X-Marks: Rising Shadows

Reunion

"They just arrived downstairs," a nurse said from my bedside and continued to adjust at her starched white suit.

Her words were a sticky kind of sweet, much too sticky for my taste. From the fresh pink flowers in the bright window sill to the trays of fruit not meant for eating to the black boxed shaped devices in every corner of the hospital room walls and the men in plain gray suits tended to them.

I watched a little red light flicker within black devices.

This was all a recorded show for the Union. Only it was my life they were watching. My family reunion.

My legs twitched under the quilted covers of the hospital bed.

How many people were watching? More importantly, who going to? Was Nate?

I hadn't been able to see any of them since I got here, but I didn't have to be told why. I wasn't going to get out here until I followed Gen's plan. Whatever this plan was. It needed to be broadcasted to the whole Union.

A heaviness flared through my chest like bird in a small cage. It bruised me with each thud. I watched the nurse's stares close in on the end of the bed where my legs fought to stay still.

The buzz of the door alarm rattle through me. The nurse moved to open the door with a hasty spring in her step.

The door was slow to open. Much to slow for someone waiting for eleven years. Or was this part of the show?

Hold the audience on the edges of their seat, huh?

I felt sick all over again. This was my life, not theirs.

A dark-skinned old man was at the door. He was holding a bright bouquet of wildflowers wrapped in dirty cloth and stood sheepishly beside a girl, a girl who looked just like me. Her ragged clothes were held together with colorful pins.

"Lillie, it really is you," the old man said into his hand, his round bulgy eyes teared up as he walked forward to embrace me.

I waited for the dark shadow of another fainting spell or for the doctors to pull another mask over my head, but nothing came. There was no way I was getting out of this now.

Before I could say anything more, Gen's tall figure walked through the door.

Her hair had been cut and curled since I had last seen it. It was just as white but cropped close to her ears at one side, and the other side swept across her eyes. She wore a loose blue dress that cinched at her small waist and a necklace with water drop like beads down her neck.

"It's so good to see you, Lillie," Gen said, bending the tone of my new name "But much longer for your father and sister, as you know."

Gen let out a soft laugh, all at her own cleverness. It made my jaw clench into the soft parts of my cheeks. I didn't find her or any of this clever.