Once again Ben found himself awake in his bunk sometime in the middle of the night. And for several long moments, he just lay still on the bunk, his head still resting on his slightly too firm straw-stuffed pillow, wondering exactly what it was that had woken him that time. It could have been the dreams again – he remembered flashes of the very same sort somehow so vaguely terrifying dreams he'd had for nights on end already. And he certainly was uneasy again. Though, on the other hand, it could just as well have been the sound of mumbled cries from the bunk closest to his own.
That bunk had been empty for as long as Ben had slept in his – with two other young men in a pair of bunks clear across the room instead. But that once empty bed was Johnny's now. And recalling that slowly, in his daze of sleepiness and the lingering panic dreams filled with disembodied non-human whispers, and a river, and a dessert, and a girl in a blue dress, he sat up to look over at the boy.
The youngest member of the tribe was sleeping – or at least he seemed to be. He lay near motionless on one side, his arms hugging his pillow like a child might do. But he mumbled loudly while he slept, and after a moment of just mumbling without words, he gave a few much louder sobbing cries, half-muffled by his pillow. He stopped that quickly, but then he was back to mumbling again, before he screamed a muffled scream and sounded almost pain-filled.
Ben wondered for a second if perhaps he ought to wake the boy. Was he suffering somewhere in the world of his own troubled dreams? Did he recall some past existence somewhere else that he would never see again? Ben reached out to lightly shake the boy awake. But the cries and the screaming and even the mumbling stopped then abruptly. And he lowered his hand instead, deciding against a need to wake him after all. He glanced, momentarily worried, toward each of his other two bunk-mates, sure that either of them could have woken up at the sound of Johnny's mumbled screaming. Not that either one would be anything less than concerned and helpful if they had. But Vinny and Stefan could both sleep through quakes on a regular basis and far more noise than that. And sure enough neither seemed to notice in the slightest. Ben turned his attention back to Johnny.
The boy's left arm rested facing partly upward, as he hugged his straw filled pillow tighter, and just barely began to mumble helpless noise again. And in the dim light, just barely starting to peek in through the window, in the first sign of morning, Ben took a second to study the metal object implanted in the boy's wrist – even one as young as him had not been spared from the barbarity of that. And he wondered how long it was been so shockingly red at its edges. It looked painful, even if Johnny had never said a word about it. And Ben noted to himself to tell the unfortunate boy to please seek help if it truly bothered him as bad it is looked like it surely did, instead of trying hard to just tough it out until it burned unbearably with pain.
Ben turned back toward his own bunk then and took the few steps to snatch up his traveling sack from its place in the floor beside the storage crate at the foot of the bunk. He opened the crate next, careful of the creaking hinges, and stuffed a new set of his clothing into the pack, along with an empty water jar. He grabbed his pistol next, as well as a clip of ammo, stuffed the gun into his belt, and left the room, while he slung the pack over one shoulder. His little shinehorn – who had been sleeping quite adorably curled up at the end of the bunk, with her head resting on one hoof - jumped up bleating.
The base as a whole was just as quiet as his bunk-room had been – it most often was at that early an hour, And he crept down the wooden staircase trying hard not to bother anyone before he quickly crossed the dining room and left the building through the back door.
Charlie was saddled in minutes, and soon they were off, easily running the path away from the base and up toward the river that ran through the middle of the mushroom forest. Glow, riding on his shoulder happily, lit the path ahead chasing away any nameless before they even appeared. And Charlie was clearly so excited at a chance to run that morning for the simple sake of running. The path was so easy to navigate then – its sharp turns and the steep drops on the sides barely crossed Ben's mine as rode. And they reached the river easily, after what felt like a short and easy run.
The river itself was just as quiet, it seemed, as the base had been that early morning. But Ben took a good long and careful look in every direction, fully alert for spinosaurus, horrifying massive crabs with dreadful snapping claws and so many other smaller dangers. But there was nothing. Satisfied and sighing with a rare sort of content feeling one did not find often in that place, Ben stepped out of his hide boots, and then quickly out of his clothing as well, before he stepped into the river.
The water was decently warm even that early in the day that time of the year – though far cooler than the already sticky heat in the air around him. And he fully enjoyed dunking his head under the water completely, just to cool off from the ride up, before he surfaced again and began to splash water over his body, trying his best to get cleaner than the simple and fully primitive shower set up at the base would ever allow for. He was certainly no stranger to bathing in the river – he recalled clearly now having done it in his old life on far more than one occasion. And he'd easily taken to the practice in that new and strange world too. He certainly wasn't the only one of the tribe to enjoy doing so, and he knew as well as anyone to simply be careful.
The roar of a dinosaur made him turn, still half submerged in the river after he'd come up from dunking his head under again and spent a moment just enjoying the water's coolness against the air above. And he looked around, his senses on alert as he looked for the noise. The creature roared again somewhere close enough though still across the river. And he expected he might well see a spino emerge at any moment from the trees.
No. He corrected himself just as soon as he'd formed the thought. Not a spinosaurus at all, but a megalosaurus. He surprised himself in so easily recognizing the roar of the far less common – though still no less deadly – creature. And he sighed with his relief to realize it was far enough away to even have noticed him. Regardless, he left the water quickly, the danger more than obvious.
The megalo roared again, closer now and accompanied not only by the roar of a second of the creatures but also by the noise of human shouts and laughter. And Ben, stumbling a little on one foot while he tried to pull on his clean set of pants all too hurriedly listened closer as the laughter moved through the trees across the river.
A trio of saddled and tame megalosaurs burst into view – two ridden by men and the third by a young woman, all them armed with sharpened pikes And all three riders sneered at Ben from clear across the river, while their mounts growled and snarled even in the deepest part of the river, as the crossed it fast. And the dinosaurs continued to snarl horrible, even as they sat, so suddenly on the shore, all of them surrounded a baffled and immediately uneasy Ben, before he could properly react to them. The riders leaped from their mounts, all of them laughing horribly, their pikes in their hands and smirking gins on their dirt stained faces.
