I was walking with a man through the small woods on my estate.
"How are you feeling? I know after the blood we injected we were hurting for a time." I said lowly making sure only he could hear me.
"I'm feeling much better. How about you? I know you suffered far more than the rest of us." he reminded me.
"Yes, well, with that much blood taken it took a little while for me to recuperate.." I told him.
"You never did answer the question." he told me smiling and I laughed.
"I'm doing much better, thank you. Helen and I have been working on getting the sanctuary up and running now." I told him.
"Could you show me your powers?" he asked, his eyes glowing with curiosity.
"I don't see why not." I told him. I glanced around to double check we were alone. I then held my hand out parallel to the ground. I felt the strength of the earth in my hand as I willed it to meet my hand. The land beneath my hand began to move, forming a pole with intricate designs etched in it.
"That's amazing." he told me.
"Thank you." I told him lowing the small pole I'd made and my hand. We continued walking in a comfortable silence back to the house. When we got back I invited him in and asked the housekeeper to get us some tea.
"You know, you don't have to be so kind to me." he told me as he sat on one of the chairs.
"I'm kind to you because I care about you, Nik." I told him, smiling lightly sitting beside him.
When I woke I looked around me to see debris surrounding me. I pushed the debris off me and started to look for Helen and Will.
"Helen! Will!" I called out.
"Will! Liz!" I heard Helen call out.
"Helen!" I followed her voice to find her digging under debris.
"Will is under here. Help me." I helped her dig Will out from the pile. "You all right?" she asked when we freed him.
"Yeah. That was... That was bad." Sylvio appeared from under some more debris near us.
"Oh, damn!"
"Sylvio! You okay?" I asked him.
"What do you think?" he asked me sarcastically.
"Where the hell are we?" Will asked as I helped him up. Helen stood also stood and wiped off a window and looked out.
"To be honest...no idea." She told us. Will and I were looking for survivors as Helen treated Slyvio.
"Allison!" I heard Will call out.
"Oh. Oh God!" she said as she moved around.
"Allison!" Will called once more.
"Are we, are we, are we..." she repeated over and over.
"It's okay, it's okay." Will said bending down to look at her.
"That thing!" she said freaking out.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey! Look, it's gone. It's gone, all right? Look at me. You're fine. You're fine, okay?" he told her trying comforting her.
"Yeah! That's very helpful. Tell her she's fine; even though we're totally screwed." a man called out as he moved debris off him. Helen moved to help him then he screamed in pain. "Ah!"
"Your arm!" I looked at them to see his shoulder had been dislocated and Helen tried to help him.
"Don't touch me. I'll do it." he told her. He looked at some crates behind him and hit his shoulder into them, popping his shoulder back in place. "See? All better." he told us. Helen looked to us and motioned that she was going to the cockpit. I nodded at her and she left to check the injuries.
"Let's try to keep the warmth in. Plug up the holes with whatever you can find." I instructed.
"Who the hell made you queen of the world?" the man asked me.
"I've been alive longer than all of you combined! Take your attitude and shove it! Now get up and help us plug that hole." I told him. We all got up and started putting whatever could be moved.
"I have good news. A rescue team will be here in about five hours. In the meantime, we'll assess your injuries and try to keep you all as warm as possible, and if the Gods are smiling, I'll find some tea and make us all a pot." Helen told us when she came back. The only assumption that could be made was that she got hold of Ashley.
"See? You'll be back in New Delhi by breakfast." Will told Allison.
"I should've guessed this would be no match for the great Helen Magnus." Allison said as they all got their coats on. I used my abilities to warm myself so that they could use what coats they needed.
"Exactly, never doubt the boss." Will told her.
"Liz! Magnus! Will!" I looked up at Sylvio as he motioned for us to join him at the back of the plane. We followed him and he showed us the cage that had been holding the creature we'd captured, damaged. "This is definitely after the punch line." I then remembered the some of the attack which had cause the crash.
