Um hi, yeah, I took long. Seriously though, chapters in actual novels should be at least twenty pages...so here's twenty pages worth of writing. I just hadn't got around to doing much. I hope you enjoy her story. Her actual name is Evangeline Terra Lynn Walker, its long. In her memories she refers to herself as Evangeline because she goes through identity confusion from all the events in her life since they really screwed her up. And before you read, you must understand her time line.

17 yrs old -Before E-day and the same age she was taken into the Hollows.
-Works with architecture and help buils Nexus base.
23 yrs old -When she is rescued from the Hollows.
-King Ravens shot down a torture barge that held her and other prisoners.
24 yrs old -She finds her family and takes refuge with them.
-explanation for Chapter 1 dreams.
26 yrs old -Her family is dead and she is taken back into the Hollows.
-Flashbacks and dreams of being sexually abused are contained in this year.
27 yrs old -(current endeavour) She is rescued once again from the Hollows and taken to a nearby hospital.
-She had been rescued before by a soldier mainly named Neil.
31 yrs old -She is grouped with Marcus after his imprisonment.

And there you have it. Now enjoy, just as much as I would enjoy reviews too, so we have something in common.


Chapter 3

The three large men moved down the hallways with their lancers aiming upwards, she noticed that they never dared set them down to their sides. The bleeding wouldn't stop, or she couldn't tell, both ways her damp pants were bothering her and she continued to move awkwardly down the hallway with them. Their footsteps were deafening, they blocked out every sound made by the supposedly desolate hospital. The steps were always scraping along the floor, tearing hospital files, stepping on clipboards and garbage or kicking them a few inches away. She looked up at the leader and studied him; she looked at the way his armour was customized and he had the privilege of wearing his own attire. She guessed that he was a sergeant with his confidence in leadership. He turned his head around; she immediately averted her gaze to the floor and kept trudging forward,

"Watch it..." he hissed, trying to whisper because she had walked right into his shoulder plate. Apparently he turned around for a reason. "This might be an ambush," He guided his arm to her shoulder and pushed her against the wall. Terra looked around and saw a large room which was the kitchen. For as far as she could tell, the steel utensils and equipment were cluttered and gathering dust, the freezer door was open, the tiles on the floor were breaking apart from erosion, and the ceiling was leaking in a few corners and the colors were long gone and drained. She turned and saw a red light flicker in the corner of her eye and she poked the sergeant's arm. He looked down at her and she nervously pointed towards the flicker, at first he could not see it, and then the red light in the back coming from the hallway on the other side was moving in midair with a collection of them gathering at the doorway. He quietly sighed, and then snuck to the wall leaning against it.

There was an alternate path to their right that went around the kitchen connecting to the same hallway where the Locust were waiting for them, the little robot turned off its light and became cloaked. "Dom, Baird, take the kitchen, I'll take her around. Then we'll meet back 'round." The sergeant whispered. The Locust already knew that they were present due to their sense of smell and possibility they could see through the dark, and it was obvious to the sergeant he would have to be tactical. Terra watched in fascination because Dom and Baird had an odd run; they bent down and snuck behind a few stainless steel cupboards on the floor. The Locust heard their armour clashing with the cupboards and they growled. They began to shoot towards the noise and the sergeant grabbed the back of Terra's jacket pulling her out of the way. The bullets hitting the objects around them had flickering bright spurts that made her path easier to see since the little robots lights were absent. They ran around the corner and into the connecting hallway, there were Locust in that area and the sergeant stopped, looking for cover and thinking about his next move, he spotted a hospital bed and threw it over while Dom and Baird were shooting, the gunfire echoing and blocking out the noise of the bed tumbling over. The shooting went silent; the Locust on the other side grunted and growled moving into the kitchen. The sergeant hid behind the bed kneeling and holding his lancer to his chest; Terra ran to his side frantically and slid behind the bed hitting her back against the metal support that had made a loud thump. It startled the Locust surprisingly since they could possibly see in the dark and the sergeant sighed heavily. She tried to calm her breathing when the Locust on the other side began to furiously shoot at the bed; the noise of the heavy gunshots made her ears hurt and gave her a ringing effect afterwards. When the bullets passed the hospital bed she would duck and pray that they missed her head. She hadn't noticed the sergeant had already advanced. Guns blazing, he was a tactician, and then Dom and Baird outflanked them and shot them from behind. Bodies collapsing, she looked over the bed to see that the three of them were already grouped together. Terra couldn't figure why she was embarrassed by the entire charade, and then the robot pointed its lights onto her and she continued. She hated the thought of dragging them behind.

They continued down the hallway until the robot shone onto an elevator door,

"Jack, see if you can get this working." The sergeant requested, he turned around and began to talk to Dom and Baird. "Where would the generator be? Maybe I should contact control."

"Well technically they can't do anything from here, this hospital has been abandoned and the Locust may have already got everything covered." Dom answered,

"The generator should be in the basement, but we're on the sixth floor." Baird added,

"I guess we'll have to make due without the lights." The sergeant looked back at the elevator,

"What if the elevator doesn't work?" Baird walked beside him,

"We'll take the stairs." He simply stated, Baird responded by taking a sharp sight.

