Isabel stood with her back flush against the wall of a building, her breathing slow and steady in her emotional numbness. She didn't feel tired after being awake for so long, with the adrenaline flowing through her system, and she wasn't sad or angry; she felt nothing. Slowly, she leaned to turkey peek around the corner to see another colonist startle in surprise as he saw her. He remained silent, though; smart man. As Isabel eased around the corner, she showed him the sniper she had picked up and tossed it to him as he nodded that he could use it. She couldn't use it effectively, yet; someday that was going to change she resolved in her mind. She gave the man a tacit nod of acknowledgement by raising her chin slightly. Quietly, she then moved towards the edge of town. She still had the pistol she had picked up, tucked safely in her belt at the small of her back. Out of her way if she needed to move fast, but easily accessible.

As Isabel moved through the large town, she could still hear screams, though they seemed fewer. More gunfire, some explosions, and she could smell the smoke from fires in areas hit by grenades or worse. Occasionally, the bursts would create an eerie flare from between the buildings in the dark of the night. It looked surreal. At least with the noise the attackers made, it was easy to avoid them, and after about an hour of careful maneuvering, she came to the edge of town. She looked at the open area that she would have to pass through in order to get to the cover of the trees nearby. The full moon also shone brightly, and it was going to be her biggest problem by far getting out of the city. If she waited a moment, the cloud cover would be over the moon, and she should be mostly hidden as she sprinted for the trees. Looking around she found a dark corner where she could still see the moon and crouched down to rest in the darkness, her knees pulled up to her chin, and her arms wrapped around them. She closed her eyes, but that only lasted a moment before she snapped them open wide. All she could see were Mike and Derek as she last saw them. Her jaw clenched tighter as she clamped down on the first emotion she felt since walking away from Derek's body. Pain would get her nowhere right now. Anger, however, might. It would sharpen her focus, allow her to do what needed to be done, in theory anyway. This was not the kind of thing she had any experience with. She unclasped her hands and raised a hand to make a fist in front of her face. "You were right, Derek. It did change," she whispered softly to herself.

As soon as the moon disappeared behind the clouds, Isabel got to her feet and took a careful look around her. Seeing nothing in sight, she sprinted across the open area. Within moments, she heard yells and loud cracks of gunfire in the night. 'Damn, they are watching close,' she thought. She was already running as fast as she possibly could, but tried to push herself faster, as a burning sensation spread across her left bicep. While it seemed to take forever, she finally plunged into the trees, dodging through the sparse tall plants as quickly as possible, knowing pursuit might not be far behind. She did glance at her arm, but since it seemed to be a scratch, she kept going. It would be 20 miles to the farm, so after what she considered a substantial head start, she slowed her pace and settled into long, steady strides while trying to keep her breathing as even as possible. She knew she would need to conserve some energy. It was a long way to run, so after a few miles of jogging she would slow to a steady walk.

The sky was lightening as the sun started to peek over the horizon and she gazed out of the trees at her home. There was a mile wide stretch of open area that stood between them. Her eyes closed momentarily as she inhaled deeply of the slightly damp, musty, metallic, sweet smell of recently tilled earth. It smelled of home and she felt herself relax a little. The air still held its early morning chill as she felt a breeze caress her sweat dampened skin, sending a shiver through her as goose pimples formed. After some time mulling through the advantages and disadvantages of waiting, she finally decided that there was no way she was waiting until night fall. Isabel stood at the last tree between her and the open field and listened. The leaves above her whispered in the breeze, insects chirped, and small animals rustled through the underbrush within the tree line. There was no gunfire, explosions, or screams, only an eerie silence when the sound of a heavy combine tractor scattering the seeds along the tilled channels of earth should have filled the morning air. Her chest tightened painfully as a deep foreboding overcame her. Ducking as low to the ground as she comfortably could, while still moving at a decent clip, Isabel made her way towards the farm house. Occasionally, she stumbled on the rows of dirt across her path, but she quickly used her hands to balance herself again.

When she got to the yard, she could see the front door was ajar, the body of a Batarian lying right in front of it. She stayed low as she moved to the body and checked for a pulse. None, that was good. Mentally she cringed at her callousness, but it meant her parents had defended. There was a chance, no matter how slight, that they might still be alive. No sounds came from within, which was not necessarily a good sign, so she slowly pushed the door open and entered. The place was a complete mess. Things were torn apart; nothing was hanging straight on the walls, if it had even managed to remain there.

"This is not so good," she murmured to herself as dread set in.

There was only one place her parents might have hidden. She moved through the house, over and around broken furniture and keepsakes, and out of the back to the cellar doors. They were open, so she slowly made her way down the stairwell. Bodies were strewn everywhere. Eight Batarians lay dead, in a massive pool of blood. Her parents lay next to the wall, both still holding shotguns, staring blankly in her direction. The thing that captivated her attention most was their hands. They gripped their rifles with one and each other's hand with the other. She didn't know how long she stood there and stared before she finally startled back to reality. There was a lump in her throat she couldn't quite swallow as she finally moved to them, crouched and gently closed their eyes. She would have sworn that they were sleeping but for their pallor. She kissed their foreheads, removed the shotguns from their hands, and set them aside. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hold back the tears and sobbed as she lifted her mother's inert form to her chest and hugged her tightly.

"I'm so sorry, mum, I should have been here, maybe if I had been … maybe if I had come home sooner …" It was some time later when Isabel carefully picked up her mother's slight form and carried it upstairs. It was difficult, with tears blurring her vision, but eventually she set her mother's body down gently in the only somewhat clear space there was on the living room floor. Isabel went back for her father who was a large, burly man. Getting him upstairs was going to be a challenge. Crouching down, she pulled him up over her shoulders, in a fireman's lift. With a deep groan, she strained to get back to her feet under his weight. After a lot of struggle, her father's body was laid next to her mother's. She sat down next to him and just clasped his hand tightly in hers.

