It was only mere moments after Jared and his companion disappeared into thin air, there in front of the shack, before the two then reappeared once again, there on a beach, on a completely different part of their new home. Jared looked beyond shocked and disoriented as he looked back at his companion with widened eyes and dropped jaw as the slightly older male finally relinquished his arm again.

“What the…” Ian’s voice interrupted Jared’s shock from a few feet behind where he and this strange new companion still stood.

“Ian!” Jared exclaimed as he turned to face the sound of the other man’s voice, his eyes immediately moving to where Kyle still lay unconscious atop the sand.

“What the…and how the…and who the…” Ian had trouble finishing any of those questions as his eyes darted between the mystery man, so to speak, and Jared, who was now rushing to Kyle’s side, despite his own shock and confusion at how he had even arrived there at all.

“I have no idea.” Jared breathed an answer designed to address all of Ian’s unspoken questions as he quickly went about tending to Kyle.

Ian just shook his head again as he once more looked back at where the other man stood several feet away still, silently, not bothering to make any explanations of his own either, when he was probably the only one who even had any at that particular moment.

Not moving his eyes from the stranger, Ian managed his own words, “Can you help?”

“Maybe. Hopefully. How long’s it been?” Jared managed, his own voice shaky as he continued his examination of the puncture on Kyle’s ankle.

“Like five minutes, literally.” Ian responded, his eyes still glued to that silent stranger who did not move any closer to them as Jared worked.

“Then probably. Hopefully.” he repeated the second word again as he hurriedly yanked his belt away to tie off Kyle’s leg where his jeans were now ripped above the bite mark.

It was nearly an hour later when Jared finally moved back from where Kyle groggily wandered in and out of consciousness, and took a deep breath, “I think I got most of it out.” Jared sighed exhaustedly as Ian swallowed hard, still continuing to stare over at where their strange new friend now moved up and down the beach, seemingly searching for something, his silence continuing this entire time, of course.

“So, he’ll be ok then?”

“As long as he wakes up, and can stay awake, instead of this wandering in and out.” Jared answered warily as he checked Kyle’s temperature once more to see that the fever was still dropping.

“So, now can I ask the other question?” Ian added, speaking furtively.

“The one I have no clue how to answer either?” Jared scoffed slightly, his eyes also moving back to their other companion.

“How the hell did you even get here?” Ian asked the question anyway.

“See last comment.” Jared sighed.

“Seriously, how?” Ian pressed.

Jared scoffed again, “I wish to hell I knew. He just appeared, outside the shack. He touched my arm, and here we are.”

“Just like that?” Ian retorted with disbelief.

“You saw it too, Ian.” Jared reminded.

“So, that is him then, isn’t it?” Ian added, his voice dropping even lower.

“Him who?” Jared asked with furrowed brow.

“That’s right, you missed that conversation.” Ian returned, shaking his head as he glanced down at where Kyle was still trying to struggle back to full consciousness Ian then turned those ocean-colored eyes back toward where the other man still moved along the edge of their real-life ocean as the sun just began trying to slowly inch below the far off horizon.

“What conversation?” Jared asked with brow still furrowed.

“Back when we were at the pod. The second pod,” he clarified, “Kyle thought he heard someone else’s thoughts, briefly. Then they were gone. Kyle was pretty convinced that the two bodies we found, that they had a baby with them either when they crashed here, or born right after. Which was twenty years ago. And Kyle thought the person whose thoughts he heard was that kid, all grown up now.” Ian then nodded in the direction of the stranger once more, “See exhibit A.” he added in a whisper.

“You think that’s him?”

“Kyle most likely would.”

“Pardon?” Jared asked skeptically.

“The pod had an e-ship number on the side, Jared. It’s from an e-ship. And if this is him, he came from that e-ship, twenty years ago. Kyle thought that might be why he couldn’t keep seeing inside his head for very long. After all, you freaks are the only ones who could block Kyle out. Or say, friggin teleport from one side of the planet to the other?” Ian had to add pointedly, causing Jared to swallow hard as he looked back at their companion once again.

Jared took a deep breath, checked on Kyle once more, and moved to stand, “I guess we should ask him then, right?”

“Ask him?” Ian raised an eyebrow.

“He can talk. He’s just not real good with the language, considering.” Jared offered.

“So you’re just gonna go ask him, ‘hey are you a freak like us?’” Ian scoffed, “I’m sure that’ll translate well.”

“Well, what do you recommend? Beating it out of him? After he helped me save Kyle? Not too mention that he can probably just up and go poof any time he wants to?” Jared retorted pointedly.

Ian just shook his head, but said nothing more as Jared moved slowly in the direction of their companion. Just as Jared neared the young man who seemed to be searching the shells strewn over the beach as though looking for a certain one, he stood upwards again, appearing to have been suddenly distracted by something.

“What? What is it?” Jared asked him hoarsely as he looked around with apparent unease.

The other man finally looked back at the sound of Jared’s voice, and glanced over Jared for the briefest moment before handing him one of the several shells he had been placing into a pouch at his waist for the last several minutes, “Open, make less pain.” he said simply, before looking off at some faraway point in the distance and vanishing from sight in the span of barely a single second, all over again.

“What in the fuck?” Ian exclaimed as the young man vanished before their eyes once again, leaving Jared still clasping the strange shell and shaking his head slowly at the spot where the other man had been standing only a moment earlier.

Jared allowed a shaky sigh before finally looking back toward where Ian remained at Kyle’s side there on that slowly darkening beach that summer evening, “Guess he had somewhere else to be?” Jared offered, not sounding very sure of even his own words at that point.

