The darkness closed in around her, leaving her in a dark void as empty as the eyes of the Hulandans. She could be looking straight at one of their faces and never notice the difference. Her own eyes seemed affected by the smoke, as tears started to fill them. The loneliness and fear seemed almost tangible, adding onto the thickness of the darkness around her. Even her hearing didn't help her, couldn't give her any sense of where she was or where she needed to go, as all she could hear was her own coughing.
Gradually, she stopped struggling to get up. Stopped trying to move at all. She let her own weight settle her into the debris that she had collapsed into. Her sobs and coughs still shook her chest, but that was the only movement she made. As the debris settled around her, some of it slipped on top of her, burying her beneath it. But she couldn't bring herself to care, couldn't bring herself to try to escape the tomb that was forming around her.
Everyone had left her. Her friends, all abandoned or betrayed her. Her father, left back at the hospital, was looking after the one friend that she had left. Her people, her mother's people, turned on her, leaving her for dead in the destruction that they had wrought on the city. Even her girlfriend, the one that had always professed love for her, was lost to the darkness and smoke that would soon consume her. It seemed like a metaphor to Ellie, as she knew that, if Mare ever found out what she was, she'd leave her just like all the rest. There was nothing left. Nothing for her to reach for. Nothing to pull her out of the mess that she had made of her life. And no reason for her to try to pull herself out.
Her coughing came less often, and she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad one. Was she getting used to the smoke or were her lunges tired of trying to find cleaner air? She no longer thought she could get up on her own, as the weight of the debris pressed her into the hard floor beneath her. For all she knew, the building had fallen down around her, burying her so deep that no one would ever be able to find her. She almost embraced the idea that it would all be over soon, settling in for whatever came next.
Light suddenly filled her vision. At first, she thought she was just seeing things, some trick of her eyes or some alien power she hadn't known about. Then, she realized that she must have been dying. Her breathing came shallower and shallower, slower and slower, and the light was just what happened when the end was near. A hint at the heaven that you were heading for as your brain slowly died. Ellie was at peace with it, with the idea of dying. She even thought she heard the voice of her mother, so far removed from her memories that it couldn't have been all in her head.
"Ellie?" the voice said. "I found her. Mare, I found her."
The voice was small, high pitched in a way that sounded familiar. Though, for some reason, Ellie didn't remember her mother having a voice like that. She couldn't really remember her mother's voice at all, as the memories only grew fainter with the distance of time. The light quickly faded away, as suddenly as it had arrived. Ellie tried to call after it, tried to call it back to her, but she had no air left to try. As the darkness reclaimed her and the fogginess of her head only continued to increase, she suddenly feared that she wasn't going to heaven after all. She was going to Hell, a place that she knew all too well to be real. A place that was as physical, as tangible, as the room that her spirit was leaving. Ellie didn't remember doing anything worth condemnation for, but perhaps it was because she was an alien. Did Hulandans even have souls? Did the spores eat souls?
When the light came back again, it wasn't as bright, wasn't as large. Instead of filling her vision, it was just a tiny dot in the distance, a light at the end of a long tunnel. It flickered there, bobbing up and down in the air, familiar, though she couldn't place it. Her hand reached out for it, reaching for the salvation that it seemed to promise. Another voice, this one different from before, larger, deeper, more familiar, came to her from it. But she couldn't understand it, couldn't hear it as the sound seemed to leave the world.
The light flickered three more times before it went away forever.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The Reveal
Lips, wet, warm, familiar, pulled Ellie from the darkness. They drew her back towards the light. But they didn't stay, didn't last, leaving her long before she was ready to let them go. Suddenly, there was a pounding on her chest, strong, heavy, painful. She gasped in the pain, flinching away from it. As she did, though, she started to feel the hard stone beneath her, the rough surface that scraped against her arms.
"Oh, thank god," came a voice over her. "Ellie? Are you alright?"
She knew that voice. That voice was love. That voice was everything. That voice was--
"Mare," Ellie gasped, as her brain finally put a word to it.
"Ellie, are you alright?" she asked, again.
"I'm... Where am I?" Ellie started to get up, but hands pushed her back to the ground.
"Don't get up. I'm not sure how bad your injuries are."
"We need to get her to the hospital," said someone else. The memory of the name was just a faint echo, too far away from Ellie to remember it.
"We're not going back through that," Mare said. "I don't... I don't know how to get back to the chopper from here. I don't think I want to try. They're still out there, aren't they?"
"Yea, I'm afraid they are."
"Who are?" Ellie asked, as her brain struggled to remember what was going on. "Where are we?"
"Ellie, honey, can you open your eyes?" Mare asked.
"Oh," Ellie said.
She would have wondered why it was still dark, but she had remembered there had always been darkness. Slowly, she tried to open her eyes. The light startled her at first, but it wasn't bright enough to be painful. She looked around her, around them, as there were two others above her. Mare, she recognized immediately. The other one it took her a few moments to remember. Behind them, and all around her, was what looked like an alley, though Mare and Phoebe were blocking much of her view.
