placebo's machine

Reveal 7

Reveal

“Gabriel! Gabriel, help me, I think I’m dying!”

A month after the cage incident, and Gabriel had thought that Evangeline was starting to get used to things.

Thought being the key word there.

He had mentioned, briefly, that she should most likely start washing up in the lake so that neither of them became too disgusted with each others presence. Generally, he would take the risk and go out during the day, and she at night. Today, however, she had seemed determined to be the one to go to the lake during the day.

As Evangeline had become more accustomed to the forest, they had started to venture out more while the sun was up. If one measured the times when the Patrollers were on their circuits, you could bypass them easily. Often trips were made, with hushed whispers and soft steps, to retrieve the mysterious supplies left (in different places every day) for them. Such boxes would contain blankets and food, sometimes water. Evangeline had questioned him thoroughly when she had first found them, but the only answer he was able to give her was that They wanted them to survive.

For some reason.

And Evangeline had still not asked the question he waited with bated breath for, dreading the day when he would have to tell her the brutal truth.

“What?” he called back, aggravated. He was rather sure that she was not, in fact, dying, as she had thought the same thing when her foot had fallen asleep, as well as when she had gotten a headache from looking at the sun for too long.

He was lying on his back, staring at the rock ceiling. The ground beneath him was rather cool, as winter was upon them. A pair of muddy feet (Evangeline, for some reason, seemed averse to wearing shoes) were visible from the corner of his eye.

She knelt down beside him. “Look. Look! I’ve got these brown spots all over me, and they won’t wash off.” She pulled up her sleeve, pointing with a slender finger at one such spot on the back of her hand.

Gabriel took her wrist into his grasp. “It’s a freckle. You’re not dying.”

“But what are they from?” Evangeline seemed close to tears. “Why do I have them? You don’t! Cyborgs aren’t supposed to get sun damage!”

“I don’t get them because I tan instead,” Gabriel replied breezily, glossing over her last statement. “You should be happy that you don’t burn up instead.”

Evangeline wrenched her arm free, still staring at the single freckle. “Will it go away?”

“Nope.” Gabriel smiled at her distraught expression. “Hey, you’ve even got them on your face, too,” he said, sitting up and poking her nose.

Evangeline’s hands went to her face, horrified. “No!”

“Calm down. They’re cute. Like baby rabbit cute,” he added, his smile widening.

Evangeline had loosened up a bit. Her hair had started to get shaggy around the edges, taking away some of her strange sharp angles. Her face, as well, had started to get some color, with the freckles dotting her cheeks, her pointed nose. She... though it made him a bit sad to think it... she was starting to get used to life there.

Evangeline made a keening sound in the back of her throat and peeked out at him from between her fingers.

“Aw, c’mon,” he said, pulling her hands down. “Lots of people get them.”

“Are you sure?” Evangeline asked, her tone dull.

“Well...no...” Gabriel admitted. “But I would guess so.”