Chapter Two

Bryn's soap does not smell like Bryn. It also does not smell like nothing. It smells crisp, and feels slightly oily on my hands. It stings the cuts on my feet and toes; makes the water run pink. I have never been in a shower like this, there are several different sized and shaped bottles lined up on a shelf near my head. I take each one down and sniff them cautiously, not sure if they are safe. One of them smells so good I taste it, but it is bitter so I set it back down.

There is a knock on the wooden door and Bryn's voice muffled asks me if everything is alright. I must be taking too long. I would not be allowed to shower this long at section six either. I turn off the water and quickly towel myself dry; then remembering Bryn's reaction before I carefully wrap the now damp towel around my body making sure to cover as much skin as possible. I carefully step over the rim of the metal bucket, it is slick like my feet on the smooth floor so I hold onto the sink's edge to make certain I do not slip.

When I open the door Bryn is leaning against the far wall staring pointedly at his feet. He does not look up. He points to the floor near the wall beside me. "Clothes."

I bend down to pick them up. A large dark colored shirt with long sleeves and a pair of pants that are far thicker then what I came with; the material is dark grey and pilled in several places but soft. I drop the towel and quickly pull the shirt over my head and the pants up to my waist. When I look up Bryn is still staring at the floor, chestnut locks obscuring most of his face with the downward tilt of his head. "I am dressed." I inform him.

"Good, let's take care of your feet." Bryn ushers me back into the tiny room and has me sit on the closed toilet seat propping my feet up on the edge of the metal bucket that makes his shower so unique. He opens the mirror over the sink, something I have never seen before and begins pulling things out while I watch.

"What's it called?" I ask.

Bryn glances up at me. "This? It's antibiotic ointment; it will stop you from getting an infection...hopefully." He has started wrapping both my feet with white gauze.

"Not that," I recognized the smell, it is not the first time I have been hurt. "This." I tell him thumping one foot against the bucket's metal rim.

Bryn stares at me for a moment, than looks back at my feet shaking his head. "It's called a bathtub." He appears to be finished with my feet. He leans back staring at me for a moment. I stare back, waiting.

"Are you hungry?"

I nod. "Yes, is it time to eat here?"

Bryn frowns. "I'll dissect that comment later. I'm going to pick you up again, okay?"

Even with my feet bandaged it seems best. "Okay."

He hesitates a moment, which I do not understand since it was his suggestion but then he picks me up and carries me back down the stairs. We walk through the front room again, past the front door and into a second room with a table and several wooden chairs. The table is not cold metal; it is made of wood, on the other side of the room is a bank of U shaped counters that are also made of wood. One of the counters is white with a black window built in its front. There is another white box; taller than all the rest; I realize it is a fridge when Bryn opens it. All the fridges in section six have glass fronts so the scientists can see inside them without opening the doors. I watch him curiously moving between the two white boxes. He strikes a match lighting a flame on top of the windowed box the same way the scientist light the burners under their glass beakers. I wonder if whatever Bryn is making will smell as bad as some of those liquids. I cannot imagine eating them. There is a strange flat pan instead of glass and a few minutes of popping sounds before Bryn slides a bright red plate onto the table in front of me.

I stare down at the strange objects we're both supposed to eat. Oblong circular shapes that are white on the outside and bright yellow in the center. There are three on my plate, and three on his. I watch him pick up his fork and slice through the first one shaking something from a little white container over his first bite. He stops with it halfway to his mouth. "What's wrong? You never seen eggs before?"

"Eggs." I stare down at the plate. "I have eaten protein and grain. Is eggs one of these?"

"Eggs, Protein." Bryn tells me then shoves the bite he had frozen in mid-air talking to me into his mouth.

I pick up my own fork and mirror his actions, lifting a bit of the white egg to my mouth. It is good, better then protein; more solid and yet soft. It taste much better then grain which honestly has no taste at all in the way that my soap had no smell. I eat all three finding the center where the egg is yellow and still a little bit liquidy when I cut into it with the fork is better then the rest. The yellow flavor is even richer, it sits on my tongue even after I've swallowed the last bite down.

"Good?" Bryn is staring at me when I look up. I nod. Maybe if I am lucky tomorrow there will be more eggs instead of protein and grain. Bryn has taken the red and now empty plate from in front of me and set it in a sink inset into one of the wooden cabinets near the short white box that makes eggs. "Alright, I think it's time for sleep. I'm going to carry you back upstairs." I nod to him and he picks me back up, carrying me back through the front room and up the squeaky staircase to the next room down the hall. This one is slightly larger than the bathroom, there is a small rectangle window and a bed, a desk, and a chair.

Bryn sets me down on the bed and starts to leave. "My room is downstairs. I have a gun under my pillow and I'm a light sleeper, so just don't try anything funny."

