Journey to Pandora

Chapter 13 : Innocence is a sin

  "Eliouse... Eliouse" A soft, calming voice made its way to her ears. "Eliouse...." Eliouse's eyes opened slowly, to the sound of bees buzzing ,crickets chirping and constant rustle of bush, the feel of a breeze that wrapped itself around her body. Though her eyes all blurry, she could faintly make out the figure that looked over her.

Brown locks hung from a womans face, eyes the colour of the trees or the moss that grew on rocks. "Eliouse... wake up." The woman spoke and as she came into focus a bright light surrounded her.
For some reason, whatever it was, she had a feeling in her gut, a powerful one. Almost like a line connecting her and this woman but to Eliouse she was more than that.


"M-mother?" Eliouse said but almost came out like a cry. A smile curved at her lips as Eliouse looked side to side. She laid on grass as soft as the wind, underneath a humble tree that whistled in the breeze and a clear blue sky above them. The woman, or to Eliouse, her mother hovered over her.


"My darling.." She whispered and tears already trickled down Eliouse's cheeks.


Sobs cut into Eliouse's words as she said so desperately, "I miss you so much.." The woman pressed her thumb to Eliouse's cheek.
"I know" She replied.
Eliouse shook her head in denial, her bottom lip quivering. "Why'd you leave me? All this time I had thought.... I didn't have a mother..." Eliouse's voice shook and she brought her petite hand up to her black long eyelashes and swept away the salty tears. Her mother's smile faded.

Her mother's mouth opened as if she were to say something but she was stopped short, with a gaping mouth and a worried expression. "Mother?" Eliouse asked, reaching her hand to grab her mothers wrist but in the attempt, her hand travelling right through her.
Eliouse didn't batter an eyelid as she went to grab her shoulders but failed as her hands swept for nothing. Her mother's torso vanished into thin air and then reappeared each time.

"Moth-" Eliouse stopped when she heard choking and looked up at her. Blood poured from the green eyes that preyed on Eliouse. She wanted to scream, but for some odd reason she was frozen to spot as blood trickled out of the gaps of her eyes, down her nose, out of her mouth's crease line.

The out of the corner of her eye, the blue was replaced with red, a crimson dark red. The crickets stopped chirping, the breeze turned to echoes of moans and Eliouse screamed the tops of her lungs, for what felt like every breath of air evaporating from inside of her as she turned her head to see a reptiles, haunting eyes right next to hers.

The feel of slimy, scales brushing up against her, Eliouse's reached for grass but instead picked up a snake the size of finger. She dropped it to the ground and went to stand up, ignoring her mother's struggle but found herself stuck to the pool of snakes. Her eyes were focused on her mother's as her pale, thin flesh started to flake. Like shards of broken glass, falling apart.


"Make it stop" Eliouse screamed in a cry of effort. Her mother's face disappeared into nothing, nothing but a void of blackness. Eliouse stopped screaming when out of the darkness, a familiar face appeared, a smirk playing at the said lips. Dorian's snake like eyes wrenched on hers.



"Eliouse" He said chanting over and over again, this time the cries that left Eliouse's mouth becoming louder, tears more saltier until her father chanted the words Eliouse dreaded most, even if she didn't know it quite yet,
"Eliouse, you're mine."


With a thud, Eliouse opened her eyes to the flickering flames. The embers of ashes dancing around the fire as dark shadows casted themselves around them.

"You're awake." The boy said where he sat across from her up against a tree alongside his sister. "You were out for sometime." Eliouse watched carefully as he distracted himself from her and picked up a stick and started prodding it into the fire.

She nodded and rubbed her numb arms with her hands.
"Right, now that you're awake, we can maybe introduce ourselves." When he lifted his face, his eye met hers which made her skin crawl and she shifted uncomfortably.

"Right." She replied, "Your name?".

The boy hesitantly glanced over to the girl, who wore a glare, aimed at Eliouse who knew no better but to look away. After a long moment of silence, tension in the air, the boy spoke and turned to Eliouse.
"This is my sister, Aelia. I'm Darwin." He introduces himself and the girl. Eliouse tried to smile, but it was hard. She was still in the state of processing everything. Dorian sending everyone off to war. Elbert ending up being her Grandfather and Dorian....
She clicked her jaw at thought of his name.