Terra rested against the wall and pulled out her pants from her boots to look at her legs. After a while she noticed that her boots squished whenever she would step. Her boots were filling with the blood seeping from her prominent scars. She stared at her legs, when her ears began to ring loudly; it hushed the sounds of the gears voices and the world around her. Then a small round light shone onto her legs, she spotted a stitch from the top of her knee stick out like a gross hair. She put it between her fingers and pulled it out. She looked up when she saw a spark and a sizzle from the robots tiny gadget-like hands and the ringing from her ears disappeared. She recognized a voice that was acknowledging her.

"Hey, are you listening? Are you alright to walk?" Dom was still pointing the flashlight at her legs.

"Yeah...I just need to...pull this out." She swiped the stitch out of her leg quickly; it unravelled from the bottom of her knee cap. When she removed it, blood began to seep out severely and abruptly stop.

"That's disgusting." Baird looked at it,

"Shut up Baird." The sergeant turned to him, the elevator opened. "Come on." He walked into the elevator. Dom had let out a hand for Terra to grab, pulled her up and helped her into the elevator.

"Why can't we just leave her, she might be already dying, I mean look at her legs, she's been bleeding ever since we found her in that room." Baird looked down at Terra, who was panting,

"Because, Baird, she's not beyond our help, just because she's crippled doesn't mean we have to leave her behind, she's still capable. She's still holding up." Dom tried to make a point by gesturing to her while she leaned against the wall. Dom tried to defend her, she thought it was valiant, but it still didn't stop Baird from shutting up or stopping him from being a sarcastic jackass. Baird acted as if she didn't hear him.

"Shut up you two, it doesn't matter, were still taking her." The sergeant turned to look at her for a moment. Terra looked down at her legs; they felt as if they couldn't breathe...or she couldn't breathe...it was suffocating. She grabbed her pant legs and ripped the cloth off to a certain length. The air was cool and her blood dried up faster. She noticed they were scabbing over. For now, she couldn't think about what the other gears were talking about, she could only focus on reaching it to the raven. She noticed her boltok pistol wasn't properly loaded, then a sudden screech echoed up and down the elevator shaft and the elevator came to a violent halt. The three men haven't wavered much; they were all leaning against the walls. The small robots arm had singed and he disconnected a few wires from the circuits under the buttons so it could get his wires loose and robotic hand loose.

"Shit." Baird took a look at his hand, "I'm not sure why it happened, the wires short-circuited and the plug got singed pretty badly."

"What does that mean to me Baird?" The sergeant demanded rather than asked.

"It means Jack can't do anything to get the elevator moving again, he needs to be repaired." He looked back at the sergeant with arrogance.

"Stairs anyone?" Dom looked at the both of them.

"Fine, lets see if we can get this door open." The sergeant walked to the elevator doors and Baird helped him pry open the doors. When they opened it they found there was just a cement wall blocking their way, and they were stuck between floors, in between the fourth and fifth to be precise. Baird was about to start a commotion when the sergeant stopped and grabbed at his arm signalling him not to talk. They all listened, and for Terra it was difficult. There were scratching and hissing noises emanating above, echoing and scraping down the wires that held the elevator frame and a familiar noise of hissed grotesque gibberish.

"Wretches." The sergeant gritted, Terra looked up, hoping whatever that term meant that it wouldn't be disgustingly horrifying.

"They're in the shaft?" Dom looked around; Baird looked up backing to the corner. Terra had made an attempt to move towards Baird. She shifted close enough to be a few centimetres from him, he looked down at her for a moment and held up his lancer and watched the ceiling.

"Probably above us." The sergeant looked at the ceiling door, "Dom, open it." Terra was panicking a little more seeing that it could be another type of Locust.

"Why?" He defied childishly.

"Because." The sergeant smirked, Dom sighed heavily and before he could open the ceiling door a wretch jumped down through the small door and cracked it, half a second later it tumbled out and growled ferociously. Dom backed away and was nearly ready to open fire when the sergeant shot at it and hit it across the face with his fist and cracked its jaw. The wretches were scurrying above the elevator and began to push their way through the small opening, toppling each other in a heap. It was dangerous to shoot in such dangerous quarters, even revving their chainsaw bayonets could prove hazardous. The sergeant stepped first and revved his chainsaw twice and pushed, then pulled it down from the wretches shoulder to his thigh. He sawed it into two, and continued to do so. Dom and Baird followed suit, though Baird had stood in front of Terra as to not harm her or any wretch could not notice she was weak and feeble. She hugged the wall awkwardly and covered her ears, the chain sawing and battle cries were too much for her to grasp. She knelt down still covering her ears. The collective gurgling mixed with hissing suggested that the wretches were slaughtered and already drowning in their own blood. She turned to look at the twisted heap of bodies and the soldiers armour was stained with a tint of red on the front of their bodies. The sergeant was breathing heavily and Dom walked backwards into the wall to retract his chainsaw bayonet and compose himself. Baird was breathing just as heavily and prepared for another horde of wretches. Their name suited them well Terra thought, in every aspect it fit perfectly.

