Free!

I closed my eyes and breathed deep, enjoying the feeling. I could finally wash away the fear and horror that had been gripping my mind for the last hours. I never ever want to relive this. My breathing started to slow towards a more steady rhythm. I did not even realize I was so much on edge.

I'll never be captured again!

How the fuck am I to ensure that was not clear; however, I was sure I didn't want it to happen.

As my heartbeats stabilized, I tried to analyze with a cooler head what my following actions should be. Now that I gained my freedom, what do I do?

Stop running away! Fucking fairy instincts! I should go back and take a look! There is no better place to find people like me than here. I can help them. Besides, there probably are survivors and wounded people that I can save.

I took another deep breath looking at the location with the two thoughts fighting for my heart and mind: fear and panic against rational thought. At least, this is how I saw them.

Oh fuck, am I really thinking of going back?

My heartbeats accelerated just at the thought of it, yet I started preparations to fly back. I ensured the mirrors on me were hiding me from any possible and impossible sight, then battled my wings to raise in the air.

Oh yeah, with Flo's mana pool, flying is possible and is cool. I stood in the air, my wings outstretched, floating above the forest. With Flo in the lead, I could control my mana wings to a very high level. As if I would have actual wings. Pity they could not be entirely out of mana; I might be forced to cut them again to be able to hide between humans. To hide between humans? I need to chew a bit on that thought. Am I no longer human?

Ah, Dolores, stop these useless self-conversations and do something.

I watched the remote location again. Oh yeah, I feared going back, but it makes sense. I battled the air again with my wings and started flying towards the row of buildings hidden in the forest. To the left, there was the access road meandering between the forested hills. I saw no movement to the whole length of the road. Shouldn't somebody come? OK, I and then the black angel destroyed with our aura the electronics, but won't somebody realize the site is offline and come to check why? That, assuming that no message was sent before the chips were fried.

I stopped my flight and looked up at the sky. An emergency team will probably come flying, not on that meandering road, but the atmosphere was tranquil.

Up there to the left, there was a plane... but probably it was a routine scheduled flight. Any drones? Helicopters or whatever?

As I was looking around, a giant pillar of dust and smoke raised up from the site. It was so sudden, and I was so baffled that I did not react, watching with round incredulous eyes how the tower grew silently towards the sky with thunderbolts crisscrossing it.

I was maybe at a one-kilometre distance or less, but the blast wave came in less than a second to me. The next many seconds were an amalgam of strange noises, dust, pain, desperate healing and rolling. It sounded and felt like I would be inside the hell's forges.

I was thrown like a cannonball through a world of moving detritus, crashing through branches, trees, stones, and bushes. Like a tennis ball served by a powerful player hitting the dirt.

I stood there where I finally landed, between branches and broken woods, coughing dust, healing and trying to understand what I had just witnessed.

Err... Fucking fuck? Waves of healing washed over me as I tried to extricate myself from the mountain of debris. Like random meteors falling debris struck around me, sometimes breaking branches and throwing further dust in the air. Where does so much dust come from? Another strong gust of wind, this time in the opposite direction, partially cleaned the view for a moment, to be plunged again into that dusty semi-obscurity next.

After long moments of confusion, I raised up and started to fly towards the compound, and then I realized it was useless. There was no compound to fly to. After that explosion, the compound does not exist anymore. I stopped, turned my back to it and started to fly in what I thought was the opposite direction.

I just guessed my directions as the sky was covered in grey dust.

I stopped again. Running like a headless chicken through the fog does not make sense. Besides, if this area is surveyed, and I think it is, then a random appearance from the dust cloud would be seen and tracked. I might have all kinds of sophisticated mirrors made by Flo covering me, but my huge mana-wings are beating too much air. This dust swirls and twirls may be seen from above and could be tracked.

So I decided to fly up until I saw the sun through the dust. I took a direction that I thought was away from the compound and let me slide through the dusty air almost without beating my wings. It is a different kind of flying, and the air swirls I created this way were minimal.

Indeed it did not take very long for me to emerge from the dust.

What was this? Was this a nuclear explosion, a mini-nuke or some giant conventional bomb? I don't know, but as I flew over the first river, I flew down and let the cold water wash over me.

Nuclear or not, I wanted the dust gone.

What about what's in my lungs already?

Well, what about it. We'll see.

Can my healing heal radiation sickness?

Healing cannot heal sickness, but radiation is damage to cells and tissues. Healing might be able to heal it.

As I thought about this, I clenched my teeth, washing with ice-cold water until I realized I did not need to do it. White Flower has perfect control over heat and heat transfer. I don't know how she does it, but next, the water felt warm and pleasant. It was still the same cold water, but she somehow insulated my skin against it. I think she could bathe in polar waters and feel good. I plunged my head under water and tried to clean my hair too as much as possible without soap.

Would this help if this was an atomic bomb? I don't know.

So, what do I do now? The sun was about to set. Was it Sunday? When I left home to rent that 'coffin' to play, it was Saturday evening. How long was I in the compound? Was I kept longer in a coma or not? I was obviously taken from that hotel and transferred here, and then the interrogation in that virtual space started. Who decided to bring me here? Why? What do 'they' know about me?

OK, I registered with a fake id into that hotel, but that could not have been the trigger isn't it?

Besides, where am I? Maybe I should have tried to follow the road that led to the compound. Now I was in a forest in the middle of nowhere.

I came out of my improvised bath, Flo refreshed the mirrors that were hiding me, and I took off again. I decided to keep the same direction. Sometime, I will encounter civilization again.

And yes, I found it. It was already late evening, I was tired, and my mana was dangerously low when I reached a highway. Which way now? I flew and landed on a trailer. After a while, I saw a billboard with directions. Wrong direction; I was getting further away from home.

I hesitated if to keep going or not. Bye-bye Dolores, hello new girl? Was I overreacting?

It was not so easy to just disappear. What do I do with my parents? How can I tell them that I am still OK? Then if Dolores disappears, her former persona would indeed become suspicious. But is Dolores as is already suspected? It might be that there is no connection done to me.

Maybe I should turn back and try to live my regular 'Dolores'-life. At the slightest sign of danger, I would disappear, but I must not precipitate senseless the events.

So I decided to turn back. I swung my wings, and that was enough to raise me in the air. I turned and landed on a trailer driving in the opposite direction. I passed again under the billboard and had to take care not to hit it with my head. One hundred seventy-three miles, and I'll be home.