"Where are we?" she asked again.
"It's the alley behind the building," Phoebe said. She was back in her human form again, but seeing her there reminded Ellie of the little ball of light, which must have been what she saw in the building, while she was dying. "We can't stay here for long. Do you think you can get up?"
"Why can't--"
"The mobs are in a war on the other side of the building," Mare said. She pointed upwards to the sky as the both of them fell into silence. Ellie could hear the sounds of scuffling, shouting, and cries of pain, far too close for her comfort. "I'm not sure which side is winning," Mare said. "The aliens have the strength advantage, but the humans had the numbers. Honestly, the way they were treating you, I don't really care which side wins."
"Mare, don't say that," Ellie said. "We want the humans to win, right?"
"We just want the fighting to stop," Phoebe said. "We can figure out the rest later."
"Yea," Mare said. "If we can figure out how to live with demons, we can figure out how to live with alien infected humans. If they hadn't been so busy rebelling against the bill, they might have realized that it applies to them, too. All it does is make it illegal for people to be discriminated against based on their species. I think these... what do they call themselves again?"
"Hulandan," Ellie and Phoebe both said.
"These Hulandan would be covered by the same thing."
"I don't think they really care about that," Ellie said. "They had no intention of revealing themselves to the world anytime soon."
"Yes, well, we'll be handling that," Phoebe said. "Once we get back to HQ, the HPS will be releasing an official statement about the Hulandan. They're far too numerous, and dangerous, to allow them to work in secret any longer."
"I don't know," Ellie said. "Are we sure the world is ready to know about... them? I mean, you remember what happened when the demons came. This would be like ten times worse, because they're everywhere and could be anyone and anyone that isn't one can still become one later. It's far too dangerous. It... It would just cause mass
panic."
"No, Phoebe is right," Mare said. "They need to control the message, but people still need to know, especially after last night. Don't worry, though. We don't have to name any names."
"Wait, what? W-why would I worry about that?"
"Ellie, it's alright. I know."
"You know? You know what? What are you even talking about?"
Mare pressed her hand against Ellie's forehead. It felt nice there, like it belonged there. The warmth fed into her, making her feel warm inside. More importantly, it made her feel loved, wanted, desired. Mare took her hand away, though, far too quickly for Ellie's taste. Then Mare showed her hand to Ellie and Ellie's heart stopped dead. There was a very noticeable orange tint to Ellie's blood on her hand.
"I know you're a Hulandan. I figured something had happened. You had been avoiding me for weeks, putting off some of our vid calls. At the time, after you told me that you were spending time with Alex again... well... I got a little jealous. Then this whole thing happened and... Did they infect you? Were you afraid that I wouldn't love you anymore?"
"No, I... Well, I mean... Yes, I thought you wouldn't love me if you knew I was a... But, no, I wasn't infected. I've..."
"You've been a Hulandan all this time?" Mare asked. She almost seemed relieved by this, like this knowledge took a weight off of her, rather than turning her away from Ellie. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I... I didn't know. I didn't know any of this until last weekend. This... This whole thing has been completely insane. I didn't know what was happening half the time. I felt like I was going crazy. And, then, this, to find this out. It was just more than I could ever... How are you so calm right now? How can you be okay with this?"
"The world has been a crazy place for a lot longer than the past few weeks. I've learned to just roll with a lot of things. Most people have. That's why I don't think there's going to be much of a panic when they find out about the Hulandan. Even if there is, there's no way for them to know without anyone telling them who is Hulandan and who isn't. And, of course, we won't be telling them anything."
"Well, it's not that there's no way," Phoebe said. She pointed at Mare's hand. "It's just that there's very few ways. I'm surprised that doesn't come up more often."
"So am I," Ellie said. "I've bled plenty of times before and never noticed an orange tinge to it before."
"Maybe it had to do with all the smoke you inhaled?" Mare asked. "Or, maybe you just weren't really looking closely enough. I was worried you were going to bleed out for a while there. There was just so much blood."
"It wasn't even that bad in there," Phoebe said. "I'm not sure why you had such a problem. Maybe it has something to do with her being Hulandan? Could smoke be their weakness? Anyway, I still say we should get her to a hospital to be checked out. She had a concussion last night. This could have made things worse."
"Wait, how do you know I had a concussion? I wasn't even sure I had a concussion. They never got around to doing my scans."
"Oh, I know that, too. Let's just say, I know you had a concussion because I'm a faerie. Really, I could heal you up no problem if I had some pixie dust. Just a grain and you'd be good as new. But, well, I know a lot of what I know because I was riding on your back the whole time."
"Wait, the whole time?" Ellie asked. She sat up in shock, nearly knocking heads with Mare in the process. Mare helped her move over so she was leaning against the wall. Her strength still wasn't back just yet, but it was getting there. She wondered if that was from her alien powers or if her injuries were just not as severe as they all thought at the time. "The whole time? Since the hospital? You were right there with me listening to everything?"
