Everything is dark for a moment, Helena awakens from her subconscious. She jerks up in surprise and looks around. She realizes she's on a rocky beach, the fog making it difficult to see. "...Hello!" she yells, only to hear her echoes bounce back, she decides to search for help. With her clothes torn in some places, along with no weapons, she cautiously tries to look around, but the fog make it difficult to see. Suddenly, she trips on a large piece of metal. She stands up to find a boat wreck, Verden's boat. Helena gazes at the boat, she sees a gun in the rocky ground and pulls it out. She checks the clip and continues searching, coming upon a raise in the ground. She climbs up onto the grassy ground and sees trees of different kinds, but something else catches her attention, a light in the distance.
She walks along a path, but it's strange, no sign of any people, but the path is well made, no plants growing on it. The light grows stronger, and the atmosphere grows creepier, the trees show sign of care and harvest. "Does someone live here, or…" she thinks, but stops at the sight of a enormous mansion. It stands by a rocky edge, its condition shows that someone lives in it, she races to the door. Unknown to her, a figure stares out from one of the windows before retreating. She knocks on the giant doors, but they slowly swing open.
Helena slowly walks in saying "Hello, anyone here. Please, I need help," but only receives echoes. She walks up the stairs and looks around, viewing all the rooms, unknown to the figure following her. Every room she checked were either storage or a community of spare bedrooms. She wonders how a house made for a village could be so empty, and what happened to the people?
Suddenly, she feels something, an unsettling presence behind her. She turns on a dime, but sees nothing, except for an opened door she closed earlier. Her heartbeat races as she moves closer to the door, closer to the handle. Without warning, a slimy hand launches out of the door opening and grabs Helena's hand. She screams in shock and shoots at it. The hand withdraws as she slams the door, blocking it as whatever was inside tried to open it.
It struggles to force the door open. Suddenly, the struggling stops, only to continue with it smashing its arm through the door. Helena takes off running as the creature smashes the door to pieces and regains balance. The darkness conceals its appearance, but its eyes outline with a color darker than black. It searches around for her, not noticing her sneaking into one of the rooms. She closes the door silently and backs away, aiming her gun at the door. Amongst the sound of her heart racing, she can hear breathing behind her, a soft, calming kind. She turns to see someone in the bed, next to her, a small crib made of different kinds of wood. The sudden noises in the room disturb the person, who is seen to be a woman. "Excuse me, we have to go, there's something out…," Helena couldn't finish her warning. The woman turns on a nearby lamp, her appearance becomes clear. She is just as shock to see Helena, then she says something that brought Helena to the limit, "Sister… Helena," and suddenly, Helena faints.
Hours pass, Helena finally awakens from her coma. She finds herself in a bed in a small room. She looks around and sees items brought to her set on a drawer next to her. New clothes, a glass of water, and for some reason, a small orange rock. Suddenly, the door creaks open. Helena tries reaching for her gun, but can't find it. She hears something run to her and hide at the foot of her bed. She curls up away from the end, a small figure crawls under the sheets to her. She slowly removes the covers, at the last second, whipping it off in a flash. Her nervousness turns to confusion as she sees it's only a small girl, no more than 3 at most. As she takes a closer look, it's obvious it's not a normal child. She has no clothes, but strange clay colored growths over her body. Her skin looks normal, but the tips of her knuckles end with three small nubs, along with bizarre curls on her back, one appearing white like bone. But the most striking feature, under her short, brown, and rounded hair, are eyes like the figures, appearing grey in color.
Helena doesn't feel threatened, it isn't human, yet she only appears curious of someone new as any child would. She crawls to her like a cat, sniffing her skin before ending up hugging her left leg. Helena becomes more confused than she ever has, soon turning her focus to the opening door. Her eyes widen at the figure who comes in, her thought dead, now mutated, sister, Deborah. Helena moves the girl away and slowly gets out of bed, walking to her sister. She tries to figure out if it's real or not, until Deborah says "Yes, it's me Helena."
With that, Helena breaks down crying, embracing her sister, who cries as well, in a sad hug. "I… I thought… I thought I lost you," Helena sobs.
"I know… I know."
They kneel to the floor, the hug lasts for minutes until they finally release, Helena tries to control herself and wipes away the tears. The small child walks over to the two. "Mama, why you crying?" she says to Deborah. Helena becomes shocked at what the girl calls Deborah, Mama. Deborah stands and helps her sister up, "Listen, I know you have questions miles long, I really want to explain, but I need to take care of some things first. Just wait here and I'll be back, okay?" Helena slowly nods while Deborah places a small kiss on her cheek. She walks out, leaving Helena sad and happy, the small girl turns to her. "Excuse me, why mama hug you?"
Helena tries to gather the fact the girl might truly be her niece. "Well… let's start with names, I'm Helena, and you are?"
"Maya."
"Okay Maya, well, to answer your question, I'm your… mom's… sister."
"Sister? Are you mine?"
"No, a sister to your parents is called an aunt, and you're my niece."
Maya looks to the ground a while before hugging Helena's leg again, saying "Aunty!"
Helena looks at her again, seeing if she really is some kind of mutant, the cutest one she has ever seen to be honest. Suddenly, the door opens, Helena looks up to see a tall figure, the same one who attacked her. She tries to protect Maya, but she runs to the figure and says "Daddy, Daddy, it's my aunty, see?!"
He looks to Helena for a second, "Maya, go find your brother please," he says to Maya. As she leaves, he kneels down in front of a confused Helena, "So… you're my sister-in-law then?"
