Number 965

Part II: Eath V

"Prove it then." He motions to the men who are holding us. "Throw them in." They push us from the ledge and we land ruffly on the valley floor. Echo dies on impact. We all struggle to our feet but she doesn't move. Her face smashed into the ground and arms folded under her.

"Echo." Tim's voice tears me apart. He flings himself onto her broken body and weeps. I watch taking a few steps back as Tim's world falls to pieces. For minutes or hours, I don't know we stand around her body. Tears flood my face and drip to the blood stained desert floor.

"We need to get moving."I look out down the valley. It doesn't seem that long, but the ground is covered in bodies that all looked like they had died hours ago. The site of all of these people set me reeling. I turn to look up at the chief. "Who are these people," I yell my voice carrying up the cliff side.

"You are not the first base that we attacked." He smiles "Did you think you were special." His laugh catches the wind and echoes down the valley of the dead rattling the silence.

"I've Been here before," I mutter to myself looking around.

"What." Caleb looked at me.

"I've been here before," I yell up to the Cheif.

"Yes, you have." His voice sounded gleeful, "I showed it to you while you slept."

"Magic?" I called crossing my fingers.

"Almost." He laughed, "Almost fortune telling. Good luck." He starts to leave but stops, "Don't look too closely at the faces you might find someone you know." His laughter bounces off the cliffs.

"Mom." Caleb breaths stepping forward.

"How are they still so.." Sam try's to translate for Rupert but her words falter but that I knew what the scooping motion of his right-hand meant.

"Fresh." I finish looking at him shaking my head. "I don't know." I glance back up the cliff side I see that the Chief and his accomplices had left the cliff top. "They are going to try and shoot us down," I speak to the cliff without looking at anyone.

"What? How do you know." Ethan looks up from where he is crouched by Tim over Echo.

"I have seen this before. In a dream" The dream I had in the base came back to me in flashes. Walking past everyone's crumpled bodies, seeing myself die. Watching Caleb fall. Mother and Father. "We need to get moving." the hope that what I saw isn't going to happen grows in me. Fortune telling the Cheif had said. God, I hope not.

"Tim." I crouch beside him "We need to go there is nothing we can do." he turns his face up to mine, it is red and blotchy tears fall down his cheeks like a waterfall and his nose is leaking but he doesn't seem to care.

"I can't leave her here." He pleads with me his voice shaking uncontrollably.

"You have to." I try to put my hand on his shoulder but he jerks away from me.

"No. I won't leave her alone in this awful place. She belongs with us." he takes a deep breath his voice shaking. "She belongs with me."

"If you stay you will die." I plead.

"I will be with her." He looks me straight in the eyes, His copper ones shining out from under his black hair, they burn my heart and I have to look away.

"But we need you." Caleb comes to my side.

"No. Not out here. I am out of my element." He looks around at the cliffs. "I can fix computers, that is what I am good at. Not any of this." his eyes wander back the Echo's grey face. Her hair spread out behind her like golden water, her face was at peace and eyes were close shielding her eyes from the horror of what surrounded us. "We all know it."