Dom had looked up through the ceiling opening, "It's clear. I can see another open door up there, its possible we can reach it." He let down his lancer and grabbed onto one of the ceilings edge, threw his lancer over so it could slide across the elevators upper surface, and he grasped onto the edge with both hands. Swiftly, he gripped stretching his muscles, and had pulled himself up was probably the most perfect thing Terra witnessed, the fact they carried an extra fifty pounds worth of armour and weapons and their beefy frames were accounted considering they could weight over 250-300lbs. was astonishing. Baird had quickly went after Dom and smoothly jumped and lifted himself over with ease. Terra was absorbed in their unique strength when she saw the sergeant walking towards her and grabbed her arm gently. He turned her so she could face him and he wrapped his large hands around her waist and lifted her up, Dom was already reaching his hands out for her and she grabbed them. Her grip was weak but he managed to grab her wrists with a more of a jaws-of-life grip and pulled her up over and planting her onto her feet without breaking a sweat. Marcus threw his lancer over and he got up in the same fashion. Baird had already made his way up the fifth floor door and pried it open while he held onto the metal frame that jutted out a few inches. Once he split it open to a respectable width he inserted his lancer and with the force of his entire body, ripped the door open, the siding doors banging the sides of the door frame. The door was maybe three meters above the elevator; Baird must've been a good athlete to have jumped that high. He walked onto the fifth floor and quietly disappeared for a few minutes. He came back to report,

"Everything's clear, for now, and the stairs are to our left down the hall." He rested the lancer over his shoulder, pleased with himself.

"Alright Dom, help her up. For all we know wretches could come and tear us apart any time soon." The sergeant gritted looking up. Dom picked up Terra where she stood and took her close enough to the door, he wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her high enough for Baird to reach, he was holding out his hand and once again, she was tossed from point A to point B.

Dom had readied himself for a jump when the elevator shook and the wires wiggled to a certain degree, that it wasn't a good sign. Wretches had come back to get their revenge and Dom immediately jumped and grabbed onto the ledge of the elevator, he wavered for a few moments,

"Fuck." Dom breathed,

"Better hurry Serge." Baird seemed genuinely worried.

"Shit, hurry up Dom." The sergeant commanded, the wire that shook before now snapped at the top and whipped around the shaft and hitting the metal around it. The sergeant looked up and saw the wire come crashing down, "They're taking down the elevator!" Again the elevator shook and the wire opposite of the wire across it broke and whipped around violently before coming down and hitting the sides as it went. The sergeant tried to avoid it by blocking his head and the elevator, now suspended with two wires attached to it, had tipped the elevator and it smashed towards the wall, creating a slant towards the door above him, forcing the sergeant to jump higher than he usually would. When the elevator shook again with the company of hisses and barely visible bodies frantically jumping from wall to wall above them, Dom had pulled himself up and held out a hand for the sergeant. The wire twisted and broke, and the elevator shook continuously since it was being suspended by one more wire, and he put his lancer aside and ran trying to get a boost. At the right moment he jumped making a grunting sound and the last wire broke, the elevator had made a final stand by scraping and rubbing along side the concrete before falling at an incredible fast rate of speed down the shaft.

"Got you!" Dom exhaled, he had caught his hand and the sergeant passed the lancer to Baird. When the elevator hit the bottom accompanied by the sound of twisting metal, dust had billowed from the wreck and rose higher, being in a confined space it was prominently visible to where the sergeant was hanging for dear life. Dom, with all his might, pulled up the sergeant, afterwards trying to catch his breath. Well she couldn't really expect it to be easy to carry another gear, who was twice his weight. The entire time she was watching, it gave her an adrenaline rush, but she kept a weary eye out at the top of the dark shaft. The robot was a guiding light, and it was hovering beside her the entire time.

"Alright, let's get going." He brushed off the near death experience and continued down the hall. "Goddamn wretches!" He cursed. They all reached the stairs and opened the door. To the sergeant and Dom it was just another walk in the park, but to Baird and Terra it was more of a chore. Her legs couldn't take the abuse, for now she would have to suck it up. About halfway down the stairs of the third floor she sat down on a step to rest, and of course Dom looked back and exercised his caring feelings to wait. The sergeant and Baird kept moving when the sergeant looked back. "What is it now?"

"Marcus I really don't think we should let her keep doing this to herself." He looked back at her, with a more silenced tone he asked her directly, "May I see what's under your shirt?" Of course it was an odd question, but she hadn't refused and lifted it up to a certain length. Terra had been suffering from severe dehydration and starvation. Her rib bones were prominent and her skin was discoloured around her stomach indicating such symptoms, her eyes had dark circles and her lips were chapped to an extent that they were pale and split in some areas. There were also bruises around her waist, she had bruised easily from little trauma and the entire time her body could not tolerate any of it. He stood back for a moment thinking, Terra looked at the sergeant, and finally knowing his name came to a sort of an awaited surprise. Marcus walked up the stairs; he put the lancer over his shoulder and strapped it onto his back. He put his arm under her knees and one under her torso and around the side of her rib and lifted her off the step.

