Elcon City (ON HOLD, Rewriting)

Chapter Five

The events last night made the leaders send the second extraction team as fast as possible. Trisha and Fred were tagged along. She earned an officer uniform and a badge. She'd be very excited about it if she wasn't worried and terrified.

The team stood next to a helicopter. Some technicians were making sure it was safe to use. She tapped her feet impatiently. It was still dark. And the air smelled like wet leaves. It's nice actually.

Fred was talking to another team member. She had no one to talk to since she knew no one other than Fred. It was pretty depressing being alone and having no one to talk to when she was scared to the bones.

She scanned the faces there and her breath hitched when her eyes landed of the blonde cutie she saw the first time she started training. Oh, great. Now not only she was terrified, she was nervous from being near him too. She's so done.

After a few minutes, the technicians announced that the helicopter was good to go. Trisha went with the rest of the team inside the helicopter; which was bigger than normal helicopters. She felt so out of place among them, yet she felt like she belonged there at the same time.

It took off and she sat back. Now that she's not moving, she realized how tired she actually was. The wind softly caressed her face. It felt like nature was luring her into a deep sleep. But just as she grew unconscious, she felt the helicopter hit by something hard.

***

It was all over the place. The fog was making her breath hurts. The helicopter was blindsided and she had no idea where the helly was heading to. She thought that she might die in two ways; one, the fog, and two, crash down with the helicopter. And she knew for one thing that if she was told to choose between the fog and the crash, she'd definitely choose the fog.

She couldn't see, she couldn't hear, and it was not helping her with her gasping breath at all. It was making it far worse. Was the fog disabling her senses?

She was so hopeless when a hand held her head and placed a mask on her. All of a sudden, she could breathe again. Everything came back to sight and her hearing was not as bad as it was before.

"Breathe. It has passed now. It has passed." A voice whispered.

She felt a sudden relieve hearing the voice. She didn't know why. She had no idea who the owner of the voice was. And yet she felt like she knew it so well. You know those people whose voices could make you feel at home? That was what his voice was like.

"Thank you." she croaked out. "Where is everyone?"

Trisha finally looked to the owner of the voice only to find that it was the arena guy. Oh, the odds are shining upon her today.

"They're okay; they got their mask earlier than you did. We found you half conscious. But it's okay now." He comforted.

"What was that anyway?" she asked. Her voice was clearer than before.

"It was toxic fog, it comes from a bomb made by the clones, and it's very deadly. No human has ever lived after breathing it for too long. We're lucky we have some oxygen masks on this helly." He grinned. "I'm Andrew, by the way." He continued.

"Huh?" she was caught off-guard. She didn't expect him to tell her his name. REX's people are so mysterious that she doubts they know each other's names. But there he was. He looked normal. He looked as if his world isn't doomed to vanish and that he could just walk around telling everyone his name. But she was glad; it was nice to know someone in the team other than Fred for a change.

"Oh, I'm Trisha. Thanks again, no one in this team has told me their name apart from Fred who's probably the closest thing I have to a friend in REX. It's about time I know someone else. I'm getting bored of only talking to that asstown." She sighed.

"They're just defending themselves, I guess. They don't know you that well yet. In this cruel, helpless world, you can't really trust anyone."

"And you can trust me?" she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Sure, I mean you did volunteer to save someone even though you just got to REX. That's one hell of courage and I knew in my soul I could trust you." he said and continued. "Damn, that last line sounds like it came from one of those ancient cheesy movies. Don't you think?"

She laughed, but right at that moment she wondered. If in this world we shouldn't trust anybody, then could she even trust Fred or Courtney or Andrew or Rosa or even herself? She thought about asking him if she could trust him. But she didn't want to make him think that she didn't. So she stayed silent. And she stayed that way for the rest of the journey.

***

They landed in the middle of a clearing in the woods. Her mind was racing and her heart was beating rapidly. What is she gonna do if Rosa turned out to be gone? She wiped the sweat from her forehead and whispered to a girl next to her. It was the girl from the arena. The one she saw with Andrew too.

"How long is it until we can reach the S.C.A.R.S facility?" she breathed heavily. It was so hot she felt like her whole insides are burning.

"A couple of days, I think. Let's just hope the evening air is not as hot as it is now, Greene. Or else I'm sure I'm gonna die before we even get to save Hartley." She laughed.

Trisha stopped dead in her tracks. Why is it that everyone knew her name but she knew almost no one? Damn. She needs to start asking people their name. Mental note: Not everyone is like Andrew. She thought.

"Wait, you know my name and I don't know yours? That's not fair." She said as she ran to catch up on the girl.

It was then she actually looked at her face. The girl was beautiful. Not porcelain doll beautiful, but beautiful wild, beautiful strong, beautiful unique. The kind of beautiful Trisha had always wished to be.

"Oh, right, I'm Kat Whitehall. Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier. I'm so used to people knowing my name because I'm the only girl in this team before; it's not that hard to memorize me, I guess." She sighed heavily. "At least now there are the two of us. I could use a friend to talk to at night when I can't sleep apart from my idiot of a brother." She continued.

"Whoa, you have a brother?" Trisha asked and did a quick scan over the boys to see if someone has an identical look with Kat.

"Uh huh, actually you were talking to him earlier in the helly." She grinned and winked at her.

"Andrew is your brother?"

"Yeah, and he kept staring at you the whole way here. Wait, honestly he's been wondering about you since you came last month. The first time you trained, he won't stop looking at you. He got distracted a lot that I managed to beat him in combat twice."

Kat laughed when Trisha's cheek turned beet red. She could feel a familiar tingle in her heart. But she quickly shrugged it off. No one has time for that in the middle of this chaos.