Dorian was her father. "I'm Eliouse," Eliouse said hoping to clear the cruel image of her father in her mind.

Darwin nodded his head and kept speaking, "Might I ask, what were you doing outside of the mines?" He asked, although not aggressively or rudely, but intent in his voice that he wants to know or they would leave right there and then. For a second, she contemplated about whether she wanted to tell them, but she did so anyway.
It was awkward at first her voice was shaky and quick. Not faltering a word as she explained every detail.

The thought ran over her mind heaps, 'Why were she to trust these people so easily and why were she giving them so much detail about the terror she went through?' It seemed absurd to her but she brushed it off anyway.


"Then I found out he was my father....and I decided to escape." She said, leaving out the part where she gets powers and blows a hole in the cell. Darwin nodded, the girl kept a cold stare but she didn't think much of it.
"You went through all of that?" He asked, Eliouse was sort of surprised by his question, she was thinking more along the lines, "How did you escape?" but she was glad he didn't.

"Yep," Eliouse answered awkwardly, then came silence. A long minute of silence, just the sound of fire crackling and foreign noises of wild animals. "Now tell me about you. Where were you heading?" She asks.

Darwin looks at Aelia and she nods. "We were going to Atlas. We had heard many stories about it there, about shelter, food, a new life for us." He brung his knees up to his face and rested his chin on them. Eliouse looked away, guilty that she had wrecked that entirely for them but for good reason too.


"Then we met you." He didn't say it with any hate at all, but the way the words secreted from his tongue was almost like spitting acid.

"I'm sorry," Eliouse manages to choke out through a dry throat, "but that place was nothing of a new life. Not what you were thinking anyway. But I do admit, people looked happy there, children singing, dancing, laughing." Eliouse stopped and sneered, "They just didn't know what was behind the scenes. The killings, the injustice my father was doing..." she stopped talking and swallowed.


"I understand." Darwin reassured her, with a warm smile, Eliouse began to believe that these were good people. Good, understanding people.


After that, many hours passed by and she learnt a lot about Darwin's and his sisters past. How they're older sister was killed protecting them and their mother. They then fled London and headed to Germany by a refugee boat, then from then on, by meeting heaps of travellers, they came to hear about Atlas.


They soon ate dinner, or most of what Darwin had caught in a rabbit trap. By the end, Eliouse was licking her fingers, moaning in delight as she finished the meat of the bone. "So what are you going to do now?" Eliouse asked casually through all the chewing as she placed the bone on the ground.



"I don't know yet. We might head back to America." He said and instantly I saw Aelia's eyes flick onto him. She nudged him in the side and sat up, her eyebrows creased.
"What? Don't joke around. We can't go back to America! There is still a war raging over there!" It almost came out as cry, and Eliouse saw the tempt in her eyes as she watched him chew the meat from the leg, that she wanted to knock it out of his hand and yell at him for even saying such things.



Darwin stopped and looked her dead set in the eyes, "Well, we don't have much choice do we?" He said, not as a question, but as if she wasn't being logic here.

She snickered and turned away from him and Eliouse watched silently as the two bickered.


"You could come with me." They both turned to look at her as she said these words. She cleared her throat and looked away embarrased.
"I mean... If you want. I'm heading back to the people that saved me, I'm not quite sure where that is yet but it beats going to America, right?" She said civil as possible.


Before Darwin could say anything, Aelia speaks the first word she's ever said to Eliouse.

"Ok." Obviously catching Darwin by surprise, he looks at her, wide eyed.



"Hang on a minute-" Just as he goes to justify his answer, Aelia cuts him off.


"Darwin, we have too. We can't go back to America and throw away everything we have worked for. This is the only hope for us." He fell silent and glanced away.

"But mum's still over there..." He says in a small voice. Aelia's expression softens up a bit.

"I know, I want to see her too but she worked so hard for us to escape and come here. We can't do this to her now, for all we know mum might be..." Her voice cracked with emotion, her voice small and soft as she comforts Darwin.


He nods and smiles, his green marbles glossy and red.


"We'll leave tomorrow morning." Eliouse says.


"How do we know where were going?" Darwin recovers and goes from being scared, and dreary to strong again.


"I don't but we'll figure something out." She answered. That was the last thing that was said that night before the fire was out and they all got some shut eye.