"I miss you two so much already. Amazing, isn't it?" Her voice was no louder than a choked whisper. "You could spend a week in the same house with someone without saying a word and think nothing of it. Yet, knowing you can never talk to someone again, or hear their voice makes the emptiness so complete that you can't help feel the hollow space it leaves. Silence is nothing but wasted time. Shit, dad, couldn't you just wake me up and tell me this is all a bad dream?"

Hollow, that was exactly what she felt. As if everything inside had shattered and left only a deep, dark, void of emptiness. It may have been less than a day since she had seen them both, but it already felt like an eternity. When her tears were finally exhausted, she set his hand back down on his chest. Too much time had already been spent here, under the circumstances, but she still needed to gather a few things.

Clothes, she would obviously need clothes, so she headed upstairs to her room. When she entered, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in her mirror. A ghost stared back at her. The wide, haunted green saucers that were swollen and rimmed in red, held depths of pain behind them as they stared back at a face as pale as her parents had last been. There was a large patch of blood across the chest of her tank top, some across her shoulders and even in her hair. More had run down her left arm. There was also a smear of blood across the cheek. She slowly raised her hand to feel it with her fingertips. Dry. Then she remembered Derek had set his hand on her cheek. As she stood there frozen for many long moments, the images of those she lost ran through her mind and she gasped at the pain they brought on. She would have cried again, but there weren't any more tears, at least not yet. Either way, she had to get rid of the blood, all of it. She undid her braid, and violently ripped off clothing leaving it lie where she dropped it, as she raced for the shower.

Isabel turned on the hot water and hissed at the tingly, itchy feeling that the hot water created on her almost instantly pink skin as she stepped into the shower. Taking a generous amount of shampoo, she scrubbed at her hair and scalp until it hurt, then did the same with her body wash. It felt as if she were taking her skin off she rubbed so hard, yet she still didn't feel clean. Her left arm had started to burn anew from the heat and soap which made her reconsider how hurt it might actually be. As the water started to chill, she turned off the faucet, stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. She brushed her teeth quickly, rinsed the tooth brush, and then listened. The house was, thankfully, still silent. The score across her upper arm was a little bit more than a scratch and was red and puffy at the edges. It went deep enough that it probably needed stitches. Opening a small cabinet, she grabbed the last of the Omni-gel and some small butterfly bandages, which she used to hold the open edges of skin together as much as possible. A layer of the gel was added for protection, and she finally wrapped that with a gauze bandage using medical tape to hold it in place. It would have to do. There would probably be a scar though.

As she headed back to her room, she dropped her toothbrush and the toothpaste on the bed along with her shampoo and shower gel. Next, she pulled out a backpack from the floor of her closet and threw it onto her mussed bed. From within her chest of drawers, she pulled out several changes of clothes as well as under garments and tossed them next to the pack before pulling on darker clothing that would help camouflage her. With her hair still twisted up in the towel, she went downstairs to grab a plastic trash bag and two other smaller plastic bags. Isabel needed to keep her clean changes dry and protected, so she quickly stuffed the clothes and other supplies into the bags, and shoved them into the pack. Who knew how long she might have to last on her own out there. Even the simplest of supplies couldn't hurt.

Isabel sat on her bed, trying to think through what else she might need, as she glanced at her nightstand and stared at the picture there. She had just graduated in her wushu class to a black sash when it was taken. Mike had taken the picture; her parents stood on either side of her and Derek stood next to her petite mother. She grabbed the Omni tool that lay beside it, and it was only moments before she had it equipped, and the picture from the nightstand uploaded. She remembered when her father had first laughed at her wanting an omni-tool, saying it would be a waste. But as her tech studies advanced, he had finally broken down. She was glad of it now. Pictures and videos of her friends and family, music from the mid twentieth and early twenty first centuries that her father had gotten her attached to, and so many more memories were held within it. After all her other losses, she wasn't sure if she could handle one more. The memories it contained were now priceless.

Finally, she mussed her hair around with the towel to pull the worst of the dampness out and grabbed her brush to run through it before dropping it also into her pack. She stared at the pistol that lay on her bed, nibbling on her bottom lip before she picked it up and slid it into the back of her belt. Anything that could help she would use.

Isabel grabbed her pack and threw it over her shoulder before she headed downstairs to the kitchen, careful to avoid looking at her parents. She snatched a few bottles of water from the pantry, drinking one as she placed the others in the top of the pack. As more shots were fired in the distance, Isabel jumped. They were too close again, and she still had one thing to do. Taking a bowl from the counter, she quickly dumped some fresh fruit out of it into the backpack. There was no more time. Setting the pack down for the moment, Isabel ran back to the cellar to grab some generator fuel that had been stored there, along with her father's shotgun and every thermal clip she could find. She set her father's shotgun with her pack, stuffed some thermal clips into her belt and threw the rest into her pack before closing it up. Isabel snatched up the fuel container and started to dump it through the downstairs, then grabbed two boxes of matches and all the kitchen towels she could find. The towels were used as a form of tinder and as lit, were thrown onto the fuel. Once she was sure that it would stay lit, Isabel grabbed her pack, her father's shotgun, and ran.

When she found herself about where she had left the wooded area the first time, she went just a little further in and climbed a sturdy tree that would keep her concealed. She would wait for darkness before she headed back to town. If help came, she was sure that was where she would find it.

Authors note: Just wanted to give a much deserved thank you to Biff McLaughlin for her wonderful beta! Thanks for the alerts/fav and Thanks to Zevgirl for her input also!