Anthem of the Angels
Chapter One: The Final Fall
He presses pause. The world around him breaks down in an instant, a sticky mess of still image and the faint buzz of white noise in the background. Rewind. Replay. What does it matter? He's watching from the shadows, a silent onlooker enveloped deep within the darkness. It's a story, he thinks, of the sort that leaves little children screaming in their sleep and adults waking at midnight with a cold sweat stealing over their body.
His story isn't told in words. The action unfolds in a series of bitter screams and broken hearts, a never-ending circle lit by a pool of limelight. He watches until he can't watch anymore. It leaves his entire body aching for a relief which isn't going to come. Slowly but surely, it's taking him over, sending roots deep down to his darkest corners and spreading through his veins.
Finally he can't take it any longer. Pause. Pause. Something's wrong; it's not working. Pause! No. There's no escape this time. He's slipping out of control and the reins are starting to loosen. He's trapped inside the never-ending circle, and his face is lit up by the flashes of limelight. No pause. No end. It's relentless, and he's terrified.
Replay it in his mind's eye, over and over again. Replay until her cries echo through his head like razor-sharp knives, his name dancing on her lips in a frenzy of fear. Replay the sickening crack of bone as she hits the floor, because even an angel can't fly forever. Replay the sound of his heart, snapping into a thousand shards of glass; a swirling, sparkling blur, six years worth of emotion and loss and things that should never have happened, forced together in a red-hot blaze of screaming pain. His own personal anomaly, and it's killing him.
So he fights to break free, but the chains are too tight. He can no longer breathe, can't talk, can't move. The circle's drawn in power-white chalk by dust-speck pixies with dead, hollow eyes, and they've bound him to spend an eternity here. Only his enchantress can save him now, the green-eyed ghost who haunts his days, his dreams, his whole life with her beauty; the love in her eyes is the only antidote to the lamentations which confine him here.
"Evan," she calls out to him, made desperate by her fear. She's helpless, rendered vulnerable by the fragments of a single second. Somewhere within him, the first embers of a fire begin to stir. Stop. Calm. Focus. Breathe, in then out, in and out. Slow.
Stop. Calm. Focus.
The chains around him are loosening, shrivelling away into midnight ashes.
Stop. He can breathe again. He can move. With his rifle held aloft, the embers become candle-flames, tiny but steady and unwavering in their light.
Calm. Poised on the edge of a gaping abyss, he stands tall like a warrior, a cobra preparing to strike, and allows the fire to bathe him in its velvet warmth.
Focus. It's time to go.
Fast-forward again, and everything around him is thrown back into motion.
"Dylan!" he called uselessly, hearing his frantic cry ring out through the crisp evening air before he'd even realised he'd spoken. Although he knew it was pointless, he let his fingers brush longingly over the trigger of the rifle; the gun was empty and he carried no spare darts, but the feeling of the weapon in his hands was real and solid, enough to give him a small degree of comfort. It was an instinctive response to danger too, helping to quell some of the adrenaline raging through his body. He couldn't risk acting on impulse now. Not when there was so much he stood to lose.
A second killer could be waiting just moments away, and he wouldn't know it was there until it was too late. His memories of the last few minutes were spotty at best, like the fragile husks of a nightmare, but they were more than enough to send cold chills racing down his spine. Running, for a start. They had been running from something, and that in itself was a worry if his experience with the anomalies had taught him anything. Still, it was the memories he held of the predator itself that were clearest. It was a dinosaur, most likely a theropod, sleek and lithe with skin covered in mottled scales, greens and browns and gold. The perfect camouflage for a forest hunter.
They had tried weaving in and out of the trees, hoping that the damn thing would be put off by their zig-zag path or at least slowed down a little, going by Evan's reasoning that they would have a clearer shot at it if it wasn't moving so fast. Unfortunately, not only had his plan not worked, but if anything the creature had actually seemed to revel in the chase, neck snaking out towards them as a devilish glint appeared in its eyes. The bastard had actually been enjoying itself, whilst Dylan and Evan were fighting for their lives.