"There, problem solved, let's keep moving." He walked down the stairs and Dom paced behind him, he didn't look surprised at the action Marcus took to keep her alive. She felt like she could fall asleep, it was comfortable, his arms were larger than she thought and they wrapped around her like two comforters, except with heavy cold plates and rough fabric. She was small compared to him, remembering she was merely a 5"4. She leaned her head against his shoulder, though she hoped he hadn't noticed since she was deciding whether she should do it or not just a few minutes ago. She listened to his breathing and tried to feel his pulse, or imagine it. The more she did the more she felt drowsy, and wanted to hibernate or go into a comatose state. She opened her eyes and looked up at him through small slits. He was looked ahead, and she began to wonder, why he had taken a brave act of taking her with him, she was barely alive and he still insisted that she was to come. Maybe he was truly valiant and brave, and sympathetic in the situation, maybe he saw hope in saving a life, or maybe there are women needed to give birth where he came from since that's what they were used for most of the time. She wanted to let go so badly, to see her sisters and she her mother and father, she was weak and she finally decided to let go. Her head fell back and of course he noticed, and like he noticed before when he felt the side of her face move to his chest and when her hair slid down from his elbow closer to his shoulder, and whenever she would open her eyes and her breathing slowed. He looked at her for a few seconds,

"Hey." He looked at her, the tunnel was bright when she felt a force push her away and she opened her eyes slowly. Marcus had a booming voice; it was proven possible that he could wake her out of death. "Stay Awake, we're almost there." When they all hit the main floor they stepped out of the door and into another desolate hallway, they took a left turn and he put her down gently. "Get your strength up." He stepped forward a few steps in front of her. She breathed in and mustered the strength in her body and replenished the strength she had at the beginning when they found her before. It was odd, for some reason she felt the need to live and survive, and she grabbed her boltok pistol and reloaded it.

"Hey Marcus, there's the entrance door." Dom pointed to the light coming from the open doors.

"Control, the pick-up will be sited at the entrance of the hospital instead." He signalled, it was only when they were lower did he get a better reception, the Locust technology blocked out most seeders.

"Alright Marcus." A woman responded on the other side. They continued down the hallway in a slow sprint. Terra followed as best as she could when the lights came back on when the building shook and the sound of a generator running echoed in the hospital momentarily.

"Let there be light." Baird quipped.

When they came closer a group of drones, armoured snipers, and grenadiers poked out from the lobby. Then a couple of boomers came through the entrance and with them walked in a familiar shape. "Fall back!" The sergeant hit the wall beside him and slide down to take cover.

"Oh no..." She whispered. The commander of the group was glaring with a menacing snarl on his face from behind the boomers, the gears ran around the corner again and took cover, and Marcus looked to see if Terra took cover but she hadn't. She was in the fetal position in the middle of the hallway, not knowing what to do, and miraculously not one shot that came from the Locust hit her. The gears had hid in cover and Dom had looked over to Marcus and Baird, and they all looked at each other with questioning expressions as to who was going to drag her back. It only took five seconds for someone to finally reach out and grab her.

"Goddammit!" Marcus knelt over and wrapped and arm around her stomach dragging her back. She looked up and leaned against him.

"Don't let them take me!" Terra cried out holding onto his arm while she knelt on the floor.

"What!?" He turned to her and whipped his head back to the direction of the Locust, and began to shoot hitting a few drones. "Dom, use your grenade, kill these motherfuckers!"

"Sniper!" Baird shouted, hiding from the precise bullets with one grazing his arm tearing off the cloth and burning his exposed flesh, "Shit!"

Dom lobbed a grenade and it blew a few of the Locust six feet under and belting the wall deteriorating the Locusts cover. Marcus noticed the Locust fearlessly advancing on them, not caring if they died, and he noticed the largest one running like a mad man behind one of the boomers, using him as a meat shield.

"BOOM!" A Boomer laughed heartily, walking in a linear line and unintelligently getting himself killed. Marcus emptied a clip into the boomers torso and hid behind the wall and looked back at Terra and the larger one that was running behind the Boomer previously. He couldn't make the connection yet. Marcus ran back to the elevator taking cover behind the hallway calling back Dom and Baird, the Locust were getting too close for comfort. He forgot about Terra and she tried to make her way to them. The stinging came back to her legs and she stumbled. The commander scowled at the gears as it swiftly ran to her body grabbing Terra's leg and dragging her around the corner. He swiftly crouched behind a wall pushing Terra into a group of Locusts. The gears were surrounded on both sides; the connecting hallways were used to trap them into a corner. Terra was trying to fight the hands constantly grabbing everywhere on her body. She hadn't figured why in her mind she would try calling for help, they might be doomed, she could die and escaping would be in vain, and she did not know the sergeant nor has she ever spoke to him but called out to him.

