Attention Readers- This is the sequel to my last story The Hardship of a Secret and so I want to thank all of you that read it and all of you who reviewed as I appreciate your comments and suggestions! So thank you!!!
An: In this, Cutter DID NOT DIE, and you have to realise that this story is set a good seventeen/eighteen years into the future. Oh and Claudia never disappeared.
Pairings:
Abby/Connor
Nick/Claudia
Danny/OC
Becker/Sarah
Isabella (OC)/ Ryan (OC)
This story will mostly focus upon Isabella and the rest of the NG of Primeval. Hope you don't mind.
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Primeval, but if I did I would get Connor and Abby together and I never would have let Cutter Die.
This one is going to be from many views, so you might get confused.
To my reviewers, I dedicate this chapter to you, so I hope you enjoy it!
REVIEWS!!
Nikiriki5273- Thank you for your review!
Oreal770- Thank you for your review!
Warning- Swearing ahead!
(P.S- I might have taken a few things from the episodes for this story- but oh well, as long as you enjoy it!)
And I'm sorry about how long it's took me to get this one out. I did try to upload it at about two today, but the document uploader on the site wasn't working!
Chapter 3: Mankind's future and coincidences
(Nathaniel's Prov)
Ow. Ow. Ow
My head hurts, it really, really, really hurts. It feels as though a brachiosaurus stomped on it repeatedly before sitting down on it.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it really does hurt.
Really.
I'm a little chilly and my body feels stiff from sleeping on something rather hard. Perhaps concrete.
The last thing I remember is tumbling down a hill, or was it falling through an anomaly? No, it was both. I fell through an anomaly and tumbled down a hill and then hit my head on something, something hard anyway.
I open my eyes and see a dark stone ceiling. I blink a few times to get rid of the blurriness from waking up; I then sit up slowly, feeling a little dizzy as I do so. "Ow" I murmur putting a hand to the back of my head, but I feel a bandage patch on it, someone must have patched me up whilst I was out.
I look around, I am in a cave and it's rather light outside. William is sound asleep, slumped awkwardly against the wall, his head lolling on his shoulder slightly, with a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes and with his gun held loosely in his hands. Thomas is beside him, curled up slightly on the floor with his arms around his knees and his head resting on Williams's bag; his skateboard is resting against the wall right next to him. Katharine and Jenna are asleep with their heads resting on one and others, and their curled up together against the wall on one side of the cave. Chester is lying flat out on the floor on his back, with one leg bent slightly in the air, and an arm slung over his eyes, his other his lying limply over his stomach; his mouth is open and he's snoring slightly. And Ryan is asleep not far from me, he's leant against the wall, with his chin on his chest, his hair falling over his eyes; and hands just lying loosely in his lap; Isabella's jacket is right next to him.
But Isabella isn't anywhere in the cave.
I look towards the entrance to the cave and sigh slightly before standing up slowly and stretching.
I walk outside, but on my way I turn off the light that William no doubted placed there.
The sun is really dazzling outside and it's rather humid outside the cave.
I look around for a moment; Isabella is sat on the ledge of the rocks where we are, her back is facing me and she's looking out towards the ocean.
I walk over quietly and come behind her "Hey"
She jumps slightly and spins herself around to look at me; she smiles when she recognises that it's me.
"Hey, you awake, how are you?" She asks me as I sit down next to her and dangle my legs over the edge.
"Okay I suppose, my head hurts rather a bit though" I say looking out at the ocean, the water is a green-ish colour; a flock of yellow birds- I think, fly across.
"Well that's to be expected, you've been out for a good twelve hours I think, you hit your head on a rock when we fell down the hill; pretty nasty gash too, it bled a lot" she said sympathetically; resting her chin on her knee and turning her head to look at me.
"I see" I say quietly. "And the anomaly?" I ask hesitantly; though I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.
"It closed, right after we fell through" wryly; rolling her eyes at her own words.
"I see" I say again quietly "What's our plan?" I ask, knowing Ryan or William would have come up with some sort of plan whilst I was unconscious.
"We decided to stay put and wait for another anomaly to open, we then go through it and hope we come out at home on the other side, if not, we wait there until another opens and go through it, and we keep doing it until we find the one that leads home; it's the best course of action really" she says in a weary voice; she sounds rather tired and she looks it too.
