Episode-34: Doppelganger

Date: November 26, 3008
Time: 13:00
Location: An Island in the Ocean of Ossyria

~Natalie~

She could not see, neither reality nor illusion. The blackness overwhelmed her soul, blanketing all else that moved. Her senses were numbed and only one feeling tingled her skin: coldness.

Natalie’s head had just exploded, her mind splitting into millions of infinitesimally small fragments. There were people screaming around her, but she could not distinguish any of the voices. The emerald beads of her eyes lolled around her sockets, unfocused and blurry. Heads floated overhead like indistinguishable vultures waiting for the ascent of her soul.

Pictures, like the stills of a movie, started to scream by her eyes. But the frames were all so lifelike, so familiar. A woman with identical emerald eyes and long blonde hair whisked through her mind, followed by a dark haired man wearing a green bandana. More faces rushed past in an unknown wind, and the next moment, the sky reappeared above her, painted a light hue of blue.

Tears streamed down her face, landing softly onto the sandy beach, making tiny depressions wherever the beads fell. And then, a pair of strong arms slid underneath her back and swept her up into the air. She felt herself being carried into the shades of the tall palm trees. As the sunlight disappeared behind the great fan-like leaves, Arcturus’ gaunt face materialized above her.

“Hey, you ok?” he asked concernedly.

“What… happened?” Natalie managed to ask. She sounded as if she was trying to force words out of a paralyzed face.

“One minute you were standing next to us, the next, you were on the ground,” Arcturus waved his hand vaguely behind him, “Lucky for you the sand broke your fall.”

“I… I saw people… people I think I know…” Natalie replied uncertainly. She tried to prop herself up with her elbows, but collapsed back down onto the sand.

“It was probably just from the fall,” Arcturus reassured her, “I think your head took quite a hit.”

“No,” Natalie shook her head, and another surge of pain slammed into her skull. Wincing, she continued, “They were more, much more. The faces were so real, so close…”

“Hey, is she ok?” A new voice reached Natalie’s ears. She tilted her head to see past Arcturus’ crouched body and saw Evangeline shuffling up the beach towards her.

“Yea, she’s fine, just weak,” Arcturus replied confidently. Natalie felt his hand close over hers and suddenly felt uncomfortable.

As Evangeline reached her, Natalie noticed Drake sauntering up from the other side, “You ok hot stuff?”

Natalie put her head back down and shook her head from side to side, “No, leave me alone…”

“Whoa, feisty woman, just checking on ya,” Drake put his hands up in his defense. Then, before Natalie could reply again, something high pitched met her ear. With the help of the two men, she stood up and looked up into the open sea air. It sounded as if something was searing towards them at an unimaginable speed.

It appeared, at first as a tiny black dot in the sky. As it soared closer towards the earth, it expanded, revealing its sleek charcoal black, aerodynamic outline. Natalie’s emerald eyes contracted as they tried to focus on the object falling from the heavens. Then, she realized it was heading straight for her.

With a thunderous crash and a spray of foam, the object smashed into the shallows of the beach, sending sea water into the air like rain. As the surf settled down once more, the survivors made their way towards it. The object was shaped like a pod, some kind of escape device. Drake sloshed into the shallows and carefully put his hands on the smooth black paint. Groping his way around, his fingers finally caught something, and he gave a yank.

In a squelch of steam escaping the chamber, the door opened, revealing a cramped cabin filled with numerous controls. And as Natalie peered inside, her mind did a double take. Inside, lied a woman with blonde hair, emerald eyes, and a bloody hole in the side of her head.

Whoever this woman was, it was a miracle she was still alive. The bullet in her skull had narrowly missed the vitals in her brain. Arcturus had wrapped a torn shirt around her head to aid stem the flow of blood. The woman’s face was already pale from blood loss. Natalie shuddered every time she looked at her. The woman looked like the exact clone of herself. Another chill rushed down her spine.

“You know what bumpkin?” Drake smiled, looking from the newcomer to Natalie and back again, “You two share too many similarities save the extra hole in her head.”

Natalie remained silent. Drake’s words, no matter how much she loathed them, were true. How could someone look so much like her, yet have no relation to her? The world could not be that small.

Suddenly, the woman stirred on her makeshift bed of palm tree leaves. Her blonde hair, stained with patches of blood, was splayed out beneath her head. Drake and Arcturus rushed over to her as Evangeline and Natalie brought up the rear. They knelt down on both sides of the body. Arcturus leaned in to check the pulse and her forehead. As he performed his doctoral duties, Natalie noticed a dark stain on her side. She reached down and pulled the woman’s top up just a little to reveal a freshly bandaged wound that seemed to still bleed.

