We Stand Together

Chapter 30: Her Remembrance

Its been a while since Eden's been to Earth, but this time it feels different. There's a familiar air to it that wasn't there before like she remembers it now before her death and before the Traveler.

"Meet me at your second birth," Eden recalls, muttering softly.

Her second birth huh? Maybe the place she was revived was what the figure was talking about. She'd try there first then.

Since Uriah isn't with her, Eden will have to walk. She has a feeling it won't bother her in the slightest though.

It's freezing, just like the first time she walked it. Snow is falling and it crunches underneath her boots with every step. The wind pushes against her side, cold and resilient. Still, Eden keeps walking and walking. Finally, a building comes into sight. The same one she hid from the Fallen in. A few more minutes and she's exactly where Uriah revived her.

Eden didn't get a good look at it when Uriah revived her. But now as she's staring at the spot and surrounding area, it's nothing special.

There's an imprint, probably where her body lay. It sits in a patch of frozen grass and broken cement. Not far from it is crumbled buildings that have only the foundation left. A tiny, stretching ribbon of road branches out around the old buildings.

Eden kneels and inspects the spot she was revived, grazing the ground with her fingertips.

She wonders what she was doing to be here. What reason she might have had to end up in a place like this and then, to have died here.

"Eden..." A voice whispers by her ear.

She doesn't need to look up to know it's the black figure.

"You're here," She muses, taking off her helmet and setting it on the ground, beside her feet.

"You didn't believe?" It asks softly.

"Not fully," She says, smiling warily. "But here you are."

A laugh leaves the figure and Eden cuts her eyes to the side to look at it. The minute she does, it quiets down.

The black form wavers, disappearing for a moment, before returning and holding one misty limb out.

"Come. Remember," It urges.

Eden looks at the hand and very, very slowly reaches out towards it.

A nervous feeling pools in her belly as she gets closer and closer. What if she doesn't want to know? What if it's bad? It doesn't matter, she decides. They're answers and that's what she needs. She needs answers to everything that she's experiencing because of the past. She needs them so she can move forward.

Finally, their hands' touch and an icy chill runs up and down Eden's spine. It's like waking up from a long dream and realizing it.

She knows. Eden finally knows.

How could she forget?

How could she forget Ember, her sister?

The one she couldn't stand as a child and the one who she couldn't live without as an adult. The sister who was there for her, even if Eden was mean to her. The sister who could always make her crack a smile, even if she was stern and serious. The very sister that Eden would have freely given her life for, even if it meant she died.

For the first time since it appeared, the black figure begins to take shape.

The outline is fuzzy at first but it becomes clear, like a lens focusing. After a moment, the black figure is her sister.