"Marcus!" She screamed, she grabbed her boltok pistol and shot a drone square in the head blowing it off his shoulders. Marcus heard his name and reacted by shooting back the Locust. Terra was being dragged further away from the hallway into another connecting hallway; the pistol was taken out of her hands. She kicked the drone in his groin and he fumbled. She ripped the lancer from his hand and she revved the chainsaw bayonet. She quickly shot up onto her feet lazily and with all her might she could possibly muster up, dug the chainsaw into his chest until she ripped him in half while she yelled in exhaustion. The blood was smeared over her chest and waist, flying past her body onto the wall behind her. She revved it again and took a sniper by surprise by ripping it down from his neck to his tailbone. When the drones looked back she took cover behind the corner. She reloaded her lancer sloppily and it took her longer to get it working. Come on you...bitch! She fidgeted with the ammunition locks. She peeked from behind the door and a grenade was lobbed in her direction. She jumped to the furthest corner of the room and ducked holding onto her ears and closing her eyes tightly. She was too close to the grenade and she knew the debris would likely batter her body rendering her even more useless and most likely char some of her clothing. The grenade ticked for three seconds and she felt a heavy weight on her back, she opened her eyes and saw two large armoured arms around her body and the hot breath on her neck. The grenade exploded and she felt nothing except for the ear shattering explosion from behind her. She looked behind her to see Marcus was covering her. He knelt on one knee rubbing his neck and stretching some of his muscles, he felt pain around his body and he stood up trying to walk it off. He didn't know where to begin; he looked down at the drone and the dead sniper, mauled beyond appearance. She held her lancer upright; avoiding his gaze, Dom and Baird were half way through the stitch, but the Boomers took more patience and ammunition.

She stood up and began to limp away from him further along the wall and try to reload her lancer. Marcus stepped up to her, with a stern look on his face and grabbed it from her,

"It's tricky, but you'll get it." He showed her nimbly and handed it back. "If you don't get it right the first time you could die before you try it the second time." He acknowledged her for the first time not as a weakling; Dom and Baird were by the elevator causing a distraction. When the Locusts were cleared out of the area enough, Terra and Marcus moved in by ducking for cover. The entrance was close, but the commander was still alive. She couldn't find it in herself to kill him. She grabbed a grenade near by and began to swing it round like the other gears had did and threw it past the commander into the back room where more Locusts were taking cover. Dom and Baird were taken aback by the sudden change their crippled stranded had taken upon herself. It was silent teamwork amongst them all as they cleared up the entrance. Terra could still hear the terrible screams made by the commander. E-holes were already blasted closed and he was the last one standing and not coincidentally. She couldn't find any strength in her to continue so she stumbled behind, keeping her distance.

Marcus was standing above the commander who was giving out and bleeding all over the place, he still hadn't made the connection but he decided that Terra would have the honour of killing him. Baird stared at him disgustedly and Dom was waiting patiently by the entrance.

"It doesn't feel right." She tried to refuse,

"What doesn't feel right? This thing most likely put you through hell, tortured you by shattering your legs, putting them back together so you could be a cripple and yet you still want to play a saint? Well you're sick in the head." Baird walked away in frustration. Even though she hated him she had to admit he was right, it felt more like a betrayal...but killing him had to be done. Marcus handed her his pistol.

She grabbed his pistol, Marcus walked away with the rest of the team outside and talking to 'control' about the raven and requesting pick-up and something about clearing out and destroying something. His voice was too far to make out anything surprisingly since his voice was loud all the time. Of course she was trying to think of a distraction and trying to avoid the situation. The commander bleeding on the floor looked up at her and she couldn't look away, she knew he would be forced to care for her and be forced to kill her in the end, yet it didn't seem right to kill him and she contemplated on pros and cons that he had already bled out.

"I'm sorry." She turned and limped away.

She walked outside holding onto her thigh and dragging herself. The raven landed with a few gears waiting in the back of the raven as back-up in case more E-holes were spotted, Baird had climbed in and Dom and Marcus were left behind. A gear had helped her into the raven by gingerly picking her up and sitting her on a bench, of course she cringed because her wounds had stretched uncomfortably. Baird looked at her, with a surprising respectful look.

"It takes a lot of guts, for a stranded to take action, especially a woman, and not die." He was looking away, as if what he said would be kept and secret and would die with him, and mostly biased since him and Bernadette Mataki had no pleasant experiences (Terra is not aware, its just me trying to explain Baird's attitude towards women, ref: Aspho Fields), and with that she merely smirked because she had an advantage in the first place, but felt appreciation and not intimidation. She was never sure at what a 'stranded' was, because she never felt stranded in the first place. Terra took a last look at Marcus and Dom, but they had already looked away. They didn't realize it, and never noticed that they had changed her life, and had given her hope.

--

She wouldn't know if she would ever see them again, but it didn't matter. The raven lifted at an astoundingly fast rate and into sky, with a breath-taking view she couldn't resist to sit at the end of the bench and look out. She had bubble-guts, but it was worth it. She looked and studied the path of the raven and she didn't know where they were taking her. Baird had been tinkering with the burned wires from Jacks system since the little robot had them replaced before the flight. Something caught her interest while the others were conversing; she stared out towards the barren lands, ravaged by the hands of war. She stood up and grabbed one of the hooks attached at the top of the open door and she grabbed a hold of it. She leaned over and peered over at the lakes that looked like small spread out puddles when Baird noticed.

"That's dangerous." He said in her ear, the loud humming of the choppers spinning above them made it a little impossible to have a conversation, and instead forced them to talk to each other awkwardly.

"Don't worry about it." She turned her head away.

"You look like death, I suggest you sit down and take pressure off your legs." Forcing himself to be concerned, he pointed down and she looked down, she needed a rest, and to give them a break and she sat across from him.

"Where are we going?" She asked,

"What?" He leaned in,

"I said, where are we going?" She leaned in,

"Jacinto." He answered lazily sitting back.