"Silly guy can't even put a pair of pants on," the woman remarked. She cackled with laughter at her own remark, as she clutched her weapon in unspoken threat. And before her, her two companions just laughed louder.
A man – the smaller of the two, even if both were more than large enough to be truly intimating – kicked the remaining clothing, which Ben had tossed down beside him while he struggled with the pants, straight into the river with another good laugh.
"Idiot," the fellow sneered before he shoved Ben against his companion – a huge man with his hair clipped into an uneven buzz-cut, and an arm that looked like he'd once survived some near-deadly dinosaur attack - who snarled at them both like an animal and shoved him to the ground instead.
Ben landed in the dirt beside the river, coughing and sputtering until he caught the breath that had just been knocked from his lungs. But as soon as he had caught it again, he was back on his feet, his hands in front of him as he looked from one of the strangers to the next and back again.
"You folks' got a problem?" he demanded. His voice was calm and serious, as he eyed the three a second time. But he was nevertheless already fighting back his too-quick temper, and would surely have hit the one that had just shoved him if the man had only been alone.
"Yeah we got a problem!" the woman snapped back. Her eyes were darting one way then another constantly. And she rocked a little from side to side, while she bounced on her heels. Her face reflected rage and she huffed and little under her breath often, causing a sound close to that of some wounded and raging animal. Ben watched her closer, deciding at once that she was so clearly at least a little unhinged, and absolutely unpredictable enough to make the others appear fully reasonable and sane. "A problem with you. Boy!"
"What's in the sack?" demanded one of the men. He shoved a hand through greasy dark hair and snarled like a madman as he snatched up the bag, left nearby, and dumped its contents to the ground. Immediately he growled his frustration and flung the bag away from him. Another set of clothing was kicked into the river.
"Nothing more valuable or interestin' than your dirty clothes, boy?"
"I suppose not," Ben answered. He dared to return the bigger man's smirk and received a punch to his jaw for his trouble.
"What the hell is the matter with you lunatics?" he snapped, tasting blood inside his mouth.
The other of the men – the snarling one that had shoved him to the ground – grabbed him roughly enough by of his shoulders, to snap his head forward and force a cry of pain. The pike in the big fellow's other hand struck Ben across his rib cage, plenty hard enough to force a gasping wheeze as the air knocked out of him a second time.
"Let's make 'im bleed, let's make 'im bleed," the woman exclaimed, her voice too loud as she laughed with her clearly growing excitement.
She brandished her sharpened tipped metal pike, waving it over her head with a glare in her eyes. And Ben froze in fear, thinking she might throw it at him – likely a fatal attack given her close range. But she didn't throw it at all, choosing instead only to jab him with it several times in the side of his body that already throbbed with pain. Her companions each only laughed along with her, before the biggest the men – the fellow with the bad buzz-cut – produced a large and jagged knife from its holder on his belt. Then his companions shouted cheers of encouragement at him, while Ben eyed the blade in still growing horror.
Ben remembered his pistol only then. And he reflected at once on his stupidity in having forgotten all about it at all. Drawing his gun at the first sign of trouble had been near second nature to him – and somewhere in his memories he full well knew that. He went for the weapon then, his heart dropping hard and in sheer terror then, when he felt nothing clipped to the pants he'd barely managed to finish getting into.
It must have been flung somewhere nearby when his clothes were kicked around. The thought made him nearly freeze, were he not now actively working hard to hide any sign of his panic. He looked around him, trying hard to be inconspicuous about it, trying hard to locate the flung firearm before his aggressors did. The sharp sting, and the cool blade of the knife against his still bare chest, made him turn his attention back to the attackers. And he glared now at all three of them, before boldly daring to swat the knife away from him and right out of the man's hand.
"You are going to regret ever meeting us, Boy!" the buzz-cut man snarled, reigning blows down on Ben's face and upper body for a moment before he bent to collect his dropped knife. The others only laughed again.
"Please stop this," Ben said, aware that he was begging now. He'd never seen the little group of trouble makers before in that place anywhere. Had they mistaken him for someone else who might have almost had that coming? Or were they were just needlessly violent hooligans who would kill him for the fun of it and caught up in the madness of their world. Either way, it hardly mattered and he knew it. He was in serious trouble, as the knife touched his skin again, and someone's pike hit his back hard enough to make him sputter.
"Useless idiots!" a new voice shouted from something further away from the river. Ben looked to see a man riding on another growling megalo, with a woman at his side. He saw that both were frowning in anger, and he felt the blows stop slowly. All three of his aggressors were backing up just a little then, still laughing, as the others rode easily across the river.
"You fools know damn well Lavinia might well turn us all out and leave us to the wild ravagers if we don't go back with decent kills for meat this time," the woman said. And though she certainly didn't sound as worried as someone who truly believed such a threat might have sounded, her voice was both serious and uneasy regardless. The man beside her just glared at the trio of troublemakers, while shaking his head.
"Let's just get out of here," he told the others, who were clearly his tribe-mates. And though he was obviously not interested in their kind of trouble, he eyed Ben with disgust, all the same, adding, "this guy ain't worth it..."
Ben struggled to stay on his feet, while he watched the group of five retreat together back across the river again and into the woods they had all first come from. But he was fast losing that battle and to his still growing terror, he knew it. He reached his equis, as the pain of his injuries – and there were a fair many – caught up with him. And he stood leaning against Charlie, his hands gripping the highest point of the saddle in desperation not to fall to the ground, while Glow stood at his feet, bleating her obvious fright. He leaned down a little, determined to pet her, to calm the tiny creature, as he wondered with amazement and relief at the fact that she'd been speared in the attack – likely having run somewhere while he hadn't been able to take notice. And when he'd managed to do that, he let her trail behind him, bleating her unease as he stumbled back into the shallows of the river to collect his soaked clothes. He found the pistol too, laying against the closest tintoberry bush – though he barely noticed it at all until his stumbling foot had kicked it, because of the blood that ran into his eyes.
