"It's great to see you up and moving, Anna!" Di yelled across camp as he gave the beaming and much healthier looking girl a friendly wave and smile.
"Thanks Di!" She yelled back and returned a wave.
Indeed, it was Anna's first day out of the safety of the med bus since she had been saved and deharnessed. She had been sitting in her bed for over two whole months feeling completely worthless as everyone else went out and fought. They even had to get someone to replace her as Ben's partner in the field and she didn't like the idea of that either.
His new partner's name is Jessie, and she's your typical farm girl. Long, curly brown hair that's always done up in some kind of braid, big brown eyes, scattered freckles all over her face, and a much too innocent personality. But she was cute. Anna hated to admit it, but it was the truth. She had a tall, skinny body, a perfect smile, and a great personality. What's not to like? In Anna's case, it was her voice. She had always disliked thick, southern accents, and that's exactly what Jessie has. And not only that, but its high pitched as well. It was Anna's worst nightmare, along with the fact that she was stealing her partner.
Whenever Ben would visit her in the med bus, Jessie would just happen to "stop by" as well. Because, you know, it's common to come to the same place at the same time as someone, especially when you barely ever visit that place alone. Anna didn't think she'd ever seen Jessie step foot in the med bus if Ben wasn't there, too.
Long story short, Anna wanted Jessie to leave and fast, or at least become somebody else's partner. But of course she couldn't say that to anyone, especially not Ben. So she just gave her best attitude whenever she was around (when Ben was around) and put up with it.
Ben didn't visit Anna today, though. He usually visited everyday around noon, bringing some food and the latest news on the war. But today, it didn't happen.
"Hey, kid! Soon enough you're gonna be back on missions with us!" Hal brought her back to reality as he approached her with his always charming smile. They exchanged their usual handshake like brother and sister.
"Can't say no to that. The sooner things are back to the way they were, the better."
"The way they were? You mean kicking some scumbag alien ass?" Hal smirked and raised an eyebrow in amusement. Anna laughed, for this was the kind of talk she's missed while she sat practicing loading and unloading her handgun in her bed.
"Exactly! Hey sorry, but have you seen Ben at all?"
Hal thought for a moment, looking down at the ground, rubbing the short stubble on his chin before shaking his head.
"Nope. This morning he was out way before I was awake to meet up with the rebel skitters, and since then I haven't seen him. He's probably still with them or out on recon or something. When I see him though, I'll tell him you're looking for him!"
"Thanks, but don't worry about it, Hal. It's no emergency, I just wanted to say hi. I'll talk to you later!" She yelled as she backed away from him, flashing a smile and giving him a wave, which he returned. They then both continued walking in their original directions.
'Ben knew Dr. Glass was allowing me to walk around today, so maybe he's waiting to see me out here up-and-moving.'
Anna pondered over this thought but there wasn't a single sighting of him as she basically walked through the whole camp and was now looking at the thin strip of forest in front of her. He must be too busy with perfect little Jessie.
Anna sighed and walked deeper into the forest, reaching a clearing in it that Ben had told her about a week or so ago. It was on the edge of a small lake that had a beautiful view, a view that probably would be much more fascinating if it weren't so damn cloudy. It reminded her of a lake that was near her home back in New York. Like this one, it was surrounded by a forest, and it was a normal hang-out spot for her and her friends. The memories she had there would never fade, and these memories made her very fond with lakes. It was on the top of her priority list to check this spot out as soon as she could walk.
She sat down on a decomposing fallen log and closed her eyes, cutting off one of her senses to strengthen the others. She could smell the fresh aroma of the clear air created by a recent rainstorm that passed through overnight. The piddle-paddle of the lake's waves against the rocks on the shore danced in her eardrums. Her fingers softly felt around the jagged patterns on the tree log, almost like little water-less rivers dug into the wood. And as for taste, well, there wasn't really much to taste.
Anna smiled to herself, soaking in the environment she had been missing out on for months, before a small yet unmistakable snap of a twig and rustling of leaves jolted her out of her meditation. She jumped up, which came with a lot of discomfort from the soreness of her healed injuries, and turned to see the sight of 1/2 of her missing friends.
"Austin!" Anna yelled with much excitement.