"Did you sleep?" I ask her concernedly; the last thing we need is for her to make herself ill and exhausted.
"A couple of hours, I think. I woke up when it was still dark, couldn't get back to sleep" yawing at the end of her sentence and rolling her neck; probably to get rid of some stiffness.
"Have a nightmare or something?" I ask resting my hand on her shoulder; she used to suffer with nightmares a while back, and a lot when we we're kids.
"Just a weird dream that's all" she pauses and I give her a look; she sighs "An' I suppose I'm just worried about being stuck here. I mean, I let Tom come along with us for god sakes, and Aaron'll be crushed with both Tom and I gone. Not to mention Kaitlin will be upset because you're gone, and Lottie will be upset because Kaitlin is upset. Not to mention what about Robert and Peter, with William gone, those two are going to go mental! And what about Katharine's parents, and Jenna's and Chester's, what the hell is Lester going to do, he won't be able to hide the fact that eight teenagers go missing, eight teenagers that all know each other. And even if we do get back to our own time, by some miracle, our team will most likely be axed ya'know. So anyway that we look at this situation, we're pretty much fucked here!" she breaths heavily, her cheeks tinted bright pink.
I am kind of shocked, Isabella has never spoken that much in one go, let alone so frantically and so negatively. Normally she's rather positive but rather quiet.
"You done now?" I ask her; still sounding somewhat taken a back.
She nods, still breathing a little heavy, but the pinkness of her cheeks is dimming.
"Okay, Isabella, Our brothers and sister will be fine without us, sure, they'll be a little upset and a bit worried, but they'll be fine. And no doubt that Lester will sort something out with their parents, he'll most likely come up with some elaborate story to make it sound believable, cos I tell you, he won't let their parents find out 'bout all this. And the team is not going to be axed, if anything, they are so going to praise us when we get back; which we will Isabella, and you are going to get us there, you hear me, you can get us home" I say encouragingly and reassuringly.
"Okay?" I ask softly, hand still on her shoulder.
She sighs and nods. I smile and pull her in for a hug, to which she eagerly accepts, hugging me back just as tightly as I'm hugging her.
"We'll get home" she agrees quietly.
"You're awake" Ryan's happy voice cuts through the moment; we let go and turn to face him.
"Yeah, woke up lil' while ago, been out here with Isabella" I say back to him.
He comes over and sits right behind us. He leans over and kisses Isabella on the cheek tenderly and places an arm around her shoulders. I smile; it's nice to see my friends happy after they spent so long just dancing around each other.
"How you feelin' mate?" he asks me concernedly.
I smile "Feel as good as I can do after being out for the count for twelve hours"
"Twelve hours?" he asks, sounding lightly perplexed.
"The sun came up roughly six hours ago or seven, I think" Isabella says matter of factly.
"And you've been up all this time?" he asks hastily; now the one thing that's remained the same since the two of them started going out, Is that Ryan is still rather protective of Isabella, he's always making sure that everything is alright, and is always asking if she is okay.
"I couldn't sleep, that's all" she says reassuringly; I can tell that she doesn't want to tell him about it, and I'm pretty sure he can too, as he doesn't press the matter any further.
"Whoa" Chester's groggy voice comes from behind us. We turn our heads to see him stumbling out from the cave. He stops, runs and hand over his face and eyes, and then stretches whilst yawing rather loudly. "Mornin'" he says tiredly to us and begins walking off away from the cave.
"Hey, Where you goin'?" I ask him as he stumbles off.
"To take a leak" he calls back over his shoulder, smiling at us slightly.
I shake my head as he walks off and begins climbing down some of the rocks. I turn to Isabella and Ryan "Ya'know, he's actually not that bad"
"Yeah, once you get past his sarcastic, rude and obnoxious self, he's really rather nice" Ryan jokes, causing both Isabella and I to laugh.
............
A little while later, everyone was awake and just lounging about. I myself have come down to the ocean to wash my shirt off of all the blood, and to wash it off of my neck, back, and out of my hair; it's not really a nice feeling, being covered in your own blood.
When I get back to the cave, I leave the shirt out in the sun so that it can dry.