His head spun as he struggled into Charlie's back. And the harder he struggled to mount the house, the more the landscape spun around him. His body hurt in so many places at once. And just the effort of trying made him shake with the pain that tore through both of his sides. He spent a good moment just standing still, leaning on the horse again and fighting back every urge to scream with the pain that even just leaning like that caused him – before he finally managed to drag himself up into the saddle.
"Go slow, Charlie," Ben mumbled to his horse, patting him lightly on the neck as he shakily managed to hold the reins, and feared all the while that the violent attackers would return. "You know the way home..."
The equis barely made it ten steps at a slow and careful walk – so clearly aware of his rider's plight – before Ben fell from the saddle, dizzy and unable to hold himself upright. He landed on a patch of hard packed dirt, still just meters from the river, and heard himself groan with the pain of the fall now worsening his every other injury and ache, before the world went black.
"Bloody hell, Boy," The voice speaking too loudly beside him, dragged him back to wakefulness again, even if all too slowly. And for too many moments he just lay still, on the ground, his face half in the dirt underneath him, confused and oddly frightened, gasping for a breath that was hard to catch past the pain that shot through his left side.
Finally, with great effort, he lifted his head from the loose dirt to look with new horror at the small patch of deadly red mushrooms he'd come only inches from falling straight into, before looking up at Jessie, who halfway kneeled on the ground beside him.
"That horse came running toward the base, carrying on like a mad thing," the tribe leader said, as clearly impressed with that, as he was horrified at having found Ben on the ground unconscious. "You are God damn lucky you weren't spino food, or crushed I the claws of those horrible crabs, knocked out this close to the river, Boy." The big man dragged Ben to a sitting position on the ground. And through hazy and still slightly spinning vision, tinged with blood that he could feel running down his face, he appeared to be looking him over the best he knew to do.
"This don't look to me like you just fell off your horse," Jessie said. He shook his head and looked downright uneasy as he spoke. "Ya gonna tell me what the hell happened?"
"People from another tribe..." Ben found his words, as quickly as he could, and found just as quickly that it hurt just to talk. "three of 'em. With pikes..."
"Let's get ya back into your feet, boy," Jessie muttered. But his eyes showed sudden unmistakable anger and a kind of realization, as he spoke. "We gotta get you back to base because I can't have you passing out again out here, and you're sure in a sorry state. And watch out for those damn mushrooms."
Ben could just barely remember the trip back to base – struggling to stay seated on Charlie's back, even while the leader of the tribe rode close beside him on his ravager, doing his best to make sure he wouldn't tumble from the saddle again. And surely he'd fallen back into unconsciousness at some point a moment after they'd gotten back. Because when he awoke again, he was laying on a bunk that was certainly not his own, inside some small and cluttered space. He had been inside Stella's little cabin only once before then. But still, he recognized the little place, if all too slowly. And when he did, he fought back a slight groan of dismay. Why, he wondered, almost frustrated, couldn't he just have been dumped off, to sleep off his pain and his pounding head in his own bunk instead.
Stella stood in front of one of her shelves, across the room with her back to him. And he thought about speaking to her, but he didn't. She turned around, regardless, just a short second later. Her face bore and momentarily startled expression, as she met his wide-open eyes, but she quickly just smiled instead with genuine relief clear on her face. She took a few hurried steps across the room, before turning back to the shelf, as a clear afterthought, to pick up a jar filled with something bright red. And then she turned again to walk quickly toward the bunk.
"Oh good, you're awake," she said, smiling her compassion calm smile. Ben watched her pour a little of the red liquid into a cup that was sitting on the small table close by. And he turned to him again holding it in her hand.
"Drink this up, please," she instructed, confidant. "I think you can probably sit up a little."
Ben struggled a little to do so. But with Stella doing her obvious best to help him, he managed to partway sit on the buck with his pillow behind him. He made himself drink obediently from the little cup when she pushed it into his hands, inwardly preparing for something he only assumed would surely taste unbearably horrible. But he sighed with some relief when it instead had only a mildly sour taste of under-ripened berries instead.
"That should make you feel a bit better," Stella told him, nodding her approval as he finished the contents of the little cup. "Should help with any pain too, dear." She nodded, calm and understanding when Ben just muttered gratitude to her. After a moment she reached for a simple wooden chair left just in her reach, and pulled it closer, in order to sit beside the bunk.
"Well," she said, seriously, "you're battered and bruised. But nothing's broken. Jessie went right on out after those men you said were on the loose with pikes..." She sat for a moment then, shaking her head a little, with a fully worried look on her face, before she muttered, "I warned him to maybe think this over for a while. But he's obviously had enough. It seems those may be the same people that were tormenting poor Johnny, the night he first washed up..."
Stella's comment was the very first Ben had ever heard about Johnny having a run-in with such trouble. And he suddenly felt all the worse for the unfortunate boy.
"I certainly wasn't expectin' to run into any hooligans today," he muttered. And he tried to sit up entirely then, mostly due to his own sheer stubborn determination. It only made his head spin, just trying to do that. "I thought most people here just keep to themselves."
"Hmm," Stella's voice was still entirely serious. Though as always far from uncaring, as she looked him over slowly, "my biggest question now is how and why you ran into them at all. Jessie says he found you by the river, passed out cold with your face nearly in a patch of the worst sort of mushrooms, with the sun still barely up."
"I was bathing in the river," Ben explained, his answer simple. But he watched Stella frown a little and then heard her sigh before she looked at him again in clear confusion and doubt.
"That's all good and well of course," she said, with a small doubt filed laugh. "But at barely the crack of dawn, dear?"
