by Lisa Daniels
Cora stopped and held out a hand. “Wait a minute.”
Emery pulled his attention back to the present situation and squinted. His voice was low as he asked, “What is it?”
“I thought I heard something. It sounded a bit like… I’m not sure, but it wasn’t the same as the oppressive silence we’ve experienced so far.”
Emery listened for a moment. “It’s water. There must be an underground creek or stream nearby.”
Cora gave him a look. “How can you possibly tell?”
Emery shrugged, “Experience.”
“Do you often get lost in caves?”
“No. Usually I’m not lost when wandering around them.”
Cora frowned, “So you go spelunking?”
“Not at all.”
“You aren’t going to say, are you?”
He simply looked at her for a moment before turning his attention back to the cave. “My family likes to go out camping, and they favor caves.”
“As opposed to campers and tents?” Cora looked incredulous.
“It makes more sense for us.” His eyes searched around the darkness to their right. “We can go check it out to see if the water is clean. I seriously doubt it, given our location, but it won’t hurt to see.”
“It might lead us out, too.”
Emery shook his head, “No, it leads down and there is a really steep drop-off. I seriously doubt there will be any way for us to follow it.”
“You have got to be making things up.”
“Come on.” He waved her to a path that she had missed with her light. “I will lead us, but please turn off your light.”
Cora’s initial reaction was to argue with him, but she fought the urge and reached up to switch it off. Almost as soon as she did, Cora’s foot struck something and she stumbled.
“Oh, right, sorry.” Emery’s voice was close by as she kept herself from falling down. “Um, here.” Cora felt a hand wrap around hers and she pulled away at first. “I’m not in any state to do anything to you. I’m just trying to speed us up a bit.” He took her hand again, and this time she let him pull her forward. “It would be a good idea for both of us to get something to drink since we didn’t touch our water bottles on the last ledge.”
“We could just drink from them now.”
“We could, but we don’t know how far in we are or how long it will take to get out. If we end up trapped down here for a few days, we are going to want to make the water last as long as possible.”
“I don’t have anything to purify water. Or anything to make a fire, for that matter.”
“Don't worry about it. I can take care of both if we need it. It would be best to be careful in case, but for now I’m going to think that we will make it out today. If we don’t…” his voice trailed off, but to Cora it didn’t sound like he was hinting at anything. In the darkness, she watched as he seemed to slump over for a second before moving forward. He did it so quickly she almost didn’t notice that they stopped walking.
Determined to find some way to get him to stop, she agreed to work their way to the source of water. It should be easy to get him to sit down and then she could try to see about his injury. “Let’s focus on finding the water for now and seeing if you are right about it not leading out. Pessimism and doubt are not going to do anything to benefit us, so stay positive. You’ve survived this long, no reason to think that this time will be any different.”
“That's one way to look at it. But everyone will find that one experience that they don’t survive.”
“True, but as long as you keep fighting, you have a chance of surviving, no matter how small. Might as well focus on that.”
Emery paused, then asked a question that had been bothering him as he gently pulled her along, “And how many times have you had to think that way to survive?”
“Enough.”
“So you don’t want to answer the question?”
“I don’t want to talk about it any more than you want to talk about whatever it is your family does every year.”
“Oh, I don’t mind talking about it, and if you are going to keep pressing, I may as well just do that. But I feel it necessary to warn you before starting that you aren’t going to believe me.” He stopped and turned his head toward her a little. “And if you say anything like ‘You could have just said you don’t want to talk about it,’ you will owe me.”
“As long as you are being honest, why would I say that? Okay. You want to hear about one of my experiences first, keep going, and I’ll tell you. But you have to swear you will tell the truth.”
She felt Emery squeeze her hand a little. “It’s a deal.” He fell silent as he led her forward and waited for her to talk.
Cora took a deep breath. “Jason and I have been taken on ‘family vacations’ five times. Not all of them dealt with crises, but usually they did. My parents are… not normal. I don’t really know what they do, but pretty much the only time they spend with us is when we go on these trips. And they want to make sure we grow up to be responsible members of society. They love the fact that Jason is working on becoming a specialist of some sort in the medical field. I never bothered to ask him about it.”
“Why not?”
“What is the point in knowing? It will just lead to us talking about other things that I don’t want to talk about. He doesn’t understand why I don’t want to go into medicine, but he only presses it when we talk about what he is doing. Well, I should say that was the way it used to be. We don’t really talk much at all now. This is the first time I’ve seen him in a year and a half, and we’ve only talked about a dozen times since then. When his girlfriend dumped him. I tried to get him to take a break from school and work, but he refused, and pretty much disappeared into it.”
“He was avoiding talking then.”
