Alarms rang in Splint's ears as he executed a neat forward roll into the snow. The February air was chilly, and anyone outside the world that was Manticore- the only world Splint had ever known- would scoff at the very idea that a bunch of nine and ten-year-olds (as well as Zack, who was eleven) could ever survive in the still, eerie deathtrap of the Manticore woods.
Amazingly, Splint didn't trip even once. He was infamous among the group for being terrifically clumsy as well as allergic to most staple foods and curiously, to chlorine and neurology drugs. Even more strangely, he'd never had a seizure in his life, but would have preferred those to waking up on a hot morning with a blinding fever and a burning rash from a synthetic blanket or a mosquito bite.
He didn't consider his triumph at remaining uninjured. He was numb. He wanted to cry, but the tight, edgy sensation in his chest remained steadfast, showing no willingness to shift or vent or anything.
The X5 class was the most successful of all. He'd only heard of a couple of prototypes dying at the beginning of the programme.
But he'd had to get used to death recently, a subject he'd been desensitised to, starting when Syl shot Danny in the summer of 2008. People could barely stand to use the word 'Syl' and the word 'gun' in the same sentence now.
Then Jack, not long ago, had passed away too. Splint had not properly seen him being dragged from the martial arts hall, only caught a glimpse of his legs and the swinging of the door.
And now Eva. It was almost too much to bear. He begged his body to just cry, to expel that achy pent-up feeling that made his chest tight and his eyes heavy with unshed tears, but his body, primed since conception with the finest training and engineering ever devised, was too accustomed to hiding its emotions rather than freely crying.
They met at the clearing in the Manticore woods, after what seemed like years of sprinting blindly through the woods. He was directed to a tree by Zack and instructed to keep watch with a few of the others. The clearing slowly filled up with kids wearing institutional grey gowns. Tensely, Splint stood slightly shadowed by the lower branches of the tree. There was a long silence, and Zack counted everyone only to realise that Maxie, Jace and Jondy weren't there. Brin told him about seeing Jace left behind, no problem about that, and Splint saw the pain in Zack's eyes when Zack realised he'd mistakenly counted Eva when she'd been dead twelve whole minutes. You weren't supposed to dwell on dead siblings that long, it was a show of bad character.
Crashing and crunching emanated through the trees, and everyone ducked in a panic. Could a lone soldier have tracked them here?
It was Max. Her eyes flickered over the group. Splint sensed her concern at Jondy's absence. Zack nodded curtly at her as she found a place.
A few more moments. Then- a lone figure at the top of the hill. Smiles all around- it was Jondy.
Splint was paired with Clay to escape. Clay was plainly the X5 Macho Man, who openly enjoyed fighting and pursuing and killing more than the others. Clay sneered slightly but beckoned him, and they bolted through the thicket and into the forest.
Things seemed to be going rather well as they scrambled up a small rock face and ran along the edge. Unfortunately, Splint's feet made sharp contact with a partly submerged tree branch. He tumbled rather painfully to the ground, getting a faceful of snow.
Clay skidded to a halt, looked around at his brother trying to drag himself out of the snow and shrugged, dashing into the night in the most nonchalant way imaginable.
"No, wait!" he yelped, finding it intensely difficult to talk. He had a sharp pain in his ribs that was getting worse.
Quiet. Splint tried to get up and failed, tumbling into the snow. He made a resolution then and there. His brothers, his sister- their sacrifice would not have been in vain.
He WOULD reach the perimeter fence, or he'd die trying.
But fifteen minutes late, it looked like the latter was his destiny. Splint crawled lopsidedly through the snow. He was gasping for air as he finally gave up and rolled over onto his back on a snow bank.
"It's so cold," he muttered as snow fell, beginning to cover his legs.
Little explosions of white light were obscuring his vision. "Maybe I'm going blind," he said hopefully to himself. "They'll kill me if I'm blind."
But he could see the stars... they were so bright his eyes ached, and he reached up to touch them. He could stir them with his fingertips. Splint smiled and moved a little to push them away, bring them closer.
I wish I was up there with them.
He could vaguely see someone emerging from the trees if he pressed his chin into his chest. For the second time he dreaded he'd been caught, but it was someone... with a crew cut, bare white feet and hard little hands buried in the folds of their grey gown.
"Don't do that," was the first thing they said, a few feet away. They stopped, not appearing to notice that snow was falling. "It'll hurt you. You can see me now, no need to do that."
It couldn't be. It wasn't possible.
Splint made a kind of croaking noise and saw his visitor raise an eyebrow, her mouth a mirthless line.
"E-" (This was the second thing he said, and the first decipherable thing)
"Yes, Splint?"
"Eva?"
"Hi, Splint."
"You're dead!"
