Dreams and Illusions
Part 02: Fight the Forest
"I can't… believe this." Lee plopped down on a log and put his face in his hands, gripping at the tangled mess of hair on top of his head. A gentle stream trickled past nearby, giving a calming air that he barely noticed. "I can't believe any of this."
"Megan's fine, Lee. She always has been before." Tony pointed out with a cheerfully optimistic smile. "She'll be fine now."
"Yes. Of course you're right, T." Marc assured him with a soft smile, though his words didn't even remotely echo what he was feeling. The sight of Megan's body flying out the windshield after it shattered from the air pressure was still playing in his mind again and again. There was just no way she could… but he couldn't tell Tony that. They didn't need him to freak out and do something rash. They had to find a way to get in contact with Jerry, since their MP Coms kept spitting static at them whenever they tried them.
It was then that he noticed one of Tony's arms was bleeding right through his glove. "Tony, you're bleeding!"
"Huh?" Tony looked down at his glove, seeing the deep gash in it. "Oh, I guess so…"
"Come on, you can't walk around like that." Marc dragged Tony over to the stream and pulled his glove off to use the water to wash the blood off of his arm. It was coming from a gash on his lower arm, though thankfully the bloodflow had slowed almost to a stop on its own."
Lee looked up, cradling his chin in both palms as he gazed at Tony. Lee closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath before flashing their youngest brother a confident smile. "Megan's the toughest girl we know, she'll be just fine."
"So stop bellyaching and let's find some civilization already." Tony turned back to Marc. "Are we sure we're going the right way?"
"According to my calculations from the angle of our descent and the time we spent sliding on the ground, the town we came to investigate should be due West from here." Marc replied with a firm nod as he slipped Tony's glove back into place. "Unfortunately, since we can't seem to link up with the WOOHP satellites right now, it's impossible for me to tell EXACTLY where we are."
"Guess we should get moving then." Lee stood from the log and brushed off the back of his slightly-torn WOOHP uniform. "I don't like the idea of sleeping out here tonight, let's try to get to this town before anything else goes wrong."
"Yeah, Megan's probably already waiting there for us anyway." Tony nodded and turned to head in the direction Marc indicated. Lee watched him walk for a few moments before turning to walk behind him, shoulder-to-shoulder with Marc.
"You okay, bro?" Marc asked in a quiet voice.
Lee looked over at him with an incredulous expression on his face. "If I wasn't so stupid and careless, we would have landed just fine."
"You can't blame yourself for this." Marc reminded him. "You couldn't control what happened."
"Yeah, yeah…" Lee looked away from him just after Marc caught sight of tears welling up on the corners of his eyes. "Come on… we can't let Tony get ahead of us. We need to stick together." He sped up, breaking away from the smarter sibling and rushing to keep up with the youngest of the Clark clan. Marc shook his head, but made sure to keep up with his two brothers as best he could. The very idea that they would never see Megan again… the possibility had never seemed so real before, and it looked like it was tearing Lee apart. This could be it, he thought to himself. This could change everything. It could be the end of WOOHP, of Megan…
The three brothers walked through the night with Tony leading the charge, the adrenaline from the crash driving them forward at a quick pace well after they would have normally passed out from exhaustion. As they walked, Marc pulled out his PDA and started rooting through the directories. Thankfully whatever was preventing them from accessing the WOOHP satellites and using their cell phones wasn't messing up their gadgets' internal functions.
"What are you doing, Marc?" Tony asked. "Is this really the time to be geeking out?"
"According to all of my journals, the chances of a bird-strike alone being able to actually take down a jet are slim, in fact small birds get drawn into jet engines all the time with little ill effect. Even passenger liners are designed to allow for that, let alone advanced WOOHP technology." Marc replied thoughtfully. "Plus didn't it seem odd that the jet didn't start going down until at least five seconds AFTER the strike?"
"So?" Lee sounded annoyed when he spoke.
"So I'm not entirely convinced that was the bird's doing." Marc finished.
"But I didn't see anything else go into the engine." Tony rubbed his head. "It can't just EXPLODE on its own for no reason."
"No, but we'll have to remember to have Jerry do an analysis on the wreckage after we establish the search party to find Megan." Marc spoke in a plain tone of voice, but Lee's expression seemed to brighten considerably.
"Yeah, we'll definitely do that after we get into contact with him." Emboldened somewhat by the idea of getting in contact with Jerry and getting a formal search going, Lee turned back the direction they'd been heading before. "The sooner we get to this town, the faster we can get back in touch. We shouldn't waste any more time."
"Agreed." Marc smiled slightly and turned to follow his older brother through the forest, with Tony bringing up the rear.