He could just about recall the sound of a rifle being fired and a reptilian yelp as the tranquilizer pierced its skin, a shot that came just seconds too late. The creature stumbled forwards in shock, smashing straight into Dylan with enough force to send her flying. Then there had been nothing but silence. Reacting purely on instinct, Evan had lifted his gun and sent dart after dart barreling towards the creature, a deadly rain of drugs being pumped into its bloodstream. He just hoped it would be enough to kill it, fuelled as he was by a searing desire for revenge which the geek in him liked to call his 'dark side'.
If Dylan started ranting at him for killing the dinosaur, well, he'd just plead innocence and blame the dark side. Whether or not she'd go along with it was another matter entirely.
Dylan. Oh, God.
"Over here!"
It was her. Every other thought in his mind was instantly discarded, left for dead, including the recurring ache in his muscles as he sprinted over to where she lay on the ground. His rifle fell to the floor as he knelt beside her, a slight grimace crossing his face at the horrible damp feel of the leaf litter which was now happily soaking into his trousers.
"Dylan? Oh, shit, are you alright?" he asked, noticing how pale she looked and the tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes. Although she was trying to control it, her breathing was fast and erratic; there was definitely something wrong with her. Dylan was tough. He knew that from experience, and he also knew that any injuries she had would have to be pretty bad to leave her in this state.
His worst fears were confirmed when she shook her head. "My back hurts," she closed her eyes briefly, biting down hard on her lower lip. "A lot,"
A knot began to form in his stomach. He forced himself to focus on the situation at hand, forget the panic that was starting to get the better of him. "Okay. Are you hurt anywhere else? Cuts, bruises, anything like that?"
"Nothing serious, I don't think," she replied hesitantly, giving Evan a small, surprisingly soothing wave of relief. At least that meant there was no danger of blood loss or infection. It was only a tiny shred of hope, but he clung to it with all the strength he could muster.
Once Drake had told him that, no matter how dark life could seem to be, there was always a bright side to look for. In fact, he'd said that just weeks before he died, torn apart by the Utahraptor, and however hard he looked Evan couldn't see any bright side at all. When it finally arrived, it was in the form of a pretty Predator Control expert with a dedication to her job that almost put Evan's to shame.
Drake had always enjoyed matchmaking. He called it his hobby, his one escape from the horrors he saw on a daily basis in his job, and then proceeded to spend most of the spare time he had trying to set Evan up with all the suitable women he knew. And some of the men. Evan hadn't been sure whether to be grateful for the 'help' or offended that his best friend appeared to think he was gay, despite the fact that he had been married to Brooke for four years and she was most definitely a woman.
Then Drake had died and Dylan had taken his place. Maybe the universe was trying to tell him something.
No. Don't go there, Evan.
"Talk to me, Evan. I need to distract myself," Dylan broke into his thoughts, momentarily startling him into realizing he'd spent the past minute staring into space, lost in his memories of Drake. Clearing all thoughts of anomalies and death in general from his mind, he nodded.
"Okay. Umm, what kind of dinosaur is that?" flustered, he voiced the first question that came into his head, jerking his chin towards the creature slumped over the floor, so terrifyingly close to them. Still, it was very, very dead, he couldn't help noting with pride.
A slight smile spread across her lips as she followed his gaze. "It's definitely some sort of Allosaurid, maybe a Dwarf Allosaur. It lived in Australia during the Early Cretaceous, although back then it would have been more like Antarctica there. Australia was closer to the poles than the equator; it would have been frozen for most of the year,"
Evan shook his head, amused despite the circumstance. "Trust you,"
My little dinosaur encyclopaedia.
"I am not an encyclopaedia!" she protested instantly, and he chuckled outright. Apparently he'd spoken out loud without actually meaning to. Oops. At least it made her laugh, not to mention helping her to forget about some of the pain in her back.