Katharine and Jenna are both lying out in the sun together; obviously taking advantage of the warmer temperatures and the brighter sun in order to get themselves some tans. I shake my head at them; sometimes I wonder why Isabella is friends with them at all, but then again, Isabella does seem to attract some weird people, just look a Chester.
I make my way back into the cave. William is cleaning his gun and has it spread out in parts in front of him. Thomas is flicking through the handheld 'creature base' it's an interactive log book that hold detailed information and pictures about each dinosaur and creature that all those at the Arc and its bases have come across; it's got actually voiced commentary and video footage as well, rather high-tech and designed by Connor and Dad, and always updated by Isabella herself.
And Ryan is lying on the floor with Isabella resting her head on his chest; both fiddling with the anomaly detector.
"Any sign of one?" I ask them hopefully.
"Nope" Ryan sighs loudly, closing his eyes and putting an arm around Isabella's back.
I look around for a moment before asking "Where's Chester?"
"Think he's gone for a pee again" William says sounding not bothered "Either that or he's gone walk about" he says whilst clicking his gun back into place.
I sigh aggregately "Okay, we have a new rule, don't wander off" I say sitting down against the wall, relishing in the coolness of it against my back.
We all stay silent for a few moments before Isabella says "Shouldn't one of us go look for him?"
"Yep" William, Thomas, Ryan and I say, but none of us make a move to actually get up.
After another moment, Isabella sighs "I suppose I'll do it then" she says irritated, she makes a move to get up, but Ryan doesn't move his arm, meaning all she can do is rest on her elbows. "Let me up please" she says pointedly, looking down at him. Ryan doesn't say anything, but he shakes his head. "Let me up" she says again, a little more forceful this time.
"No" he says smirking at her.
She pouts at him and William and I can only just suppress our laughter when Ryan appears to just melt at this. He sighs, moving his arm "Thank you" she says; she gives him a quick kiss before standing up.
"Whipped" both me and William says under our breaths.
Isabella makes her way towards the entrance; "Isabella" William says. She stops and looks back at him "He gives you any trouble, just yell for me 'kay? I got some tranqs that should keep him quiet" he says jokingly; though I'm pretty sure he might actually be serious about it.
Isabella smiles back at him "I don't need tranqs to shut somebody up Will, you should know that"
Ryan, Thomas and I all laugh at this; Isabella and William decided to have a karate/combat fight one Saturday at the Arc, and Isabella ended up kicking William into a wall, knocking him out for a good ten minutes, it's fair to say that William hasn't fought against her since then.
"Whatever" William says in a slightly embarrassed voice.
Isabella laughs quietly and makes her way out of the cave.
"One of these days I'll get her back for that" William says without doubt.
"Yeah, and then she'll just kick your ass again" Ryan laughs, putting an arm behind his head.
William says nothing.
............
(Isabella's Prov)
I laugh quietly as I make my way out of the cave. I pass by Katharine and Jenna, shaking my head at the as I do; I don't understand how one minute they can be so frantic and scared by all this, and the next, be so complacent as to just lie there in the sun getting tans.
I make it to the edge of the ledge of rocks that the cave is on, and begin to climb down them; all the while, keeping an eye out for where Chester is.
I walk along the sand for a few minutes, before finally spotting him sitting on a rock looking out at the ocean; he's right near the hill in which we fell down through the anomaly. I slowly make my way towards him and sit down next to him silently.
"How can this be the future?" he asks after a few moments silence; he keeps his gaze on the ocean out in front of us.
"How can the past be the past?" I counter back at him.
He snorts and laughs a little "Touché" he says; he quietens for a moment "But seriously though, have you seen the world over that hill?" he asks; he sounds so not himself, he's sad and worried and that kind of makes me nervous, if Chester is worried, something has got to be wrong. He's twiddling his thumbs as he speaks.
"No, why? What's over there?" I ask him hurriedly and slightly puzzled.
"I think you should see it for yourself then" he says looking at me before standing up; I follow him towards the hill that we had tumbled down the day previous.
We spend a minute or two climbing it, and when we reach the top...