She had never heard about it until now, she was literally a hermit crab. All the events in her previous life were her childhood, becoming independent and a few years more under the surface. She was never transported from underground until a week ago. By underground means the hollows, where the Locust took refuge. She sat quietly with her hands folded until the raven came upon the view of Jacinto. It looked like a plateau, surrounded by the sea with a large land mass connected to it and it looked like a metropolis. A dystopia, buildings tightly squished together and ravens crowding the sky, they flew about it like crows around a corpse. It wasn't a welcoming site; it looked pathetic, and frightening, mostly because it was the human's last stand and the only place they could call home.

When the raven had landed she could see gears operation troikas and other gears guarding along the bridges around a building that had a parliament flavour to it. Baird stepped out and Terra slid out by sitting down and then slowly planting her feet. She grabbed a hold of her thigh and limped. Baird was trying to be polite by swinging her arm around his shoulders and helping her walk a little faster.

"What's your name?" he struck up a small conversation as they reached the doors. Apparently the building had a medic station.

"You can just call me Terra…What's yours?" She kept gripping at her thigh, the muscles began to act up and tense,

"Damon Baird, but people just call me Baird…but I'd feel better if you didn't call me by my first name." He passed her to another gear that helped her into a bed.

"It was nice meeting you Baird." She waved weakly, but he hadn't waved back.

He had already begun to run towards the raven, he jumped into and the raves choppers began to spin. She wouldn't be able to forget a jackass like that.

They rolled her into a room somewhere in the basement where they were other people who were hurt or temporarily there because they had rust lung. She looked at all the sad faces, hopeless faces that she had did and seen too many times. She made a promise to herself to never do it again, to not betray herself and stay strong for those who couldn't or didn't have the will.

--

For the first day she was resting on a hospital bed tightly covered in three blankets. It was drafty in the room, empty hospital beds were lined left and right of her, since she was in the special ward. Her legs were wrapped in gauze after they were studied by surgeons. They had told her news that her legs would heal over nicely, and oddly, her bones were stronger than before, and showed no chance of harbouring any diseases and unlikely to form arthritis any time soon and unlikely to form it when she was over seventy. When the locust had injected her before, he meant for her body to be stable in the hollows, which meant if she was taken, she would be absent for a long time. For that, she was grateful to not have been taken, and having that injection was a bonus. Another doctor came to visit her mid day.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Leland Strom. How are you today?" He walked over with a silver clipboard in hand.

"I'm fine." Terra was alert, every medical test surgeons had forced her unwillingly to do early in the morning, made her tense and clutch to her bed, even though she hadn't realized she gripped the sheets.

"You can relax; I'm here to take down your information. Early in the morning you were so fascinating that we put your identity last." He smiled politely as if it were a joke and looked back down at the clipboard, going over sheets earlier and records about her health and flipping over to look at some pictures. He took a sheet from under his clipboard and clamped it down. "What is your full name?"

"Evangeline TerraLynn Walker."

"Thank you." He clicked his pen and scribbled on the paper.

"Wait, isn't there more?" She seemed perplexed,

"We already took down some of your information when we studied you; your name was unknown to us. Besides, we have no time to record anything else since it would take a few more precious years we can't risk to put a database back together. You get one civilian I.D." He signed the bottom of the paper, she studied the way his wrist moved and it was most likely that it would look like chicken scratch. A thought entered her mind, she thought back to Marcus, Dom and Baird. She wanted to do what they did, it seemed more of an attractive idea because there really wasn't anything else for her to lose, of course the whole whim seemed unethical, but in the long run, if she stayed in Jacinto, something could happen, and she didn't want to think about what would happen to her if she was still defenceless. She certainly did not want the doctors inspecting her every five minutes to see if she had a mutation. The thought was unbearable, she looked at her crate that was filled with her belongings, and she remembered the pistol Marcus had given her before she was taken in the raven, he never asked for it back.

"I want to be enlisted."

"Excuse me?" The doctor's brow lowered and he took down his glasses.

"I want to be enlisted."

"Well, that requires that you be in good conditi-

"I' am in good condition. Did you not see my results, you were fingering through them not long ago." She sat up weakly; when she sat up she was abnormally weak and her bones ached, then she had remembered that she had rarely eaten or drank anything her entire stay.

"Well, you are partially in very good condition, the only thing that makes a difference is your entire health overall. Maybe you should stay here and get your strength up. Its surprising that you hadn't contracted rust lung, you've been in there for nearly a day when it only takes an hour." He looked around the room and put a hand on her leg. He carefully peeled off the gauze to look at her wound, and then abruptly ripped it off making Eva flinch and retract in pain. "See, your wounds are better." He let her see, her eyes went square at the sight of the closes scars. "We just need to do one more test, and then we'd be happy to enlist you." He turned away out of the room.

"Wait, what test?"

