
Centuries seemed to fly by as I madly ran through the many people, turning my head wildly in different directions. I knew what boat she was going to board. She told me her parents decided on the one that would be heading to Asia instead of Europe. The boats were scratched out from their former names and were replaced with the different locations they would be heading to. That way, everyone knew what to expect when they got there.
As if a miracle decided to show up at my front step, there she was. She was nervously glancing around while her parents were nowhere to be found.
"Sammy?" I asked timidly, approaching her from behind. At the sound of her name, she turned around and a large smile shined on her face.
"Mathias!" She quickly took four steps toward me and closed the space between us, taking me in a hug.
"Hey, are you ok?" She looked up at me with her pretty eyes, filled with a rare sadness.
"I'm ok, I guess. I just can't find my parents anywhere." I raised my eyebrows, in fear of thinking that she might have had to board the boat alone.
"They have to be looking for you, right? Not many people are going on this boat. You should have time before they depart." She nodded, then lay her head against my collarbone.
"I'm gonna miss you..." She whispered. I tightened my arms around her and rested my chin on top of her head.
"Not as much as I'm gonna miss you." We stayed like that for a while until I finally noticed how we both had broken into tears. Soft and silent tears. "I wish I could go with you." I mumbled softly and she nodded, causing my head to follow the motion. She giggled lightly at this, bringing a warm feeling to my swollen heart.
She pulled away from me slowly and stared at my eyes, where I could see my reflection in hers. "This isn't goodbye." She assured. I smiled softly and wiped away the tears welling in her eyes.
"I know." I kissed her forehead, feeling as if this was going to be the last time I was going to see her. "You have to promise me that you'll be careful."
"Always. You better do the same too. You're too reckless, anyway." I chuckled and watched as her smile faded away. "I love you."
I brought my hand to her cheek and rested my forehead against hers. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be..." I begged, but then gave in. A soft look casted over my eyes, a faded expression sealed within them. "I love you too."
I stood, seeing her disappear from my view and got lost in the wave of people. My feet felt heavy as I dragged myself towards the Europe boat and spotted my aunt rather quickly, from the bright yellow shirt she was wearing. We both clambered aboard, just as the hatches closed behind us. Screams of terror sounded as people banged at the doors, pleading to be let in and not left in the wasteland that had become of America. I noticed how their screams seemed to match my mood almost perfectly.
"Everything will be ok." I felt my aunt place her hand on my shoulder as I stared blankly at the large door.
"I hope so." A single tear slid down my cheek as I felt the boat begin to rumble to life. Somewhere deep inside me, I knew that the "I love you"s we uttered were our farewells to each other. At the same time, I had the hope that I would somehow find her again.
Somehow...
~@~
"S-Samantha?" I asked, finally recognizing who she was. How could I have forgotten? I didn't know, but right now, that didn't matter. "H-how...?"
"You do remember me?" Her eyes seemed to light up with happiness. Not only had I forgotten her, but she could never forget me. We stared at each other for a few moments, disbelief in each of our eyes.
"Ok... Are we missing something here, or...?" Derrick's voice pulled me back to my senses and I glanced at him before looking back at Samantha.
"You're not the only one missing something." I mumbled, rubbing the back of my neck. This was one heck of a situation. One I couldn't begin to try and figure out. "First things first. Guys," I turned to the four of them and motioned towards Sam. "She's an old friend of mine. I knew her before I came here, back when the Earth was still in tact. We got separated when we had to board different boats to different locations. We never saw each other again after that."
"Are you sure you two were... just... friends?" Mac seemed to know something that the other three didn't. Maybe it was because he knew how a guy would act around someone they were close to.
"We were... Something more than that, but..." I looked back at her, and the same expression was on her face. Loss. "Besides, it was so long ago..."
"Wait. Something still doesn't make sense." Angeli stated. "Is she the Bomber?"
"The what?" Sam raised her eyebrows, but then realization struck her. "Is that what you guys call me? How creative." She laughed lightly and nodded. "I am, but I wasn't intending to hurt you all, I guarantee it."
"Were you also the one who left that note?" Naomi joined the conversation, completely intrigued by Samantha.
"Yes, that was me. I was also the one making Mathias, here, go all insane." I rolled my eyes. She always was the confident and cocky sort of person.
"One last question," I crossed my arms and gave her a challenging glare. "Are you working with Trevor?"
She quickly answered. "Oh, yes, I am. Your brother's quite the interesting person..."
"Sam! You're working with a killer!" I yelled, flailing my arms as if it weren't the most obvious thing.
"You think I don't know that? I'm not working with him in the way you think I am." She sighed and brushed away the hair from her face. "Just so you know, he's not the killer you've been led to believe he is." Now, I was beyond confusion. It was like falling into a bowl of confusion, bathing in it, and drying off myself with it. Beyond. Confusion.