"I haven't been sleeping well," Ben answered. He shrugged it off at once, determined to think little more of it, as the memories of several past nights came to mind uninvited. He shivered a little, though the cabin - with its little fire under a steaming cooking pot in the corner – was certainly not cold. And he knew that Stella had seen him do it, despite his every effort to hide it. Because she leaned forward a little in the chair, concern more than clear on her face now as she looked at him.
"Talk to me about this," she said before she smiled assurance at him.
Ben was certainly hesitant and unsure at first. The dreams were so disjointed and full of fleeting images, even if they did repeat so many nights. But he explained it all anyway, the best he could manage to – the river, the girl, carriage wheels rolling down the dusty desert road... And there was more and more that he remembered as he spoke. The clothesline. Chipping paint and tumbleweeds. A town named... Clarksville! He knew at once he'd never even seen that in his dreams at all, but instead that he'd just pulled the name from somewhere in his mind while he was speaking of the rest of it. He gasped in sudden dread at that. Because for a reason he couldn't understand, the thought was somehow truly frightening. And with his eyes lowered to the bunk, he heard himself mumbling apologies for the confusion.
"Certainly no need to apologize for that," Stella said, her calm smile still on her face as she laughed just a little.
"I wake up, and every time it's just like... like I was just there. Really there, thinking about repainting that house if there was extra money for some paint next spring... standing knee deep in the river. And... a horse.." Ben shook his head a little, sure he was trembling badly though he wasn't sure why. And suddenly sad, though in some odd and almost detached kind of way. "His name was... Charlie."
"You were certainly someone before you got here, don't forget," Stella said, still smiling in his direction. And suddenly it all made complete – and so oddly terrifying – sense. "It can be a bit disconcerting to think about that sometimes, yes. But we all came from somewhere else once... I think I told you once, just a bit about my life, working in inner-city London." Stella laughed just a little again – a calm sort of laugh of someone simply reflecting on their life. "The last I ever knew, it was 2017. Though I feel like for you, based on the things you are speaking about, that's probably long after you might once have existed, and maybe too mind blowing right now to even wrap your head around."
Ben nodded overwhelmed almost instantly, as his mind tried and struggled to understand the passing of time in a world he felt like he was starting to quickly regret ever wanting to remember at all. The pain of his injuries, along with the effort of just trying to wrap his mind around the thought of a true and very real past existence, made him tremble harder fighting just to breathe without gasping hard as tears filled his eyes.
"It can certainly be difficult when it all starts to come together," Stella said, speaking slowly. She helped Ben to lay back down again, flat on his back on the bunk, with the pillow comfortably under his head. And she still smiled, just as confidant as ever, while her gaze invited him to go on conversing with her.
"It... shouldn't be this... terrible," Ben said after he'd spent a second just searching for the word he felt like he should use. "I shouldn't be afraid of my own memories. I never imagined just starting to remember anything at all, would be so very..."
"Downright unpleasant?" Stella guessed so easily when Ben stopped speaking abruptly in his own uncertainty. And when he nodded slowly and grateful, she took his right hand – one part of him that had entirely escaped injuries from the beating attack – in hers gently and smiled again in assurance.
"You'd be surprised, dear," she said slowly. "Though it sounds like for you it may be harder than many. I'm very sorry there's so little to be done to really help, except to advise you to calmly observe any flashes of memories... to remember that nothing in your own mind can ever really hurt you..."
Ben nodded, still so grateful as he struggled again to sit himself up. This time, perhaps due to more time just resting while he spoke, and perhaps due to the effects of whatever he'd given to lessen his pain, he managed to do so easily enough. He sighed with relief when Stella didn't stop him, appearing instead to encourage the effort.
"May I go back to my own bunk," he questioned, inwardly preparing himself to accept her decision without protest if she were to deny his release from her care but reaching for his boots – which he'd found lying next to the bunk – in a gesture of his determination.
"I suppose you may," Stella replied, after a tense moment of her appearing to consider carefully while she looked him over again. She reached for the boots herself, obviously meaning to help him put them on. "But..." she held up a hand, in front of her. "I insist you lay down in said bunk for a while when you get there. Try to sleep for a while. I'll come and wake you if I need to in time for the evening meal. Honest to god, you could have been killed."
There were few times, Stella could think of quickly, in which she really and truly disliked her job in that strange world. She liked to think that even when the world and its circumstances took from her so many of those she fought so hard to save, she was still entitled to some peace at knowing she had done the best she could have done with so little. But at that moment, looking down for a brief second at Ellie – who lay just crying helplessly on the bunk in the corner of the cabin – she was sure she could easily hate not just the job, but the entire world for its heartlessness.
"Stella, I'm sorry," Ellie said, driven for some inexplicable reason it seemed, to needlessly apologize as she started to cry harder.
"Please, don't apologize, dear," Stella answered at once. She fought to keep her hands from shaking with the inner rage she felt at everything, aside from the unfortunate girl. And she just continued to pull, gently and carefully as she possibly could, at the cloth wrappings stuck with shocking amounts of dried blood and mess against the front of Ellie's body.
"Try to lay still, my dear," she said, forcing her own tears of despair away, when Ellie smacked at her hands, clearly only out of panic and discomfort, before she tried then to grab hold of one of them, and with another cry of pain. "It's much easier for you if you're still, remember?"
"MmHmm," Ellie mumbled – so obviously the closest they could manage then to agreement. She shut her eyes then. And she stopped moving, at least for the moment. But her tears continued to fall down her face anyway.
Stella had given the girl a decent dosing of narcotic already before she'd even started working. Ellie surely would never have been half as calm as she was – all crying aside – if she hadn't. She'd wanted to give her a fair bit more though – perhaps even enough to send her into unconsciousness entirely for a while. But Ellie had firmly refused to agree to it. She always refused, in her terrible aversion to losing any control and awareness of herself. Stella recalled, to her dismay, just how much convincing it had taken to make her agree to it once, at the very start of her horrifying situation.
