OOS: On the road
"Was I one of your game pieces? Were all six of us just game pieces?"
"I did not cause you to be one of the six. You are . . . you were . . . a happy accident. An unwitting contribution from the human race to its own survival."
"...You said I could ask one more question."
"Yes."
"I can't ask if we win, I can't ask if it will all turn out okay."
"I don't know those answers."
"Okay, then answer this, Ellimist: Did I... did I make a difference? My life, and my . . . my death . . . was I worth it? Did my life really matter?"
"Yes. You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered."
"Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then."
With a great, shuddering gasp and a surge, Rachel sits up sharply in the grasp, only just biting back a scream. She looks around wildly, terrified, confused, what is it, what's happening, where is she, what-
Oh.
Right.
She falls back against the ground again, grass tickling at her back where the morphing suit gaps, scrubbing her face with her hands. Outside, some clearing, close to the state border of Missouri. She'd stopped, morphed, grabbed some fallen debris from the city with the elephant's trunk and made a lean-to of sorts, just large enough for one tired, confused young woman to crawl into and fall asleep.
And then she'd dreamed.
Rachel scowls and drops her hands out to her sides, glaring at her debris-shelter's ceiling. She knew those voices. One was the Ellimist, obviously. She didn't remember the conversation, had no idea how she'd heard it or remembered it, thought it was one hell of a weird dream. Except that it didn't feel like a dream, it definitely felt like one of those moments where the Ellimist dragged her off to show her something. Besides. The other voice?
Was hers.
But she doesn't remember this. Yes, the Ellimist took her when she died, showed her things, brought her to this world to be a warrior. It didn't show her its life, who and what it really was, why it did the things it did and... and already, she's forgetting the details. A dream that's slipping away no matter how hard she concentrates, closing her eyes and willing it to stay, stay, give her answers, any answers, she'd been so calm in that dream, so understanding, just needing to know Did I matter? Was it worth it?
But it's gone. And she's in a lean-to on a world that doesn't seem to need her at all.
"RRAAAUGH!"
It's incredible, the kind of sounds that come out of completely normal humans, when they're furious and helpless and scared. Rachel lifts her hands to her face again, scrubs again, breathes deep again.
Tries to go back to sleep.
An unwitting contribution from the human race.
Maybe the key word there wasn't 'contribution'... maybe it was 'unwitting.'