FOUR

The image on the screen glitched and converted into static as the video feed from the dead Prowler’s eye-camera cut out.

"The subjects have killed a prowler… yes, it's their first day. I know, none of our subjects have done that before... The situation is still under control."

Jared talked hastily on the phone while around him scientists darted around the room.

These two were the best Jared had created so far. They were as he’d designed- the prototypes by which all others after would be modeled.

“Switch to monitor 12… did you see that? She stabbed that Prowler in the throat!” Pau said excitedly, practically bouncing up and down.

“And Bay… charging it like that... it's like he’s completely fearless.” Dr. Coal said, scratching his scruffy chin with amusement written on his face and a twinkle in his eye.

Other scientists in the room chattered excitedly. They had succeeded. Their efforts were not in vain. Moments like this made their haunting work somehow seem less pointless and cruel. Moments like this were the reason Dr. Coal had suggested to build a real experiment instead of a virtual simulation.

Moments like this...

"Coal, control has just issued a new order. They demand an active termination of S-0023."

Coal’s expression soured. The mood of the room shifted… they remembered their command.

He glanced at Pau.

His eyes burned like embers. The room of scientists looked at Jared, and back at Coal. Only the head scientist could give the order to release weaponized vehicles. Suddenly fear creeped into Jared’s eyes.

Lauren looked at Coal, raising an eyebrow.

He turned to face Jared.

“No.”

Lauren clenched her fists, bracing for impact.

“What?”

“Don’t send drones. That’s too risky. We could accidentally shoot Ever.”

Silently, four people in the room holstered their weapons undereneath their lab coats.

Jared rolled his eyes. Lauren stared inquisitively at Dr. Coal, whose countenance was hardened.

“Well, what do we send?”

He swallowed hard, resting his arms on the desk in front of him.

He didn’t want to do this.

It was risky but it would delay an immediate death by a few hours, giving them enough time to escape and giving him and Lauren time to develop a solid plan.

There was no other option.

“prepare to release 10 stalkers.”

…

Bay listened to the woods alone. He kneeled on a moss-clad stone. Soil and blood colored his skin. His eyes were dark and the space beneath them shadowed and tired as though he’d aged a year over the course of the day. The sky was pale and the woods colorless, save green that marked living things hiding among the trees. His skin was cold.

He remembered stories about our sun- a brilliant light in the sky, and its warmth, how it sank below the surface to bring the coolness of the night.

He had seen no sun in his time here. It made him question whether this world was what he thought it was. It was probably just veiled by a brooding storm about to strike the earth with its thunder.

The sky, the dark trees. The rain and mist. Bacteria and insects. Weather, as bizarre a concept as that was to him. He understood space and the ecosystem in theory, and much about the above world as it had once been, but all of it were words on faded pages.

He’d never experienced any of this.

His memory had become noticeably less colorless. It was as though a droplet of a drawing’s drained ink bled back into the blank canvas of his mind. Barely there. But there.

He jumped down from the rocks, stretching his legs again.

Something about this place was like fierce, dangerous freedom.

He couldn’t be sure… but he thought…

No way. That’s just too crazy.

It's the only way.

His past was shrouded and vague, but one thing he just knew. He couldn’t explain it. He could feel it. He’d spent the majority of his life underground. Whether in a bunker or a building, a city or beneath some form of curtain, all he knew was that the sky was a stranger to him. Its vast emptiness felt like breaking out of chains.He felt his heartbeat.

He felt a bead of rain or maybe sweat trace its way down his neck, coaxing goosebumps out of his skin. He felt his shirt cling to his back from the humidity.

Bay was alive.

He felt the wind run her cold fingers through his brown hair, which seemed to have returned to its full length.

Thanks, regenerating cells.

He felt the dried blood caked on the surface of his skin, painted across his calf.

He felt the ache in his muscles and bones.

Footsteps aroused sleeping leaves on the detritus behind him.

He breathed and rose slowly, stretching and extending his legs again.

“Tired, yeah?”

Her voice spoke behind him. It was still so quiet, gentle almost, as though she was afraid of waking someone. Bay nodded, looking over his shoulder. Ever stood behind him, preoccupied with carving at a branch with her knife. He touched his own spitty-cool-sharp-spear-thingy.

“I think I should give this thing a name. What do you think?” He spun the harpoon and rested its tip on the ground. It’s edge was stained a deep red.

Ever pursed her lips and brushed gold fibers of her hair behind her ear. Her hair had grown longer too. Now it was nearly long enough to put into a ponytail. As it grew it became more apparent it had been cut roughly, almost hacked off with a pair of scissors. Somehow she still looked kind of cute.

“It’s your ouch stick.”

“Ouch stick?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, something ironic, making fun of how gnarly it is.”

Bay snickered. “Ouch stick… huh. Okay, ouch stick it is.

“Why did you make that thing?”

