Jayda stared in shock at the face of the man before her. She figured it must've been about twenty years since she'd been back to this place, and this man looked to be fully grown, even with some greying hairs mixed into the dark locks. She searched her memory for some sign of him, trying to imagine him as a young man, but there was no recognition. The man's face, which was so hopeful, fell, and he backed away a few steps.

Suddenly, a mental image flitted quickly across her mind. A boy in early adolescence was making a small toddler laugh by playing with a floppy-limbed sock monkey. The picture was brief, but it was just enough to light a small spark of joy somewhere in her soul, something deeper than her eyes could see. She knew then that he was telling the truth; he was the boy in that memory.

"Evan," she breathed.

His face lit up, and she could see the boy behind the grizzled stubble. Then he seemed to remember Brutus, and his gaze darkened again.

"Where are there others like you?" He asked in a cold tone.

Brutus stared forward, keeping eye contact with Evan, and Jayda's eyebrows furrowed.

"There's a total of four in our group, two humans, two apes," the young ape answered him.

"Then where are they?" he asked, still coldly.

"Outside, Daisy didn't want to come in; it was too dark," Brutus answered honestly.

Evan glared for a moment before his face suddenly relaxed. He sighed a little and put the gun away on a table that had blended in the darkness.

"It's alright, I'm not gonna hurt you," He said, waving both his hands before dropping them to his sides.

The sudden change alarmed Jayda more than the gun did. It seemed too easy. The human and the ape stood awkwardly staring at the strange man who was, in true indisputable fact, Jayda's brother. What that fact meant for the future, neither one of them was sure.

The silence had grown so tense that Evan sighed and turned around, crossing to a tall steel storage cabinet and opening it with a squeak. He pulled out four bags that shimmered in the dim light. He approached the pair again and held them out.

"A peace offering," he said with a strange grin. "Call it an old family recipe."

Cautiously, they took the packs and examined the handwriting dated the food from twenty years before. Brutus looked up with a quizzical expression.

"That's all that's left of the human intelligence here. Just add water. Take some to the ones outside, will you? Especially that little one; it doesn't seem like she's ever had a decent meal."

He turned and sat in the chair they'd found him in and crossed his arms.

"Thank you," Jayda said stiffly.

The pair of them backed out of the room and began to sprint as fast as they could to the entrance. There, they found Franklin sitting next to the sleeping form of Daisy with his spear resting in his lap. Upon catching sight of them, he rose and gripped the shaft tightly.

"What's happening? Where'd you get those? Why are you so pale, Jayda?"

They quickly explained what had happened, and Franklin looked thunderstruck.

"Another one?"

Jayda nodded. "My brother:"

Franklin's jaw dropped, and it stayed that way for a long time. Brutus and Jayda sat next to him, carefully watching to make sure they didn't wake Daisy. Jayda picked up one of the packs and turned it over in her hands. A line instructed her to rip I, and she followed it. Several small pouches like the first fell out, and a picture flashed across her mind from many years ago. She was a little girl munching happily on a pouch of chalky food.

Jayda opened the package labeled apples and poured a little in her hand. A collection of chalky chips fell into her palm.

"What is that?" Franklin asked, his face showed deep concern.

She turned it over and nibbled a little on the corner of one. It was sweet and not altogether unpleasant.

"What are you doing?" Brutus leaned forward, almost like he was going to snatch it from her.

"Wait," she said, holding up her hand.

She waited a moment before putting the whole piece on her tongue. Immediately, the moisture was sucked from her mouth, but when she continued to chew it became more fruity and she swallowed.

The apes watched her carefully, waiting for some adverse reaction. After a few breathless minutes, they relaxed, and the apes braved their pouches.

On some, there was a label to add water,r and they passed around the waterskin. Daisy woke up and was curious about the pouches and began to fuss until one of them opened one and allowed her to reach in and begin to munch happily on the chalky contents.

"I suspect it was probably better fresh," Franklin said after emptying a pouch, "but it's not bad."

Jayda was turning the apple pouch over and over in her fingers, thinking. Questions were buzzing around her mind like a flock of frightened birds. The only way she was going to understand the past was by asking Evan.

She stood, and the apes looked up, surprised.

"I'll be right back," she muttered as she moved to the door.

"Wait," Brutus said, standing and grabbing her arm.

Jayda met his eyes. "He's the only one that has answers for me. I want to know why I'm like this."

Brutus didn't move, but he seemed to be debating with himself.

"What's going on?" Franklin asked, looking up from letting Daisy trace his palm with her tiny fingers.

"She's going back," Brutus said.

"Let me go with you," Franklin perked up.

Jayda shook her head. "He doesn't seem to trust apes, I need to go alone."

The apes met each other's eyes; they'd traveled long enough together to understand when she wouldn't budge, and Brutus let go.

"Take this at least," he said, stooping and picking up the second spear they'd taken from the chimpanzee.

She nodded and took it. Looking back at the two apes, she realized just how far they'd come together. The family she'd had was gone, but she hoped that they'd felt similarly about her. Evan might be her brother, but she didn't know him, not yet.

"I'll be careful, I promise," She said, taking one last look before ducking through the empty doorframe.

—

"Hello?" She called as she went back to the room they found Evan before.

She pushed open the door but saw that it was empty.

"Evan?"

She backed out and continued down the hallway, gripping the spear tighter. She listened for any sign of movement. The hallway seemed to extend onward forever into the belly of the mountain, but she knew it had to stop somewhere.

Jayda?

She turned around, but no one was there.

"Hello?"