"I meant it in a good way, I swear!"
"It's actually pretty interesting! Scientists have only identified a single ankle bone - some aren't sure if it ever even existed. I guess we just proved them wrong, though,"
"See what I mean? You're an encyclopaedia of this stuff!" one corner of his mouth quirked up, but the sudden rush of warmth faded as quickly as it had arrived when Evan caught a sudden glimpse of movement in the trees to his left. His whole body tense, he got to his feet, gaze piercing into every bush and through each mocking shadow. Nothing. From what he could tell it was a false alarm, but it was enough to remind him there was still danger here.
"We need to get moving. Can you walk?"
"I don't know," she paused, fear beginning to grow in her eyes as she looked back up at him, a fear that was fast taking root in him, too, when she didn't say anything after a few torturous seconds.
His heart plunged to the floor, instantly fearing the worst. "Dylan? What's wrong?"
A single tear fell down her cheek. Evan moved to wipe it away gently with his thumb. "Dylan? C'mon, say something. You're scaring me!"
"I can't move my legs. I can't feel anything!"
Oh, shit.
"Evan?"
He'd done it again, talking out loud, telling the world his thoughts without noticing. "Sorry. I'm just..."
Then he looked down at her face, saw all the fear and hurt and slowly gathering trepidation that blazed there, and felt his gut wrench. She was making no attempt to hide it, either. If he was scared right now, Dylan would be feeling ten times worse and in desperate need of reassurance. His turn had come to be the strong one. "It'll be alright. I promise,"
Think, damn it!
"Okay, I can't exactly call in an ambulance with a half-tonne dinosaur sprawled twenty feet away from us. I'll have to try Project Magnet,"
Dylan flinched visibly. Ken Leeds wasn't exactly his favourite person right now, but seeing the results of his 'experiments' had affected her badly, and the hatred she felt for him ran much deeper than Evan's. "We don't have a choice, Dyl. There's no way I'm leaving you here,"
"No, it's okay. Do what you have to do," she smiled weakly, but he could tell she was still upset about it and it hurt him, seeing her this way. Before he could stop to reconsider and let the nerves take hold of him, he brushed a few tousled strands of hair away from her face and leaned in to kiss her forehead gently, murmuring "I'm sorry," as he reluctantly pulled away.
Not really sure what had brought on the sudden display of emotion, he walked a little way towards a small clearing in the trees, painfully aware of her eyes following him. He hoped fervently that he'd done the right thing, and not just completely mucked up everything they'd had between them.
Hard as it was, he forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand, unlocking his cell phone and bringing up a list of contacts. Dialling Ange's number was more instinct than anything else, and so he pressed 'call' without really thinking about it. His original plan had been to phone Leeds instead, not quite ready to deal with the emotional fallout of talking to Ange again, but now that Ange was working with Project Magnet he just prayed that she'd be willing to help them out.
"Evan? I hope this is you calling to tell me you've finally seen sense and you're going to co-operate this time, because otherwise you can forget it," her voice was colder than he'd ever heard it before, harsh and unwelcoming. Taking a deep breath, he gripped the phone harder and tried his best to forget about the argument, Project Magnet, everything that had conspired to give him the worst headache known to humanity.
Everything except Dylan.
"No, I...I really need your help. There's been an accident, and I can't really call in an ambulance to deal with it. Please, Ange, if you have any decency left at all, then...just please help me. I can't deal with this on my own,"
"Are you hurt? What's the problem?" the obvious concern made a refreshing change from the hardness of her first greeting, and it was exactly what he needed right now. Reassurance that there was still someone out there who cared, someone who could take control of the situation and pull him back together,"
He fought the tears beginning to cluster in the corner of his eyes and returned his mind to the conversation. "No, it's not me. It's Dylan,"
"How bad?"
