The Time Traveller

Chapter Seven

Rome woke up to Anna hovering over him with a damp cloth pressed to his forehead. It was daytime now. His head felt like a boulder.
Anna had a butterfly bandage on her right temple and was holding a bloody paper towel to her nose. Other than that, she looked okay. He sat up, looked around, and realized he woke up in the same spot that he passed out at. Everything was as it was before. Well, everything except James.
Rome sat up, taking the cloth from Anna and leaning against the tree trunk. He took a beep breath in, then out. The sand beneath him felt warm, where last night it was cold. Now, the temperature was unbearably hot.
Anna began cleaning the blood off the weapons with another white cloth from inside the duffle bag. She threw it back in there when she was done.
"We gotta find James," he said, his voice barely audible. "We gotta hurry."
"I need to find James," Anna stood up, "you need to get some rest."
"You got slammed pretty hard," Rome argued, "like, twice."
"Yeah," she slung the backpack over her shoulder, "but I'm probably not the one with a minor concussion. It's like fate is set on killing you."
"Can I at least wait for you outside while you do your thing and get James back?" Rome asked.
"Fine," Anna said after a long silence, "but only because you would've come anyway and I don't think gauze would be a suitable thing to tie you down with."
She reached out her hand and helped Rome to his feet. He grabbed the freshly cleaned machetes.
"I was thinking," she explained, "That there would be footprints or drag marks over here," she walked over to where the fight with James happened. In the light, Rome could see a large, James sized line in the sand, surrounded by footprints on both sides. "And here we go," Anna crouched down to look at it closer, "at least they weren't smart enough to carry him."
Anna stood up and began walking in the direction the footprints in the sand led her, seeing blood about every two steps.
They had been walking a few minutes in complete silence. Rome slid his eyes at Anna.
"So," he started, breaking the silence, "your sister was in that group?"
"What?" She asked, caught off guard.
"Your sister." Rome continued, "the one you were talking to James and me about. The one you said you couldn't kill."
"Yeah," Anna sighed, "she probably was. It was dark, I didn't see her. I couldn't make out any of the faces, much less my own sister's. She might've been the one you killed, she could have been the one after me, she could have just stood off to the side, I don't know."
"Why would she come after you?" Rome asked. "Even if she was infected, she knows you."
"Exactly," Anna told him, stopping, "the disease isn't meant only for the person it infects. It ravages your mind, makes you see things that aren't real. Then it turns you. Makes you go against the people you love because you feel like they're going to hurt you. Believe me, I watched it happen."
"What was she like?" Rome asked.
"She was friendly. She wouldn't crush an ant if it came into her house. Her and I weren't that close; I'd be surprised if she talked about me, if her friends knew she had a sister. I did a pretty bad thing to her." She took a deep breath in and let it out. "Why am I talking to you about this?" She faced Rome. "Why are you so interested in someone you don't even know?"
"Because I've lost people too," he snapped, "I've left people behind, two actually, and one of them isn't even 2 years old yet. Because I have no idea where I am, what I'm supposed to do, and how I'm supposed to do it. Because we are following my only help's footprints to go and find him, and if you both die on this rescue mission, I'm going to be lost, and alone, and confused, so I'm sorry that I want to know more about what will kill me if I don't stop it first."
They both were silent for a while, both just staring at each other.
"Now, if we can go on," she said, "I'd prefer not to talk about it."
They kept walking.