Something was wrong. The voices were so
silent. They weren't even trying to get into her head. Everything was just
silent. What had happened?
She remembered . . . reavers. Hundreds of reavers. She'd killed them
hadn't she? She couldn't remember. There had been noise. Unbearable noise.
All the voices wanting her attention at once and then there was nothing.
River was floating. She knew that if she floated any further she would die.
She knew it and welcomed it. The voices and the hurt could all end.
Suddenly she felt herself being dragged back. She struggled to keep floating,
but the heat was waking her up and the grey was turning a bland sandy yellow.
She knew that she wasn't on Miranda anymore, she would have felt it if she
had been. She woke up to find herself in the middle of a vast desert.
Scattered around her was the wreckage of some kind of transport. Looking at
the transport and the bodies around it, River shivered. Lots of bad feelings
are attached to that thing. They aren't all human.
River wasn't surprised by this she had always known that humans weren't
the only intelligent beings in the universe. They just thought too highly of
themselves to realize it. As River looked, she felt a faint whispering at the
edge of her mind.
River startled by the broken silence of her mind knew that the voice was
close to death but not willing to give up. River started to follow the voice,
desperately sure that she had to save it. As she stepped on twisted piece
metal, she realized that feet were bare. Wasn't she wearing shoes before? It
didn't matter, all that mattered was saving the voice. The only voice, there
should be more voices.
River walked past the transport toward a large pit where a body lay covered
in pieces of, what River could only guess, used to be armor. Even from a
distance River could tell that it was a human male. Drawing closer River saw
that it looked like he had been severely burned. Still the armor he wore had
saved him from the worst of whatever it had been or he most certainly would be
dead.
Then as suddenly as it had come, the voice abruptly stopped. Worried, River
dropped to her knees beside him and checked his pulse. It was faint but it was
there. Trying to remembering everything she had learned from Simon's voice,
decided that he was doing much better than was to be expected and was simply
unconscious.
Oh leaping monkey spit. What do I do now? The first thing to do is to get
into some shade.
It took a bit of effort on Rivers part but eventually she managed to get him
to the closest chunk of the transport. It stank to high heaven from the
combination of heat and dead bodies, though River suspected that it didn't
smell the great before it had blown up. Quickly checking his pockets, River
found some kind of handheld computer and various other gadgets that she
didn't know how to use which she put aside, not caring to experiment.
Finally after searching around River found a small compartment in the
transport that had escaped the explosion. Inside was a small collection of
medical supplies, and a bunch of tasteless looking bars that were probably
healthy,
"Probably will need those." River muttered.
But most surprising were the flasks filled with something liquid. After
pouring the water into the cap and drinking some, she made a face. It was
stale but better then nothing. Grabbing a flask and as many of the medical
supplies as she could carry, she hurried back to the man that she felt so
compelled to help.
After she had patched him up as best she could she found that she was
starting to get sick from the stink of the bodies. Must get rid the bodies as
soon as possible. There is a deep pit not far from here.
"Yes, that's what I'll do and I can find boots too." River stated
finishing her thoughts aloud. I'll get the ones in here out at least. It's
to hot to actually drag them to the pit anyway. That to be perfectly honest
with herself wasn't the only reason she didn't want to go near it. There
was lots of fear and death attached to it.
It took a long time to find shoes that fit River because most of the bodies
were male, but in the end River found a small green alien that was about her
size whose boots fit. By the time she had gotten the bodies in her chunk of
the vessel outside it was starting to cool and get dark, so she went back to
check on the man.
He seemed to be doing well, his pulse was stronger then it had been though
the voice had not returned which puzzled and troubled River exceedingly since
usually both the living and the dead voices came to her mind with their
troubles and passing thoughts.
Silently watching his scarred tan face, she asked "why can't I hearyou?" Then getting up she poured some water into his mouth and made sure he
swallowed. Having done this, she sat back down opening up of the bars she had
found.
They tasted every bit as yucky as she expected but after eating half of it
she no longer felt hungry and shortly after she felt her eyelids becoming
heavy and thought "just for a few minutes."
By the time she woke the sun was well up and was getting rather hot again.
"Oh, shoot" she said getting up quickly and going over to limp form Flashes . . . faces . . . laughter . . . Then River was back at the room where they had tried so hard to hold back the Then she saw him close his eyes while she felt herself pull the trigger.
opposite her. After checking his bandages she was pleased with how he was
healing up. After giving him water and drinking some herself she sat down to
finish the bar she had started last night. It was going to be a long day.
reavers. Looking around, River saw them all, Zoe, Wash, Jayne, the Captain,
Inara, Kaylee, Simon, and strangely enough herself. Then all of a sudden the
reavers were everywhere overrunning everyone until finally there was only
Simon left crouched over River's now dead body. Then for the first time
River felt herself move. She swiftly passed through the reavers toward Simon
and as she leveled her gun at him she saw his heartrendingly calm tear stained
face look up the barrel of the gun.
"Simon, No!" River woke up shivering despite the heat with tears rolling
down her face.
The nightmares had started the second night, details changed sometimes
different people were there, sometimes different people were last to die, but
one thing was always the same. It was always River who killed them.
River did everything she could not to think about it, but after a while there
wasn't much to do but think. River wasn't altogether sure how many days it
had been since after awhile everything seemed to blend together.