After Fate Fell

22 • NINE

1 year, 3 months, and 14 days after it all
•NINE•
Tibet is a place I have honestly always wanted to visit. I'd heard stories of its beauty, but those could not have even started to describe what is laying out in front of me.
The Himalayas of India are a sight to see, but Tibet holds a different type of beauty. It's just so serene yet striking.

In the year since it all ended, I've been a complete loner... we all have, more than I'd like to say. It's lame and I feel like such a pussy for it, because I could've actually been doing something in the world, but instead, I've been hiding away, not talking to anyone, and hating every second of it. But now we're here I guess, and I'm starting to feel like myself again.
When I lost my arm, I felt like I lost myself. It's stupid, but it's true. I didn't know how to function anymore. One of the first nights on that mountainside, I was sitting alone, just looking around, and I picked up a rock and tried to hurl it as far as I could down the mountain, just to see I guess. From then on, it became my nightly training, my attempt to build up my strength in my remaining arm. I started to feel better about it, because I was getting stronger. So now, with this boosted assurance and this new adventure that awaits us, I'm ready.

Marina walks beside me as we look for a bus stop. The location Ella gave us where she said Sam would be is a dozen or so miles outside the city, so it would be nice if we could get a bus or something instead of having to make the trek on foot.
We walk down a street that I would guess is some sort of Main Street, everything's bustling around us. I don't think I've ever been in a city where there are no tall buildings. Every one of the buildings is just one or a few stories tall.
All I can think of since we left our home in the Himalayas is how badly I want revenge for John and Six's abduction, and for the destruction of our home. But now, although I still want revenge for their abduction—it still doesn't make any sense to me—now that I think about it, destroying our home may have been a favor.
For months, maybe even a year, I lost my ability to keep track of time, we hid away up there with no rhyme or reason. We stayed up there because we could, at least that's all I can think of for a reason.
And now, we have no choice but to move on. We can't go back. Whoever did this may be monsters, and their actions are senseless and disgusting, but first off: we're used to it, we've dealt with monsters in our lives many a time, and second off, now I am able to leave that mountain with a reason, and also I have no reason to look back.

//

Finally, we find a bus stop a few blocks down and we just hope it takes us in the right direction. Between Marina and I, we only know two languages pretty fluently: English and Spanish. Since I've spent most of my life in the U.S., I haven't really needed to learn another, and Marina knows Spanish because of her time in Spain. So Mandarin isn't really something we're used to communicating in, and so we don't try to ask anybody about the bus. Instead, Marina tries to figure out a map that she found under the bench at the bus stop.

"It looks like buses that come here either end up going to the northern part of the city, stopping in the heart of it, and sometimes they go east from the heart of the city as well. Which direction is Sam in from here?" She asks me.

"How am I supposed to know, you're the one with the map in your head!" I yell at her jokingly.

"Oh, right," she says, laughing. She closes her eyes and focuses. It's such a weird thing, but I just let her do it because I know this is how she sees the map of Sam's location. It's funny how I've been trusting her this whole time, after Ella contacted her telepathically. Marina dragged me into this search, and I didn't even ask any questions. I guess it's just because it made it easier to leave the mountain behind.
And when I contacted Ella earlier, she knew what I was talking about when I said that we almost found Sam. So I'm happy to know that Marina isn't off her rocker with this one.

"He's to the north, like literally straight north from here, right on the river," she says.

"Alright, then north it is. Good thing there's a bus that can take us where we're going," I say.

"Right," she says. "I just can't wait to get Sam so we can go help Ella in the states. Has she said anything about Six and John?" she asks for the thousandth time.

"No, Marina I told you I would tell you if she did. And you can contact her too you know. Why don't you just ask her?"

"I know. You're right. Okay let's do this thing."

A dilapidated bus pummels down the street from the direction we just came. It's rusty and its body is about three inches off the road, but it's all we have, so it's what we're gonna take.

"Let's go," I say. And we board the bus.