A Stranger's Acquaintance

chapter 1

My body didn’t seem to want to move as it felt heavy and distant. An annoying deep solid beep started to draw me out of my dream-like state. Slowly starting to recall the dream as the clock still sounded loud in my ears. I had been dreaming about some things from my past, something that didn’t quite feel right now. Rubbing the tiredness from my eyes I stood up slowly, glancing at the clock that rang in my ears and flinging it at my cream-colored wall. Watching it break into several small pieces, the thin plastic now scattered lightly around the room, as the beep slowly died out. Over the past two days, I wanted to cry, she had left me when I left to visit my parents.No calls, no text, not even a note. As I walked to the kitchen I slowly remembered her pitter-pattering feet. A tear formed in my eyes. She followed me everywhere, the little tip taps of her boots that would always follow behind me. Her small black ones would lace up just above her small thin ankles. Always tying off in a bow.

“Cathra, could-”  I started to remember that she would grab the food for me as I grabbed pans, but now she was gone. I felt myself tear up again as I just grabbed the bread and made some toast, that’s all I could seem to stomach. I felt like I had done something wrong, was it the fact that I left her out, and didn’t tell her what I was? I felt tears drip down my cheeks as I looked away from a picture of us on the thin aluminum covering of the fridge. I seemed to stare at her small short form, her hair cascading over her small patient shoulders, little bits of her coffee-colored hair stuck up in that photo. She absolutely hated that photo. She was in a thin red dress that showed her gorgeous snow shoulders, which allowed me to see our mark’s tapestry. The swirls and leaves, with small flowers all coming to the center where a crescent moon with deep teeth marks surrounding it sat. they were my teeth marks, it was my claim on her, it made her my mate. Now I did know she wasn’t my true mate, but? By the Gods, I loved her, she was my mate and only mine. She picked me over her real mate. It was three years that we had been together. It seemed like I was raining tears now, they fell from my face onto the toast I had made. Slowly tossing the toast away, no longer hungry for any bit of food. Slowly walking to the bathroom, I looked at the deep purple shampoo bottles that she left behind, almost like it was a punch to the face. Grabbing them quickly, throwing them away. Seeming as if it was a sickness that would harm me. How I missed her sweet hazel eyes, which seemed to sparkle with life when she saw me. It made me wonder, why would she leave? A boom, that's what I heard that seemed to draw me away from my mind, making me think of my mate. It was loud and unseen, ducking down almost on instinct as if the shot was at me. It drew me away from the thoughts of my now ex mate. What I recalled was not such a simple thing to remember. 

I remembered sitting in a room waiting for my next assignment, or if I would be allowed to go back to the hell of a world that we all lived in. I could feel the worry and excitement of that day as I saw myself in a seaweed and moss green uniform, the right side full of colorful badges and pins which only clashed against my uniform. What stood out was the yellow and gold patch that seemed weird for a woman to have, the gold parts of the patch were my wings that told others of my small life in the military. I was a stargent major that started out in a little section of the marines that no one seemed to know about. It was more of a unit than a squadron, but in that room she felt memories cascading in her mind only to follow and fall in her body. I was picked for the unit, not just by scores but by my willingness to fight and die. I had to learn to die, because if I didn’t, I would truly die. The Navies, that's who we were, we were the crazies and the ones who took the more danger filled issues of our world. The ones who were used for experiments, that was our life. Experiments. That's what we were, the world's crazy experiments. I remembered the first experiment like it was my first death. That day I was pulled from my bunk and shoved on a cold coroner's table, my hands strapped down to it by thick leather straps. I saw my dead brother next to me as I was injected with a dark orange liquid that felt like fire running through my veins. My screams echoed in that room like ruminates that lived outside the facility walls. I felt the pain string through my veins as I gasped my lungs pulling for the now thin air. My body popped and cracked as I watched my heart stop, frozen in time. A time that now seemed to be less painful than when my heart would pound. My age and body now frozen in time, I survived. I lived where the others failed and fell into death’s grip only to be greatted and handed his scythe. 

I shocked myself back as I heard yelling from the ground below. Something about a pipe dropping, which answered my question on the boom. Yet it drew me back to the world of frustration and hate for others.