"To see if you are able to give birth." He continued down the hall. For a brief moment she felt a lump in her throat and like her stomach was going to fall out of her butt, when he mentioned that she would be petitioned for giving birth it abruptly changed her need to be better and die on the spot. She was left, for many hours at a time, with hours at a time there came a hefty meal that she ate gladly. Sunset had come by, she only imagined it since it was seven 'o'clock and she pondered on her friend, Neil was generous but she didn't expect him to make it. He once said to her that he was a veteran, he fought in the pendulum wars, and when she last saw him, he was 34 years of age. She thought back to Marcus, they would both be in the same league, he must have his own team, yet Neil always preferred to be alone with her and away from his team. There were many differences between them both, but her heart sank every time she thought of Neil and the thought of him dying. She sat up in her bed, there were no windows in her room, and she turned her hands over to look at her palms, thoughtfully, she remembered what she used to do when she was kid. At age six, she remembered that she wanted to be an artist; she was too good at it that everyone hated her for it. She always laughed to herself because of it, before she was taken at 17, she was applying for a job, she had a portfolio with 200 pieces of work, every piece had months and some with hours of work put into them, she wanted to be a director, the boss of her own work but she had to show them her abilities. She was overqualified of course, with majoring degrees from a few universities she strived for her bachelors in arts at 17 because she had surpassed the simple pleasures of high school, a certified contemporary open-minded genius. There were many things that she had done in her lifetime before E-day.

She looked up at the ceiling once more, and licked her lips. She felt her cheek and rubbed her eyes, she hadn't noticed she was crying, maybe this one last fall of tears was to remind her of the past, and that it was a great loss. The taste of tears reminded her of the bullies in her school, everyone had them, for her life, she thought of course everyone would have them because she possessed qualities the bullies hated her for. She remembered being tortured, being laughed at, family problems and complications...all the pleasures of having a life. Nowadays people only think of the next attack or next ambush made by the Locust and their Leviathan friends, overgrown beasties and rejected denizens they reap for killing benefits.

She lay back down, thinking of a way to kill off time. So she decided to do a replay of her history. When she was 17, E-day was announced and the world was in pandemonium. Where it started, it was unknown to her; she remembered that she was sitting in an office, moving all of her things right next to the director's room. She was awarded from the city for the youth achievement medals and she hung them proudly next to her diverse degrees. During this time, her hair was long, black and straight. Her face was covered in a small amount of mineral powder, she sported a nude gloss to match her heart-shaped lips, and her eyebrows were thick and prim. She sported the business woman look, even though her face was round and considered adorable, but most importantly...she was a healthy, virtuous woman. She studied her new clothing she had bough the day before, she wore a white blouse with a black business skirt that initially tightened around her waist and around her thighs, the length of the skirt reached to the bottom of her knees and she wore black pointy-tipped shoes to match the ensemble. She sat down on her chair; she spun around on her chair to look outside the window. She inhaled and smiled widely. She sat in the calmness for nearly ten minutes when the city signals began to blare, the alarms sounded for an evacuation and she snapped out of the pleasant feeling. The mood and situation of the scene made her tremble in fright and confusion. She sat up and ran towards the door and opened it. Her boss ran out of the room and grabbed her arm,

"We have to go! The whole city's in a full scale evacuation!" He led her to the elevator and the panic of other employees squished her in the back. The suffocation of the bodies stuffed in the elevator made her scared and she fought her way out of the elevator when she heard her boss scream back, "Suit yourself!" And she looked back at the open elevator now being stuffed tremendously, she looked outside and saw an explosion at the town square, a mushroom cloud ensued and she turned to look at the full elevators. When the vibration of the boom reached the building, it was seismic and she fell to her feet. Someone had tried to push the button on the elevator and the entire box, with the people inside suddenly plummeted down and crashed in the lobby, the screams heard by the people stuck in the elevators, had died out. Evangeline was screaming in absolute terror. She grabbed her head and shook her head, she composed herself and stood up, she noticed some of the workers were evacuating down the stairs. She ran towards them and ran down the stairs. She reached the last flight of stairs, already exhausted, had heard more screams come from the lobby. Her face was flushed and beads of sweat were forming at her head, people ahead of her were already out the door, she pushed open the door and saw grotesque monsters rising from a hole underground and she ducked when she saw them raise their guns in their direction. She slid behind the desk, she hadn't bothered looking up, she peeked from the sides to get a better look and saw one of the monsters tinkering with the control panel. When she looked up she saw the butt of gun smash into her face, she slammed to the ground. From those moments before blacking out, she could hear the magnified sounds of her heartbeat, had blurry vision bordered by blackness, and she saw her hand moving up to her face, and when she looked at her hand there was blood pooling around her head. She tried to get up and she slipped on the pool of blood, slamming her body once again against the floor and then everything had gone black.

When she woke up, she found herself on a torture barge (the author stresses that when E-day had arrived and the lack of formal history behind it has punched many holes that she could fill with her own imagination since it was told around Marcus' army career, not by a civilian). At the time, she was afraid, and she may have peed a little from complete and utter fright, she was in a closed confined space, more like a pod, it surrounded her with a radius of over several inches (maybe the pods were built insufficiently or she could of been just a small lady.) She felt around the pod with her slender fingers, it was too dark to see, she felt between every contour and every pipe she had finally decided that she was trapped, or imprisoned. Her hand finally guided itself to her forehead where she felt an open gash, and somewhat of a migraine took the open wounds place. She sat down and held her knees; she rested her forehead onto her knees and pretended everything will be fine afterwards.