"I wasn't sure at first if I should say a thing to you about this," Stella said. Conversing intently while she tried to work at the same time, was far from her ideal. But she certainly would – or at least she'd try her best to anyway - when she figured it might have been useful. "But I think you certainly ought to know. That it's only right to tell you..."
"Tell me... what...?" Ellie asked slowly, and quietly. Her voice shook with her tears. But she was clearly listening with interest in being talked to. Stella felt hopeful then. But the slowness of the girl's speech and the accompanying sound of her sleepiness made her decide quickly against further drugging her.
"Brendan loved you so very much," Stella said. She glanced up from her careful work, still pulling, gently as possible at the cloth wrappings. And she saw Ellie's eyes open again and now blinking in something between surprise and confusion. So she went on, speaking. "The night before he died, he came to talk to me after the evening meal... not because he was unwell or anything, but because he had absolutely no idea what to do. For a man so confidant and well trusted in this place, that fellow could certainly be so clueless at times about matters of emotion. He had decided to befriend you once, simply because he felt it was only decent he try to offer help to the unfortunate still new arrival in a worst case situation he knew so much about. He certainly never thought this was a place he'd meet the love of his life.. or that you would ever mean half as much to him as you did."
"He used to... try so hard to make me laugh," Ellie mused out loud. Her eyes were closed again, and she just stayed still – obviously distracted just enough by conversation to let her stay so much calmer. "And... the worst I felt the harder he'd try..."
She was crying hard again in the next second. And it was easy to reason that it was from her sadness over endless 'might have beens' as from pain.
Stella shook her head firmly, forcing away her own threatening tears - refusing to let herself give in to a single one of them – when she remembered with a start that Brendan had been with Ellie the last few times she'd dealt with the wrappings that covered a devastating chest wound, that still refused after so long to even start to heal. Usually, Ellie would just hug his arm, and cry against his shirt sleeve while he talked to her about any random nonsense that occurred to him. Once in a while she'd let go of him, and lay looking up at him, shaking badly and apologizing for crying. And he would so quickly dismiss her apologies with a smile at her and a shake of his head
, before he encouraged her gently to just hold on to him again.
She'd done her best to return the favor too when Stella cared for him – his state just as bad, and sometimes it looked even worse. It seemed at first like Brendan mostly wished to let Ellie be useful to him – to humor her in letting her hold his hands and ask him silly questions because she'd learned easily enough that giving her silly answers was exactly what made him laugh. But it quickly became plenty obvious, even if he never said a thing about it, just how grateful he truly was to her.
"You speak about how much he did for you. But it's only right that you understand just how much you did for him too," Stella said, remembering to keep talking because Ellie was obviously so much calmer, while just being talked to. Besides, she knew the girl would want to understand. "Aside from myself, of course, you were likely the only one to truly see him in his weaker moments... or at least to understand them. That same night he talked to me about his confusion over unexpected love, he told me how laying close to you in his bunk, just listening to you chattering on to him about anything you could think of, was what kept him from crying in pain on more than one occasion."
"I... I never knew how much I mattered," Ellie mumbled. Her pale lips turned up slightly in what was almost a smile for a fleeting second. And clearly, she took some wonderful peace from learning just how much she'd meant to the tribe-mate who had loved her so much more than she'd known. Still, she cried so much harder, smacking helplessly at Stella's hands again – so clearly beginning to panic, as she was prone to doing sometimes - as she managed to finally pull the cloth wrapping free entirely.
Blood was seeping from the wound by then. And it was more than enough to almost be truly concerning if only Stella had not seen it just a bit worse the last time. Ellie though had been well distracted that last time – her face almost entirely buried by that time in Brendan's shirt sleeve. And this time, on realizing the extent of it all – and despite Stella's best effort to toss the bloodied wrappings out of sight quickly – she stiffened in clear and obvious growing panic.
"Stella?" Ellie asked, after a moment in which she just lay so clearly struggling just to fight off her growing fright and calm herself, while her hands held with some force to the cover tossed over the bunk. "Do you... know how Brendan died?"
Stella stood for a second because the question was the last thing she'd expected then, probably because she hadn't asked that question far sooner than that. And in the same second, she almost forgot that she was in the middle of her work – instead just looking down at the poor girl on the bunk, with a sad slow shake of her head.
"I don't know, dear," she said slowly and compassionate. "When I found him in his bunk, he was just laying still mostly under his cover, looking just like he might have been sleeping." She didn't dare to tell Ellie about how she'd fully expected to find a scenario so much worse – one involving blood-splattered walls of a bunk-room and, and a body halfway to utterly damaged beyond easy recognition. And she sighed in her own helplessness, smiling fast assurance the best she could manage while she reached down to the shelf nearest her for a clean cloth rag and her cleaning solution she made from the world's plant-life. "I... don't think he ever even woke up. He never knew he was in any real danger at all. And that's gotta be the best way to have gone... But I don't know what killed him exactly. I can only guess his heart just suddenly gave up beating."
Ellie nodded her understanding. And her face showed a mix of relief and regrets through her tears. But she held her hands in front of her in a self-protective posture, while she trembled hard. It was more than clear she'd had about as much as she could take, both physically and emotionally at the moment.
"Ellie," Stella said, calm and quiet only because she forced her voice into that even tone instead of giving in to her own despair. She held one of the girl's arms gently, forcing it down to her side even more gently so that her defensive position would drop again. It easily did, after just a tiny bit of wordless coaxing. "Perhaps you should sleep for a while, dear. I could give you just enough..."
"No, please..." Ellie muttered in reply before Stella was even able to finish speaking. She shook her head in refusal, just had been sadly expected. She made what truly appeared to be her best effort seen yet to stop crying entirely. Still, she gave out a loud and terrible scream – so obviously unable to stop herself from it – from the stinging of the cleaning solution. And Stella fought back a new wave of her own hopelessness, at simply watching the poor unfortunate girl so stubbornly battling against herself. "I.. don't want to..."