"You think it survived the crash?" Will asked us.
"We did." I reminded him.
"I'm still getting paid, right? I mean I did fulfill the contract to find and capture one bad-ass snow creature. I mean what happens after that..." Sylvio told us making sure we understood that we were going to pay him.
"Give it a rest, all right?" Will told him.
"Start securing the plane. Continue doing what you can to block out the cold. Five hours is a long time to be exposed to these temperatures." Helen instructed us.
"I'll see what I can dig up." Sylvio told us leaving us alone.
"I know you two wanted this one badly." Will told us as I stared at the cage.
"Not like this." Helen told him.
"Well at least we know why no one's captured one before." I told them.
"Yeah and here we are, stuck on its turf. I'm not sure I like not knowing whether that thing is alive or dead." Will told us.
"It's not just this creatures turf. It's also mine." I told him. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and saw his eyes widen slightly. My eyes must have bled over to their true color. A noise was heard behind us and Helen and I pulled out our guns and aimed it from the direction of the noise. Will removed debris and found a man. Alarmed the man quickly spook in a foreign language to us.
"Can you understand him?" Will asked us.
"It's a dialect of Tibetan." Helen told us.
"Wasn't he one of the Sherpa on the expedition?" I asked recognizing them.
"Yes, he must have stowed away on the flight." Helen said thinking of the only possible situation.
"Bad move." Will commented to him, even if he couldn't understand us.
"Your name is Tashi, right?" Helen asked him and he nodded. So he could understand us. "Can you stand?" he stood up with help from Helen. "It's all right. You're safe. The thing is gone. Let me see your hand." We then heard raised voices from the other portion of the plane. "Look after him." Helen instructed Will as she and I moved to the forward section of the plane to see the man who'd put his arm back in its socket in Sylvio's face.
"I think you are! I mean, we have a right to an explanation! What the hell was that thing? How did it get in this plane, man?" he asked as Helen and I came into view.
"It was our cargo. A rare species of snow leopard captured in Tajikistan, north of Dushanbe." Helen told him.
"Never heard of a snow leopard attacking a group of people before." another man who'd been sitting behind Allison told us.
"It was a rare offshoot of the species." I told him.
"Its designation is Cryptid Bipedis Himalaya." she stuttered out.
"You expect us to believe that that was a leopard? That was four times the size of any cat." the first man said.
"Whatever it was, it brought the plane down. Who are you people?" The pilot asked us.
"We're with a private research foundation." Will said from behind me.
"The creature we brought back was unique, and I deeply regret what happened. Our intention was to transport it to our facility in New Delhi run by Dr. Grant here. I have many such Sanctuaries around the world. New Delhi was the closest, and with such dangerous cargo..." Helen tried explaining to the crew around us but never got the chance to finish.
"Yeah, well, hooray for you and your safety protocols, because they worked like a charm, right?" the first man said sarcastically.
"We didn't mean for this to happen. - We took every precaution possible." Will told him.
"Really? 'Cause he's dead! We're stranded here, and your cargo gone. Or is it?" the man asked us. I was thankful that I'd been able to control my anger years ago or everyone might have been endangered.
"We don't know." I told him.
"What does that mean?" the pilot asked us.
"That means we could be attacked at any time..." the first man started saying but Helen interrupted him.
"That is extremely unlikely. These creatures are incredibly shy and used to their natural habitat. If it did survive, it would have sought refuge higher up the mountain." she told him.
"Shy? That creature, whatever the hell it was, almost killed every one of us! And who the hell is he?" the first man asked pointing behind me. I glanced to see Tashi had come with Will into the main area.
"A stowaway; a Sherpa who helped us capture the creature." Will told them.
"Oh really? Well, good for you! How about you go out there and do it again! - This time make sure it's dead!" the first man told him.
"Hey!" Sylvio drew our attention to him. "You obviously have a problem knowing when to shut up, man." Tashi then started to speak to us but none of us could understand him sadly.
