"We won't be moving!" A voice whispered angrily, "Not with Nathan in the state he's in at the moment."
"But people will be coming," A voice whispered back, just as fierce, "They'll be looking for those guys you killed."
I lay there listening to Dean and Laura argue. It was close to midnight according to a watch. Somehow I had managed to keep at least that. A flashback on the previous day, the fight, the deaths and I lay there detached from it all. It scares me how fast I had gone from hating myself for what I did, to accepting it in moving on, but I had.
I moved from the patch of ground I lay on and approached the fire. Dean and Laura stopped talking as I approached, and confirmed my suspicion that they were talking about me. I grabbed some cooked food, sat down beside them and began to eat, well aware of them watching me. After a while Dean spoke.
"How can you eat after all that?"" he asked, "if it were me, I couldn't eat anything, not for a while anyway."
"Then you'll just starve," I replied. "Our metabolisms require us to eat more to keep our energy up to live. As for how I can eat at a time like this? The whitecoats helped me accept death, my mother and father helped me there."
Laura moved beside me and placed her hand in mine. I held her hand, but continued looking at Dean. He either didn't notice in the poor light, or he didn't want to show anything until he could get me on my own. I was still torn up about killing humans. I had already killed two Erasers, but those were life and death situations. I'd already beaten myself up for it. But they were experiments. Does the fact that I don't mind killing other experiments make me just like the whitecoats? Or just someone who was trying to survive? I didn't know there, but killing Erasers I could handle, it was far easier to accept than killing humans. It's much less personal if you never were one, makes it easier to accept I suppose. I'd beaten myself up about killing, all that time I had broken down after Danielle's death, part of it was how I could have killed them without a second thought. I let out a sigh. Things would be much easier if you could have a clear definition between good and bad. But life's just cruel and doesn't grant that privilege.
"I can kill Erasers," I said, "Without a second glance because I've already decided if they threaten us, it's either us or them. I prefer staying alive. Yeah I beat myself up about it, but I continue on with my life. You can't undo the past. But humans, it's different. Sure the whitecoats I could kill them, I could kill humans, but it would still take me time to get used to it. I used to be human, Dean. Remember that. It's much easier to kill if you don't have a personal connection to them."
The images flashed through my mind from the fight again and I lost my appetite. I placed the food back on the paper plates we were using and let go of Laura's hand, walking off into the forest. Erasers, wolf men, whatever they are, I could kill. I had never known what it's like to be one, but I could kill. It was like I said to Dean it was either them or us, I prefer us being the winners. But I began to think again. My brother is one of them; would I be able to kill him as easily as the others? Or would I have trouble? What scared me the most wasn't thinking of the question, but I already knew the answer, if he tried to kill me I could pull the trigger, personal attachment or not. Killing those humans had killed the last remaining piece of humanity I had. So I clung to the last part of bird-human I had left, the thought that I had done all this to protect my family, my new family, my flock.
Laura slipped up beside me as I stared off in the distance. While I was in thought, my feet had taken me to a cliff nearby. I was staring out over the landscape spotting cities and little townships all over the place, the busy highways and the crammed towns. I could never go back there, I had nothing left in me to return back there. Every part of me, every human part, the whitecoats had forced me to kill in all ways except one. That I'd never kill a human, and yet, here I am because of them, protecting my family by killing humans. No, the old Nathan was dead, the new me, was one more serious than I had ever been. Stuff humanities rules. That's not what makes us human, it's our ability to feel that makes us humans. And it's feeling that drives people to kill, out of love, passion, willingness to protect or because you're psycho. I don't want to kill, I never wanted to kill, but if the situation forces me to kill to save my family... I would.
"It just gets easier," I said to Laura, "Doesn't it?"
"What?" She replied back.
"The decision to kill," I replied, "It just gets easier the more you think about it. I hate killing, anybody, anything for that matter, yet even if you don't want to kill, driven to the right circumstances, people would kill to survive. It's the survival instinct. I wonder if the decision I just made, still makes me human, or changes me to a monster. But to me, it no longer matters. The whitecoats drove us to this, they can suffer what they made us."
I turned around and walked back to camp, leaving Laura looking out over the landscape and pondering my words. She had already gone through this, the whitecoats had made her an emotionless killer. She was still trained to kill, but she is lucky, when she kills she feels no emotion. It's an automatic response with her body because of what's happened in the past. She could never understand the small sacrifices of my humanity I made, because she was never human. But that's one reason why I love her, she doesn't know what it's like to be human and I want to teach her how to feel again, as she teaches me not to feel at all...
Chapter 44
Laura stayed at the cliff, Nathan's words running around inside her head. If people were driven to the right circumstances, they would be driven to kill to survive, that was true, but did we necessarily have to kill who we fought? Laura had began doubting that ever since she had started feeling emotion again, flashing back on her past hurt her, but she could just stop feeling, not like Nathan.
Sure, she had killed in the past, the whitecoats had tested her about that. She had no qualms in killing people who threatened her life. She's killed whitecoats, Erasers, even other bird kids, all because they had forced her to, but now, after what Nathan had said, she began to realize that there could have been another way out, one that didn't involve death.
Then why did he say we had to kill them? Laura thought, those, what did he call them? Poachers? Why did we have to kill them? Then Laura remembered what Nathan had said about Poachers. It had torn Nathan to make the decisions, but he was right. Unless the poachers were killed, they would have told others about their existence. They would have continued hunting us to the ends of the earth until we killed them, or they killed us. Because that's always what it comes down to, kill or be killed. No-one wants to be killed, so they always kill . Laura was more confused than before.
All my life, I've been trained not to feel emotion, She thought, and now I do, I'm starting to doubt myself. It just confuses me, leaves me feeling so unsure and insecure. Then Laura realized something else, perhaps their meeting wasn't chance, maybe that's why they had been bought together. Nathan lacked the control to separate himself from the situation, to not feel emotion when the situation arises. She, on the other hand, had that control, but was always calculating things. She never took risks, never followed instincts for feelings unless she had figured out what could happen. The first time she took a risk, based on her feelings was kissing Nathan, and it had felt wonderful. Maybe that's why we were bought together. Not only to fall in love, but to complete each other. Is that my reason to exist? Laura thought, so I can feel, so I can love? So I can live? I was cloned from Keira, yet I have broken free of those chains. Maybe this was what was meant to happen after all.
Laura smiled at the thought of the whitecoats creating her for the reasons of her falling for Nathan and becoming someone, it contradicts what the whitecoats had made her for. They wanted her to replace someone, but instead she became someone. It's situations like these that make you wonder about life and why you were born. When you see death you realize how mortal you really are and that someday you will die. So what's the point in living if all your going to do is die? The answer is simple, so you can live, so you can have the experience of living. Laura turned back from the cliff and walked back to the camp, pondering the revelations she had running through her head. Fate had chosen Nathan for her, so he could teach her how to feel, how to live, while she could teach him how to become detached and see things from an non-emotional way.
As she moved away, she didn't know what extent the fates had woven for her. She would experience all the emotions, she had experienced so many before, but the true test was still to come, and the test would be set into motion by the shadow that watched her from the trees. She would feel all the emotions, including the painful ones. Heartache and betrayal… Fate was indeed going to throw a twist in for them, only problem is, would both of them survive?