“We should get that changed as well,” Arcturus exclaimed as he noticed the new wound. He and Evangeline straightened themselves up to search for some extra medical gauze possibly salvaged from the crash. “Keep her awake. The next time she goes to sleep she might not wake up.”

The two departed, leaving Drake and Natalie watching over the pale, barely alive body.

“Where do ya reckon she’s from?” Drake asked as his eyes examined her from top to bottom, pausing curiously on a few aspects of her body.

Natalie sighed and replied while still looking at the woman’s face, “Beats me…” Even the woman’s nose had the same curvature as hers did. “Let’s unwrap this bloody bandage.”

She reached forwards and as soon as the tip of her fingers touched the woman’s bare skin, Natalie could not see anymore. It was dark, cold, unpleasant. Yet her mind started to flash those unwanted images again. People she did not know screamed past her emerald eyes, but all of them, their faces, seemed so familiar.

Then, a brick wall. Natalie felt herself slam into something solid. The blackness split into a ray of pure white.

~Nova~

The whiteness was blinding. A man’s voice was hovering over me, calling to me, so cold, so foreign. Then, something cool lapped up against my cheek. The whiteness brightened into a pale blue, and I found myself staring up into the canopy of a tall green palm tree.

“She’s awake, she’s awake! Say what the hell happened to you?” a man’s voice was exclaiming.

I propped myself up with my elbows and screamed out in agony as I collapsed back down. The pain in my mind was excruciating. I could not even tell whether it was physical or mental anymore.

There’s no point…

A flash. I slowly raised my hand to my head. But as my fingers wrapped around my temples, they instinctively recoiled back. A bloody bandage stained my ring finger with a small circle of crimson. My blood was still warm.

I guess the nerve gas didn’t quite put you down eh…

Who was saying that? The man in front of me was busy trying to revive a woman with blonde hair. My eyebrows furled in confusion. I could have sworn I was dead, but now I’m alive. Yet I saw myself in the arms of the man in front of me. Two people were running towards us, but I didn’t care. So curious how I was in two places at once.

Let’s just say you’ll never get in my way again…

Their voices were slurred and incoherent, much like someone screaming underwater. A brunette and a tall, lanky man reached us, their expressions wide with fear and bewilderment. He had a white package held tightly in his hands as he crawled from the woman with the blonde hair to me. Though his face was blurry and unfocused, I could faintly hear his voice, his mental voice.

Say goodnight, Nova…

Suddenly, something snapped into place in my mind as I heard the last gunshot ring clearly in my eardrums. Fenris, The Academy, Damiver, Shadow, Ancients, Templars, Lily, Naz, Mikhail, Felix, Maldran, Russ. The names and places screamed into place in my brain. I had a bullet in my head, yet I was alive. A sense of déjà vu crept into my nerves and synapses. This was too ironic.

“Who are you!” I burst out, and felt three pairs of eyes become fixated upon me. I was fuming with anger, anger at Fenris, at The Academy, at everything else in the world. “Answer me!”

“My name is Arcturus Shrak,” the tall man explained calmly, “This is Evangeline Reeves and that is Drake Harrison.” he pointed at the man and woman on either side of me. “That’s Natalie, and we’re trying to revive her right now. Something’s wrong with her and…”

“Let me,” I muttered and crawled forwards. I had no idea why I thought I could help this woman. As I turned her head towards me, my eyes contracted in surprise. I was looking at an almost perfectly exact replica of my face. But she looked younger, less matured, or rather, less tortured as me. I touched her cheek with my fingers, and realized I was trembling. Then, as my fingertip touched her lips, I felt a sudden electrical shock.

Her eyes flung open and she sat bolt up, almost colliding with my head. I could not believe it. Staring at me, were my eyes, my emerald eyes. Maniacal thoughts whizzed through my thoughts. I did not have a sister. It was impossible that any relative of my blood still existed. There was no family, they were all dead. But here she was. Who was she?

“What’s your last name?” I whispered without taking my eyes off of hers. My breath had become short and shallow.

“I… I don’t remember,” Natalie replied uncertainly, yet our eyes were still glued together. I did not know how long we stared at each other, amazed at the mirror images. All I knew was that the only reason I looked away was because of the throbbing ache that exploded within my brain. The bullet had moved a fatal fraction of a millimeter.