"Oh no"
About three or four miles in the distance, there is what appears to be a city. A torn apart, desolate, and broken future city. The buildings look old, and are partially derelict; one especially tall building has a large chunk of its top right hand side missing. And many other buildings look to be falling apart. No sound is coming from it, no cars making noises, nothing.
"I think it's long been abandoned" I say quietly; I'm at a loss really for words.
"And so this is the future for mankind" Chester says bitterly and broken heartedly.
I turn to face him "It's a future" I tell him swiftly, placing a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him "Chester, the future can change, it's never definite, this is only what it could be okay? Someday, somehow, someone can change it and it won't look like this. We just have to stay positive, come on, let's get back to the others"
"No need" Williams voice comes from behind us; the others are with him too, though Katharine, Jenna and Thomas are trailing behind; all their things with them and Thomas has Nathaniel's bag on his back whilst dragging his skatboard through the sand begind him. Ryan hands me my jacket which I tie around my waist, and gives me my bag and the anomaly detector.
"An anomaly's opened, and it's that way" Ryan says, pointing the direction of the city.
Katharine, Jenna and Thomas finally make it to the top of the hill; Katharine takes one look at the city before almost screaming "What the hell?"
"We're in the future remember Katharine. Civilisation's fall" Nathaniel says harshly to her "Get used to it, cause we're heading right into it" He says. He then turns to me "Gone on the Isabella, lead us there" he says softly.
I sigh, and begin walking.
............
It took us almost an hour to reach the outskirts of the city; due to the fact that we had to keep stopping because Katharine and Jenna were getting tired of walking and complaining that their feet were hurting. Honestly, those two are worse than the popular girls at the school.
But it was only when we reached the city that we begun to realise how abandoned and broken it looked. Vehicles were left in the streets, the buildings were dirty and broken, and windows were almost nonexistent. The black sand was also beginning to find its way into the streets. It was completely silent here, almost too silent.
"It's quiet here isn't it?" Jenna asks as we walk through one street.
"Yeah, a little too quiet if you ask me" William says quietly; he's walking a little bit in front of me, gun in hand; he really does look like his Dad when he does that. He's keeping a look out for anything that may pose as a threat to us, though there is nothing here at the moment.
"No life here what so ever, I would have expected to see some animals or something, even some birds flying overhead, but, there's nothing" Nathaniel says; he has the small camera in his hands and is documenting almost everything we go by, he said earlier that a video of what we've seen whilst here would be much better than a few pictures, and we have enough battery cells and memory power to go for about three months, but hopefully we won't be there that long.
He points the camera right at my face "Hey Isabella, say hi to the camera" he says teasingly.
I laugh and wave at it "Hi camera!"
He does the same to the others "Chester, got anything to say about your new-world experience?" he asks jokingly; I think he's trying to keep everyone happy, and make sure that we're alright.
"Yeah" Chester says to him and looks right into the camera "The accommodation here sucks man, and the lack of facilities is absolutely outrageous" he jokes, making us all laugh together.
"I'll be sure to mention that when we leave then shall I" Nathaniel replies; swinging the camera around to point at William "Hey Will, hows it lookin' up front?" he asks.
"Seems all clear" he states, looking somewhat bewildered at this.
"How can you guys be so calm about all this?" Katharine asks us, she's looking at us like we're all mental or something, which we kind of are if you think about it.
"Training, experience and lot's and lot's of meetings with dinosaurs" Ryan says to her as though it's natural.
Chester laughs "I never would have thought that you lot though, that you'd be involved in something like this. I always took William to be a bit creepy and weird, no offence; I took you Ryan to be a popular prick who only hung around with them because you have nothing better to do. I took you Nathaniel to just be a nobody, I mean, at school your just a geek and not exactly popular or anything. And you Isabella, everybody knows your smart and stuff, and the popular girls only don't like you cause your pretty, but I didn't know you were like, the brains behind a secret government team and stuff. Your all, different from what us, and everyone else thought" He says, voice full of absolute sincerity and honesty.
"Oh My God" Nathaniel says breathlessly and sounding as stunned as I feel "Chester Johnston is being nice to us, he's not only being nice, he's saying nice things too. And I got it all on camera!"
