Above

Chapter One: Awakening

Author's Note

New story, new adventures, new characters. No regrets.
Trying my hand at something more romantic and tragic than usual.
Hope y'all enjoy, thanks for reading.

The air felt unfamiliarly cold against the girl's skin; usually, their private room was almost-always kept sweltering hot. On most nights, the two of them had to strip down to nothing and sleep on top of the comforter, with only their fingers barely brushing together to remind the young cadets they both were still alive, in order to stay comfortable.

Last night, she had obviously done the same. The girl laid naked, tucked underneath the many blankets in effort to shut out the chill. Slowly, her arm still heavy from sleep, her hand patted around the mattress to find Piper.

Almost instantaneously, she feels her arm. Smiling to herself, the girl brought her body closer to Piper, until she tucked her nose into her warm skin and inhaled deeply, and for once, she did not smell the tang of sweat and the rust of drying blood.

The girl opened her eyes at the warning sign; her vision tried to adjust to the dim light, to find the familiar contours of Piper's pretty face and strong body, but instead, she blinked furiously for a few seconds, until she froze where she had once peacefully laid.

In the place of Piper, a man blurred by the dark laid. His body had already been in the process of moving, as if he were trying to hold her as a reaction to her nuzzling, when she became a burst of movement. She swung her hand to her left, where she always kept a gun taped beneath the metal frame of their bed, and found one.

It felt strange in her hand, much more heavier than the featherlight Emitpistol she knew she must've grabbed. She ignored it, knowing that the biggest question in her mind wasn't the kind of gun she held between her fingers, but the man that lay in their bed and what he had done to Piper.

Like second nature, the girl swung her leg over the man's-- horribly expansive and powerful-- chest, tucking his arms away and keeping them there with the weight of her body. She pressed the end of the pistol's barrel to his forehead, taking note that it seemed to be an ancient gun, one that the Elses familiarize themselves with, as she tightened her other hand around his neck.

"Tell me where sh--"

"Rosie," the man laughed; suddenly, his hands weren't beneath her thighs, but wrapping around her waist. He pulls himself into her, like she wasn't a threat. "My little Rosie Posie, up so early," he ignored the pressure of the gun, maybe because he seemed still half asleep, and reached up for what she assumed to be a kiss.

"What--" she muttered, utterly confused. "Stop it-- stop, don't-- who are you? Where is Piper?"

"Pip--" and now, the man had become aware of the cold metal leaving an aggravated dent in his forehead. In the dim light of the room, she could hardly make out anything but the whites of his eyes and the strange tawny color of his irises, a shade that resembled the half-empty whiskey bottles Piper would steal from the cooks and sneak into their room. "Rose, you're having another break, look at me," his words were soft, understanding-- but firm, almost desperate.

"I am looking at you!" She seethed, angry at the excusation of his words. "What have you done with Piper?"

"Rose," his eyes didn't stray from hers, as if he weren't even aware of the gun pressed to his skull. "Rose, put the gun down. I'll call Doc, they said this could happen, and that it would happen, I know it's hard, but--"

"Answer me!" Rose cried out, desperate now. Without Piper beside her, she felt off balanced. Elysians were raised together, assigned as one unit since birth, literally bred to be the other half of an elite soldier. Not having Piper in her sights was mind numbing pain, their separation training had been a hard bullet to bite, but Rose had felt something from her. And now, all she felt was nothing-- and nothing, as in the software implanted at the nape of her neck had no pulse to mimic Piper's.