The strange silence was unnerving, but she continued forward, coming into a dark part of the tunnel with broken lights.

"Evan! It's me! I just have a few questions!"

She heard the sound of someone moving close by and turned. He was standing as an imposing shadow against the light.

"You came back," he said, sounding slightly surprised.

She nodded. "I came without the apes so we could talk."

He stood still, watching her. The silence became long and awkward, and she began to shift her weight from foot to foot.

Finally, she cleared her throat. "I don't remember a lot from before, but I know I came from here. Why did we leave? Why don't I remember you very well? What happened to this place?"

He looked her over, seeming to debate something in his mind before a resoluteness came over his face, "Come, I'll show you."

He led her past the many doors back to the first room they'd found him in.

"Sit, I'll only be a second," he said, waving his hand to the only other decent chair in the space.

She turned and inspected the chair for a moment before slowly lowering herself into the flattened cushion. He crossed and began rummaging through the same closet he'd brought the packaged meals out from. A clang announced the presence of a metal box, which slid with a grinding screech until Evan held it in his arms. He came back to slide the other chair next to hers.

"Here."

He opened the latch, and it flipped up with little resistance. He drew out a stiff square with a piece of glass covering a picture with four humans in it. He handed it to Jayda and watched her reaction carefully.

She looked at the human faces, and tears began to form at the corner of her eyes.

"Mama," she lightly touched the woman's face in the picture, then her fingers danced to the man's, "Papa."

"You were a carrier, they didn't realize the danger until you were about four when Markowski stopped talking."

"Carrier?" She asked.

"For the flu," he answered like it was obvious.

She continued to look puzzled until he realized.

"The flu is the disease that took the lives of the majority of humans at first, then it took their speech and their mind." he gestured to the room. "This place is where we survived for generations. Until you didn't have symptoms, but you could pass it to others."

He got a faraway look in his eyes, and Jayda had a picture of Markowski's horrible execution come into her mind. She shivered,d and Evan looked up again.

"Sorry," he muttered, "I spaced off there. They were more ruthless back then. Of course, mom and dad had a decision: they could exile you and themselves or do the unspeakable crime of killing their child and allowing themselves to be executed. So you can see they didn't have much of a choice."

He looked down again. Jayda pictured him repeating that to himself for years as the human numbers dwindled.

"Why weren't you included in that consequence?" Jayda asked.

"I was immune to the disease, and they tested to make sure I wasn't a carrier, too. And I had other…" he trailed off, but Jayda could hear the end of a sentence come into her head.

…abilities for them to exploit, knowing what someone is thinking was very useful.

Jayda gasped, and Evan looked up. "What?"

"Can… can you can read minds?" She asked, her thoughts racing.

He looked shocked, "How did you-? Wait, can you do that too?"

Jayda tested in her head, not that I know of.

She allowed the memories from the minute before to pass to the front of her mind again.

"That doesn't look like how I do," Evan answered her unspoken question. "Try to read mine now."

Jayda tried, she really did, but nothing came, she shook her head.

"Hmm," Evan mused, "this is new. Let me try something."

Suddenly, a memory was plastered across Jayda's mind that she knew wasn't her own. It was of Evan, watching from his eyes as his parents and younger sister were sent outside of the compound and the heavy door sealed tightly.

Jayda found his eyes again and nodded. Evan's hands were shaking.

"It must be easier to communicate with emotional pictures to someone I'm related to. They tried to develop my abilities, but it's been so long since I've had another human to talk to," Evan said, his voice quiet and shaking.

Jayda looked back down at her parents' picture.

"The disease must've mutated again. instead of taking away speech and cognitive functions, it accelerated it," she theorized aloud.

I wonder what happened to me?

"It's really not everything it's chalked up to be," he said, sending a picture of himself as a child being isolated from the others, not allowed to play.

"Can you read the apes' minds?" She asked.

Evan seemed to think about that for a second before a picture of their first meeting from his perspective came through. Brutus looked menacing, if it were possible for the young, harmless ape.

"Not as well as yours; they must be wired differently, but some things still come through," Evan said thoughtfully.

Jayda lowered her voice, though they were still alone, "Are they angry that I lied?"

Evan looked at her with a quizzical expression.

"So what if they are?"

Jayda searched her thoughts, trying to find a way to explain her anxiety. Ziro's face kept popping up without invitation, his death played over in her head. Then she remembered that Evan could see what she saw, and she tried to clear her head, but the damage was done. He looked up at her with an apologetic grimace.

"I never imagined an ape capable of sacrificing themselves for a human," he said thoughtfully.

She looked away, ashamed. Evan watched her carefully, then looked up like he was trying to see something very far away. After a moment, he turned back to her.

"It wasn't just about you, you know," he said.

She looked up, her eyes misty, "What?"

"The little ape, Franklin, knew Ziro very well."

"He's his brother."

"Ah, that explains it," He looked to the ceiling again, "it looks like Ziro's always been a protective type. Even if he didn't like it, he'd make sure that he'd never allow something bad to happen to someone if there was anything he could do to stop it."

He paused for a moment, then looked down, "I wish I could have been that for you. If I knew how to control this better..."

Flashes of a plan long abandoned crossed uninvited into Jayda's mind. She shivered and shook her head.

"It wouldn't have made things any better. Our parents would've been silent soon enough, and then everyone else would've…"

She didn't finish. She didn't have to. Evan was staring at the floor with his eyebrows deeply furrowed in concentration. When he didn't say anything more, Jayda gently placed the picture back on the table and rose.

"I should see what the others are getting into," she said, glancing at him repeatedly until she was out of the room.