Progress was slow, and became slower as fatigue caught up with the three brothers. The evening light faded into darkness, then the night into early morning, the light above the high tree-line beginning to lighten into dull orange. Tony covered his mouth with a tremendous yawn, but his eyelids began to droop heavily over his eyes. Marc had to admit he was feeling it too. The adrenaline from the crash was finally starting to wear off, and it had been almost twenty-four hours since they'd slept. Pretty soon they would collapse from exhaustion, they had to find a safe place to sleep.
"Hey, I think I see something up here." Lee picked up his pace a bit, rushing to the edge of the forest, with his brothers rushing to keep up with him. They all stepped just beyond the tree line to find themselves looking down a gently sloping hill at a large village built at the bottom of what looked like a shallow bowl made of grass. The buildings in the village looked nothing like the ones they'd seen from the air. Broken-down wood hovels were replaced by finely polished wooden buildings, standing tall and strong against the stiff breeze that blew in from the tops of the trees like someone blowing on an empty bottle.
"This can't be the same place we were headed before…" Marc gaped in awe at the sight. "The place we were going was run-down…"
"You mean we're lost, too?" Tony complained. "Great! What do we do now?"
"The right town or not, it's civilization, and they can help us get in contact with Jerry. Come on!" Lee rushed down the side of the hill without waiting for agreement from his brothers, who exchanged a quick glance, then hurried after him.
As they got closer they could see a few people wandering around the small village, wearing little more than enough leather and fur to keep themselves modest as they walked among the buildings, a few speaking in hushed tones while others tended to crops. Marc hesitated slightly when they got closer. Their skin looked like it was glittering in the fiery morning light, in fact the closer they got he realized it wasn't an optical illusion. They were really sparkling.
Heedless, Lee ran up to the nearest woman without missing a beat. "Excuse me! Miss!"
The woman turned to look down at the three boys, her expression blank for a moment before she suddenly broke into a broad grin. "Well ain't y'all the most adorable boys ever?" Her accent was one Lee couldn't recognize, though it sounded vaguely like a Southern American accent.
"Um… thanks?" Marc blinked in surprise.
"Miss, we really need to use a telephone if you have one. It's urgent, our sister is still missing out in the woods and-" Lee's rushed explanation was cut off by a harsh wave of the woman's hand.
"Hey, hey, calm down there and take a deep breath. Who are y'all anyway?" The woman asked. "We don't get many visitors 'round here. Name's Mother Marie, ah run things 'round here."
Lee took a deep breath, visibly holding back from snapping at her. "I'm Lee, Lee Clark, these are my brothers, Tony and Marc. We're… visitors. Please, our sister is lost in the forest, we need to get in contact with someone who can help us look for her!"
"I'm 'fraid we don't have no phones 'round here…" The woman turned back toward the center of the town, putting one hand beside her mouth. "Hey, we got a lost youngster in the forest! We need ta organize a search!"
"A search? Really? You'd do that for us?" Lee asked.
"A'course, we're not about ta let a youngin stay lost in the forest, no matter who you are." The woman winked down at them, then turned to a younger girl about their own age, who approached with a serious look on her sparkling face. "Serah'll take ya to a place you can stay until we find her, then we'll get this all sorted out all nice and proper like."
"No way, we're going to help with the… the search." Lee managed to say around a massive yawn.
"I don't think we'd be much help, bro. We're bordering on exhaustion." Marc yawned back.
"Yeah, and I'm getting pretty tired." Tony grumbled. "Just PROMISE me you'll find Megan." Tony turned to glare up at the woman with a stern look in his eye. "If you don't find her I'm gonna… do something…"
"Don't y'all worry your cute little heads." The woman smiled and patted Tony's hair in a surprisingly gentle gesture. "We know this forest like we know our own bodies. We'll find yer sister and bring her back to ya."
"Well… okay." Tony nodded in acceptance.
"Now y'all get some rest with Serah, and ah'll come get ya when we find her. Trust me." The woman winked and turned to head toward the center of the village, where other adults were rapidly gathering into a large crowd.
Serah turned back to the boys, a gentle smile on her lips as her bright green eyes looked around at each of them in turn. "Please, come with me. ah'll show y'all to our guest house."
"Thank you." Marc smiled tiredly as the boys turned to follow her through the town to a small building toward the center of town. Small, but with more than enough room for the three boys and their sister, when she arrived.
Serah stepped just inside the building and turned to give the boys a bright smile. "Make yerselves at home, the grownups will find your sister and bring her to ya."
"We can't thank you enough for this." Lee told her with an equally broad, but tired smile. "We'll be out to help you look after we sleep for just a few hours."
"Ah'll be here if ya need anything." Serah bowed slightly and turned to leave the building, closing the door gently behind her.
