placebo's machine

Cease 5

Cease

She immediately regretted tearing down the curtain.

It fell far too loudly, pebbles clattering against each other and the dried leaves rasping over the face of the rock. Evangeline cringed as droplets of water sprayed her face from the dew clinging to the vines.

Gabriel stirred, shifting in his sleep. He rolled over, his hand landing inches from the edge of the curtain, barely touching the frayed edge of a yellowed vine.

Carefully, Evangeline backed away. Her ankle twisted when she planted her unsuspecting foot right on the edge of the imprint in the forest floor. She crashed to the ground, throwing out her arms to catch her fall.

Evangeline knelt in the footprint, realizing just how large it was. Her whole body- though she was small and currently sitting in such a way that she took up even less space- was able to fit in one side of the U.

The ground beneath her fingertips was cold and squishy. Mud?

Though Evangeline had been sure a few moments ago that she very much wanted to find the Patrollers, a doubt crept in. So large, a voice in her head remarked, What if they really were going to hurt you? You were terrified this morning. What changed?

She clamped her hands over her ears. She couldn’t just keep on changing her mind like this.

Funny, it almost seemed like she was two different people...

Which she knew couldn’t be right, when she wasn’t even one person to begin with. She was a machine. A Cyborg. Not a person. And she shouldn’t be thinking about this so hard! She had already decided which was the right this to do!

...Which was it, again?

Was it to go to the Patrollers? Or to go back to the cave?

Even if she was a machine... Evangeline shouldn't be doubting that. But she did, nonetheless. Because Cyborgs weren’t supposed to be able to function without exhaust pipes, and she wasn’t supposed to bleed, or eat, or sleep. But she did.

Evangeline was pretty sure that she had decided to go back to the cave.

Evangeline stood, ignoring the dirt clinging to her knees. But as she turned, her gaze caught the mesh of vines and leaves still lying, tangled, on the ground.

Well, Evangeline was pretty sure that she wouldn’t have torn those down for no reason. So she spun on her heel facing the direction that the tracks led.

But they were so big...

Evangeline stomped her feet, tugging at her hair. It should be obvious what the right thing to do was! But it wasn’t! One part of her mind told her that she needed to go back to the facility, no matter what; the other half told her that she had to stay safe.

Would it be possible, Evangeline wondered, for Them to have pressed upon her the necessity of staying with Them so much so that it was impairing her judgement?

She closed her eyes. What felt right, if she were not biased?

A breeze swept back her hair. Red. She knew without seeing it. Red like blood. A dirty color, she’d always hated it.

Maybe if she knew anything else about her appearance, anything at all, she would have felt differently. But the only thing that she knew about herself was something that she hated.

She didn’t let herself think, for those few seconds. Then, almost as if it had a mind of its own, her foot slid forward.

Evangeline opened her eyes. It was obvious, the path that she had to take. The one right in front of her.