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Pain. That's all Whisper felt. The fire flooding through her veins. It felt like acid, killing her from the inside. She wished that she was dead. Then the pain would be gone. The pain in from the gunshot wound barely bothered her anymore, but the nanomites her father had shot into her sure did. Whisper clung to consciousness, too scared to accept the darkness. She didn't want the nanomites to change her. She didn't want to be anyone different than she was now.
Scarlett hurried forward as fast as she could. She could feel Whisper's blood flowing out, getting weaker and weaker as the seconds went by. She thought that the nanomites would have healed her by now, but she then again, she knew nothing of them. She saw Charlotte standing by the entrance of the helicopter, waiting for the wounded. Scarlett ran as fast as she could that last couple of feet.
"Charlotte! I need help for Whisper, now!" she cried as she ran.
Charlotte looked up and her eyes widened upon seeing the blood-soaked young woman. She ran out from the chopper and took Whisper from Scarlett before rushing back in. She set the barely conscious woman on one of the gurneys inside the chopper and started working frantically over her. The bullet wound would be easy to take care of, but the nanomites were a completely different matter. A small idea kindled in the back of her mind, but she quickly dismissed it and thought about helping Whisper before it was too late.
Snake Eyes's rage was diminishing, but his worry didn't. He wanted to go and see how Whisper was. Had the nanomites harmed her? Was she unconscious? Dead? He didn't want to think about the last question in his mind and fueled the last reserves of his rage to kill the rest of the soldiers in his way. Once they were all dead or incapacitated on the ground, he sheathed his swords and ran off towards the helicopter.
Duke and Ripcord leaned against the wall, sweat running freely off both of their brows. The Cobra soldiers lay on the floor, dead. Duke looked over at Ripcord.
"Let's go gather up the Cobra Commander and then go see how Whisper's doing," he said to his friend.
Ripcord nodded. "Good plan," he replied before going into the room where Whisper had been held hostage and where Snake Eyes had knocked out the Commander. He stopped dead, mouth ajar.
"What is it, Rip?" Duke asked him, looking into the room. He swore loudly, spinning on his heel and hitting the wall so hard that he left a hole in it. The Commander was gone.
"Gone? What do you mean 'gone'?" General Hawk almost hollered into his radio.
"As in, he woke up and escaped while we were busy shooting up his soldiers," came Duke's slightly garbled reply.
Hawk swore just as loudly as Duke had, but without punching the wall. He looked over at the Joes soldiers.
"Search the area! The Commander has escaped!" he ordered them.
Snake Eyes came to a stop in front of the chopper and signed quickly to Scarlett, who had been watching from the entry way.
How is she? he asked.
Scarlett just shook her head. Her eyes were red from crying.
Snake ran inside the chopper, just in time to see Charlotte inject Whisper with something. Like Scarlett, Charlotte's eyes were also red from crying. Not fully understanding what was going on, he immediately went over to Whisper's side. His love had finally slipped into unconsciousness. He gripped her hand in his and felt how hot her skin was. Even in unconsciousness, she was whimpering and twitching from the pain. He looked over at Charlotte.
What is wrong with her? What happened? What did you do? he asked in a frenzy of questions.
Charlotte sagged onto one of the benches. "The nanomites were too far along. We came down to the choice of using the experimental drug that was used on her brother, Jason. I'm sorry Snake Eyes. We had no other choice," she managed to say before she broke down crying.
Snake's eyes widened and he sank to his knees, remembering the story that Whisper had told them about the drug:
"They found nanomites in his system from the explosion, but I think that my father got ahold of him and injected them into him. The medics debated on whether or not to just kill Jason then, put him out of his misery, in as bad of shape as he was. Will and I spent a lot of time together, hoping and praying that my brother would get better. He never did. In fact, he just got worse. Eruption suited him even better than before. He would throw fits and have seizures. One medic finally decided to try a new experimental medicine to...purge Jason's body of the nanomites. He never asked anyone, didn't have orders, just did it. Then, a few hours later, my brother was changed. He didn't recognize who we were, or where he was. He was...angrier, more violent, and unpredictable. He was like that for months, being kept in the infirmary most of the time. Will stayed with him all the time, trying to get him to remember. I couldn't stand being with him. He seemed to hate me, yelling and going into his fits almost every time I came near him. The last time I talked to him was in our private training room, one of the rare times he was calm enough to talk to me. I told him that I was going on a mission, but that I would be back. He wasn't very happy about it, but he kept his temper in check for once. Everything changed after that. We found out something about the experimental medicine. The medicine destroyed the nanomites, but it also shut down his major organs, very slowly. Jason's heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, everything. All shut down, demolished. He was dead before we could even get to his side."
Those had been Whisper's exact words. The medicine that had killed her brother was now raging through her own body.
Snake Eyes lost it then. He got to his feet and lunged forward, throwing Charlotte against the wall, holding her there.
Why? You know that medicine kills! Why give it to her?
Charlotte shook in Snake Eyes's grip, tears pouring down even faster now. "I changed the formula. It should work now, but it's still experimental. We decided to take the chance or she would have died," she choked out.
"Snake! Drop her! It wasn't her idea! It was mine!" Scarlett came up behind her teacher and friend. "I remembered Whisper talking about the medicine when she was telling us about her brother." Scarlett's voice was frantic and she was crying almost just as hard as Charlotte.
Snake Eyes released Charlotte and dropped to the floor, his shoulders heaving with his own silent sobs. His flow of anger and rage had passed. Arms wrapped around his shoulders to comfort him, but he ignored them. They weren't the same as Whisper's warm hugs. And if she didn't pull through, he would never feel them again.
All they could do now was to wait and hope that their friend and teammate pulled through.
Poor Snake Eyes! :'( Find out what happens to Whisper in the next chapter! Only a few chapters left and this will be the end of Caged. :'(
Or is it...
DUN DUN DUN!