"He wanted to come back with us. He has family in Peshawar he hasn't seen in years."
"Why not just ask for a lift?" I asked him. Allison translated my question and Tashi answered looking between the two of us.
"He was afraid that you would refuse him and he's very sorry that he deceived you, and he asks for your forgiveness." I smiled and nodded my head to him.
"Well, you certainly picked the wrong flight. Alright even though rescue will be here soon, we still need to keep warm. It will help us with the shock of what we've just endured. Everyone, find some tools and help seal up the plane." Helen told them.
"Yes, ma'am." the first man said sarcastically as we started to seal up the plane once more. We used everything we could; tape, luggage and anything else that wasn't bolted down.
I joined Helen and Will in a small area where Will was pouring himself some sort of hot liquid.
"Oh, please tell me that that is tea." Helen told him.
"I second that." I said walking up to the counter.
"Gods are on vacation. It's coffee. Here." he said handing her a cup.
"Pass." she told him.
"Come on, it'll help you keep warm." Will told her.
"I have standards, Will. Drinking coffee? Well below them." she told him. He offered me the cup and I shook my head at him.
"Man, you are a Brit to the core, aren't you?" Will asked us.
"And proud of it." She told him.
"So, I've taken stock of things. We don't have a lot of food left, maybe a day or so, and the heater fuel is not going to last much longer either." he told us.
"All right, we'll ration everything very carefully. This could be home for a long while." I told him.
"Yeah, well you never know. This place, a little redecorating... Probably still feel like a doomed hellhole." Will told us sarcastically.
"Is that your way of saying any port in the storm?" I asked him.
"No, it's my way of coping with the fact that this is the world's worst cup of coffee." He told us and I laughed.
"Rule Britannia."
We all slept peacefully that night in the cold plane doing all we could for warmth. I'd used my abilities while awake but at night I only had my dreams.
"My love. Why are you so worried about us?" he asked me all those years ago.
"The blood..." I woke suddenly and sprung forward in my makeshift bed before leaning back again. I relaxed before I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"We have a situation." Helen told me.
Later that night we were all gathered around Strickland's body. He had an injury on his arm and a small pool of blood under him. Braun and Allison were standing behind us as Will, Helen and I were kneeling close to him.
"Magnus, what's happening?" Allison asked her.
"The co-pilot appears to have committed suicide." Helen told her as I held his arm in my gloved hand looking over the injury.
"This is crazy. Why would we he do that?" Braun asked her.
"Just give us some space." She ordered both he and Allison.
"Come on." Allison told Braun.
"Yeah" I heard them both leave leaving us to do our jobs.
"Looks like he used a broken piece of glass; why would he just give up like this? Yeah, I know the rescue is delayed, but still." Will commented as I put down the arm. Helen removed a bottle of alcohol from Strickland's pocket.
"Hardly in keeping with aviation regulations, plus he abandoned his post when the creature attacked. Who knows what other skeletons he had in his closet?" she said putting the bottle down.
"What if it wasn't a suicide?" I asked posing the idea.
"No sign of a struggle. No screams, cries for help, any of which would have woken us up." Helen reminded me.
"Unless he knew his attacker. You said Strickland felt people were angry at him for not helping fly the plane when the creature attacked. What if he was right?" Will asked her.
"Mad enough to kill, with all of us here and absolutely no place to hide; a bit of a stretch." she told Will.
"Sorry, but you pay me for my outlandish theories." Will told her as Allison came through the doorway with Braun behind her. She knelt down to talk with Tashi and Braun stared at us. I noticed Helen look away from him before looking back. She then stood up and walked away from all of us. I stood and followed after her.
"What's wrong?" I asked Helen as soon as we were secluded enough to talk in private.
"It's nothing. I'm fine." She lied smiling at me.
"I've known you far too long to believe that." I told her. She sighed and looked at me as though trying to find the right words to say.