Stella was so absorbed in her thoughts, and her work, and her still growing despair, that a sudden and unexpected knocking on her cabin door caused her to nearly scream out loud herself in startled fright so unlike her.
"I'm... tied up for the moment," she called out, turning toward the door with her cautions eyes still on Ellie. And she thought quickly, stumbling over her own words, which was even less like herself than the near scream of fright.
"Stella," that was Jessie's voice. She realized it with another start and a flood of relief she had not expected to feel, as she carefully crossed the room as far as she dared wander away, to meet him partway.
"Is everything alright?" he asked slowly, and concerned. He stood still then, looking just a bit conflicted. "I'm sorry. You might be busy... I hadn't realized..."
"Just.. working with Ellie," Stella mumbled. She stepped closer to him and resisted every urge to fling herself into his arms as the extent of her overwhelmed state caught up to her at the worst of times. I... I think I need help, and I don't know who can help me! She's in a bad state, I won't lie... I... I can't..."
"I can help," Jessie answered. And even at that moment, well outside his realm of understanding and experience, he showed only confidence in the tone of his voice. And before Stella could even utter of word of protest – to tell him that certainly wasn't his job to concern himself with – he crossed the small cabin without a hint of doubt about him.
"I... I'm sorry..." Ellie said – another all too familiar apology driven by her own upset and pain - looking up at him as soon as he reached the narrow bunk shoved into its little cramped corner of the cabin. She'd began to cry again, even if only just a little now in the moment she was alone. And she fought once more to stop herself from doing so, as the tribe leader just smiled assurance.
"You're alright, girl," He said, holding out a hand to her. His look was only another of patient and understanding assurance when she took it with some hesitation, and she lay still again just holding on tightly.
"It's usually so much worse the closer you get to the end of this messy situation," he went on, his voice sympathetic. "More than one person in our tribe is impressed by you, you know?"
"You weren't the only one to say I'd have been better off dead," Ellie mumbled back. Her voice was far from accusing or even upset by the comments she spoke of. She appeared to almost understand the logic in them. And she was calmer again, as she focused on holding a conversation.
"You're right," Jessie answered. True remorse showed in his eyes then. And though Stella could see it at once with a single glance up at him, she knew that Ellie - her eyes closed again – unfortunately, did not. "I certainly did say that. And I'm so truly sorry, Ellie. I could tell you it was said in panic. And that would certainly be true. But still, it was absolutely unacceptable..."
"Okay, dear," Stella said kindly, "ready to sit up for the last bit?"
All that was left of the job now was to wrap and tie a new clean cloth wrapping around the girl's upper body. And even with the need to pull it somewhat tightly, it was still by far the easy part, all things considered. Stella sighed with her relief when Ellie nodded calmly, clearly relieved herself as she moved to sit up on the bunk.
Ben sat outside the base, letting himself lean back a little in a wooden chair, turned away from the old and well worn table. It was early evening now. And inside the base, the place was at its noisiest, as so many of the tribe returned from their day's tasks and ready to socialize and chatter away to each other. So many of them had been talking so loudly, a few had been laughing over... something or other in the main stairway. There was the usual stomping of feet on floors and steps, and the near-inevitable slamming of doors too heavy for their hinges.
He didn't always mind the noise of course. And he was almost used to the chaos by now. It was was certainly nice to have people to talk to, and laugh with. And the three days he'd spent alone upon first arriving in that place – days before he'd finally met Ellie, and that time already seemingly so long ago in the flurry of all that had happened since then in simply building himself a new life there – had taught him a new and very real appreciation of human companionship. Still, it was nice to simply enjoy the evening air and the quiet.
The long nap he'd taken, on Stella's firm orders, had certainly done a lot to make him feel better. And that evening's hot meal of hearty mutton stew had done a fair bit more. But he knew full well he was far from ready to do much or wander very far. And the pain and shot through his left side, from the bottom of his rib-cage to his shoulder, reminded fully of his bruises.
He watched a pair of dodos on the path nearby, as they squabbled with loud squawks and clucks, over a decent sized sprig of tintoberries that one of them held in its large beak. A third bird, this one fatter than the others, and shaking its short feathered tail comically as it waddled, made its way to Ben's side slowly. He laughed aloud, at the silliness of the creature, and reached down to slowly pat the dodo on its pink feathered head, before shoeing it away with a motion of his hand.
"Stupid birds," he muttered, laughing again, this time under his breath. He shook his head at the dodo, watching it waddle off to join in the squabble over the berries. "It's little wonder you went extinct, walking right on up to the humans that wouldn't hesitate to send you to the stew pot."
The dodos ended their noisy tussle, and went instead to pecking peacefully at various colored berries partly dried and shriveled on the ground – Ben often thought they preferred those to the fresh ones they tore from the bushes. And he was quickly reminded of a flock of barnyard chickens.
His parents had kept several of them when he was a boy. Ben remembered that suddenly enough, to be momentarily startled by the memory. But that one was so harmless and simple that he just smiled to himself for a moment at recalling it. Those chickens had laid fresh eggs for their breakfast, which his mother served up every morning with fresh bread, lightly toasted on the woodstove, and sometimes a bit of meat. And there was always fresh milk too... and butter for their toast. And both of his parents would laugh happily at him, as he ate his food up so fast, in his unceasing haste to help his father with the horses he was trying to break and train for riding in the open meadow up the road from the house.
His mother would later pass away, at the end of that summer. Ben remembered her sudden death with a sad start. And he struggled just a little, to follow the memory stream with passive calmness just as Stella had advised him to. He recalled just how his mother had suddenly broken out in a rash, and that seemingly overnight she was covered in red patchy blotches, and burning up with fever. There was worry that he would get sick too. He'd heard it discussed more than once over a few days, by his father and the neighbors much closer to town. They talked about how the Jones girl had died the past week, and how the Benson boy might actually recover where they'd worried he'd die too. But Ben never did get sick... though eventually his mother was suddenly gone, not two weeks after he turned eight years old.