Eva turned her head to look at the door, a nurse walked in with a bottle of water in hand and a small pack of fibre in powdered form. She asked her to opened the bottle and Eva twisted the lid off, the nurse had passed her the pack and gave her quick instructions of how to use it, it was later the nurse told her the fibre was laced with antibodies and a sleeping agent, but Eva responded opposite to the manner most would have reacted who rejected it, that she was gleeful. When she drank down the liquid, the nurse had helped her into her sleeping gown. She then helped her into the bed and pulled a blanket over her body. Eva eventually fallen into a sleep, there wasn't fear of tomorrow or memories hidden behind it, it was just a listless sleep. She barely dreamt, when you are under medication, and it tells your brain to sleep, there will be no dreams that would usually ensue, but she wanted to remember everything, she fought the darkness to remember it all, so she could feel like she slept a normal eight hours.

The pod door had opened, she tried to rub her eyes to adapt to the light but a large pale arm reached out and grabbed her forearm violently. She was thrown clear onto a rough surface, her face rubbed against the ground and she could've sworn there was dirt in her mouth she might have accidentally scooped up. She craned her neck upwards, and she felt a hard painful jab in her back and her body slid further away. The painful jab came harder once again and she rolled over to look at her assailant, the grotesque monster was kicking at her to stand up, but she couldn't, she was weak and tired and the pain in her back lingered like the smell of smoke from an open fire would. She tried again and she was finally on all fours when the monster thought it would be amusing to kick her in the stomach and she coughed up blood, he did it again and she fell over, purposely throwing herself away as a sign of submission and her attempt to avoid anymore abuse. She looked up with gritted teeth, spitting out the last of the blood that was quickly filling around her gums, around the dips under her cheeks to her lips and under her tongue. The monster walked up to her, with long strides and bold movement his face was contorted into an angry expression. He turned around and they collected all of the other people who were taken and some of them oddly familiar from her workplace. They were at a distance that she felt the need to catch up to them, so she took sharp intakes of breath and pushed herself off the ground. She looked at her shoes and grabbed at them, she threw them as far away as she could and unbuttoned her blouse to an extent where they cannot see her bra. She caught up to them with a slow jog and one of the grotesque monsters noticed. He had an amused expression, pointing out the big mistake she made with a simple crooked smile, she didn't know it, but it was the smartest idea to be left behind than go with them. It seemed like an hour they had been walking, when they reached a small site, with more pods and a few tools and pickaxes were laid onto the site she looked up at one of the grotesque monsters who began picking out people to use. He was separating the old from the young, and the same grotesque monster who was abusing her earlier threw her over to the young ones more violently than the others, it hinted that the monsters had emotions. She studied him when the other lot of monsters walked up to the others and began to rip off their clothing. Evangeline had turned around and back at the abusive monster she appropriately named Scrap because he obviously had a flurry of emotions he wanted to inflict on the human race. He turned to her with another one of his winning grins and put a hand on her shoulder and one on her blouse. He slid his hand around the buttons, and one of his fingers reached into the blouse tugging at her bra. She began to blush in frustration and was uncomfortable with the touch. Scrap moved his fingers around and felt over the cup, it was if he was trying to choose a place to pull, his fingers went in deeper and soon enough his entire hand was in her shirt, breaking off some of her lower buttons. His hand rested in a few places and he grabbed at her breasts, teasing her. She spat at him and he slapped her in return. She whipped her head back accompanied by an angry expression she grabbed onto his wrist that was in her blouse and tried to pry it off. Only in a few seconds did he manage to rip off her shirt and her bra, the mere strength and the fact he showed no struggle and not one irregular breath did he not fumble...severely frightened her.

She was shirtless and she covered herself in embarrassment, the others looked around and talked to Scrap, most likely getting angry at him for his tardiness...and then he said something odd that made Evangeline nervous, he grabbed her, and it sounded like he was joking with the rest of the monsters. He grabbed around her waist and pulled her close to him, her back facing towards his torso, and the coarse surface scratched her back delicately. He lifted her off the ground and pretended to court her, he stuck out his tongue and licked her neck, and she turned her head away in disgust. She began to thrash her legs while the others laughed a throaty rhythmic hiss. He moved his hand downwards and she leaned her head onto his shoulder closing her eyes tightly, when he reached her lower section, and even lower to bottom of the skirt, she was still. He put his fingers around the bottom of her skirt and began to slowly pull it up. He set her down violently and ripped the waist belt off and lifted off the rest of her skirt. He stripped her underwear and she was left standing in the middle of the monsters being mocked. She held herself when Scrap came to uncover her hands and hold them apart from each other. The Locust stopped laughing and they glared her down, no eyes strayed down to study her body, the others were just as naked but they looked away...it was if they had the full intent to make her feel shameful.

Four 'o' clock in the morning Eva woke up, she looked around, and she analyzed the memory, that they did it for a reason. She understood that they wanted her to feel just as vulnerable and weak as they did, to have nothing, to have others not help even though it was need, and to know that she was caught in between, just as they have been, fighting for their lives in the hollows from the lambent, and humans have turned a blind eye.


I had just been skimming over this, and this site totally makes it look like one big ass essay paper, I mean seriously, come on. Anywho, Thanks for reading. I like Reviews.