1st May 2279

Charon

I find myself missing Anna. I know she is safe. I know what she has done, doing and about to do. Many of these things are my most cherished memories.

As the date on my back approaches I think about what I must do. It is there everything starts and everything will end.

I know how I die.


July 28th 2076

Charon

Late last night our intel reported the location of a Chinese Bunker. If we take this, we would be able to prevent a large amount of their weapons and supplies from getting to them.

My suspicions of Anna increase when she asks to join our raid. Andrew, the previous Armour reviewer, did no such thing. He settled himself with the higher ranking officers consuming food and drink the Resource War has demoted to rare. I can hear her light footsteps behind me. i am unaccustomed to having someone so close to me. I find my senses reaching out so I do not zone out and instinctually think of her as an enemy. Anna holds the assault rifle she was given comfortably, too comfortably to be working for intelligence.

I almost unload my shotgun when she grabs my arm. Looking down at her petite figure she lifts a finger to her lips. Her Pip Boy signifies that their is four enemies straight ahead. I have yet to ask how someone that is apparently homeless can afford a Pip Boy. Particularly the new 3000. Instead I hold up a grenade, she gives me a sinister grin which I return when all of the red indicators on her arm disappear with the explosion.


Anna

If Charon doesn't talk and if I don't look at his complete skin, I can almost pretend that I am home. Charon is very much the same in battle silent, deadly and very agile. Tiny little indicators that can only be noticed due to my long experience with him show me that he is yet to learn many of the things he has shown me.

I smile slightly. It's almost cute seeing him like this. So inexperienced and young.

"What are you smiling at ?"

I instantly drop the smile.

"Nothing."

I must annoy him, Charon doesn't like not knowing things. He stares at me with his eyebrow raised yet again. I'm getting use to the look since he stopped believing anything I say. A shimmering glint catches the corner of my eye. I have distracted Charon for too long and I can only look in horror as a Chinese soldier appears behind him with a sword, he swings it high.

"Charon !" The scream tears out of my throat and I use all of my weight to push him out of the way. My stomach spills red and the burning sensation rips through it.

I see Charon in my blurred vision aiming his shot gun. I hear a blast and I feel the cold ground hit my face.

"Anna ? Anna !"

His words reach me somewhere in the darkness I am beginning to accept. The darkness only brings clarity to my mistake.

Charon is alive in the present. Charon was never meant to die in the past. He could have been sliced and survived but myself I am unsure of. I don't know my future and I realise that out of love and compassion I may have made a terrible mistake.


Charon

I am trying to run as fast as I can to the medical tent. I have used the radio to contact my men. If it is safe continue. If it is dangerous fall back. Those are my orders. Anna is in my arms, her eyes closed long ago but she is convulsing. I run faster.

Suddenly her weight seems to get lighter and lighter I look down to arms and watch her disappear.

"NOOO !"

I frantically search and can find her no where. Her blood still covers my uniform but there is no body to heal.


July 29th 2076

Charon

I have hardly slept. Soldiers ask where the girl has went and I honestly do not know. I have heard of fast travel technology but had never seen it in action. For all I know she could be in a city getting medical help or in a barren land of snow or sand with no one there. I find myself worrying over someone I hardly know. I search the camp, the snow, everywhere but I cannot find her. I do not know if I will see her again.


July 31st 2076

Charon

I am laying back on my bed when I hear the noise I have been waiting for. The small pop. I run out hardly dressed into the snow and find Anna spread on the ground with an open stomach wound. I grab her quickly and get her to the medical tent like I had originally planned.

"What happened ?"

"Chinese sword."

The doctor rips open her top and I am shocked at what I see. A small part of my attention notices the scars that pattern her stomach but I cannot ignore the fact that Anna's wound has not healed in the slightest. She went missing 5 days ago. Her clothes are the same. Her consciousness is the same. Her wound all the exact same.

I am not an educated man. I was not born into wealth and sent to college but even I cannot ignore the obvious.

She has not been fast travelling every time we have met.

She has been time travelling.