"Hey, don't make such a big deal out if Cutter, it's not gunna happen very often, I still think you boys are pricks, and Isabella's a geek"
"Thanks" us four mutter, sounding ungrateful; but really, we know that he actually does like us, sort of. And I think I'm beginning to see him in a whole new light, he's not an insufferable asshole anymore, just an asshole now.
I'm brought out of my thoughts by a sound.
I look around, as do the others. It's a twittering sound, like a crooked ticking noise.
William spins himself around to face behind us and he cocks his gun. The others and I turn to face the same direction as him, and we almost all freeze on the spot; Nathaniel has the camera pointing where we're looking and his hands begin to shake as he films what we are seeing. Standing about ten metres behind us is a large black and grey skeletal creature; it's got very thin and almost non-existent hair covering its form. It's standing on its hind legs so that it's standing about seven foot tall, it has large grey coloured eyes that seem to pop out from its skeletal form, it has a long snout-like face with large pointed ears; large yellow teeth are jutting out from beneath its black and white coloured lips; a very long and rather thin blue coloured tongue slithers out from the mouth and it licks around the creatures face before going back inside. It has long arms that are bent forward on its body, and on his hands it has five very large and very dangerous looking claws. It also has a rather long tail that is sticking up behind it, and on the end of the tail, is what appears to be some sort of stinger; the tail is shaking slightly, and that is where the sound is coming from.
Both Katharine and Jenna begin to shake, but both know to keep quite.
"Everyone, stay still, and stay quiet" William and Nathaniel instruct at the same time.
William, very slowly hand Ryan his gun; careful as to not aggravate or startle the creature into attacking us. And he very slowly slides his bag off of his back and very slowly, very carefully and very quietly opens it up. He pulls out what appears to be a grenade; but in actual fact is a very power stun-grenade, it carries a very powerful sleeping gas within and immobilizes anything that breathes it in for up to three twelve hours; depending on the size of the animal.
He zips the bag back up and puts it back on his back
"On three, I want you all to run after Isabella okay?" Everyone nodded; I didn't "Isabella, on three, I want you to run in the direction in which the anomaly is, okay? Just run as fast as you can, but we need to stick together" William says. Again, we all nodded, I did as well this time.
"Okay" he says "On three" he repeats.
"One" I breathed carefully, hearing William breath steadily himself.
"Two" he says, pulling the pin.
"THREE" he shouts throwing the grenade at the creature at the same moment that we all turn on our feet and run.
My feet pound on the ground as I follow in the direction that the anomaly is. I can hear the others running behind me as the grenade explodes and the creature roars loudly, the creatures roar is disorientating to our ears and I have to cover my ears as it does so, as it hurts them.
I continue running forward, checking the anomaly detector as we go. "Turn Left!" I call out to the others as I take a sharp turn into another street.
I know that they're following me as I hear Chester call out "I think it's down"
For a moment, I feel relieved and I slow down slightly as I begin to tire. But as I slow down, something comes from the side and slams into me; all the air escapes from my lungs, and I go flying across in the air, and smack into the ground. My shoulder and side flood my senses with pain as I skid across the concrete. I hiss at the pain as I come to a stop and hold my shoulder, I think I might have pulled it or possibly fractured it.
I feel dizzy as I sit up, and so I immediately lie back down on the ground. I ignore William shouting out orders, and ignore the sound of his gunfire. I barely register the grunting of some animal and the squeal it makes as it is shot. I just concentrate on ignoring the pain.
Then suddenly, someone is pulling me to my feet.
I open my eyes and see that it is Chester, he puts one arm around my back, and the other, is holding the anomaly detector "How do I read it?" he asks me; he's holding it upside down and looking at it with absolute confusion.
I ignore his question as I steady myself; I look at the blood splattered ground and the barely alive animal not too far in front of me; it's about the size of a German Sheppard, but must more shaggier, and with longer and large teeth.
Nathaniel points the camera at it, and speaks to it "And, this is another creature, most likely carnivore by the way that it just tried to take down Isabella. This is the second creature that we have come into contact with in the last two to three minutes"
I shake my head slightly "I'm fine now Chester" I told him; he lets go of me. And before I know it, another pair of arms wraps themselves around me from behind and a face is pressed into my neck.
"Are you okay?" Ryan's voice asks, muffled slightly against my neck.
