A/N: I fell in love with The 5th Wave series from the minute I opened the first book. Everything past this line contains major spoilers for Last Star, read at your own risk.
My favorite character is, without doubt, Evan Walker. If he had died, it would have made some sense. But no, it had to be Cassie.
What if things hadn't gone that way, though? What if instead, Ben and Marika had stayed to take care of the children, while Evan and Cassie went on a mission to restore humanity?
Their mission is the 6th Wave. Mistrust lies at the bottom of everyone's motivation. But bands of six will not be able to recreate the earth.
Evan Walker
They had erased his memories. Then, they had cloned him. The only reason Evan Walker knew any of this was because he still had a conscience.
Something was nagging at him. The memory-less boy who didn't even know his own name was trying to find the one piece he could hold on to: love.
Vosch was still there. The boy knew his time was up; he knew that this man would kill him. After all, he had the clone.
Suddenly, there was a crash, and then a loud beeping. A voice blared over a loudspeaker:
"GENERAL ORDER FOUR IS NOW IN EFFECT. YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO REPORT TO YOUR DESIGNATED SECURE AREA."
The technician made to grab the boy, but Vosch held him back. "No, Marvin. We have what we need. Let the pestilent rain take care of him."
The technician nodded, practically tripping over himself to get away.
Pestilent rain? That must mean there was a pestilence at some point. People had died. A little girl who lived in a farmhouse. Evan's sister. An older girl who loved strawberry ice cream. Evan's girlfriend. Who's Evan? I'm Evan.
He knew his name now, but he didn't know who he was. Obviously, Vosch was a bad man; why else would he make it rain disease? So if Vosch was the bad guy, Evan must be here because he is the good guy. Had Vosch taken his memories?
"GENERAL ORDER FOUR IS NOW IN EFFECT. YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO REPORT TO YOUR DESIGNATED SECURE AREA."
Evan leaned back and tried to remember more, but he still had no idea why he was there.
Thirty minutes pass. Vosch doesn't come back, but Evan knows he's probably dying from the pestilence anyway.
His sister's name was Valerie. She was the last person he talked to before….before what? There was something he had to figure out.
An hour. His girlfriend's name had been Lauren, but something tells him that she was not the reason he was here. She died even before Valerie.
There was a crash, and Evan blinked. There seemed to be a battle going on outside, and somehow, he knew that that was the reason he was here.
It took all the strength he could muster to stand, but he did. He pushed the door and ran out into the hall.
He didn't have all the facts. He had all the truths. He didn't know who the enemy was. The enemy was everyone. The enemy was Vosch. Vosch's plan had been for him to die. Vosch had meant for him to live. He was Evan Walker. The body now in front of him was Walker. No, that was for sure. He was Walker, and the body was the clone.
At least it was dead.
"No!" A girl screamed from somewhere. Somewhere nearby. Was she an enemy? Was she the girl he loved? Was she an ally to her, or to him?
Evan knew it would probably backfire, but he located her. She was three rooms down.
When he got there, the girl was frantically searching her pockets for something. Evan realized with a jolt that he knew her. She was a friend. She was the enemy. She thought he was dead. She believed he was alive.
He didn't care. He searched for a name. Ranger. No, that wasn't right. Winger. Nope, still wrong. It was hopeless; there was no way he could figure out her nom de guerre. And, he realized, that was exactly the problem.
Another name came to him, almost out of nowhere. He stared at her dark skin, her dark hair pulled back into a braid. "Marika."
The girl turned around sharply. She faced him with disbelief. "Evan Walker?"
Ringer
"Marika." It was barely a whisper, in a clearly male voice. It would be impossible that it could be Ben; he wouldn't leave Megan and Nugget. Even if it were female, Cassie had gone to finish the fight. So there was only one other, highly implausible, explanation. But he hadn't known my real name.
All these thoughts took place in less than a second. I whipped around as best I could, my back being the way it was. "Evan Walker?"
"Where is she?"
She. Cassie. About to die, because of my stupidity. I looked Evan in the eye. Could I trust him? Could I trust anyone?
He looked only halfway there, like he barely knew who I was. And that's when I knew he was the real Evan Walker.
"They've wiped your memories." I didn't mean to say it, it just came out. "How did you find me?"
"They couldn't take my conscience. I worked from there. Where is she?"
I couldn't tell him. I had to tell him. "She-Cassie-is in trouble."
"Cassie." He rolled the word around in his brain.
"Why are you sitting here, Marika?" His face turned from confused to angry in an instant.
"Evan, I broke my back! I need to wait for the 12th system to repair it. Cassie has one of those bombs. It was supposed to be mine. And my name is Ringer! I don't know how you knew my given name, but you can forget it, like everything else!"
Evan only seemed to register the first half of what I said. "Bombs?"
I realized that Evan had no idea what I was talking about. Of course not. He had forgotten Cassie.
"Evan, look me in the eye. I'm going to fill you in briefly on your life, at least as I understand it. Cassie can fix the rest." Or at least, she has the rest. I hoped she could give them back. If she survived.