"I keep seeing John as we was when we'd been engaged." she told me. I looked down thinking of the memories that have been plaguing me during this crash..
"You're not the only one with memories coming back to you. But I have to say, I haven't seen my memory while I was awake while we've been here." I told her thinking of my recent dreams and her reaction to Braun earlier.
"Do you think this is happening to everyone on the plane? Memories coming back to haunt us?" she asked me.
"Unless everyone just blurts out that their memories are coming to life we won't know that." I told her as Allison and Will passed us with Strickland's body wrapped up in a blanket.
I had managed to fall asleep again without any dreams only to wake with Helen shaking me awake.
"Wake Will." she told me going to another part of the plane as I walked to Will.
"Come on. Something's going on." I told him when I managed to wake him. I followed the voices of Braun and Sylvio until we could see them clearly.
"What the hell was that thing." I heard Braun ask.
"...To take us all out in our sleep?" I walked into the small area with Will behind me in time to see Sylvio with his arm against Braun's throat holding him against the wall of the plane.
"You tell me." Braun told him.
"What's going on here?" Helen asked.
"Seems Tashi caught Mr. Sneaky mechanic here trying to steal some of our hardware; one of my best sellers." Sylvio handed Helen a gun and she examined it. "Gonna shoot a weapons dealer with his own gun? You can see how the irony is lost on me!"
"It was for protection, all right? You don't think I see that you're all packing weapons? I'm just trying to level the playing field here people." Braun told us.
"It's not even loaded. Sylvio let him go. Mr. Braun, these cases are our property, and I'll thank you to remember that even under these trying circumstances, and the weapons we carry are for everyone's protection." Helen told him putting the gun down.
"Then give me a gun." Braun told her.
"That is definitely not happening." Sylvio told him.
"So I'm supposed to sit here and let one of you kill me in my sleep? No, I don't think so. I'm not going down without a fight." Braun told us. Tashi then began to speak to us but Braun didn't wait for Allison to translate what he said before speaking himself. "Someone shut him up?"
"Or I could start with you." I said putting my hand on my gun. The plane was silent for a moment before Helen out her hand on my arm. With the fire ability keeping me warm my anger that came with the element was sitting right under my skin.
"Everyone, get some sleep." Helen told us pulling me away. Everyone moved behind us then tried to go back to sleep.
Later that night Helen, will and I were kneeling over Sylvio's body as the others stood away from us.
"We've lost a valuable member of our team." Helen said.
"Severe abdominal laceration and he had to have been killed here. There'd be a mess if he were moved afterward." I told them looking him over.
"There are no other injuries of any kind. No defensive wounds." Helen said standing up.
"No, it's like he just let somebody stab him." Will said as I stood up.
"What is wrong with you people? We know who killed him. I mean, come on, look! Look. Look! No! Look!" Braun tried going after Tashi but Will stopped him and pushed him back.
"Mr. Braun." Helen said drawing his attention to her.
"Calm down." Will told him.
"He did it, and I can prove it." Braun said pointing at Tashi.
"Really? How?" I asked him.
"Around his neck, look. I've seen other Sherpas with that, the ones that believe that the yeti is some kind of god." Braun told us drawing our attention to Tashi's necklace.
"The Order of Pangboche, a group of Tibetan mystics who worship the creature as a protector of the mountains." Helen told us after looking at it for a while.
"So now we know who let the damn thing loose in the first place. What more reason would he need to kill us all? We tried to steal his people's damn sacred cow." Braun said and quickly Tashi started speaking to us.
"Hold on. What is he saying?" Will asked and we all turned to Allison.
"He says the medallion was a gift from his cousin, that he doesn't worship the creature, and why would he help to capture something only to free it again?" She asked for him.
"Revenge, to teach us a lesson so we don't try and hunt it again..." Braun suggested to us.