"Yeah, yeah, ju-just a little dizzy that's all" I say, breathing heavily as try to stop myself from swaying.
He kisses my neck softly "You sure?" he asks quietly, kissing my neck again.
"Yeah" I say quietly, watching as William walks up to the creature. I close my eyes as he places the gun against the creature's head, and I flinch when I hear the gunshot. I hate that, I really hate that; William will almost always kill an animal if he deems it too dangerous let it live, or whether he thinks it would be better if it was just killed.
"We need to get moving" he says; I open my eyes to see everyone just looking at the creature, not even attempting to move.
"Now!" William says loudly "We have to leave now! There's no telling how many more creatures there are around here"
I nod, and Ryan slowly lets his arms unwrap from around me; he turns me around and gives me a very long kiss on the lips and then one on the tip of my nose before letting go of me properly "Lead the way" he says quietly. I nod and take a look at the anomaly detector before walking in the direction that the anomaly is, with the others following.
............
At around about fifteen minutes later, we arrive in front of a large building in which the anomaly detector shows the anomaly being. "You sure it's in there?" William asks from besides me.
"Yeah" I say looking back at the anomaly detector.
"'kay then" William says, cocking his gun "Let's get moving" he says to the others.
We make our way through the doors, William in front of the group, Ryan next to him with a gun in hand and Nathaniel next to him, also with a gun; William had decided to give them both one so that more of us are armed. Chester is the one holding Nathaniel's camera now, and he walks in step with me. Thomas; who has remained very quiet for most of the day, is walking next to Katharine and Jenna.
"It's, it's a library" Chester says, panning the camera around to take in the full view.
And he's right. There's a sign hanging from the ceiling that says 'Hill City Library'. There are tones and tones of metal shelves, covered in dusty, thick books. The place isn't lighted very well, except the sun light that is coming in through the rounded centre glass ceiling. So I get him to turn the light on top of the camera on; William clips a small light onto his gun so that he can aim better, and Thomas takes a torch out from his pocket.
"A future library" Thomas says in awe, looking up at the mountains of books.
"I'm surprised they still have these in the future" Katharine says disbelievingly.
"Oh my" Jenna breathes scared, looking down one row.
I can see why she's scared, on the floor of that row, are dried blood splatters underneath a layer of dust.
"The anomaly should be somewhere in here" I say to William as we all stop and look around.
"Okay, guys, uh go in two's, spread out and find it" William says to us all; he looks at Ryan and Nathaniel, and both boys cock their guns. He then turns to Thomas and hands him a small pistol "Just point and pull the trigger" Thomas nods.
And so we split. Katharine and Jenna stick together with a torch and a small stun grenade; William had given them one earlier, and they head off in one direction, Nathaniel and William head off in front, Chester and Ryan go together and head off in another direction and Thomas and I head off to the right.
"Whoa, look at all this" Thomas breaths as we walk down in between two rows.
"It's amazing" I say back at him grinning; I mean it though, it really is amazing, we're in the future, in a future library with books that might not even be written for another couple of hundred or another thousands of years.
I stop suddenly, when one book catches my eye, the breath catches in my throat as I read what the side says 'The Arc and the truth behind the stories'. Thomas notices it too. "Is that?, does that mean our Arc?" He asks, looking absolutely terrified and amazed at the same time.
"I don't know" I say breathlessly.
Before I could stop him, he reaches for it and pulls it from the shelf. On the front cover is an actual picture of an anomaly. He looks up at me and turns it over and quietly reads out the summary.
"Nine hundred years ago, in 2007, the Arc (Anomaly Research Centre) was formed. Headed by a man called Sir James Lester, a small group of people began to unlock the mysteries of rips in time, also known as anomalies, this book and the continuing five others, documents just a few of their stories and dealings with the wonderful and dangerous tasks that fall upon them. Each book is on a generation of the Arc personnel. This book documents the journeys of the very first, and the legendary Arc team, Professor Nick Cutter , Claudia 'Brown' Cutter, Connor Temple, Abby 'Maitland' Temple, Captain John Becker, Doctor Sarah 'Page' Becker, and several other Arc employees. Also included is a detailed report on their children (Nathaniel Cutter, William Becker, Ryan Quinn and Isabella Temple) as they take on their very first expedition into the past at the young ages of seventeen and eighteen"
Thomas looks up at me "Shit! This is like, way freaky! Nine hundred years, and their telling our stories, damn" he says in shock.