“No, he just found it easier to work than to hurt. That’s why he went into the medical field. It gives him purpose and makes him feel like a useful member of society, just like Brenda and Jake wanted.”
“Who are Brenda and Jake?”
“Oh, our parents.”
“You don’t call them Mom and Dad?”
“God, no! Why would I? Jason is the closest thing I’ve ever had to either, and at this point it’s really not fair to be a constant drain on him. I was hoping he would spend more time with me because… I don’t know, I thought I could finally be there for him.”
“But he refused to use you as a crutch and pretty much disappeared from your life.”
“Yeah. It stings that the only time he pays any attention to me is when he thinks he has to act like a parent. I’m not a child and I don’t need him to be anything more than a brother. He’ll come when Silas asks, but not when I ask. It’s a messed-up relationship, and I miss having a brother to do things with.”
“You still have Silas.”
There was a slight chuckle, “Yeah, but we don’t even live together anymore. I might ‘cramp his dating lifestyle’ so he found a place of his own.”
It was Emery’s turn to laugh. “That sounds like him. But I think it is for the best that you guys don’t live together.”
“And why is that? After almost a decade, why is it suddenly good for him to live on his own?”
“Miss him?”
“Of course I do! He is a fantastic cook, and I hate being in the kitchen.”
Emery laughed again, this time ending with a slight groan. Cora ignored the groan for now as she willed her eyes to see him better in the darkness. Emery spoke, “You don’t think you miss him for some other reason?”
He could almost hear Cora rolling her eyes. “I don’t know why people keep coming back to that. I am as attracted to Silas as Jason, and I know that he feels the same way.”
“And how do you know that?” He wasn’t about to tell her that Silas had expressed just as much disgust at the idea of being with her.
“Because we talked about it when we were in high school. People made fun of us for always spending ti
me together, so it seemed natural that we would see if they were right.”
That was a lot more than Silas had told him. Emery frowned into the darkness, “So you talked about it?”
“We did a little more than that. We tried kissing a couple of times, but it wasn’t enjoyable at all. Besides, for all of his brains, he’s far too immature. He’s helpful around the house, but in terms of a relationship, that boy is going to take a completely different kind of woman.”
“What if you told him about your experiences? He might look at you differently.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt he would. Everyone would. That’s ample reason to keep it to myself.”
“You do realize that staying quiet is hurting you.”
“And you have to realize that talking about watching a six-year-old kid die because you didn’t act fast enough isn’t something that a person wants to relive with someone whose greatest problem is finding a date.”
Emery was silent for a moment as he processed her words. “What if he has dealt with more than that?”
“Are you saying he has?”
“No, but you don’t know if you don’t ask him. He certainly doesn’t have any idea about what you have been through.”
“Silas is about as difficult to read as a brochure. He wears his life and feelings on his sleeves, and there is no reason to complicate that with guilt.”
“Your guilt?”
“No, the guilt he will feel if he found out about what I’ve been through. He’s got no point of reference by which to compare his experiences against mine. Silas will change the way he treats me if he knows, and that is the last thing I want.”
Emery wanted to argue with her, but he knew Cora was right. “Silas is still a sweet kid who really hasn’t been through much. But if you never tell him, then you are doing him a great disservice.”
“I disagree. I think that I am helping to keep him safe a little longer because he doesn’t really know that much about the world at large.”
“Can’t argue with you there. I just feel bad that you don’t have anyone to talk to about your problems. It makes you a ticking time bomb, and that is why your brother is so worried about you.”
“Thank you, Doc, but I don’t see how it is any of your business. I love the way Silas treats me now and I don’t want it to change. Not yet.”
“I think you guys would make a cute couple. And he could help you through things.”
“Why are you so keen on getting us together?”
Emery paused and considered it. “I guess because you guys have always been so close. What better person to love than the person who knows you well?”
“My brother knows me better. Maybe I should try to get with him?”
“That’s a rather gross thought.”
“Yeah, it is. And I feel exactly the same way about Silas. He’s sweet, and I want to protect him. But I don’t want to have to spend all of my time protecting the person I love. It would be nice to actually have someone who can help me for a change, without that person trying to be a parent to me.”
“Oh, ah. Yeah, I guess I can see your point. It must have been rough not having parents around.”
“When I consider the kind of time I have with them when they are around, I really don’t mind not having them.”
“So are you going to actually tell me about one of the crises that you survived?”
“There’s the sound again!”
Emery stopped walking and listened. It was strange that Cora was noticing these things over him since he had pretty much been raised to notice, but he had been lost in the conversation. “Oh, I can actually see it. Step up here. It’s a rather deep recess and I don’t want you to trip.” He tried to hold his hand up to guide her over the dip in the floor, but found it hurt too much. After a deep intake of breath, he bit his lip and tried to help her the rest of the way over.
