Chapter 2
Crawl on me
Sink into me
Die for me
Living Dead Girl
From Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie (intro song to Bride of Chucky)
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Beka woke up with her face pressed against cold steel. Her eyelids felt sore and blistered, like she had been in a fire, and when she tried to open them a stinging pain shot through her brain.
Oh God, don't let me be blind, please.
But as she opened them, this time ignoring the agony it caused, bright lights and colours appeared, too blurred for her to see anything yet, but becoming clearer, which meant that she wasn't blind. She didn't think she was deaf either, as she was starting to hear voices, distant and fragmented, but still there.
'Comin… ound… water… ear me?'
Her mouth was unbelievably dry, and her throat felt like it had been sandpapered, but she was alive, that was what was important. Though as she tried to move, and pain in her joints shot down through the length of her body, she began to doubt whether this was a good thing.
'… ear me? Is she… got to… alive… hear me… wake up girl!'
Beka's body spasmed in pain and the scream that had been trapped deep down inside of her burst out through her lips as unfamiliar hands attempted to hold her down. She felt some kind of cold liquid trickling through her parched lips and nearly vomited from the shock. Then she realised, she was lying on the floor of a strange ship, and someone was trying to give her water.
'Well she seems pretty active for a dead person. Strong too, it took three of us to hold her down. Do you think she's a soldier?'
'More like an escaped lunatic. I think I've got a black eye coming.'
'You've had it coming for a long time.'
'Thanks. It's nice to know you care, Mother Theresa.'
The voices were perfectly clear now, and when Beka blinked a couple of times to clear her eyes, she saw three faces looking down at her. The woman trying to give her water was young, and had a pretty face that seemed to be a façade for a tougher interior. She had short, dark hair and fair skin, and her eyebrows were knotted together in concern over sapphire eyes. Perhaps it was the after-effects of the explosion making her delusional, but Beka found a kind of affinity with this woman. She was strong in her heart and mind, but also kind and ready to stand up for people and befriend them. It was what Beka hoped people saw when they looked at her.
'Are you OK?' she said, her voice soft, reassuring. 'Anything broken? I think she needs some more water.' She reached out a hand, keeping a wary eye on Beka. The woman who passed her the glass had pure, coffee-coloured skin and a head of tight, gleaming curls. The first woman gently poured some more water down Beka's throat, and when she tried to resist, the woman held her chin gently but firmly in place, the way she might restrain a child having a temper-tantrum.
'Shhh, it'll do you good. That was quite a nasty shock you had. Can you try sitting up? I need to see if you've hurt anything.'
Normally Beka would have instantly flared up at being so blatantly patronised, but she could see the sense in the woman's words, and slowly, painfully, pushed herself up on her elbows.
'Well done,' cooed the woman. 'Now can you tell me your name?'
Before Beka could reply a wave of dizziness caught up with her and made her feel like she was falling off of the Niagara Falls on Earth. She saw oblivion sweeping towards her like the shock wave that follows the implosion of a sun, but just before she lost consciousness, she saw the man crouching next to the woman that she had first seen. He had white-blond hair, which was spiked up to give it an almost dishevelled look, and soft blue eyes, one of which had a slightly red tinge round the edge where Beka had hit him when she first woke up. He wasn't quite a hunk, but he had very pleasant features, though at the moment they were creased with sympathetic concern. Beka had recognised him as soon as she had seen him, though she didn't understand what he was doing here, on a ship full of strangers yet acting as if he had known them for years. Right before the darkness caught up with her, right before she collapsed back onto the floor and closed her eyes, she whispered his name, the name of a man she had known for years.
'Harper?'
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'Harper? That's a strange name for a girl. It must be her last name. Or her nickname.' Captain Reb Anderson stood up slowly, wincing at the cramp in his legs he had got from crouching down for so long.
'Not necessarily,' Yuna, the woman with short dark hair replied. 'Where she comes from it might be a really common name.'
'Yeah, but where does she come from, that's my point. She just dropped in out of nowhere.'
'Not out of nowhere. Remember the portal? I knew there was something weird about it. Though I didn't count on it dropping strange women onto our ship. I shouldn't have made her sit up; look she's out cold. Hey, you… Harper!' she snapped her fingers over Beka's face, to no effect.
'Oh, yeah and that's really gonna help!' Reb said sarcastically. 'She needs medicine, Yuna.' He looked at Beka with a troubled expression.
'What? Reb, what's the matter?'
'Oh, I dunno. It's just, before she passed out, she sort of… looked at me funny. Like she recognised me.'
'Do you recognise her? Is she from one of your prexes?'
'No! I don't even get one of those weird déja vu things. I've never seen her before, in any of my lives!'
The woman sitting on the other side of Yuna spoke for the first time. She had been staring at Beka with a thoughtful expression and distant eyes, but now she stirred as though she had just become aware of the other people in the room, and felt something was expected of her. Her name was Gret.
'Reb's right, we need to get her some medicine. If she did come from that portal then I don't think she had an easy ride getting here. I'll go tell the others that she woke up. Bren's been getting all paranoid.'
'OK, you do that,' said Reb, not taking his eyes off of Beka. Yuna was watching him, and felt a tiny flicker of jealousy, which she squashed immediately. Reb had every right to be curious if, as he said, the blonde woman had seemed to recognise him. She might even know something about his past, something that would help him to find out more about who he really was.
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