"She says her back hurts, and she's lost all the feeling in her legs," as he spoke, he could almost feel the blood racing around his body, heart hammering at his chest like it was trying to crush his ribs to dust. Every second that passed made it harder for him to remain composed, professional, like he knew he had to be. This was Dylan, for God's sake, not some faceless stranger who'd just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was his fault that she was even here in the first place.
Some vague part of his mind was telling him that he should probably just be grateful she was still alive. A fall like that could have killed her. As it was, he was certain that her injuries were much worse than she was letting on. If her spine was actually broken...well, he didn't even want to consider the possibilities.
"Evan?"
"Huh?" apparently, he'd been so caught up in his own maudlin thoughts he hadn't been paying attention to Ange. Still, it wasn't like it was the first time that had happened.
"I said, I can help you," Ange sighed, and he could tell that she was hesitant about what she was going to say next. "I can help you, if you want, but I need you to help me,"
Great. An ultimatum. If he was going to help Dylan, he'd be forced to help Project Magnet. If, on the other hand, he refused, then Dylan...
...No. Don't think like that. She'll be alright.
"Come on, Ange. You know I don't like blackmail," he resorted to pleading, wildly out of his depth and faced with an impossible choice, a decision he couldn't make.
The safety of the space-time continuum, or Dylan.
"Evan, listen to me. Dylan's been hurt, pretty badly from what you've said. She needs you now. I can promise you that there will be no going through the anomalies, no kidnapping dinosaurs, nothing unorthodox. You can stay with Dylan, and we'll neutralise the threat. No funny business. I promise,"
He took a deep breath, the word 'no' building in his throat. Every instinct he possessed was screaming out at him to let it fall.
Well, almost every instinct.
Dylan, her hand shaking, face tormented as she prepared herself to fire the shot that would end Leggy's life.
Kneeling beside the dead soldier, mourning for a man she never knew.
The lone tear, sparkling on her cheek as she realised she couldn't move; the rawness of the fear and desperation in her eyes. His own heart, constricting in his chest, forced to accept that there was nothing he could do to make this right.
He was going against all his morals as a scientist, everything he'd ever believed in before, but he knew had to trust Project Magnet, if not for himself then for Dylan. It was a battle of heart versus head. His head told him to say no. His heart said yes.
The safety of the space-time continuum...or the woman he now knew he loved?
The impossible question; not so impossible after all.
"Fine," he growled, glaring at the phone in his hand, "But you'd better mean it,"
"The ETA is ten minutes. We're downloading your co-ordinates now," Ange replied briskly, before hanging up on him without warning. He now had nothing but the silence to keep him company, although it was preferable to her new-found sharpness, a hard-hearted, eagle-eyed persona that he'd seen in action too many times to count, whilst never directed at him.
"What did she say?" he heard Dylan call weakly from where she lay, just metres away from him. In that instant, he physically felt his mind begin to clear.
Screw Ange. Screw Project Magnet. Screw everything but him and Dylan and possibly the Polar Allosaur, the heartless killer who Evan would, at that moment in time, quite happily disembowel and drape around the treetops for Leeds' soldiers to find when they got there - a moment of perfectly justified (in his mind, at least) revenge.
Dylan was all that really mattered now. The consequences of what he'd just done would have to wait until later.
So, this is the first part of a multi-chapter story I've been working on for a while now, and I'm very excited to share it with you guys! Updates should be *fairly* regular - theoretically, anyway - but July's going to be a pretty hectic month for me, so no guarantees on that front. The title for this comes from the song Anthem of the Angels by Breaking Benjamin.
"There is nothing left of you
I can see it in your eyes
Sing the anthem of the angels
And say the last goodbye
I keep holding onto you
But I can't bring you back to life
Sing the anthem of the angels
Then say the last goodbye,"
As a side note, to everyone who's read and reviewed my first story, Harbinger of Fools, well, first of all thank you so much! Your support is really appreciated! But I also think I owe you an apology; I've hit a real mental block with the second chapter. I haven't forgotten about it, and I swear I will update eventually!