His father was never quite the same again. His memories showed him that so clearly. And he felt the very same anger he'd felt in the moment, just watching the man he'd once idolized and swore he'd just exactly like one day, fall into a life of drinking before noon, and brawling in the saloon before falling down in the street like a fool.
'Ben!' the young female voice called out of him. And he startled badly to hear it so well, even in that dark and strange world where he knew it was fully out of place. He blinked his eyes hard, dread filling his mind, and his stomach dropping fast with panic, as he realized he could barely see the rocky ground, the dodos, or the side of the staircase he'd been beside, anymore. Instead, he looked out on a desert landscape at a rolling tumbleweed, and at the face of a familiar smiling girl – even as his mind screamed that something was very wrong.
'Ben, come and play with me,' the girl begged. She rocked a little on the fronts of her feet, in the light blue dress Ben knew was her favorite one. And the wind blew her blond hair into her face along with the dust. He watched her for a moment, as she ran for the river only steps away from them. Then he raised the hatchet in his hands to the pile of logs he was splitting into firewood.
'I can't play, Sarah.' he heard his own voice answer back. But he sounded so young then, even to himself. And he shuddered hard, confused to the point of near terror now, as a dodo squawked somewhere in the desert landscape of his childhood.
'I'm working,' he answered the girl. And he tossed several newly chopped chunks of wood into the wagon parked to his right. 'Mr. Cooper promised me five dollars for a week's worth of wood. And he's getting old ya know. The arrangement will help him out as much as it'll help us.'
'Ben,' you're thirteen,' the girl – Sarah – answered, laughing at him like she always had in fun. 'Too young to be a real workin' man, I'd say. And.. who's gonna drive the wagon to deliver the wood to the Cooper farm?'
'I am.' the answer came so quickly and so self-assured, even as Ben sat at the wooden table, sure he was indeed still outside of the base on the strange world that was his home now, though he was barely aware of being there at all.
Visuals began to flash then, each one moving so fast through his mind that he could barely keep up. His mother, smiling in her pretty yellow Sunday dress and white hat just moths before she'd died. White paint peeling from the side of a rickety house. A clothesline. A wagon. Horses. Chickens. The rushing of the tumbling rapids of the river. A schoolhouse. His father in the sheriff's jail cell... himself in one years later.
"Ben!" The voice that was calling to him now was not the same as that of the girl he now saw so often when he flashed into memories. But it was just as familiar. And she was so clearly concerned.
"Ellie," he mumbled. Forcing his body to move, even as his mind tried to further detach from any control and reality. He shivered hard with a sudden horrible chill and felt his body trembling while the entire world around him spun so fast it made him fight back cries of terror. Somewhere in the mental chaos, he felt her grab his shoulder, lightly and hesitant. The careful hold of someone who feared hurting him, in his injured state.
"I don't know what's wrong exactly, but I think you need to sit back," she muttered. And it was only when she helped him do exactly that, and when he felt the chair back supporting his body and understood that he'd been in danger of falling forward from the chair, that he became aware again of sitting in it at all.
There was a flash of swirling colors around him. And the visuals flew past his eyes and through his mind far faster.
A winding road. A dust storm blowing across endless nothing. Copper pennies. A pistol feeling cool in his hand, playing cards, liquor bottles made of glass. A rope swing hung from a tree, and... the wailing screams of a child in a state of panicked terror!
Recalling those panicking screams, even if still in a context that was completely unclear to him, was enough to startle him out of the memory flashes entirely, and just as one might awake from a horrible nightmare. He sat up in his chair again, looking around at the area outside the base, recalling fully that he was there in the first place, and had never left. The wild dodos that had been nearby pecking at the berries on the ground still did so. And now, just a little further off in the distance, on the path that lead up to the river, a pair of ankylosaurs browsed on tender green leaves from a low bush.
Ellie stood close beside him, and she looked him over with an expression of more than obvious concern. Finally, she reached for another of the chairs, turning it away from the table, and sitting down hesitantly.
"Are you... going to be okay?" she asked. She sounded almost unconvinced, even as she asked the question. But Ben just nodded, however slowly and uncertain himself.
"Should you even be outside in the first place?" Ellie questioned him, next. Though it hardly sounded like a question at all. Her voice turned regretful. "I know all about what those lunatics did, by the river this morning. Everyone knows..."
"I wanted fresh air," Ben told her, smiling to force away her questioning. "I'll be fine."
"Do you remember anything from your old life yet," he asked when she dropped the subject of his health and safety - suddenly so curious to know, and dismayed in realizing that he'd never asked her, of all people, about her own former life.
"Yes, I do," Ellie answered slowly. And she appeared to think for a moment. "There are still so many... missing pieces. But I think I know who I used to be by now."
Ben hoped at once that she might elaborate at least a little bit. He was so curious about the lives of everyone in that place – as he assumed they must surely have all been about each other. And he was certainly curious about her in particular, perhaps because he'd met her first in that place. Everything about her, pieced together so slowly, from noticing her behavior and her skill set, convinced him that she had lived in a time far into his own future – many in that place had. But when she just sat still and quiet in her chair, watching the dodos as they began to squabble again, he decided not to push her to explain.
"I hope it isn't half this hard for you, just putting it all back together," he said instead. And he fully meant it – especially as he looked at her closely. She was shaking then, her body in a constant state of trembling just as though she was frozen with cold even in the warm humidity of the evening air. And her blue eyes appeared near red with pained tears, against her pale face. Yes, he truly meant his words then, more than ever. Because she of anyone didn't need to suffer through mental confusion like that, on top of everything else.