"Hold on, hold on. Now, Tashi claims that he's not part of the Pangboche Order, correct? And, I'm sorry, but having a medallion is hardly proof of intent to kill." I told Braun.
"Liz's right. We can't condemn a man because of his beliefs. Leave him alone." Helen ordered him.
"Oh, I get it." Braun said looking at all of us.
"Braun..." Will tried speaking but Braun interrupted him.
"I get it. You had Sherpa boy kill Strickland, and then you had him murder the weapons guy. Why, because you owed him money? So you take me out, and there you go, no more witnesses to your little massacre. Wow." Braun speculated.
"You're being completely irrational. There are still far too many unanswered questions." Helen told him.
"No, no, no, see, I will not go quietly. No, no. Go ahead and try, but I'll fight you. Gees, you're nuts." Braun told us walking away.
"I'll go keep an eye on him." Allison told us.
"Take Tashi with you." Helen told her and they both left the three of us.
"All right, what the hell...what the hell is going on here? Why would somebody go on a killing spree in a stranded plane?" Will asked us.
"They wouldn't. Come here." Helen led us to the back of the plane where we had Strickland's body.
"I need to ask you something, and it may sound strange." Helen told us.
"Oh believe me; I'm getting very used to strange." Will told her.
"Have you had any dreams, hallucinations; incredibly vivid, too real to ignore?" Helen asked us.
"People who couldn't possibly be there…" Will said going back into his memories.
"…And yet you can feel their presence, yes." I answered.
"It's tricks of the mind; post-traumatic stress, plus the elevation and exhaustion." Will told us.
"I thought so too at first, but now I'm beginning to have my doubts." Helen told us.
"Why do you say that?" I asked her. She uncovered Strickland's body and knelt down to it.
"Describe his wounds." she told us.
"Ah, a deep cross-length laceration." Will told her motioning across his wrist.
"I don't see that. I see multiple lacerations across his arm.
"Interesting, I see a diagonal laceration from palm to forearm." she told us.
"What? Well, how is that possible? One of us has to be right." Will told us.
"Or we're all wrong. Something is affecting our minds, clouding our judgment." I told him jumping on Helen's thought.
"What do you mean, like mind control? But there's nobody on this plane who could... The creature... You think it's among us?" he asked us.
"And hiding in plain sight using this telepathic power to conceal itself." Helen told him.
"What, by making itself invisible?" Will asked again.
"Or by posing as one of us, it can make us see things that aren't even real." Helen told us.
"But why would it hang around? I mean this is its terrain." Will reminded us.
"Well maybe it marked this as its hunting ground. It sees us as a threat. Abnormals aren't like humans. We don't play by the same rules that you understand. But clearly it's having an effect on us. We can't trust anything that we see or hear or even feel." I told them.
"But there's got to be some way of knowing who we can trust. Wait. If its natural habitat is sub-arctic temperatures, then it would have to have a pretty special physiology, right? Even for an abnormal." Will suggested to us.
Allison drew everyone's blood for us. Once she was done she walked to Helen and I and gave us the blood. Helen had everyone's blood on a tray.
"How will this show us anything? We don't have any equipment. We can't do a proper analysis." Allison said and Helen smiled at her while handing me the tray.
"On the contrary, we have exactly what we need. This creature thrives in high altitudes and extremely low temperatures. It would have to have some sort of protective protein or antibody in its blood; otherwise it would never be able to survive the harsh conditions. Now, normal blood will freeze in temperatures this low in minutes. My thought is that the creature's won't." Helen told Allison as I placed the blood outside.
"How can one of us be...?"Allison started asked but couldn't finish.
"It's just a theory, Allison, hopefully one we can rule out." I told her. "10 minutes should be enough time." I told both of them.
"I'm sorry. This situation is just... - I'm trying to stay calm." Allison told us.
"We all are. Believe me; We've been in far worse situations than this." Helen told her.
"You have?" Allison asked looking at the two of us.