He shrugged.“To catch fish... protect myself from… whatever hides in the woods.”

Ever nodded.

“I’m making a bow and arrow. I found some paracord in my pack,” she said.

Bay nodded approvingly. He rubbed the tender skin on his wrist where his monitor used to be, wondering what he did with his own rope.

I should wrap some of my paracord around the shaft to give me a better handle.

Paracord is the best.

“We need to find some kind of shelter," Ever said.

“Yeah… think we can hike further before we camp?”

She nodded.

“We can lean some long branches or saplings against a boulder and use some leaves and pine needles as thatch.”

“What’s thatch?” Bay asked, impressed.

“It’s like grass that settlers used for a roof back in the day... I think. I don't remember anymore.”

“That’s smart… rain while you’re trying to sleep would suck.”

That was probably what Bay most hated most about this place, in contrast to Ever, who found it refreshing and nice. Rain ticked him off.

Ever’s legs swung as she skipped and her feet danced through the woods as Bay trumped and trudged beside her, dragging his feet. Both of them grinned as they brandished their homemade weapons and talked. The woods were peaceful and it had stopped raining.

If it weren’t so nightmarish this world would have been beautiful.

...

Like a black needle, the structure erupted from deep within the distant woods, punctuating the rough and grizzly treeline. Support cables at the top and middle converted the tower into the outline of an equilateral triangle. A hypnotic, tiny, blood red LED blinked at the tower’s peak every other second, as the soundscape and landscape of the woods beckoned Ever’s soul deeper into the timbers. It felt like the tower was signaling her.

It was some kind of communications antenna. Certainly man-made- the light at the top told her that much.

“Maybe it’s a radio-tower, yeah?” Bay called up from beneath her. Ever’s senses landed back in reality, grounding her to the pine tree she was perched in five feet above Bay like a sparrow. She was a good climber and had decided to scale a tree to get a better view of the opening in the woods.

When they’d come upon the tower, Ever felt connected to it somehow. She didn’t trust the feeling. Bay felt no connection to it, save intrigue.

He knew it was something important. But Ever felt it calling her, like a lighthouse.

“How far away?” he called again.

“Hard to say…” she pursed her lips, tasted danger in the air.

Something wasn’t right here.

The old, familiar shadow of night descended on the opening slowly.

She wondered when she had been to this world before.

She had shreds of memories... as a young child watching birds perch on the long fingers of branches. Walking alone in the woods for hours. Following her father to help gather firewood.

Father.

The memory was gone faster than it had appeared, and the more she tried to remember the more it faded. But she had seen her father's face. She tried to hold on to something that she could focus on. His piercing hazel eyes... almost gold.

...

Bay stood facing the dark, fog-flooded clearing. His eyes traced the treeline, before focusing on the tower... like an out of place totem in the woods. It was hauntingly breathtaking and totally alien to him. Ever swung down and landed in the dirt next to him, kneeling in the leaves.

“It’s getting dark… you said you remember that?” He asked, clearly nervous.

“Yeah, it’s called night. I don’t remember much else about it except that it terrified me when I first came... here.”

“I knew it was called night. I feel like I’ve studied this place before.”

They shared a bitter glance of acknowledgment. Ever recognized the feeling of the shrouded memory. It was like losing your hand or arm, but still feeling it after it was gone. You swore you could feel it, but when you reached for it, it wasn’t there.“But you know you’ve been to a place like this before, yeah?” Bay said, adjusting his pack. She nodded slowly.Suddenly, a light touch of electricity rippled up her arm.

She gasped slightly, touching her monitor.

The black screen blinked and a message typed out across the screen.

FOLLOW THE SIGNAL.

“Bay, you better take a look at this.”

Bay turned from the eerie triangle to face Ever. He looked older than he was.

“They sent another message?”

Ever extended her wrist outward as if she were presenting a gift to him in the palm of her hand.

The black screen blinked with a shiver of static across her spine and the message disappeared.

“So, go to the tower?”

“I guess. Let’s move, I don’t want to get electrocuted again,” Ever said nervously, looking over her shoulder.

Bay nodded and entered the clearing.

They walked in silence.

He touched his scar. It still ached slightly.

She’d tried to pull her monitor out when she’d heard what he’d done but it hurt too badly. They’d decided to keep it in, in case their overseers messaged them again.

These people that put them there.

That watched them and sent them messages and drones.

Bay wanted to kill them.

She touched the steel weight in her palm. It felt like the lock to a set of invisible chains. Uncomfortable and invasive in her skin.Bay’s intelligent eyes had studied the monitor several times throughout their hike with distrust.

Ever’s eyes met his. In his eyes she could see a storm coming. She felt as though she’d done something wrong.

“What’s up?”

Bay looked towards the tower again. “Nothing.”

He tried a smile.

“Better keep going or we’ll get eaten by Godzilla.”

Ever looked towards the tower and prayed she wasn’t being led into the jaws of a trap.