"No, it isn't," Ellie answered. She stared off in the distance for a long moment, so clearly distracted as she tried to think. "It's... weird, yeah. It's so hard to explain. Like.. remembering anything from my life in this place so far... but further back than that..."
Ben nodded, relieved at once because she certainly didn't seem frightened by her own process of remembering. And he shifted a little, in his chair, ready to reach again for the mining pick, and intent on resuming his work while they talked. But in that moment, dizziness overtook him. And fast flashing visuals streamed in front of him again.
An iron pot boiling on a wood stove. A woodpile. A heavy sharpened ax resting on a leaning fencepost. Old worn brown boots. The old horse called Charlie, rearing up in frustration at a smaller creature under his hooves...
"I'm sorry, Sarah," Ben mumbled. "I'm... just not well today." And he managed to lean back in the chair again, without help this time and fearing a fall from it, and onto the ground.
"Ben," Ellie's voice was calm beside him. But with a look in her direction as the visuals faded again, he saw the confusion clear on her face. "I'm Ellie... Eleanor Kinsley..."
That was the first time Ben had ever heard her full name. And he wondered if she had only recalled it recently herself. He just smiled for a second, at how a thing so simple could make her seem so much more human and real than she ever had before. It was to his dismayed shock, and after another moment of just sitting distracted, that he understood that she had said it only because he'd called her by the wrong name in the first place.
"Benjamin Jacob Robbins," he said, instead of even trying to explain himself. Because his full name echoed through his head now, as soon as he'd really thought to wonder if indeed he could recall it like she had her own. He saw her smile a little, at his obvious achievement. Because, such a simple thing was truly an achievement now, in that strange world.
"Sarah may well have been someone important," Ellie suggested, her tone helpful and curious. Her eyes watched him closely for any signs of another disconnect from their reality, as she waited for him to answer her.
"You remind me so much of her," Ben explained, suddenly trembling as he pieced together as much as he possibly could from the flashes of memory and the horrible nightmares that had filed his last few nights, as he lay in the darkness of his bunk-room. He sighed slowly and considered his words carefully before he went on speaking again.
"Sarah was my little cousin... the daughter of my father's brother and his wife. But, she may as well have been my sister, because her parents raised me almost like I was their own son from the time my father just gave up. She was so much like you. Stubborn and determined to do what she wanted to do. To her ' bad idea' just seemed to mean, something worth trying. She chopped wood. She played in the mud. She fought with the boys and climbed trees. She learned to shoot as well as I could!"." Ben paused then, watching in his mind's eye, though for the first time with true calm, as her image appeared again, just as though he was seeing her then in the present moment. And slowly he went on speaking. "She looked just like you must have looked as a little girl."
"So, what happened to her?" Ellie asked slowly. Something about her tone told Ben just how much she knew not to expect a predictable and happy story about how his beloved cousin had simply grown up to live a life like any other on the frontier.
"She..." Ben's voice nearly broke with tears then. And he looked toward the dodos that still squabbled over berries, forcing himself to speak again without showing such sadness. "She drowned in the river."
"We used to run across the river, jumping over stones that made a path across a shallow part," Ben explained, when Ellie looked at him, horrified. Clearly, whatever she'd expected to learn of the girl's fate, that was far from it. "I guess we'd always made a game of it, mostly. One day though it was raining so hard the river flooded its banks. Her horse's little foal got away somehow... probably panicked from the thunder. He ran to the river, and the current swept him away. I told Sarah, I'd go after him, or at least I'd try to. But she insisted she could do it, just as well as me. She tried to run across the stone, just like we'd always done... but it was so much deeper then because of the rain, and churning rapids. She slipped. I... couldn't save her."
"I know you would have done every single thing you could have done," Ellie said, her voice so sad as she looked at him. "I understand now why you've always tried to protect me from this place..."
"That is true," Ben mused. And he smiled for a moment, as he finally understood that. Slowly he shook his head, and added seriously, "though, anyone would surely need some protecting from this horrible place?"
"It is really so horrible?" Ellie asked, her tone just as serious. And Ben blinked in surprise, to hear that question from her of anyone, even as he noted the pain flashing across her eyes again.
He sat still, just thinking of even known danger, and the utter brutality of the place, into which he'd been flung, presumably expected to simply survive. His mind called up the names of at least twenty creatures there, that only wanted him dead. And it went then to the darkness of the place, the radiation far below... and the daytime flames that covered the ground and charred the landscape to a useless wasteland high above. Yes, he decided - his own thoughts confirmed – it was so horrible, and more so. He must have nodded his head, without thinking about it, even if he hadn't spoken out loud. Because Ellie, surprisingly, shook hers a little.
"You've gotta admit this world is a beautiful place," Ellie said. "Not to mention fascinating. I mean... real-life dinosaurs, remember? Dinosaurs that we can train like pets and workhorses. And we are watching dodos, as we speak, Ben!" She suddenly turned fully serious, as she looked back at him again.
"The world I came from... the Earth I knew... everything you've ever spoken of was ancient history by the time I was born. Let's just say, humanity learned nothing from years of our repeated mistakes. And it all just gets worse... I like to think maybe for us here, this could be our second chance to get it right."
"I think..." Ben said, speaking slowly, hesitant, and considering carefully before he spoke at all. "No. I know... Brendan would want you to make it here, even if he didn't."
Ellie smiled then, a real smile and the first he'd seen from her in days. And for at least a couple of moments, she just sat still and appearing to think.
"You're right," she said,
"Ellie, if you ever need anything.." Ben said, speaking slowly, still carefully choosing his words as he spoke. "You.. you know I'm not that hard to find."
"Thank you," Ellie answered, another smile on her face, along with a look of obvious gratitude. Slowly though the smile turned to a funny sort of mock smirk. And she looked him over slowly, in the increasing darkness, as evening melted into the night.
"Crap, you look terrible," she said, with a hint of a laugh clearly meant to hide her horrified dismay.