She was. She couldn't be. There was no blood on her gown and her eyes weren't set in the glassy state of shock that had scared him out of his wits. The first thing he'd thought upon seeing Eva's wide, staring eyes was seven words that could only be described as numb.
Eva isn't meant to be like that.
"Am I?"
"Yes, you are!" he insisted weakly.
"I guess I am, then," Eva said evenly. "I'm in the Good Place with Danny and Jack. It's nice here, Splint. We're looking down on you. We're happy you got out." A pause. "Come with us, Splint. All you have to do is die. 'Cause you're a good soldier who always does his best. The Blue Lady wants you here."
"I'm trying, Eva. How did it feel to die?"
"A loud noise like a thunderclap. Pain... lots of pain. I heard Jondy gasp and the last thing I ever saw was the ceiling. Darkness. Then light. Then I was with Jack and Danny again. And with our baby sister. She died so young we can't remember her. She's pretty. She looks like Jace. Jack named her Sofie."
Splint let out a rasping breath. "What about the others?"
Eva's face was blank. "They're coming."
"Are you watching them die?"
"Yes. I can feel them in me. You most of all. I can feel how cold you are," Eva said sadly, and squatted beside her brother. "Does it hurt a lot, Splint?"
"Yeah. C-Can you pull me out?"
"Nope. It's a rule, big brother. No touching the living." Eva giggled, but stopped short.
"Can you stay with me, Eva?"
"Part of me is here with you. I have to be all over, seeing to all of you."
"No kidding," gulped Splint. "Eva... how are the others?"
"Maxie's fallen through thin ice. She's OK. She'll have to get out soon, though. It's too cold to even imagine in there. Jondy's going along the frozen stream. She ran into one of the soldiers. She threw him right through the ice. Payback, I suppose."
The crevasses of Splint's cracked lips were dusted with ice. He was finding it increasingly more difficult to breathe. "Tell... more," he managed to force out. "Pl-"
Eva sat down in the snow. She didn't appear to notice the cold, just sat cross-legged and entirely at ease. "Zack's got taken back. Syl and Krit stole an SUV. Krit's driving because he can reach the brake and gas pedals better."
"Will they... I mean, le- lea-" He couldn't finish.
"Yeah. Yeah, most likely."
Snow fell. They were quiet a long time, and Splint felt himself drifting off. "Am I gonna... go quicker if- sleep?" Splint asked in a mumble.
"Probably. Rest now."
Lights chased each other through the trees. Eva's voice came through a growing darkness. "Splint...?"
He wrenched his eyes open. They drifted closed, first one, then the other. He drew in a big gulp of stale winter air to try and keep awake for his sister. "What?"
Eva's eyes had a detached look, as if she were trying to hear something very far away. Suddenly a radiant grin bloomed across her face. "It's not over."
"What d'you mean?"
She looked down at him. "You're nearly buried, Splint, and almost dead, but for your dark hair. They'll spot you in amongst all the white with their big lights, in a few seconds. They'll pull you out and patch up your poor chest and- you'll live, Splint, isn't that great?"
It wasn't. The prospect of living terrified Splint beyond anything else. "Bury me!" he said, fairly loudly. "Take me with you!"
She shook her head at the silliness of her brother. "For the moment, you're headed for something even greater than the Good Place."
"W-What?"
"Family... and memories... and happiness like I'll never know. Paradise."
The lights lit up his face, searing whiteness reducing his pupils to pinpricks, and his eyes suddenly wouldn't close.
"Bye," said Eva steadfastly, and kissed his forehead lightly. Splint, whose eyes had finally begun to cry the tears he'd hated holding in, was comforted for a second.
But in the infirmary, later on, his delusions a deadly secret he would never let Psy-Ops torture out of him, Splint realised the meaning of what had transpired. She had kissed his icy forehead, so it seemed, only to wake him, so that by morning he wouldn't be where she was.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to James Cameron and Fox. Not me. So don't sue. However, Splint is mine, as is Clay and any other names which popped up (I have the most abysmal memory). The rather creepy characterisation of Eva is mine also. MINE, I say! MIIIIIINE! *SMILES SWEETLY AS REVIEWERS RECOIL IN FEAR*
NOTE: I sort of borrowed lines from two films I've seen. The "It's not over." line is paraphrased from 'A Life Less Ordinary' where this guy whose girlfriend has just robbed a bank has a sudden mental image of the aforesaid girlfriend bleeding profusely from the stomach seconds before getting shot himself. The "They're coming." line is filched from 'The Virgin Suicides'. The girl who delivers this line has a sort of blank, dreamy and determined (if there is such a thing) look on her face.
