Subjects

11- Watch Your Back

They are back at the usual place, it is time for a plan. They still don't know how will they get Angie back, where will they hide, or how to get to all of the other subjects all over the world, but they have hours of training on their side and a whole lot of hope.

"How can we walk in there where it's full of aliens?" Emily asks. "We cannot simply hope that we can avoid all of them. We can barely resist you alone."

"We'll have to practice more," Eva says.

"You're right, I'm not letting you go in there unless I'm sure you know how to handle them," Leo insists.

"I still can't figure it out, every time I try to think of something else but I can only hear Leo's words," Emily becomes more frustrated every time she tries.

"I'll tell you what I do, it's not foolproof but it works most of the time," Eva says. "Try to think of the words as words, not a whole sentence. Break it down to pieces and think of the meaning of every word separately."

"Okay, I think I can do that," Emily really doesn't want to fail yet again. None of them say it, but she knows they won't let her in the plan if she doesn't get this under control.

"Emily," Leo says. "Sit down on the ground."

Sit.

Down.

Ground.

Sit. Down. On. The. Ground.

sitdownontheground

Sit.

Sit down.

Sit on the ground.

On the

Ground.

It's over. She did it. It was so hard. She was so scared. It felt like being chased inside her own mind. As if she was running from something. Desperate to keep it away from her. Desperate not to realize, not to understand. She knew if she understands than she won't be able to stop it. That it will get her.

They've been practicing all day. Working, trying, battling. Fighting the influence is hard. Very hard. Even harder than getting Eva to go camping. She did go camping once, though, with her class at school. It wasn't a huge success as you can assume. At five am she woke the whole camp, screaming. She thought she heard a mouse, which turned out to be a bird. Then she insisted to be taken back home and when her teacher disagreed, she threatened to sue the entire school. Guess who didn't go to any class trips from that day on.

At five pm that day (and in case you got confused, we are now at Midway, not at Eva's childhood storytime), Ben goes back to his room after another bicycle lesson with Eva. These lessons turned out to be more fun than he expected. Today he even found himself anticipating it. He may never admit it, but one of the reasons why he doesn't want to go fighting aliens is having no more lessons. Also, the fact that he doesn't want to be mind controlled and, um, a slave, but in some subconscious part of his brain, he will miss those laughs he has with Eva. Being her friend is way better than being her enemy. Wait, are they friends? Does he want them to be?

With these thoughts on his mind, Ben opens the door to his and Roger's room. Roger is sitting on his bed and messing with something he holds in his hands, not noticing Ben who just entered the room.

Ben instantly recognizes what Roger holds, "I know a good camera when I see one!" Ben comes over to Roger and leans down to inspect it but Roger tries to put it away, "why didn't you tell me you're into photography too?"

"Uhm, I... Ah..." Roger tries to find the right words and Ben is staring at him curiously, which only makes him even more nervous. "It just never came up, I guess?"

Right. Makes sense. Between Ben filming literally every single thing on the island and rambling on and on about different cameras, the topic of photography never came up. Understandable.

"Well, you must show me what you have," Ben is not taking the hint or maybe he just doesn't care.

"Alright," Roger turns on the camera and starts scrolling through pictures he took in the last couple of days. "It's nothing special, really."

"Wait," Ben stops him. "Go slower, I think maybe there's a problem with your lens."

"What do you mean?" Roger asks.

"See this shape?" Ben points at a strange looking shape, sort of like an oval, but with two pointy edges. It looks like a shadow but appears in different pictures. "Do you know what it is?"

"I've never seen it before," Roger keeps scrolling through the pictures and the same shadow appears in most of them. "I don't think it's a problem with the lens though, it appears in a different place in every picture."

"You're right," says Ben. "I have no clue what it is." he walks away to the window and Roger keeps going through the pictures. Ben opens the window and looks outside. "Roger, you have to come see this."

"What?" Roger still stares at the small screen of the camera.

"Come here," Ben insists. Roger gets up from his bed and approaches the window. "Tell me I'm not imagining things," Ben moves aside so Roger can look through the window.

On the grass, right below them, there is a shadow shaped like an oval with two pointy edges. Roger looks up to see what casts the shadow but there is nothing, only plain blue sky.

"I think it's no coincidence that this shape is in so many of your pictures," says Ben. "I think it's following you."

Roger quickly backs away from the window, "do you think it's them?"

"I don't think it's them," Ben answers. "I know it is."