"Yea, pretty much. I mean, it’s not like I followed you into the bathroom or anything. I wanted to make sure you were safe. Although, if you had asked my opinion, I would have recommended that you turn down Leadership’s offer."
"From the look she was giving me in the street earlier, I don’t think that’s on the table anymore. Probably something about me telling the humans about them. Then again, maybe she had no interest in actually giving me the position at all. It was probably just a ruse to get me to spend more time among 'my people' before I went running off to the cops. Then, once I decided they weren’t a threat, she’d just drop the ruse and offer the role to Sam anyway. Or, maybe she's not even really dying."
"Oh, no, that part checks out," Phoebe said. "There have been plenty of high profile people that have had mysterious deaths over the past ten years or so. It's far too coincidental for it to be a lie. Converted Hulandans die from the conversion. We'll probably try to track them to the known Hulandans and work forward. It helps that we know where it started."
"Okay, well, so, now what?" Ellie asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, well, there's like a street war happening on the other side of that building. Shouldn't we be doing something about it?"
"I've already called the local authorities about them while you were unconscious. They should be by shortly, once they assemble enough people. There'll be arrests, on both sides, with that one group prosecuted for the forced conversions and rapes. Beyond that, there’s not much we can do. I'm only one person, and it's not like it's our jurisdiction anymore."
"What are you talking about?" Mare asked. "I thought you guys worked with the strange and unexplained."
"We do. They're explained already, at least to the degree of how to handle them. Now that the bill was signed into law, we no longer actually police those that had fallen into that category. The police themselves are supposed to be in a better position to handle them as part of the main population. Many units had been equipping themselves with anti-demon technology, thanks to Angel Corp. I told them to come ready for demonic level strength, so they should be bringing the big guns, both technically and metaphorically."
"So, wait, you're not policing the demons anymore?" Mare asked, still hung up on that idea.
"No, we're not. Nor the Hulandans or anything else that comes up. We're strictly an investigatory unit now, thank the goddess."
"So that means..."
Mare got a far off look on her face as her mind whirled through what this new revelation would mean. Ellie knew exactly what she was thinking about, though. Mare had been at boarding school all year round since she was eight. This was, in large part, because both of her parents, both agents at the Homeland Protection Service, were too busy handling their sudden responsibilities of policing the world's demon population. She missed out on so much growing up because of this, though she had always put on a strong face, trying to make it seem like it didn't affect her. And, after a while, it didn't. But, still, as she stood there, now almost fully grown up, and the one thing that had kept her parents from her was no longer an issue. It must have hurt her on some deep level, like a long healed over scar that had suddenly been cut open anew.
Ellie got up from the ground, her injuries no match for her alien healing, and came over to Mare's side. Her arms wrapped tightly around Mare's chest, pulling her in close to her. Though Ellie was much shorter than Mare, she lent her all the strength she had, even holding the taller woman up as she broke down in tears. The tears were long overdue, and didn't leave quickly. Ellie barely thought of the fact that, only a few moments ago, she had thought it would be her that needed the support of a loved one.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The Light at the End of The Tunnel
The three of them waited in the alley for almost an hour. The sounds of the fighting from the other side of the building had faded soon after Ellie had woken up, but the sirens of the oncoming police took another half hour beyond that. Ellie figured that had more to do with the state of the roads than anything else, but she knew they would need to do better to deploy when such situations came up in the future.
After the sirens and lights faded once more and the day calmed down to the norm for a Friday afternoon, the three of them headed out from the relative safety and protectio
n of the alley, back out into the world. They avoided the scene of the battle, heading up another two blocks before circling back around to the dorms. The parking lot where Ellie had parked her car managed to make it through the storm relatively untouched. Not many people were taking their cars out, though, so the leaves from the surrounding trees had started to accumulate around there. Ellie's Leaf was covered with leaves and needed to be brushed off before they could use it.
The roads weren't as bad as Ellie remembered them to be as they drove over to the hospital. She hoped that was a good sign, that the city was recovering from the long night and would go back to being the home she remembered it to be. However, as she looked out around them, watched the people as they came out of the buildings they passed or walking up the street, she couldn't stop herself from checking each and every one of their eyes, watching, waiting for them to turn as black as the night sky.
A few blocks away from the hospital, the street lights suddenly turned on. Ellie had to slam on her brakes as the traffic light ahead of her was suddenly red. Her Leaf whined as the battery struggled to recharge itself from all the lost momentum, only managing to get half of it before the regular breaks took over. Ellie looked over at Mare in the passenger seat and the two girls shared a long laugh together.
"Think Leadership actually held up her promise?" Phoebe asked, as Ellie pulled through the intersection.
"Or, maybe, the city's own people were already on it," Ellie said. "We're Chicago. We're resilient enough on our own without some aliens fixing things for us."
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