Eva was a bit creepy in this fic, eh? For anyone just hearing of me, I swear I'm the supreme Eva fan of the universe. OK, Maybe not of the universe. But I'm pretty damn close. *SMIRKS. EVERYONE FEELS LIKE HITTING HER*
Amazingly, Splint didn't trip even once. He was infamous among the group for being terrifically clumsy as well as allergic to most staple foods and curiously, to chlorine and neurology drugs. Even more strangely, he'd never had a seizure in his life, but would have preferred those to waking up on a hot morning with a blinding fever and a burning rash from a synthetic blanket or a mosquito bite.
He didn't consider his triumph at remaining uninjured. He was numb. He wanted to cry, but the tight, edgy sensation in his chest remained steadfast, showing no willingness to shift or vent or anything.
The X5 class was the most successful of all. He'd only heard of a couple of prototypes dying at the beginning of the programme.
But he'd had to get used to death recently, a subject he'd been desensitised to, starting when Syl shot Danny in the summer of 2008. People could barely stand to use the word 'Syl' and the word 'gun' in the same sentence now.
Then Jack, not long ago, had passed away too. Splint had not properly seen him being dragged from the martial arts hall, only caught a glimpse of his legs and the swinging of the door.
And now Eva. It was almost too much to bear. He begged his body to just cry, to expel that achy pent-up feeling that made his chest tight and his eyes heavy with unshed tears, but his body, primed since conception with the finest training and engineering ever devised, was too accustomed to hiding its emotions rather than freely crying.
They met at the clearing in the Manticore woods, after what seemed like years of sprinting blindly through the woods. He was directed to a tree by Zack and instructed to keep watch with a few of the others. The clearing slowly filled up with kids wearing institutional grey gowns. Tensely, Splint stood slightly shadowed by the lower branches of the tree. There was a long silence, and Zack counted everyone only to realise that Maxie, Jace and Jondy weren't there. Brin told him about seeing Jace left behind, no problem about that, and Splint saw the pain in Zack's eyes when Zack realised he'd mistakenly counted Eva when she'd been dead twelve whole minutes. You weren't supposed to dwell on dead siblings that long, it was a show of bad character.
Crashing and crunching emanated through the trees, and everyone ducked in a panic. Could a lone soldier have tracked them here?
It was Max. Her eyes flickered over the group. Splint sensed her concern at Jondy's absence. Zack nodded curtly at her as she found a place.
A few more moments. Then- a lone figure at the top of the hill. Smiles all around- it was Jondy.
Splint was paired with Clay to escape. Clay was plainly the X5 Macho Man, who openly enjoyed fighting and pursuing and killing more than the others. Clay sneered slightly but beckoned him, and they bolted through the thicket and into the forest.
Things seemed to be going rather well as they scrambled up a small rock face and ran along the edge. Unfortunately, Splint's feet made sharp contact with a partly submerged tree branch. He tumbled rather painfully to the ground, getting a faceful of snow.
Clay skidded to a halt, looked around at his brother trying to drag himself out of the snow and shrugged, dashing into the night in the most nonchalant way imaginable.
"No, wait!" he yelped, finding it intensely difficult to talk. He had a sharp pain in his ribs that was getting worse.
Quiet. Splint tried to get up and failed, tumbling into the snow. He made a resolution then and there. His brothers, his sister- their sacrifice would not have been in vain.
He WOULD reach the perimeter fence, or he'd die trying.
But fifteen minutes late, it looked like the latter was his destiny. Splint crawled lopsidedly through the snow. He was gasping for air as he finally gave up and rolled over onto his back on a snow bank.
"It's so cold," he muttered as snow fell, beginning to cover his legs.
Little explosions of white light were obscuring his vision. "Maybe I'm going blind," he said hopefully to himself. "They'll kill me if I'm blind."
But he could see the stars... they were so bright his eyes ached, and he reached up to touch them. He could stir them with his fingertips. Splint smiled and moved a little to push them away, bring them closer.
I wish I was up there with them.
He could vaguely see someone emerging from the trees if he pressed his chin into his chest. For the second time he dreaded he'd been caught, but it was someone... with a crew cut, bare white feet and hard little hands buried in the folds of their grey gown.
"Don't do that," was the first thing they said, a few feet away. They stopped, not appearing to notice that snow was falling. "It'll hurt you. You can see me now, no need to do that."
It couldn't be. It wasn't possible.
Splint made a kind of croaking noise and saw his visitor raise an eyebrow, her mouth a mirthless line.
"E-" (This was the second thing he said, and the first decipherable thing)
"Yes, Splint?"
"Eva?"
"Hi, Splint."
"You're dead!"
She was. She couldn't be. There was no blood on her gown and her eyes weren't set in the glassy state of shock that had scared him out of his wits. The first thing he'd thought upon seeing Eva's wide, staring eyes was seven words that could only be described as numb.