"Absolutely, there was a town of zombies in Uganda, and of course I ran out of ammunition just as night fell. A deep sea capsule I was in was trapped underneath a gigantic mutated squid, and there was an escaped lunatic who was able to turn himself into a giant ape." Helen told her.
"Thanks. You just made all that up, didn't you?" Allison asked her.
"Only two of them; my point is, you just have to keep trying, no matter what and that's how we'll stay alive." I told her.
10 minutes later I pulled the continiers back inside as Will and Helen moved toward me. We examined the blood and saw one was not frozen. I wiped the ice off the name so we'd know who was our creature.
"Braun." Will read.
"I see the same thing." Helen told him as I nodded to them both. Helen drew her gun and cocked it. She pointed it towards Braun and moved forward.
"No. No. No." Braun told us.
"Just stay calm." Will told him.
"It isn't me. - It isn't me..." Braun told us standing up.
"Just calm down." Will told him again.
"I'm not the creature." Braun told us again. We moved back and I opened the door to a large safe.
"Just until the rescue arrives." I told him.
"No you don't have to do this. I'm not a monster, all right? I've been seeing things, yes, okay? I've been seeing things that I can't explain. But that does not make me a monster. Please!" Braun begged us.
"This is for your own safety as well as ours." Will told him.
"No, no, no." Braun begged as he got into the safe.
"Mr. Braun, please, we really have no choice." Helen told him.
"I can't do small spaces. Please. Please... Please." Braun begged and Allison gave him a light before I shut the door.
"Oh no,no,no,no. No! No! Don't! Please, don't. Please... I'm not the monster. Please, I'm not the monster, please!" Braun begged us. "I'm not good in... I'm not good in small spaces. Oh, please... I'm human. I'm human like you. Please. Oh, please, help. I'm not a monster." The others looked distressed at locking him in the safe while I felt nothing.
Later the night we awoke to Tashi screaming out. We all rushed to see what the problem was and to see if we could help him.
"Oh, my God!" Allison said as we inspected the scene. The door to the safe was open and Braun was dead.
"Did he see anything?" I asked Allison.
"No, he says he felt like something overcame him and made him feel like he was in a dream, even though he swears he was awake the whole time." She translated for us.
"But he was right in front of the compartment. Did he hear anything? Did Braun call for help?" Will asked her.
"He was back in his village. He was at a celebration. He was dancing at his wedding with his wife. And then he felt like he was possessed by something evil." Allison translated for us.
"All right, Tashi, come with us." Helen said and we all left the area except Will. I grabbed the tray of blood and put it outside again to try and make sense of all of it.
10 minutes later I brought in the blood again and went back to Helen and Will with the tray of blood.
"Just to clarify, you're not seeing a monster, right?" Will asked as I walked in.
"Are you?" I asked him.
"I wish I was. How does the guy we id as the creature turn out to be its next victim?" Will asked us.
"Because he's human; I've just run the test again." I told them showing them the blood
"But we all saw it before. It wasn't frozen." he reminded us.
"No we saw what the creature wanted us to see, in order to throw us off the scent. I should have anticipated something like this. The legends about the creature; some call it a skinwalker. Others say it eats your soul. Add the fact no one's ever caught one before and I should have realized the initial capture went down too easily." I told them looking at Braun's body.
"Tashi said that he was at his wedding, dancing with his wife. With each kill, it's like we enter this vivid dream-like state that distracts us from the events." Will said looking at the two of us.
"It knows exactly what to show us in order to completely divert our focus." Helen said.
"But why, why is it just hanging around, picking us off one by one?" Will asked us.
"Maybe it has no choice." I suggested.
"It has to be here to survive, too." Will said. The three of us moved back to the creature's cage passing Tashi and Allison on the way.
"What do you see?" Helen asked us.
"Ah, I see a door off its hinges." Will told her.
"Touch it." she told him. Will grabbed the door to the cage and moved it then touched a jagged hole.