"You are like Vosch, Evan Walker," I went on. "Or, you were. A part of you was human, and a part of you was Other. But unlike Vosch and everyone like him, you favored the human side. When you met Cassie Sullivan, you were in love. You helped her fight Vosch. We didn't think you'd make it out alive from Camp Haven, Vosch's first base. He trained children to kill humans, brainwashing them into believing we were the aliens.
"You did catch up with us, though. You met us at the hotel, and shortly after that-I wasn't there, but this is where the bombs come in-a little girl showed up. Her name was Megan, and Sammy-that's Cassie's brother, by the way-recognized her from earlier. She told you guys her throat hurt, but you didn't trust her. You figured out that they were implanting bombs into children's throats. You, Cassie, and Ben-he's my boyfriend-were able to extract the bomb without killing the girl. So she's part of our team now. And so are you.
"Cassie has one of those bombs with her. It was supposed to be mine, but I gave her my jacket because I could fight the pestilence. I've been enhanced by the 12th system."
Evan had been nodding along. "So, what should I do?" he finally said.
"You?"
"Better than you. I can walk."
I considered him. "Carry me."
"What?"
"You are nothing without your memories, Evan Walker. You might have your mobility, but I have those. I don't like it either, but we have to trust each other. We have to work together."
Evan nodded solemnly.
Cassie
Somebody thought it was a smart idea to put a freaking boulder on my chest. There's no other way to describe it.
After forever, the feeling of being compressed stops. Well, I don't mean forever forever. Forever is a term we just throw around as if we can comprehend it. But we can't. Nobody can, even the Others. Really, it was about ten minutes.
I stare at the ground. Seventy percent blue, mostly brown, with a little bit of green. Hello, Earth. This is how God made you, so he could look at you every day.
Beautiful is another word we throw around too often, applying it from everything from cars to makeup. But there's no other word for it. The world is beautiful. I hope they never forget that.
Never forget, Sams. Love is forever. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be love. The world is beautiful. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be the world.
To Sam, I am a whole different Cassie. Not Marika's Cassie or Ben's Cassie or Megan's Cassie or Evan's Cassie or even Cassie's Cassie. Just Sam's Cassie.
I close my eyes as if to say goodbye to the beautiful earth. I see her then. Evan's Cassie.
I'm not the person I expected to find. At first, there's the why can't I just kill her already, the Silencer part of Evan. Then, he lets his truth unfold. His Cassie sears the darkness with the brightness of a billion suns. He's as baffled by this as I am, as humanity is, as the Others are. He can't say why. There's no reason, no neat explanation. It's impossible to understand and impossibly irrelevant, like asking why anything exists in the first place.
He had the answer, all right. It just wasn't the answer I was looking for. I wish there was a chance for me to apologize.
I feel the weight of all the memories upon me. My mind will never again be just my mind; nor my memories solely my memories.
The mothership glides above me. My name is Cassie. Not Cassie for Cassandra or Cassie for Cassidy. Not even Cassie for Cassiopeia. Not anymore. I am more than her now.
I had known this was coming. Even Ben Parish told me we all die eventually. And I had already seen Marika's gift. Maybe she didn't know it was a gift. But the pill bomb was there, and this camp couldn't stay. I put the pill to my lips.
Breathe. It was as simple as that. Breathe.
Evan Walker
"Now!" Marika shouted. They'd only been watching the pod for a few seconds, not more than a minute.
Evan jumped, forgetting Marika was on his back; forgetting everything but Cassiopeia Sullivan.
"Idiot!" Marika screamed as she plummeted toward the pod with him. "You were supposed to leave me behind, Evan Walker!"
The 12th system would save her. He had to get to Cassie.
He punched the pod and scooped her into his arms, mid-jump. The next thing he knew, they were all on the ground, screaming and hoping the end would come quickly.
Zombie
"Over there," Sam pointed as the whole camp shook. That kid was a squad all by himself.
I saw three bodies flailing to hold on to each other. I could distinctly make out a braid on one of them. If Ringer was there, then one of the other people had to be Cassie. I had no clue who the third one was.
"Come on," I demanded. Megan moaned a bit, and I swung her onto my back without a second thought. Sam was already way ahead of me.
"I'm coming, Cassie!" He yelled. Of all of us, he knew what he was doing the most.
I grabbed his arm as I reached him, and we dove. We had much less distance compared to the three others across from us. That was a good thing, because we would need to be in our best shape; Cassie and Ringer and their companion definitely weren't going to be.
Sam was up and running as soon as he hit land. I was a little slower, and I had Megan to contend with. "Are you hanging on, Megs?"
"Tight as I can," the little girl whispered.
"Then let's go."
A/N: I should probably change my name from Hufflepufferfish since I'm branching out from just Harry Potter and Percy Jackson now. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
I only know the beginning of my story, but if there's any Fifth Wave lovers out there, I'd love to hear ideas. Please review. Hope you liked my first chapter!
~Hufflepufferfish (for now)