"Put it back" I say quietly "We shouldn't be reading this, this is our future. Let's just forget we saw it, okay?" I ask.
"Yeah" Thomas says "Of course, it's potentially dangerous after all"
"I'm going to take a look in there, I'll see if I can find anything that might hint as to what happened to the city" I say, pointing to a door that has a sign reading 'Librarians office' "You wait out here okay?" He nods his head but stays silent; I think he's silent because of what's on the door, more blood splatters that have long been there.
I head off towards it, trying to block out all the thoughts and feelings that have just flooded through me from Thomas has read out from that book. But I'll think about it later. I also try to block out the thoughts on the blood splatters.
I get nearer to the door, but only to see that the door has no handle, but once I get to about three feet away, it slides opened by itself. I step slowly inside and turn to watch it slide back closed behind me.
I sigh and turn around to survey the room; it's rather dark, so I pull from my bag my own camera and turn it on, allowing light to flood the room; I'm using the camera because I want to document anything interesting that I might find. I look at the room, the walls and floor are all white; but splattered slightly with blood themselves, there's a red coloured sofa next to two silver panels in the wall. Opposite to them, is what I think is a desk that protrudes from the wall, it has a silver and red stall in front of it. On the 'desk' there are two very thin metallic poles standing about fifty centimetres apart and forty centimetres tall.
I speak softly into the camera "The door said Librarians office, so if that's right, this should be where I can find some information on what happened here"
I walk over and sit down on the stall facing the 'desk'. I jump suddenly when between the two metallic poles, a screen flickers into life, and from nowhere, coming out of the desk it a digitised keyboard.
I look at the 'screen', there is still files that are open from when it was last used; almost like the last person using it didn't have time to turn it off. There's no mouse, so I have a go at pressing the screen. I touch it and a folder opens up, and I pick the last one that was used. It's an audio file; I debate whether or not to listen to it, and I decide to press it.
A quiet and tired ragged American voice begins to speak; it speaks very fast, as though it hasn't got much time "My name is Hinjha Zatuna and I have been the Librarian here for forty-one years. Last nights, reports began flooding through the city from the Arc for us to evacuate, and that they would be there to meet us and sail us over to England; I know I should've moved away from here, or at least gone with my Husband" A loud growl cuts through the woman's talking, and she whimpers "The creatures are here, people are dying and their being hunted. These creatures, their horrid, and their fast and strong and bloodthirsty"The woman pauses for a moment"I urge anyone who is listening to this, to be careful and to get yourselves away from the city. Good lu-" The woman doesn't finish speaking, as a roar cuts through and she begins screaming; I can hear the creatures growling and the woman gurgling as blood most likely fills her throat; some animals go for the throat to kill their prey.
I go to get up from the stall; being rather freaked out by what the woman had just said and the fact that I just heard her die. But looking at the screen, another file catches my eye, it's a video file entitled 'Anniversary dance' and so I, always curious, open it and let it play.
A dark skinned, aged woman with grey hair is dancing with a light skinned man with equally grey hair; their both laughing and swaying side to side with the music. And a voice off screen begins to talk "Aww, this is Mr and Mrs Zatuna sharing their 40th anniversary, they have been married since they were only sixteen, and it's fair to say they are still happily in love" I look and Mrs Zatuna and feel myself begin to tear; I just hear that woman die and now I'm watching her laugh and be so happy. I then look at the Husband, Mr Zatuna, and something catches my eye. On the man's forearm, is an old tattoo; it's not the fact that the man has a tattoo that caught my eye, it's the fact that the tattoo is the Arc's insignia. I zoom in on it and say out loud to myself "So her husband was a member of the Arc, I think"
I go to close the video, when a face in the party crowd catches my eye; it's been ten years since I've seen that face, but she is still recognisable to me, and it's pretty obvious that something else has gone on. I zoom in on the face as she looks directly up to the camera in the video, and I say one word "Helen"
The video ends there and I sit still "Why would Helen be there?" I ask out loud to myself.
