Children's Games: A Story of Modern Consequence

Chapter 21

~Emilia~

Maria seemed to be the most important piece in the mess that Emilia had recently woken into. Though no one was willing to talk about her. Well, no one except Joshua. But even then, he couldn't meet her eyes as the idea of 'Alice' hung in the heavy air around them, keeping them silent.

Calico awkwardly changed his position over her foot to get comfortable. He had been following her around everywhere so far and did everything without fuss and without noise. He was a satisfying companion as she felt that he might've been the only one to know less than she did.

"Tell me about how you got here," she suggested, trying to change the subject. She could tell in the stiffness of his shoulder's that she had caught him off guard and he didn't know how to respond yet. Thankfully, his eyes returned to normal as he smiled at her gratefully for the break in the tension.

Joshua was still wearing his pyjamas; a colourful mixture of thick red tartan pants, a cream T-shirt, and a light green jacket that had the Australian flag stitched over the breast. Paired with his thick black boots, he looked exactly how he ought to, neatly dishevelled, mismatched and odd. He had his hair down to sleep, and it framed his face so differently to how it normally was. It made him look younger, and perhaps even more tired. He would be around her age, but he seemed like he knew a lot of things in this world. And not in such an intense way, like how Dominik was all the time, but in a wise way.

"Well, where to start? It was much like yours," he said, leaning back against the railing once more as he delved into his story. "I woke up in the hospital carriage next to three other guys that were dead. I was put with the mix because they assumed that I was too far gone as well, then I must've made a loud noise or something that made them realise that I was still alive."

He lifted up his shirt to show half his abdomen, showing off a few dark lines that could've been tattoos snaking from his back and around his waist. Though instead he emphasised on a large scar that was halfway between his belly button and the edge of his torso. It looked mean and messy, and very much still red and new.

"I had this rod sticking out of me, and apparently had lost a lot of blood. Everyone here is really strict about the resources they use, but I was lucky enough to be put in one of the new medical machines that scans all my tissue to correctly remove the rod and replace the important flesh that was ripped out. All 3D printed from organic material. It was really high-tech that isn't used much anymore, and it was amazing how I'd never seen it before.

"When I got off the train, Anna found me and lead me to Dominik who had already found Alice, Matthew, and Florence, who all seemed to be adjusting fine. As for me, I took a little bit longer to remember. The others woke up knowing basically what they were supposed to within a few hours... so I wasn't quite sure what was going on.

"But Anna introduced me to some unloaded guns and that mutt Dmitri downstairs pretty quickly, then most of my 'memories' kicked back in."

Emilia couldn't help but laugh and tell him about how Dmitri had run at her as well before Natasha... well Florence as he called her, stepped in the way and intervened the attack. Joshua was not so lucky.

"I didn't end up shooting him and he got a hold of my hand," he said holding out the scars for her inspection.

She held his hand lightly as she observed the thick teeth marks that tore at the skin around his thumb and the back of his hand. She wasn't sure if disfigured was the right word, but it certainly looked like his hand hadn't been put back together quite right. The scars were almost healed over, and Emilia knew in an instant that Anna definitely experimented on him with her special glue that she used on Emilia's leg. It was hard to think that that had been only three days ago... and already the scar was merely just an angry red line, similar to Joshua's.