"This place seems too good to be true…" Tony noted.
"It's a small town, small town mindset. Though there are still a few things that don't add up, I wouldn't say we're in any danger here, at least." Marc replied. "No need to look a gift horse in the mouth for now."
"I'm too tired for horses anyway." Lee yawned again and turned to make his way toward one of the beds in the back. "Let's get some rest guys, the sooner we snooze, the sooner we can get out there and look for Megan." He plopped face-down on the bed without waiting for a response. Marc just stared after him worriedly, but didn't argue. He was right, they needed to get their strength back as soon as possible, finding Megan was their utmost priority, even higher than getting in contact with Jerry.
They just couldn't lose their sister…
XXX
The spinning… did it finally stop? There was no more noise, that had to mean they weren't falling anymore. That was good… but now she was finding it difficult to think. Megan took deep breaths and opened her eyes slowly, but the world faded into her vision in a giant blur of orange and green. She couldn't make out for several more moments that she was lying underneath a canopy of leaves. "Marc… Lee… Tony…" Megan struggled to breathe the words. Even her tongue felt like it was rebelling against her, refusing to do what she asked it to do.
"Marc… Lee…" Megan breathed again, a bit stronger as she raised one hand to her throbbing forehead. She tried to sit up, but her spinning head once again rebelled against her and she collapsed to her back again, her stomach heaving like she was about to throw up. When she brought her hand away from her head, she saw traces of red liquid sticking to the fingers of her pink WOOHP uniform. It looked like blood… but it was dry. How long had she been asleep?
Fighting a rising sense of panic, she forced herself to lie on the ground for a while longer. She wasn't sure how long, but by the time her head stopped spinning enough for her to sit up without falling again, the orange light visible through the foliage overhead had grown into a light blue color. She looked around to find herself lying in a thick patch of grass in the middle of a dense forest, with no sign of her brothers or even the WOOHP jet anywhere. How did she get here? Had she actually fallen out of the plane? How was she even still alive?
"Tony. Lee." She took a deep breath to speak a little louder, but she still felt weak and dizzy. She could barely speak, let alone yell. They would never find her like this… that is, if they managed to get through the plane crash in one piece.
This was bad, Megan suddenly thought to herself. This was very bad. How could they have let this happen during something as simple as a landing? After all of their missions, was this how it would end? Would she die out here sitting in the grass unable to move? No… no she wouldn't. She wouldn't let herself.
With a grunt of effort, Megan slowly pushed herself up from her butt, her aching legs finally pulling her up to a standing position. Her head hung down against her chest for a moment, taking a while to stop spinning after the effort. She noticed now that her uniform was slashed to pieces, likely from the plummet through the branches, and there were dozens of other cuts and gashes almost the entire length of her body. Her suit had almost as much red on it as it did pink, and the grass around her was stained with the stuff. No wonder she was so weak…
"Come on, MP Com… get your MP Com." She forced her shaking hands into her belt, where she found her communicator still intact. With a sigh of relief she flipped it open, but when she tried to connect to one of the others, all that showed on the screen was a thick white static. "Darnit… I've got to… find out where I am. Find that town… find my brothers… anything…"
So she started to walk. There was no destination, she had no idea which way the town was or if her brothers were anywhere near her. But she couldn't afford to stop and lie down. With injuries like hers, the last thing she needed to do was sleep until she found help. She'd seen enough movies and gotten enough spy training to know that sleeping after a big head wound could very well be fatal. Then again, she'd already slept for at least a while. How long had she been unconscious? Had the sun really just come up again? That would mean she'd been out almost an entire day. And she was still tired…
Brushing aside the thought, she kept walking in the deep shadows of the forest. The sound of the wind whooshing through the trees and small creatures darting back and forth was soon joined by the sound of water running over gravel, so she turned toward it, following her ears and the smell of moisture until she came upon a shimmering, winding river in the middle of the forest. The water looked clean and inviting, so she stumbled towards it and sat down beside the water, leaning back to rest her aching limbs.
People tended to settle near the water, she thought to herself. So if she followed the river she had to find someone eventually. The only question was, would she find them before her wounds got the better of her? Well, first thing first, she supposed. If her wounds got infected finding somebody wouldn't do her any good at all, so she forced herself to slide into the river until she was sitting waist-deep in it, reaching up to unzip the front of her uniform and push it down around her waist. The cool water washed over the exposed cuts on her legs while she scooped the water out and used it to wash off the wounds on her neck and torso as best she could.
When she was as clean as she could get she crawled back out of the river, zipped her uniform back into place, and turned to continue her journey along the river's side. She couldn't stop, she couldn't rest. She had to find someone who could help her before she got too weak to look for help.
To Be Continued in Part 3: A Friend in Need