Oblivion

Light Filters Through

I was nearing the source of the gunshots, the last one I heard left my ears ringing and I was certain I was nearly there. One last turn, although it sounded like there may be more than one source now. It didn't matter, though, because as soon as I rounded the corner I was in the middle of a scramble. The source of the shots was a woman, and she looked tough with a large gun in her hand pointed at the head of one of the moderators. The actual head, I observed, as his mask was laying on the floor near where I stood. There was also a man, he was rather tall with fairly broad shoulders and a short buzz cut. The foreign yet familiar term had rolled through my thoughts so easily I almost didn't catch it. How do I know what a 'buzz cut' is? I almost spared a moment to ponder that but had to focus on the situation at hand, as everyone was now looking at me.

The woman's eyes scanned over me as if it was an automatic reaction. When she reached my face her expression softened a bit.

"I-I don't know who you are or what you are doing but I don't care. Just please," I paused and looked into the eyes of each of them. "Take me with you." My voice was louder than before, I tried to put as much of a commanding tone as I could muster, but the result was still very soft. I honestly wasn't sure whether they heard me, with all the commotion still emitting from a hall down.

"Hey, Joska, there's one of the ones they stole. Mind taking her back?"

  The woman looked at the tall man expectantly.

He spoke into a small rectangular box that seemed to be attached to a wire orbit around his headpiece. It reminded me of a radio but was smaller and seemed to block the sound waves from escaping it, since I could only see his mouth moving as he spoke. He paused a moment and looked up at me, I assume he received a response.

Wasting no time, the man, Joska, briskly walked towards me and picked me up. I let him heave me onto his shoulder.

"Tina,"he paused for a single moment, "Come out alive, ok?"

The woman nodded and before I could even get one last good look at her we were racing down the hall. I paid attention to every detail. There were other people, outsiders, swarming the halls with weapons. I heard a gunshot and watched a moderator hit the ground. There were more outsiders than moderators, I realized. That's why I hadn't seen any while running through the facility's maze of halls. There was a feeling I'd long since forgotten surging through me, and it took me a second to identify it. Hope. I might be really getting out of this nightmare.

*****************

My tears stopped falling once the rain came, and I propped up the umbrella next to the bench to shield me from the light rain. I thought the rain might spark some old memories of me and Cas and fill me with a little of that joy, but instead it just made me feel the full weight of what was lost. How much I didn't feel happy. I closed my eyes one more time and willed my thoughts to Cas once again, desperately trying to reach her even though I knew it was to no avail. This is hopeless. I'll never escape that nightmarish day.