Chapter three
Moving Closer
We had been left to go off on our own. The girl who had done my bun caught up with me.
“Blaire! I know you are new here and things,” she panted, trying to catch up with me, in her strange manner, much like the lit excerpts I read in my history books. “Would you like to have a tour of the base?” she asked. “it would be my utmost honor to show a woman of war my home.”
I nodded. At least she understood I had absolutely no idea what to do. She linked into my arm and led me to a set of cement steps with metal railing, leading through some gates between a wide passage, flanked both sides with steel grey buildings with floor to ceiling. As she guided me through what looked like a quad, with a fenced off grassy patch with picnic tables to one side, and three dirt paths leading to a stage, a church, and some basketball hoops on the other.
Next, the dirt path we were on led through an arch, and we came to a paved open spot. To one side was a tall building with huge double metal doors and to the other was a paved path leading under a cement bridge over the rooftops of the many buildings. I looked up at the bridge. It was narrow, and shallow walls on each side, but it led to a small closed sized room atop what looked like a meeting room. She led me under the bridge and through a set of rusting blue doors, into a quiet hallway with speckled linoleum floors
“Where exactly,” I started, “are we going? And I am sorry, but I did not catch your name.”
“My name is Catalina. I am from continent number one. And we are starting at the beginning.” Catalina replied.
“Can I call you Cat?” I asked. She looked at me funny, stopping just at the turn into another hallway with a wide oak door at the end.
“Is that not the name of a foreign animal? When War VI started, the continent officials sent all of them to continent eight.” Cat replied. “And I do not mind it, but Bredga might. She does not tolerate for ‘nick names’ as she names them.”
I noticed how unsure of herself cat sounded when she said ‘nicknames.’ It confused me a bit. I was starting to wonder if we were not in some unwritten part of the past but an altered present or a future of warring. And I assumed that Bredga was probably the thin-lipped woman who had awakened me. I remembered again how odd it was not only that I had not woken up in a hospital bed or my own, but on top of the perfectly folded sheets in a place I knew nothing of. Not to mention the apparent lack of cats here—I was completely baffled by the ways of the ‘base’ as Catalina called it. Suddenly, a couple pieces came together. As we were about to step through the door at the end of the hall, I stopped her.
“Cat. Are we starting a new war? If so, is this the army base we will be staying at?” I asked her. She stared sadly into my eyes. Not even into them. It felt as if she was staring right through me.
“The war has started. Our army has been obliterated by the opposing warriors of continents nine, ten, and eleven. Do you not remember why you are here? You are an innocent refugee of continent nine. You are not a spy I hope, Blaire. I would not expect you to know. I did not know I was a spy until Bredga spotted the illy placed chip in my elbow from when they sent me here. They were gathering information from our base through me and I did not even know.” Cat pulled open the door, but I caught her one last time. I was very scared by then.
“Cat, what happened to your family?” I asked quietly, my voice flying through practically three octaves. I knew what her answer was to be but I could not bear to think I had pieced it together.
“I do not know. Right around the time the earth separated I awoke here.” She said.
“And Cat?” I said, tears coming to my eyes. “The same thing happened to me. I get where you are coming from. But I think I am different. I know what took me here, but I do not know how I got here.”
Catalina shook her head, confused. “I do not understand.” She said.
I sighed. “I didn’t think you would.”
She pulled away till I was just holding her by her hand. “Just one more thing before we start.” I squeezed her hand in my trembling one. “I thought there were only seven continents.”
Right then we started at the loud creak of the heavy door. It opened swiftly with a blast of cold wet air, to impossibly green grass, to the shouts and yells impossibly similar to the ones I had left to, and black clouds moving impossibly fast directly toward us. Cat flinched.
“Sounds like when the train hit me.” She said, silent tears running down her face. How had I known.