Eva isn't meant to be like that.
"Am I?"
"Yes, you are!" he insisted weakly.
"I guess I am, then," Eva said evenly. "I'm in the Good Place with Danny and Jack. It's nice here, Splint. We're looking down on you. We're happy you got out." A pause. "Come with us, Splint. All you have to do is die. 'Cause you're a good soldier who always does his best. The Blue Lady wants you here."
"I'm trying, Eva. How did it feel to die?"
"A loud noise like a thunderclap. Pain... lots of pain. I heard Jondy gasp and the last thing I ever saw was the ceiling. Darkness. Then light. Then I was with Jack and Danny again. And with our baby sister. She died so young we can't remember her. She's pretty. She looks like Jace. Jack named her Sofie."
Splint let out a rasping breath. "What about the others?"
Eva's face was blank. "They're coming."
"Are you watching them die?"
"Yes. I can feel them in me. You most of all. I can feel how cold you are," Eva said sadly, and squatted beside her brother. "Does it hurt a lot, Splint?"
"Yeah. C-Can you pull me out?"
"Nope. It's a rule, big brother. No touching the living." Eva giggled, but stopped short.
"Can you stay with me, Eva?"
"Part of me is here with you. I have to be all over, seeing to all of you."
"No kidding," gulped Splint. "Eva... how are the others?"
"Maxie's fallen through thin ice. She's OK. She'll have to get out soon, though. It's too cold to even imagine in there. Jondy's going along the frozen stream. She ran into one of the soldiers. She threw him right through the ice. Payback, I suppose."
The crevasses of Splint's cracked lips were dusted with ice. He was finding it increasingly more difficult to breathe. "Tell... more," he managed to force out. "Pl-"
Eva sat down in the snow. She didn't appear to notice the cold, just sat cross-legged and entirely at ease. "Zack's got taken back. Syl and Krit stole an SUV. Krit's driving because he can reach the brake and gas pedals better."
"Will they... I mean, le- lea-" He couldn't finish.
"Yeah. Yeah, most likely."
Snow fell. They were quiet a long time, and Splint felt himself drifting off. "Am I gonna... go quicker if- sleep?" Splint asked in a mumble.
"Probably. Rest now."
Lights chased each other through the trees. Eva's voice came through a growing darkness. "Splint...?"
He wrenched his eyes open. They drifted closed, first one, then the other. He drew in a big gulp of stale winter air to try and keep awake for his sister. "What?"
Eva's eyes had a detached look, as if she were trying to hear something very far away. Suddenly a radiant grin bloomed across her face. "It's not over."
"What d'you mean?"
She looked down at him. "You're nearly buried, Splint, and almost dead, but for your dark hair. They'll spot you in amongst all the white with their big lights, in a few seconds. They'll pull you out and patch up your poor chest and- you'll live, Splint, isn't that great?"
It wasn't. The prospect of living terrified Splint beyond anything else. "Bury me!" he said, fairly loudly. "Take me with you!"
She shook her head at the silliness of her brother. "For the moment, you're headed for something even greater than the Good Place."
"W-What?"
"Family... and memories... and happiness like I'll never know. Paradise."
The lights lit up his face, searing whiteness reducing his pupils to pinpricks, and his eyes suddenly wouldn't close.
"Bye," said Eva steadfastly, and kissed his forehead lightly. Splint, whose eyes had finally begun to cry the tears he'd hated holding in, was comforted for a second.
But in the infirmary, later on, his delusions a deadly secret he would never let Psy-Ops torture out of him, Splint realised the meaning of what had transpired. She had kissed his icy forehead, so it seemed, only to wake him, so that by morning he wouldn't be where she was.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to James Cameron and Fox. Not me. So don't sue. However, Splint is mine, as is Clay and any other names which popped up (I have the most abysmal memory). The rather creepy characterisation of Eva is mine also. MINE, I say! MIIIIIINE! *SMILES SWEETLY AS REVIEWERS RECOIL IN FEAR*
NOTE: I sort of borrowed lines from two films I've seen. The "It's not over." line is paraphrased from 'A Life Less Ordinary' where this guy whose girlfriend has just robbed a bank has a sudden mental image of the aforesaid girlfriend bleeding profusely from the stomach seconds before getting shot himself. The "They're coming." line is filched from 'The Virgin Suicides'. The girl who delivers this line has a sort of blank, dreamy and determined (if there is such a thing) look on her face.
Eva was a bit creepy in this fic, eh? For anyone just hearing of me, I swear I'm the supreme Eva fan of the universe. OK, Maybe not of the universe. But I'm pretty damn close. *SMIRKS. EVERYONE FEELS LIKE HITTING HER*