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The next morning, Eliouse awoken early. Darwin snored peacefully with his sister next to him. There was still morning dew hanging on leaves and sprinkled on the grass.
Crickets and woodpeckers were the only noise you could hear and it made Eliouse smile peacefully. She had not seen this side of Earth before, only ruins.


An hour had past and she let the siblings sleep in a little longer. When time came and the sun was fully in place and the heat waves made her sweat already, she shook them.


With a cough and a moan, they got up and got there stuff ready.
"So had we figured something out?" Darwin asked as he zipped up his bag. Eliouse had nothing. No clothing apart from the dress, no blankets. If she didn't find them, it was certain she would've died within a few days.


She didn't was to answer the question. "No.......I just know to head south." She answered. It was the only information she had and she was going to go by it. Even if it got her no where, she'd get away from here.


"Great" Aelia said sarcastically, "Were three teenagers in a foreign country going by a the thin line of a direction. Who knows what might happen." Frustration in her voice was clear as she swung the backpack over her shoulder.

Darwin rolls his eyes, which to Eliouse surprises her. "I'm sure everything will be fine." His reassurance made no difference. Aelia had a point, anything could happen and it wasn't as if Eliouse had been on Earth her whole entire life. She was just as new to Germany and this 'real' word as much as they were.

Anything could happen.



Eliouse glances up at the sky, noticing the clouds that started to set overhead. "We should get going." The smell of wet dog evident in the air, there was a storm coming and Eliouse didn't want to get caught up in it.
"Right." Darwin says.


Eliouse stomps on the fire before she takes lead, walking straight into the forest with Darwin and Aelia following.



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Dorian grunted as he slammed his fist into the clear, marble table. "What do you mean!?" He yelled aggressively at the guards who knew no harm. They shook with fear as they witness Dorian in a his frustrated state.

"We're sorry, Sir. She escaped through the vents, we searched for through the trails but we saw her run off with some people." The guard claimed and it made Dorian's expression soften up a bit.

"Who? what people?" Dorian shot questions all at once.


"A boy and girl, Sir. We lost sight of them when they ran off into the bushes."


"She's out there, and I want you to find her." Dorian said through gritted teeth, his jaw clicking in annoyance. "Do I make myself clear? Search everytown, search every alley, every rehabilitation centres! put signs up with her face. I want everyone knowing I want her." He ordered and they modded.


"I wish to speak to Elbert. Go fetch him." The guards looked hesitantly at each other before one stuttered, his palms sweaty as sweat rolled off his temples.
"Uh- about that-"


"What can't you do a fucking single job without finding it difficult?" Dorian cut him off and snickered at the incompetence of the two.



"Actually- Sir...... Elbert Reeve is.....dead."


Dorian looked up at the guards face, the words that rolled off his tongue made him tempted to smack him over the head but he fought back the urge. They were clearly lying and to Dorian, he was no idiot to fall for this. "What did you just say?" A threat was all that escape Dorian and it was all that he could think of at the time.


"Elbert was found ...dead Yesterday at 4:15." Said the other one, trying to make some of Dorian's hatred steer towards him.

Dorian found it hard to believe at first but he knew that Elbert was in no condition to survive much longer. In fact, it didn't surprise him as much as he thought it would. The way he treated him, bashed him, he should've expected him to die a lot sooner but yet there was an aching feeling that erupted in Dorian's heart.

He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands, "Eliouse escaping and now my father dying. What next?" He dropped the angry persona and it was now replaced with a dreary one, stress evident as his narrowed his eyebrows in thought.


"Sir-"



"Leave." He ordered. The guards looked at him as if he were crazy, as if they had never taken orders from this man before. "I said leave, have the body ready for viewing tomorrow morning. Get onto that search straight away, I want finding her a top priority."


He turned his back away from them, but stopped, speaking over his shoulder. "Also, I heard the 1st Platoon came back. How many casualties?"


"173 dead, 83 seriously injured and 312 with minor injuries. " The number of the dead surprised Dorian.


He nodded, for he needed time to process and comprehend everything that had happened within 24 hours. "Okay, that is enough for now go back to your duties." He ordered and he heard the light tapping of feet before the door slamming.


Dorian sighed in frustration, almost like a cry in defeat. He pressed his hands on the table before looking up at the white washed ceiling.

A single tear left his eye as he pursed his lips and said words he never thought would leave his mouth,


"Geneva, I'm sorry."