It's all too weird, and seems to all be too linked to be a coincidence. The city Arc supposed to be evacuating the city because a swarm of creature's begin attacking it, Mr Zatuna being a member of the Arc, and Helen being their; and the way she looked into the camera, it was, it was almost like she knew that I was watching it.
I shake my head and decide to do a little research on the Arc; I place my camera in my lap so that it can face the screen. I bring up what I think is to be some form of internet search engine and type in the space 'Arc'. A page immediately comes up, the first thing I see is the Arc insignia and then a series of places to go, thing such as 'Reporting a new creature', 'Creature Logs', 'What is the Arc?', and there was even one offering a cheap deal on the books that it had brought out.
A picture catches my eye; Helen's face with warning written across the bottom. I click on it and words begin to appear on the screen along with a voice reading them out "Helen Cutter is from the twenty-first century, she very dangerous, and is known for causing chaos and mass panic by unleashing creatures from unknown times. She is so far responsible for over thirty human deaths, and attempted genocide of several species of animals, both dinosaur and future. If you see this woman, she must be reported no matter what, do not confront her, juts alert the Arc immediately- for more information, try our" I click off of Helen and scroll through the rest of the page.
"Nice to know Helen is just as dangerous in the future as she is now huh?" I say to myself; not liking the silence that seems to envelope the room.
"Maybe I should hack into the files, see if I can find any reports on what went down here"
I try that and begin typing; the door opens and Thomas comes inside, he's slipping Nathaniel's bag back onto his back. "They've found it Isabella" he says walking slowly over to me, he looks at the screen "What're you doing?" he asks.
"Hacking into the Arc's files. Seeing if I can find anything on what happened here. I have a suspicion that it wasn't caused just by an anomaly" I say; I manage to break through the second to last security code, the basis hasn't changed much.
"You think a person is behind this?" he asks me sounding horrified at the thought that someone would cause all of this to happen.
"Yeah, but I'll explain later, yes!" I got through the last code and the system opens itself for me. Clicking on file search I type in Hill City, and immediately one file jumps out at me.
A voice from behind the door makes both of us jump "Come on, we found the anomaly, we need to get going"
"Yeah! Hold on a second!" I yell back whilst I find the print button and when I do, I press it; a small gap appears from the wall along with a tray underneath, pages began printing off at a speedy rate, and within one minute, the whole file, which is seventy-three pages, has printed. I pick them up and roll them up into a tube and put it within my bag.
Whilst I had been doing this, Thomas had taken it upon himself to look at the two metallic squares by the sofa. I watched as he pressed his hand lightly to one and the both swung open. It was a cupboard, and it was completely empty; except for a silver and blue spherical object, it was just completely round with nothing on it. Thomas pocketed it "You can look at it at some point, no telling what it could be, might come in handy"
"Okay" I say to him whilst putting my bag back on my back and motioning for him to go in front
We walked out of the room; Nathaniel was waiting outside for us.
We walked down a few rows of book; Thomas kept shifting Nathaniel's bag that was on his back, causing Nathaniel to ask "Do you want me to carry it?"
"No, no" Thomas says somewhat hurriedly, tightening his grip on the bag"I don't mind carrying it for you, it gives me something to do for you lot" he says not looking at me at all.
"Well thanks Tom, it's nice of you" Nathaniel says clapping him on the shoulder as we round a corner and see the anomaly.
I turn the camera off; I don't want it to go on the fritz when we go through.
Chester still has the one that Nathaniel gave him "So, we're going through there?" He asks pointing the camera at the anomaly.
"Yep, that's the plan" Ryan says "Tough you might want to turn the camera off before we go. Anomalies can have weird effects on certain things"
Chester nods and switches it off and then places it in his pocket.
"Okay then" William says turning around to face us "Let's get going" he smiles slightly, a look of trepidation on his face; one that he tries to hide from us.
We all begin walking forward; I take Ryan's hand as we do "I hope to god this leads us back home" Nathaniel says loudly to us all.
And I can't agree more.
Wow, that was probably one of the longest chapters that I have written for any story. And it kind of freaked me out, and I'm the one that wrote it!
I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!
I'll get the next chapter out when I can.
Please Review and if you have any ideas that you think would be good, let me know!
OpenUpMyHeart is putting her pen down!