"We have company." Derrick whisper-screamed and pointed to his left, where a troop of Rich Guards were marching along. He beckoned for us to follow him into a more secluded place and I made sure Samantha came along. There were still some things we needed to talk about.
~*~
"Where do you want me to start?" The six of us sat around a fire and as I was beginning to question how she had ended up here, Angeli asked her the same thing I was thinking.
"The beginning. What happened after you got off the boat?" I answered, and as Samantha began to speak, we listened to her while she went through everything she could remember.
"Umm... The boat anchored in Asia, so I wasn't here in Europe from the start. What we didn't know was that Asia had gotten overthrown too. So when we got there, Asia was just as bad as America. The boat's captain ordered us to stay put until they could figure out what to do next, but many of us were too frightened to want to stay in one place, so we all started to go out and get away from Asia. We remembered that Europe was one of the locations where the other boat would be taking the others, so we knew that was where we needed to go.
"Little did we know that Europe had created their own civilization where not too many people were living the good life. While traveling, some people died on their way here. It was likewise with the people who stayed behind. They never did figure out what to do next and perished away, still pondering what their next move was gonna be.
"I ended up in the Poor country while others went off towards Russia, the Lankie country. It was there that I nearly starved to death before deciding to move locations. Too many Lankies had stolen from us and it had gotten out of control. When we were being ambushed one night, I decided enough was enough.
"Arriving in the Middle country, they weren't too pleased with having one more mouth to feed. So, the Moderate country was my other option. Luckily, they didn't choose me to be a Moderate master, so I didn't have to boss around people like they did. I just stuck around there for as long as I could before coming across Trevor.
"He wasn't exactly... like he used to be when I had met him. Instead of being that laid-back and care-free guy, he was almost as reckless as his brother. He had tried killing a whole camp of Moderates and to my surprise, he had achieved it. I had nearly gotten shot down by a guy in the distance, mistaking me for him, but he knew I wasn't just an innocent bystander. I was someone he once knew. I ended up being knocked out, but I had no idea who it could have been that did it.
"I woke up and immediately recognized Trevor sitting beside me. Shocked to see me still alive, he had somehow changed from the murderer I saw the night before, to a kind, warm-hearted friend. He said that I owed him for my life, but I still didn't want to actually be in his debt. So, we came to an agreement. If I helped him with whatever problems he had until they were resolved, the debt would be lifted. I had to agree, or this crazy lunatic would have done what any other would have. Killed me, right? No. Force me to agree.
"I became known as the second Trevor, taking in his place whenever he had something else to be doing. We stole ourselves a pair of tailcoats and posed as people against the Riches, pretending to be Riches ourselves. After a while, Trevor told me we would be heading to Sweden, in the Lankie country.
"Trevor and I were going about, searching for something he wouldn't tell me about, when we heard yells near a dried-out lake. A camp of Lankies, whom were the ones who stole from Poor and actually worked together, unlike other Lankies, were being attacked by another group. Trevor seemed especially obligated to fend off these Lankies and ordered me to go about and start wiping out as many as I could before getting discovered.
"After most of them were dead, I met up with Trevor again, only to find him frozen in place. It turned out that what we were looking for was his brother. It also turned out that Mathias was still alive, but had become one of those other Lankies. Trevor had defended his brother in any way he could, but it seemed that a Rich had spotted him and he was forced to leave Mathias unconscious in the middle of the clearing."
"Wait a second... so that man I saw wearing a tailcoat was...?" I interrupted her as I remembered that night when we were attacked by another camp of Dodgers.
~@~
"What the-" I spoke, but it hurt. My throat stung with every little sound that came out of it. I lifted my hand to touch it and ended up screaming in pain. My hand seemed to be covered in warm blood, stinging as it came in contact with my slightly cut throat. It was a small cut on my neck, which didn't seem to bleed too much, but my voice struggled to stay calm. Had someone tried to kill me?
Well, duh, Mathias!
My arms had cuts trailing down them and my legs were covered in more cuts and bruises. My clothes were torn and stained with my own velvet-colored liquid. My face stung along with the rest of my body, yet there was no blood scattered across it. If I didn't get myself treated quickly, I would end up getting my wounds infected. I really didn't need that.
A slender figure approached me. They seemed to be trying to get to me as quickly as possible. "Mathias? Lie back down. You'll be alright. Just lie there." A man? It was the voice of a man, one I didn't recognize. I couldn't see clearly. Only bits of color reached my vision. I could faintly make out a long, black tailcoat and black gloves. They wore the clothes that the Riches wore. Confused, I let blackness envelope me into unconsciousness, losing too much blood to stay awake.
~@~
"That was Trevor. He was the one in the tailcoat." I was lost now. He had... helped me?
"Ok... Continue." I shut myself up and let her keep explaining the bits of things that would soon uncover so much of our unanswered questions.