"WAIT, you're… my sister's…"
"Husband, yes, please forgive me for my actions."
"Why did you attack me?"
"You must understand, I was only protecting my family, you would do the same, wouldn't you?"
Helena soon recalls memories of her protecting her sister, times where she took extreme actions. "... Yes, I would. I'm sorry, it's just…," she struggles to understand what's happening now.
"Thank you for your forgiveness, my name is Dylon, and this is my home."
"Where's my sister?"
"Well… let me show you."
She follows Dylon to one of the many rooms, a light comes out of one of them. She moves ahead of him and goes in, only to see Deborah breast feeding a small baby. She closes the door a fast as possible. "Should've waited, Dimitri is very young, just fifteen days old, needing lots of care," Dylon says to a embarrassed Helena.
She waits until Deborah opens the door and lets them in. Inside is a nursery for Dimitri, Deborah lets Helena see him. He was very small, with rock-like jewels resting on his forehead, only three, one in the center and two to the side. His very small tuft of thin, blue hair sits on the top of his head, but when Helena feels it, it's more fleshy and sharp. His most striking feature were his light-blue eyes, almost like Dylon's. All and all, he looks normal.
Around her are other small children, one with slightly red skin and blonde hair, a lot like Leon's, under basic clothes. Next to him, Maya, who is slightly shorter than him. And next to her, a small boy, no more than two, wearing child-sized cargo shorts and no shirt or shoes, his hair sticks up like a single spike and brown eyes, same shape as Dylon's too. They look at Helena. Maya and the two year old run to her saying "Aunty!" but the other hides behind Dylon. The two year old says while pointing at himself "Raph."
Helena looks to the one hiding behind Dylon. "Sorry," he says, "Theo can be very shy," he looks down at Theo, "Theo, please say hi to your aunt."
He slowly walks to her with a worried face, extending his hand to her. Helena feels bad that he's so shy, she touches his hand and says "Don't worry, we're family, aren't we?"
He quietly and slowly replies "Y-yes."
The children run around, chasing each other. Deborah sits and holds Dimitri in her arms, Dylon leans against the wall, and Helena in between them. "Okay, let's start at the beginning."
Deborah starts, "Well, sometime after our… you know, I was left there, like an animal. But Dylon found me and saved me, helping me get my memories back. After that we spent some time in the area, helping each other, until 'they' found us."
"Who's they?" Helena asks.
Dylon answers, "The ones who created me, they were searching for specimens to use, so we hijacked one of their boats and escaped, ending up somewhere in China for a short time."
Deborah continues, "An outbreak claimed many lives. We managed to find a man named Scott who helped us escape, but 'they' destroyed our ship or something, we don't know what happened when our ship crashed."
Dylon finishes, "Once we finally could settle, well…"
He gives a serious look to Deborah and said "Listen, your sister is the most beautiful being I've ever seen, I couldn't live without her. We wanted to settle in a home, no worries, no one after us, be together."
Helena can see he's honest, he truly sees beauty in her sister, even in her state. Another thought soon came. "Wait… you were the one who attacked the cruise!?"
Deborah lookz in concern, Dylon sighs and explains. "I hurt no one, everyone came out safe, but the man you were with is one of 'them', the ones after us."
Helena realizes how stupid she was to trust Verden, he only wanted her, possibly knowing she was Deborah's sister and to be used as bait. Helena sulks in anger, Deborah says "Listen, you're safe here, family must stick together, right?"
Helena looks to her and sees the sister she always knew, the kind, high spirited, and only family she had before the outbreak. She embraces her, the children look on with confusion, "Daddy, is something wrong?" Maya asks.
"No Maya, everything is fine."
The night soon comes to an end, the morning sun begins to rise. Helena awakes from a much needed rest. She looks to the drawer next to her to see breakfast made for her, eggs and toast with a side of fruit, along with another orange rock. She looks down to see Maya sleeping on the floor with a pillow and small blanket. "Maya, what are you doing here?" Helena asks, waking her up.
Maya lets out a yawn. "I wanted to see you, but I fell asleep. Oh, did you get my present?"
"Present?"
"The rock."
"Oh, it's a painted rock, that's a very nice gift.'
'What's paint?"
Helena sees she didn't know what paint was and looks at the rock closer. It was actually an orange rock, no paint. "Where did you get this?" Helena asks.
"Out there."
Maya points out the window towards the forest. It occurs to Helena that this place wasn't normal, who knows what's out there. She decides to figure that out later, right now she feels her stomach growl, so she digs in. In the dining room, Dylon and Deborah enjoy a platter of meat, it's the only thing they enjoy eating, but the children eat a variety of food. Dimitri is too young for normal baby food, so he breastfeeds, Theo enjoys a platter of different fruits and vegetables, and Raph enjoys a platter of solid foods, like nuts and crackers. Maya arrives for breakfast, "Maya, sweetie, where were you?" Deborah asks.
"Seeing aunty, she awake."
"Okay, but please don't disturb her, okay?"
"Okay."
Deborah leaves the table and returns with a plate of fruits with eggs and bacon. Dylon looks to Deborah and asks "So… do you think they'll still be after her?"
"I don't know, she'll stay with us until then."
"Listen, it's nothing personal, but what if someone else comes looking for her?"
"Don't worry, nothing can get on this island, you said it yourself."
"...Yeah, yeah you're right, thanks to the guardian. By the way, do you think she should meet the others?"
"It would be rude not to, I'll see if they'll be back soon, right now she can meet our guest."