"Now, try to see what's really there." I told him.
"I see a lock." Will told us. I looked at Helen and shook my head at her.
"We don't." Helen told him. Will closed his eyes briefly to concentrate and then took another look.
"There's no lock. There's no damage. The door was open the entire time." Will said looking around.
"The less we use our eyes..." I started for him to finish.
"The more we see. Okay, okay, so, what are we not looking for, then?" Will asked us and we looked inside.
"There." I said pointing my flashlight the the grooves inside the cage and the scratches.
"These couldn't have been made by the creature we believe we saw. It barely had enough room to move in, and its claws were four times this size." Helen told us.
"And don't cold weather mammals molt under stress?" Will asked us and I moved my light around more looking for hair.
"There's no sign of any fur in here." I said.
"So there never was a 400-pound yeti." Will said.
"No. These scratches were made by something much smaller, almost human sized. It just made us think we were dealing with something far more intimidating, likely whatever our subconscious dictated it would be." Helen told us.
"That must be how it keep predators away, make them think its something far worse than what it is.
"Okay, so if what we saw before was just a Jedi mind trick, what the hell does this damn thing look like?" Will asked us.
"I have no idea, but it's a good bet that it's as vulnerable to the cold as we are, hence its need to blend in among us in order to survive." Helen told him.
"Magnus... Liz... - how do I know that..." Will broke off.
"We're us?" she asked him.
"Yeah."
"You don't. Nor am I certain that the two of you are who you appear to be. The creature could be any one of us." Helen told him.
"I keep thinking there must be some way of telling, you know; a way of knowing if the person's really them." Will told us.
"For the moment we'll just have to rely on the little things." I told them.
"Like the fact that the real you wouldn't insult me by giving me false hope." he said looking at the two of us.
"Or the fact you keep offering us that horrible brown sludge to drink." Helen said.
"You know, I don't know much about you to really know who you are." Will told me and I smiled.
"For the most part let's keep it that way." I told him. "For now know that I'm married but my husband and I don't really talk anymore let alone see each other and just like Helen I hate coffee." Helen smiled at me, knowing I never liked to talk about my past, then looked back at Allison and Tashi.
"You know, that thing's never attacked two of us at once, which means it's only powerful enough to handle one of us at a time." Will told us.
"So alone, we're vulnerable." Helen said.
"We stay close, we live." I told them.
"I'll take first watch." Helen told us as we all slept closer that night.
"All right, this is the last gas canister. It's going to get cold tonight." Will said putting the canister down on a chair close to us and sitting beside Helen.
"Did you ever love me? I mean, truly love me? You know I'm just an element of your subconscious mind, so feel free to be honest with me." I woke to find Nik beside me.
"When I first knew you at Oxford, I loved everything about you Nik. Even after you changed, I loved you more than I ever thought possible for someone like me." I told him.
"Those were the best times, then we got married and I screwed it up." he said smiling at me softly.
"You tried to kill me and my best friend, Nik. My blood turning you into what you are and so everything was my fault not yours." I told him looking away from him to look towards Helen, Will, Tashi and Allison.
"Let me make it up to you. I need you to wake up." he told me kissing me deeply. I woke suddenly and looked around quickly. When I looked around Will was standing up next to Helen.
"I'd prefer coffee." Helen told him.
"Of course." Will told her signaling he was the creature. Helen and I raised our guns and without hesitation shot the creature in Will's form. The creature collapsed and Will ran into the plane from outside.
"You guys finally got one, the first capture ever." Will said.
"Hell of a cost." Helen told him.
"That's beyond ugly." Will told us looking at the creature. He sat down beside Helen and I sat where Allison had been.
"How did you know it wasn't me?" Will asked us.
"Like I said, it's the little things." Helen told him.
"The less we use our eyes..." Will said dropping off.
"Welcome to reality." I told him.
"I'm happy to be here." He told me and we all smiled.
