Lochlainneach

A Lass That Is Gone

November 2165

Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America

ELLIE POV

'Commander Catrìona Fowlis has been reported missing on Sunday, the first of November after failing to report after the Battle of Edinburgh. English forces claim to not hold her captive and Scottish forces claim that her tracking device has been turned off.

The body of Captain Richard Randall of the Royal English Army had been found near where Fowlis's tracker was last detected, but no sign of Fowlis could be found. Twenty-three years prior, Fowlis had been reported missing after the Second Battle of Culloden on the first of May, 2138, resurfacing eight years later in December of 2146 in North Uist, Scotland, having been found wandering the roads by a local. No further information has been reported.'

Ellie's blue eyes scanned the words of the short article, which had been published on the second of November, 2161 - nearly five years before Ellie had come across it. On it was a photograph of Commander Fowlis, who had piercing silvery eyes, dark brown curly hair and freckles littering her face in a pattern similar to Ellie. Pulling out her mobile phone, Ellie opened the camera app and turned it to face her, comparing her own reflection with the image of the woman who was her mother on the screen. Minus the dark hair and evident signs of aging on the forty-five-year-old's face, as well as the silvery eyes, Ellie and Catrìona were nearly identical. Twenty-three years prior, Fowlis had been reported missing after the Second Battle of Culloden on the first of May, 2138...

Opening up a Google tab - thank god for Google, nearly two hundred years strong - Ellie typed in 'Catriona Fowlis missing Culloden' and a bunch of articles popped up. 'Captain Catrìona Fowlis Goes Missing' , 'Captain Catrìona Fowlis Dead at 22' , 'Fiancé of Captain Tom Randall Reported Missing' . She clicked on the first article and scanned its contents, featuring a photograph of Catrìona Fowlis - this time, much younger, and with red hair instead of brown. As she scanned that article, she then saw a related article at the bottom titled 'Catrìona Fowlis, Who Was Reported Missing Eight Years Ago, Found Alive In North Uist' . Ellie clicked on that next, finding it to be dated the fifth of December, 2146 - six and a half months before she had been born.

↞~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~↠

Day 18 on Hy-Brasil

CATRÌONA POV

Seinn dhom an duan,

Mun tè a chàidh air thìr...

Saoil am bu mise i...

Something nibbled at my fingertips. It wasn't sharp or particularly painful, but it was enough to wake me from a deep slumber. All that time, I had wondered if I was dead. I had been surrounded by warmth and comfort, as if wrapped in a protective and warm comforter, but then the breeze picked up, causing the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck to stand up straight. I let out a soft groan, then turned my head in the wet sand ever so slightly, opening my tired, aching eyes. It took a moment for my vision to clear, so I watched as the black blurry mass formed into the sight of a small black hare nibbling on my fingertips as if they were carrots. I moved my hand just a little and the hare started, then bolted away as soon as it realised that I wasn't dead after all, leaving me on my own once again.

I gathered the strength to roll over onto my back and stared up at the sky, finding myself blinded by the mid-afternoon sun. I weakly raised one hand to protect my eyes, then turned my head so that my cheek laid back in the sand. I was sore, so sore, and the back of my head ached as if I had been hit by a sledgehammer. Everything hurt, like I was hit by a truck or a train or- or possibly even fell down a waterfall... Waterfall. I had fallen down a waterfall, or at least, I assumed I had. The last thing I remembered was floating along the river, unable to fight the strength of the current while the waterfall roared dangerously nearby. But why was I in the river?