“Gee, big party on the other side of the ocean we don’t know about?” Ian said sarcastically, taking a break from his own shaking of his ever-lengthening brown locks to offer Kyle another tiny sip of water as the youngest of them murmured once again.

“He gave me this.” Jared offered as he also returned to Kyle’s side, “I think he was trying to tell me that it would help with the pain in Kyle’s ankle?”

Ian scoffed again as Jared began attempting to break the shell open, as it seemed to be the instruction the other man was trying to communicate, “So, now he teleports, and he’s some kind of doctor, too? Hell guess we don’t need you, anymore.”

Jared just scowled, “I’m not sure if it’s so much a doctor thing as a ‘he’s lived here all his life,’ thing.” Jared argued, though with a lack of force as he accessed the slimy substance inside the shell and wrinkled his nose slightly.

“So, you’re actually gonna use that on Kyle, no questions asked?” Ian complained.

“What? You think he brought me all the way here just to have me save Kyle so he could then give me something that will hurt him?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe he just wanted to get Lili alone!” Ian retorted, the statement immediately causing Jared to look up at once, “I mean, she is alone now, right? And you said he showed up at the shack just to find you. I mean, she is back there now, all alone, with all three of us thousands of miles away, and oh, she’s about ready to pop out a kid on top of all of that. Pardon me if I’m just a little worried that your fucking vision could now officially come true at any moment.”

Jared swallowed hard at Ian’s words, despite the numbness that now seemed to be afflicting his fingers as he removed the substance from the shell, “Well, I think he was right about this shell though. It is sort of like an anesthetic, judging by the tingling in my fingers now.” Jared managed.

“That’s all you have to say?” Ian scoffed again.

“One crisis at a time.” Jared mumbled, though shakily, before he then moved to place the innards of the shell over Kyle’s ankle.

Ian just shook his head, “Honestly, I don’t know how you didn’t see this coming.”

“Excuse me?” Jared asked as he looked up at Ian once more.

“I mean, think about it. You had a vision that Lili would be having this baby all alone, and now, here she is, almost due to have it, and we’re all here! I mean, why would you ever leave her in that condition? The only possible reason would be to save one of us from dying. I mean, now that it could actually be happening, I don’t know how none of us ever guessed that that would be the one thing that would make your stupid fucking vision come true after all.”

Jared just shook his head, “First of all, I honestly thought that there was no way that I could even save Kyle. Then he brought me here so I could. I mean, even if I had a choice in the matter, which I didn’t, still, are you saying you think I should’ve just let Kyle die?” he asked in disbelief.

“No…but….” Ian couldn’t seem to find the words, “But if this guy is bad news, or even if he’s not, I mean, what’s gonna happen if she does go into labor before you ever get back there? Hell, he left you here with the two of us, most likely thousands of miles away from her. Even if Kyle could come back with us in his current condition…it would still take us forever to get back to her. I mean, what’s gonna happen to her…and the baby, now?”

After an entire hour of agonizing pain as that child tried to rip it’s way out of her already severely weakened body, Lili found herself unable to bear any more of that pain at all, wanting to do nothing more that to just give up, give in to unconsciousness. At that point in time giving up her own life still seemed to be a much, much less painful option than what was now happening to her. After all, death had to be better than all of that pain. It just had to be.

Just as she was about to give in to that pain and that call to just let her brain shut down and stop feeling all of her current pain, or anything at all, for that matter, was when she just barely perceived of a shadow appearing over her in the darkening woods outside that shack. Before she even could fathom who or what that shadow was, she felt hands close over her wrists above where her fingers had been clawing desperately at the dirt beneath her, almost as though trying to cling to some piece of remaining sanity or awareness of anything besides the horrible pain that had not let up for even a moment since her labor began.

At the moment when those hands closed over her wrists, it almost seemed as though a switch inside her had been flipped, and suddenly there was no more pain at all. There was nothing but peace, and the haziest of any remaining awareness of what was happening to her physical body at that precise point in time. Right then, it seemed that her consciousness itself had left her body, where it no longer could bear to be any longer. Though how it had made it’s escape from her pain-wracked body, that was one of the many things she no longer had any awareness of at all.

Lili was unsure of how many more hours had even passed when any of that awareness at all began returning to her once more. The very first thing she was aware of was the feeling of slowly waking from a sort of dream. What had awoken her from that dream was a soft voice near her ear:

“I’m sorry. Must bring you back now.” the voice whispered as he slowly moved his hand from where he had now been gently touching her shoulder in the early morning light.

“Wh---what?” she managed hoarsely, though her words were cut short as she forced her eyes open as a new kind of pain immediately engulfed her the very moment that she felt that gentle touch leave her shoulder.

She let out a loud painful moan as that pain did come back, in a new form. It was no longer the pain of something trying to rip it’s way out of her, but now it was very different. Instead it was the pain of ’after-the-fact.’ It was as though her insides were now trying to recover from being torn out, rather than in the process.

“God.” she breathed raggedly as she attempted to move her hands to her now much flatter stomach, but she had been so worn out from whatever hours she could no longer recall, that she could not even manage that much movement as she still lay there on the red-stained ground around her. She tried to look around her and find the source of the voice and that gentle touch the she had felt right before this new pain flooded her brain. Though, without being able to move much at all, it was difficult to even tell if the owner of that voice was still even there, “Are you here, please?” she cried the words through her continued pain, but received no answer to them.

Before she could manage to muster the strength to repeat the question, that was when she did hear some sort of response, though not the one she was expecting. A few feet away, right beyond the open door of the shack, there in the crib Jared had made for her all those months ago, came the soft sound of her child responding to her voice with a faint cry of its own.