DISCLAIMER in the first chapter...

AUTHOURS NOTE IN THE SECOND CHAPTER...

Chapter 3: EPIPHANY

Why did everyone have to die...

Such horrible deaths...

Burned...

Shot...

WAIT!

The silence the followed was equally loud and quiet.

Miss Parker let out the breath she was holding, finally breathing in new air. The faraway look on her face was shattered by a frown, that deepened in intensity as the seconds ticked by. The voices within her went berserk, all shouting and whispering at the same time. Something was amiss.

Not entirely used to trusting her so called inner sense, Parker hesitated, concentrating harder to understand what they wanted her to know. But the words they were saying welded all into one, making any kind of understanding, impossible.

Instinct took over...

Throwing caution and logic to the wind, she untangled herself from the arms holding her and stood up. Walking on unsteady legs, now numb from the prolonged position on the ground, she followed blindly her inner compass, while ignoring the voices and everything else around her. There was somewhere she was supposed to be, somewhere she was supposed to go. She didn't know why, but the urge to go was stronger than her confusion.

Ignoring the curious looks and the questioning whispers, she allowed herself to be led. Upon reaching the elevator, she stopped and waited. She could have easily taken the stairs, but using this particular elevator was important somehow.

Ding!

Stepping calmly inside, she walked until faced with the steel wall, never once turning around. With her eyes closed, she traced with her fingertips lightly on its surface until she came upon a small hole. She considered for a moment why it was still there, after all those years, but quickly dismissed the thought. It didn't matter.

She smiled, an open, happy smile. After all, at the Center, nothing was ever what it seemed.

Finally turning to face the elevator doors, she pressed a button without looking, to a sublevel she somehow knew held his body. She had to see it, to believe it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Unknown Sublevel

Center

Blue Cove, Delaware

Sometime later

The room was dark, no lights adorning the gray walls and casting shadows, except a red pinprick of light, blinking periodically. Always watchful, always there. The air was cold, filled with semi transparent clouds that hung ominously, forming patterns of none existing ghosts. As Miss Parker passed, heading straight to the metal table and the stark white sheet, the red suddenly disappeared. No one seemed to notice.

With somewhat trembling hands, she reached for the only thing standing between her and a man who made her life a constant, and not always pleasant, experience. Pulling at the corners of the fabric, Jarod's face was revealed. Then the rest of his black, brown and red body. Just by looking you could barely tell where his eyes, nose and mouth once were. Still, she had to make sure... Somehow.

Gently she touched what appeared to be his cheek, tracing carefully, almost as if she pressed too tightly, it would disintegrate into dust. She knew this to be illogical, and still. He was so cold, in an unnatural way. Consumed by fire, left barren, exposed and cold. Then, her fingers stopped moving and she sighed. There... There it was before, a small mole a little to the left of his right eye. The one she remembered from their childhood days.

Again she sighed.

Without warning and certainly without wanting to, Parker gasped as the voices in her mind all subsided and a single one shot out. Loud, clear and revealing...

Not him.

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