“Where can we sit down?”
“The water is right over there. Do you need to sit?”
“No, you need to sit down.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, I know. Just sit down for a minute because I’m going to take a look at it.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea.” Emery took them to a spot near the water where they could sit.
“So, you have something that can clean the water?”
“Hold on a second.” He dropped her hand and walked over to a small pool. After a few moments of silence, he turned to look at her. He watched her for a moment as Cora tried to look around the cave. Knowing she couldn’t see anything, a small smile creased his lips. Shaking his head, he told her, “This is actually clean.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“It’s one of my skills.”
She sighed, but didn’t argue with him. “I’ll use some of my water, but I’m going to clean you up a bit.” Without warning, she turned on her light. Emery automatically covered his eyes, leaving the wounded area obvious. “Holy shit, Emery! What the hell happened?”
His hands dropped to his side and he tried to cover the large blood stain on his shirt. “That was a dirty trick.”
“You idiot. Sit down.”
“No, I really don’t think–”
“Look, genius, you don’t have enough pressure on it, and you are bleeding out. It may be best to just stay here for a bit and have you lie down. What’s your blood type?”
“We aren’t a match.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Actually, I do.”
“I have helped with blood transfusions before, so I think–”
“Cora, I appreciate what you are saying, but we aren’t the same blood type because we aren’t the same species.”
Cora stopped talking and stood still. Emery’s dark eyes were staring at her, calculating her reaction, and she felt almost like it was a test.
“You don’t have to lie. If you don’t trust me just say so.”
Emery sat back and smiled. “And I said if you said anything along those lines you would owe me.”
“What?”
“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Are you saying you are an alien?” She gave him a look of annoyance. “Because I already know that your relatives are human.”
“No, actually they aren’t.”
“Bullshit.”
Emery sighed, “I only tell you this because the best way for me to heal is to not be in this form. Since you have seen how serious it is, I may as well shift so that you don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t scream.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I think you have lost too much blood and–”
Her voice died in her throat as Emery tilted his head to the side and pulled at the wrapping on his stomach. Suddenly his face elongated and his body became huge.
Seconds later Cora was looking at a massive brown bear.
Chapter 6
The World You Know
“I died on the fall, didn’t I? I died and now I’m in some sort of hell, or maybe I’m lucky and it is some sort of really weird purgatory.” Cora stood there looking at the bear with the dark eyes.
Then it started to walk toward her. Cora stood completely still and watched it. “And if I’m dead, it’s not like you can kill me again, right? You can’t kill the dead.”
The bear shook its head, grunted, and began walking past her.
“Follow you? But what about the water?”
The bear turned and looked at her, then nodded. Walking back to the water, it sat down next to it and watched her.
Cora walked to the edge of the water and squatted down. She looked at the water, which looked eerie in the darkness. Deciding that it didn’t really matter if it wasn’t clean, she leaned over and scooped it up with her hands. It was cold, but that didn’t bother her as she brought it to her mouth and drank. She sat back on her heels and decided to fill up her water bottle. There was no telling what was going on, but she hated being thirsty. That and her training
had taught Cora to always keep a full bottle, so she dipped it into the water until it was full. She turned to the bear.
“Do you still have your bag? I can fill yours up, too. Would probably be better than relying on being lucky enough to find other clean underground sources.”
The bear shook a paw causing something to hit the ground. Cora didn’t bother to ask how the strap could possibly fit because at the moment nothing made any sense. Questioning something so insignificant would be just plain stupid, so Cora accepted it for what it was – a strange part of her afterlife. She picked up the bag and began going through it. There were a number of things in it that she didn’t recognize, but then anyone who could shift into a bear wouldn’t need the same stuff. The bear made a low rumbling sound, causing Cora to look up.
“What?” She talked to the bear like it could answer her. It moved toward her, stretched out a paw, and tapped the side of the bag. Cora moved the bag and saw the water bottle on the side. “Ah, yeah, should have looked there first.”
The bear grunted and sat down. Cora opened the bottle and filled it just like she had done her own, then put it back in the bag. She slung it over her other shoulder. The bear grunted again.
“Oh no, you don’t. Even if you are a bear, you still have a hole in your stomach. I’m carrying this and you just follow me until we get you…” Cora turned and looked at the bear. “You won’t go to a hospital, will you?”
The bear shook his head.
“Didn’t think so. Alright, well, we’ll get you to someone who can look after you so that you don’t die. I hardly need one more thing to regret in life.”
The bear moved much faster than she could have expected. Before she had time to react, it was standing on its hind legs in front of her. In this form, Emery towered over her in a way that no human did. His large paws rested on her shoulders, and for a moment her instincts told her that she was about to die. Again.