"I will not try anything funny." I assure him.

"Good, well goodnight." He shuts the door and I hear his feet move down the hall; and the creaky stairs.

I lay down staring at the beam of sunlight over the ceiling wondering how I will fall asleep when he forgot to give me any serum. I have never slept without serum…I lay still looking at all the different objects in this tiny room memorizing the floral pattern near the ceiling that doesn't match any of the pictures. Even the ceiling here is odd; it's sloped and not flat and it is not made of concrete. I start to feel very heavy after a while, my eyes shut and I fall asleep.

When I wake I am alone. There is no one present to have given me the reversal serum.

I lie still staring up at the blank white ceiling remembering the pictures I saw in my head only moments ago even though I was asleep. I have never seen pictures like those before; when I sleep there is only darkness and then there is the light of being awake. I do not know what to make of the strange things I have just seen, seconds ago I was still in the woods—running from the soldiers. But no matter how hard I tried to run my legs took me nowhere. Then the Others came and ate the soldiers even when I screamed at them to stop. When I opened my eyes I was here.

I sit up slowly and get to my feet, the bottoms are tender but they were well wrapped and there is no one to carry me now so if I wish to leave this room I must do it on my own. I cross the smooth wooden floor to the wooden door. There is no panel, no numbered buttons to press. I twisting the handle surprised to find it unlocked. The hallway beyond is still empty and short just two other doors on the opposite side. I open the first and find it goes nowhere. It is a closet stuffed with boxes and other things I do not have any use for. I close it again and open the second door situated almost perfectly across the hall from my own.

This doorway leads to a second bedroom also with a small window, a bed similar to the one I just slept in, a desk and a dresser. There is a bookshelf near the window one shelf covered in thin gold spine'd books and a truck like the one outside, this one too small for people and made of wood. It rolls across the shelf when I poke it leaving tracks in the dust. Several colored photos like those on the plastic rectangles sit in black frames. But unlike the plastic rectangle faces these ones are smiling; each one of them contains a little boy with blonde locks and a wide grin with him in almost every picture is a beautiful woman with long wavy blonde hair and a man who looks like the Bryn downstairs, but a little different too.

They share the same squared jaw and liquid amber eyes, the same chestnut locks though the man's in the picture are definitely shorter, spiky almost. 'Family' one of the black frames is labeled in silver letters. I set it back down and leave the room pulling the door shut behind me. I get the feeling Bryn would not be happy to know I had been in that room.

The staircase protests every other step, though not as loudly as it first did. The wooden boards feel solid under my feet despite the noise so I no longer worry that I will fall through. The front room is empty, so is the room with the table and the room beside that with two long blue striped couches and a rough wall made of grey stones with a rectangle missing in its middle. I wonder briefly where Bryn has gone. I wonder if he has left again but the truck is still sitting in front of the house when I lift the lace covering the front window to check. I stand very still, listening until a soft noise draws my attention.

The back of the room with the couches and the rough stone wall has two doors in its far wall. I open the first to find another bathroom, this one is not yellow and does not have a bathtub I note. It has a shower made of glass and is painted the same color as Bryn's eyes. I shut that door and try the second one. Behind it is a large slightly oblong room with four windows and a sloped roof. There is a dresser made of dark wood and another one of a different color that is taller and thinner. I do not see why someone would need two. The bed is bigger than the ones upstairs; twice their size. It has poles made of dark wood carved with swirling marks and rounded edges that stretch up to stop a foot maybe two from the slanted ceiling. Bryn is asleep on the bed, the sound I heard earlier is coming from him.

I move closer checking the top of the dresser and the little tables on either side of the bed for a silver case or cylinders so I can wake him up. I frown staring down at him when I find neither. He is still sleeping. I try calling his name, then repeat it but he still does not move. I start to worry that without the serum he will sleep forever and I will not be able to wake him. I poke him with my hand but he does not respond so I climb onto the bed, sit over him shaking his shoulders calling his name.

'Bryn, Bryn. Bryn!"

"Wha?!" He jerks up from the bed making a strangled sound before seizing my shoulders and shoving me backwards, twisting. Instinct kicks in and I lock my hands around his forearms yanking and rolling, twisting as we tumble through the air we land on the wooden floor beside the bed Bryn grunts stares up at me eyes wide. For not being a soldier he is still built like one, his shoulders are broad. His chest and arms well-muscled and just as tan as his face. He also sleeps naked.

"The Hell are you Doing?!" He barks.

"You would not wake, I thought you said you were a light sleeper?"

"I also said I had a gun under my pillow!" He snarls.

"We are not near your pillow." I tell him, unsure why he would bring that up now.

