placebo's machine

Question 3

Question

“What do you mean, you’re the same as me?” She persisted. “Does that mean you’re a Cyborg, too? Or that you don’t need your exhaust pipe? Or that you have wings?”

“I’m the same as you,” Gabriel repeated. He turned back around and continued walking. “Are you coming?”

Evangeline was jogging toward him before she was aware of it, each step sending needles of pain through her feet. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere.” He seemed to be amused by giving her useless answers.

“Is there anyone else there?”

He paused, as if thinking. “No.”

“What is this place?”

“A forest.” The corners of his mouth twitched up. He definitely was having too much fun giving her obvious answers.

“What’s your favorite color?” Evangeline threw that one at him, trying to throw him off.

“Green,” Gabriel replied without hesitating. “And stop asking me questions.”

Evangeline trudged behind him, looking around at the woods. Dawn was coming, by the lightened grey at the eastern edge of the horizon. A smudge of pink tinted the tree line.

Evangeline hoped that it would be sunny the next day. She’d never seen the sun.

The trees were all very tall, with smooth, grey bark. They were pointed, like a triangle, and a lush blue green color. Fallen golden needles carpeted the forest floor, absorbing water and muffling their footsteps. Silvery pools of liquid sat at the base of the trees, where strange ferns and mushrooms grew. Piles of black rock were scattered around randomly, the smallest the size of a pebble and the largest bigger than the shaft she had flown out of the previous night.

It was at one of these rock piles that Gabriel stopped, edging around the side. He tugged on something near the top, and a cascade of pebbles fell. He pulled back a sort of curtain, woven from needles and ferns and bits of rock so that it looked like it was part of the forest. Behind it, the dark mouth to a cave gaped. Evangeline couldn’t see inside.

Gabriel stood to the side as if politely, but bowed mockingly, gesturing inside. “After you,” he said with a grin.

That was the first time that Evangeline really saw him smile.

It lit up his face, making him look more approachable. One side of his mouth curled up higher than the other, giving him a sort of smirk. His heavy eyebrows arched away from each other.

He seemed friendlier. More trustworthy. As somebody she hardly knew and was alone with in the woods, he wasn’t very trustworthy, but Evangeline wanted to trust him. She wanted to trust everybody.

Evangeline stood straight and swept past him, carefully stepping inside. She looked around in a cursory inspection. Fire pit, with a hole smashed in the ceiling for smoke. A pile of blankets in the corner. A stack of baskets with what seemed to be food in them. Woven mats over the floor.

She wasn’t sure where to go, so she stood to the side awkwardly. Gabriel looked around one last time before carefully shutting the curtain. He stepped right past her and sat on the ground, kneeling beside one of the baskets. He withdrew something with an air of triumph, sitting back and looking at her.

“You can sit down. It’s not that uncomfortable. After all, you were sleeping last night hugging a pine tree.”

Evangeline blinked and cautiously sat down, scooting toward the fire pit. It was empty, with just sticky soot coating the bottom, wet from the previous night’s rain. Evangeline looked at Gabriel curiously.