She had been thinking about Ben so much that she didn't realize that she hadn't seen Austin since before she was harnessed. Running over to him with her arms wide open, she expected a big, desperate bear hug in hopes to redeem all the time that they've unwillingly lost, but instead, she came face-to-face with his handgun. She didn't dare to move after that, but she looked at Austin with a mix of confusion and utter fear plastered on her face. Flashbacks of Rylan's unexpected death replayed in her mind as if there was a movie reel in her head.
"You're one of them! I've seen the kids with them, you're no different!" The estranged man held his gun to Rylan's forehead, right in between his eyes.
"Please, sir, we swear we're not! You can even look at our backs, there's nothing on them to control us!"
Rylan turns at Anna's teary-eyed statement, facing his back to the man. But the man shoots a bullet right into his spine. And then he does it again. And again. And again. And again, until he doesn't have a single bullet left to shoot. By then, Rylan was already dead, his lifeless body drowning in a sea of red after it had clumsily collapsed to the floor.
Her eyes now filled to the brim with tears, Anna begins to feel her legs shaking beneath her and her heart beating uncontrollably hard in her chest.
"Austin, p-please, I don't know why you're doing this, but p-please don't. We're best friends-"
"You're not that Anna anymore. We're not best friends. My best friend was human, you're just another alien now." Austin sputtered out quickly, his face pale and his hand holding the deadly weapon shaking.
"What? Austin, no, that's not true! I'm not harnessed anymore, I'm not an alien!"
"Just because you're not harnessed anymore doesn't mean you're still not one of them. I heard the stories about Karen from before we came. Her harness was removed but she still fought for them! She was still a part of them!"
"I'm not Karen, though! I'm Anna, the Anna I was before I was taken! This is the real me! Austin please..." Anna pleaded, the tears spilling out and sliding down her cheeks.
"Save it! You're probably just trying to fool me so you can put me right into your trap! Well guess what, I'm not falling for it!"
Anna heard the click of the hammer as he pulled it back and shut her eyes tight, squeezing yet more tears out of her sockets. This was it. She was going to die the same way Rylan did- because of a delusional human traumatized by the actions of the aliens. She said goodbye to everyone in her head- Tom, Matt, Hal, Weaver, Pope, Antony, Di, Maggie, Lourdes, Anne, and Ben. Ben, who'd she miss most of all and whom she never got to tell everything that she had wanted to.
"I'm doing this for Anna. My Anna."
Oh, the irony in that statement as Anna waited to feel the impact of a metal bullet. She prayed that he would shoot right at her heart or her brain so that there wouldn't be any suffering. A quick, painless death is all she asked for.
She jumped a bit at the sound of the expected gunshot, but was left stunned as she didn't feel a single thing, nor was she falling to the ground to die.
Opening her eyes, she no longer saw Austin standing in front of her, holding the fate of her life in his right hand. Instead, he was face down in the grass where he was previously, completely motionless. She couldn't even move. The only movements she was making were from the heavy breathing of her chest and shaking body, but neither of those were her choice. She then noticed something out of the corner of her eye as she stared down at her dead old friend turned enemy.
She lifted her head to the side to see Ben on the edge of the clearing of the bushes, his gun still aimed at where he had just shot. He looked just as frightened as she was and made direct eye contact with her. In his eyes, she saw relief taking over the fear, which was a mirror image of how she was feeling.
As if a switch had suddenly turned on inside of her allowing her to move, she ran over to him, her tears running off of her face from the wind, and collided right with his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist tightly. He stepped back a bit from the force of her hug and kept his arms hovering to the sides, still stunned over what had just happened. But it didn't take long for him to drop his gun at his side and tightly wrap his arms around her, consuming her body into his. He bent his head down so his cheek pressed against her temple.
"It's okay, Anna. He's gone, it's over. No one's going to hurt you. Not while I'm here." Ben whispered into her ear, then moved to press a delicate kiss on the top of her head.
He never felt like he was holding her tight enough as she cried into his chest, the wetness from her tears seeping through his shirt. But Ben didn't care, for he felt like he was going to cry as well over the fact that he had almost just lost the girl who meant the world to him before he could even tell her.