"Get off me!" Bryn curses shoving me back. I climb to my feet and wait watching him stand up. He turns his back on me retrieving a pair of soft blue pants like he wore when he found me he shove his legs into them violently pulling them on over his hips with a sharp tug. Then he drags one hand through his hair staring at me. "What time is it," he turns to glance at a small black box on the little table beside the bed. "Cripes, it's only been four hours. How are you awake?" He sits on the edge of the bed pulling a dark grey shirt off the foot board and sliding it over his head.

"I do not know. I saw pictures. I think they woke me."

Bryn stares at me. "Pictures."

I nod. "Yes, in my sleep."

"You were dreaming?" he asks me.

I stare down at him still seated on the edge of the bed watching me, his expression tight. "I don't know, I have never seen them before." I confess.

"You've never dreamed before?" Bryn shakes his head makes an odd sound a mix between a grunt and a groan. "Okay, nameless girl from the peanut house. I'm gonna need coffee for this conversation, I can already tell. Let's go."

"Do you want some?" Bryn asks me when we are sitting in the room with the table once more.

I know what coffee is, I have smelled it many times; but I was never allowed to have some. "Yes." I wonder if it will taste like eggs.

Bryn pours some of the dark liquid into a white cup with a curved handle and asks me, "Do you want sugar?" I stare at him and he frowns. "Let me guess, you've never had coffee before."

"No, I have not." I admit.

"Sugar." He says something decided I was not aware of and uses a silver spoon to scoop white powder into the cup. He stirs it and then moves to the fridge opening it and adding something else to it as well, then he hands it to me with a warning. "It's hot."

I take the cup, taking a careful sip. It is hot. The tip of my tongue tingles and the roof of my mouth hurts. I swallow painfully and set the cup down. It does not taste anything like eggs, and my tongue continues to tingle while somewhere behind my sternum burns in protest of the hot liquid. Bryn slides into the chair across from me, taking several sips from his own cup when he sets it down I notices his coffee is darker than mine, almost black. It is also steaming which does not seem to bother him. I run my tingling tongue over the roof of my mouth testing the sensation while I wait for him to speak.

"Alright," he says staring at me. "How did you end up on that road? Did someone leave you there?"

I stare at him for a moment. "No."

He takes another sip. "Yeah I didn't think so. So you ran away?"

"Yes. I ran for a while."

"So you've been running for a while?"

"No that is the first time."

Bryn shakes his head staring up at the ceiling for a moment. "Right. Let's try this again." He looks at me again eyes locked on mine. "Where did you run away from?"

I hesitate, staring down at the light brown liquid still in my cup. It reminds me of his eyes. I frown. "I do not know if I can tell you that." I am not sure if this Bryn Colt is safe. I glance up at him again to find him watching me.

"It's okay if you don't know." Bryn tells me. He has misunderstood my answer, but that is okay because he moves on. "Were they hurting you?" He asks staring at me, his jaw is clenching again, tight creases formed at the corners of his eyes. It looks like he is in pain, though how the words hurt him I don't know.

I stare at the cup in my hands when I answer, looking at him seems to make him wince more. "Yes, sometimes they hurt me a lot." I tell him. Like the white wires that made my head feel like it was going to pop.

Bryn is quiet for a long moment. Slowly twisting the cup between his fingertips against the wooden surface. "Well, you're on the other side of the Valley now so you're safe."

"The Valley?"

Bryn stares at me again. "You don't know what the Valley is?" I shake my head. "Do you know what's outside the valley?" I shake my head again, wondering if it is like what is outside section six. If that is the case I cannot even begin to imagine just how big it is. "Didn't you ever go outside?"

I shake my head again. "No, this is the first time I have been outside…it is…very different."

"I bet." Bryn says. He drinks coffee for a few minutes, gets up and refills his cup, sits back down to drink it without adding any sugar or the white liquid I think is called cream. "Well, you need a name." He says.

"Yes." I tell him. I remember this from earlier. I wait, I am eager to hear what I might be called.

"Any suggestions?"

I shake my head. "I have never thought about it."

"You've never thought about your name?" Bryn sighs looking very tired again despite the second cup of coffee. I wonder if he needs a third. I am still holding my first. The smooth sides of the cup warm my hands. He's silent for a long time just staring at me while I stare back. Sometimes his gaze slides away and he swallows even though he hasn't raised his cup to take a sip. He leans back in his chair sometime after my cup is cool enough that I can drink the coffee without singeing my tongue again.

"Sorry Charlie, I suck at this," Bryn tells me finally shrugging.

"Charlie?" I ask testing the word.

"It's an expression," Bryn tells me getting up to pour that third cup of coffee. I wonder when he will start to shake.

"Charlie is a good name?" I do not know anyone at section six who was called Charlie. I like that. I do not want to be reminded of that place now that I am free.

"Charlie is a boy's name." Bryn frowns.

"So it is not a good name?"

"It's a good name…"

"Then I will be Charlie." I decide.

to be continued...