(no subject)
Title: When You're Older You Might Understand
Characters: Alex, Tom, Ethan, Goodwin, Henry Gale
Rating: PG-13
Award: Mod's Choice in Challenge #41 - The Others at
lostfichallenge
Summary: Some backstory of the island, as Alex remembers it.
When Alex was eight, she had her first contact with strangers. She was taken from her mother seven days after she was born, at least according to Ms. Klugh., so this group had become her family of sorts. In her short life she’d seen only those she lived with. But then one day something strange had happened. The ground beneath her feet shuddered, and the small structure erected at the edge of camp collapsed. She still remembered the noise it made: metal clanging and grating upon itself. With her face hidden in Tom’s shoulder, she prayed it would all stop soon. A moment later it was quiet.
The unprompted events caused commotion in camp, and she was both relieved and terrified that it was unfamiliar to them too. Nobody seemed to know what to do next, whether or not it would happen again. Then He had come out, emerging from his compound like a God. And that’s how everyone in camp treated him, as their ruler, one to be worshipped. One to obey. Alex never knew why he held so much power over these people. The few times she’d seen him he didn’t appear very special to her. He calmly ordered everyone to forget anything happened, and get to work rebuilding the destroyed structure. Only later did she discover what it was. A cell, used to house captives. But why would they need it if they were the only ones on the island?
Alex had a bad habit of wandering off on her own, and it was one day, while she hid in the bushes, playing with dolls made of twigs, that she saw a man. His light brown hair was short, and his clothes were cleaner than hers had been in a very long time. In his hand rested a crudely shaped spear, making it clear enough to her that he was hunting. Whether man or animal was questionable. When he’d gone, she ran back to camp, telling Ms. Klugh that very night.
“There was a man,” Alex began, as she worked through the tangles in her hair with a small plastic hairbrush, bristles damaged from years of use, “In the jungle.”
“There are many men in the jungle. He sent them out yesterday, you know that.” Ms. Klugh answered, intent on something she making composed of leaves and bamboo. What, she didn’t know.
“I’ve never seen him before.” She pressed on, trying to make a point. “He was new.”
Ms. Klugh put her work down in her lap, choosing instead to focus on Alex. “You’re sure of this?” There was some unease in her words, and Alex thought it odd. Alex merely nodded, watching the woman rise from her seat, and exit, without a word as to where she was going, and if she was coming back.
The next day the camp seemed empty, desolate. Save for the men who finished the cell, everybody had left. He was there though. He watched the men toil away, and then He watched the jungle with the same intensity. Never once did He spare a glance towards her. The sun was at it’s highest point in the sky when she heard gunfire. He didn’t even flinch.
At night fall they came in as one steady line of people. They were bound at the limbs, gagged at the mouths, and some were badly wounded. Someone ushered Alex away, but not before she caught a glimpse of these people’s ultimate destination. The cells. She heard screams all night long.
Some time passed before she saw these people again. She’d seen bodies removed from the metal building, and she could tell by their pallor that they had been long dead. But a few people-four to be correct-came out alive. One woman, and three men, including the man she’d seen in the jungle.
The woman’s name was Sylvia. She was five months pregnant. Her husband had died in the crash that stranded her and the others here. A plane crash. Sylvia was often scared out of her mind, but she took a liking to Alex. Maternal instinct apparently. More and more Alex spent nights talking to the young woman, who would tell her stories about her home that couldn’t possibly be true because they went against everything Alex had been taught to believe about life outside the island. It was supposed to be better here. The farther along Sylvia got, the more she disappeared from camp. Tom said they had to test her, that there were things they needed to know about Sylvia, about the baby. Then, near her due date, they took her and she didn’t come back. Nobody ever told Alex why. Just that what had happened was very unfortunate, but necessary.
The men were also tested, but she often saw them injecting something out of small vials into their veins. And somehow they went from being ordinary men to a more primal being. They stared a lot, with glazed over expressions, like what she imagined robots must look like. One of them didn’t survive. It was something in the solution they were injecting. He just turned up dead on the hard jungle floor, blood trailing from his mouth down his chin. A while afterwards they stopped talking the solution, and though the machine-like expressions were gone they were never completely the same.
The man she had seen that day, while idling, was Ethan. He made her wildly uncomfortable, and she did her best to avoid him. It was something in his smile that made her shiver and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. The second man was slightly less creepy. He called himself Goodwin. She liked that he could make something out of almost nothing; he was handy. But as time passed, more and more he became less the man she liked, and more loud and angry. Those were the times she hid from him, after she learned her lesson the first time, when he had thrown her onto the bed, and climbed on top of her. Only a chance intervention from Tom had stopped anything from happening.
Eight years later, and they were both dead. They’d found Goodwin with a spear through his heart. His eyes were still open, and he had that look on his face, like when he would throw her handmade dolls into the fire. When they returned to camp, she vomited. Silently she found herself thanking whoever it was who had murdered him.
Ethan brought a woman back with him, obviously finding more success at his task than Goodwin had. They had been sent to opposite ends of the island by Him, following yet another shudder of the ground, reminiscent of the one eight years ago. Apparently He wasn’t taking any chances. The woman was a short blonde named Claire. She was eight months pregnant. And they took her for the same tests that they’d put Sylvia through.
The first chance she got, she helped the woman out of there. The guilt she had stored up about doing nothing to help Sylvia was heavy on her mind as soon as the woman stepped onto their campgrounds, and she made the decision then and there that this time she would do something. And she had. She got the woman out and set her free, all without getting caught herself. When they asked how the woman escaped, she put on her best display of childlike innocence, and watched as their eyes passed right over her, turning on each other like she wasn’t even in the room. Unassuming. Or so she thought.
She was peeling fruit, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, when Tom sat down across from her. “Why did you do it?”
He didn’t need to elaborate for her to understand his question. “I wasn’t letting the same thing happen again. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
“You’re too young to know what’s right. You just think you do. You’ll understand why we do what we do one of these days. When you’re older.” He huffed a breath, and then cleared his throat, signaling that his next words were important. “If he ever finds out…He is not a forgiving man. He won’t understand that you’re still just a kid.”
“If it saves someone’s life then it’s worth it.” She bit into the fruit, licking the sweet juice from her lips. Alex wasn’t like these people, they had different beliefs, different ways, she knew that now. Still she looked up at him nervously. “You’re not going to tell are you?”
“Now why would I do that?” Tom pushed himself off the ground, looking like he was going to leave, but then stopping at the last moment. “But if it happens again, you won’t be so lucky.” With that he turned, leaving her alone surrounded by flickering flames, and worries that he might not keep his promise.
Characters: Alex, Tom, Ethan, Goodwin, Henry Gale
Rating: PG-13
Award: Mod's Choice in Challenge #41 - The Others at
lostfichallenge
Summary: Some backstory of the island, as Alex remembers it.
When Alex was eight, she had her first contact with strangers. She was taken from her mother seven days after she was born, at least according to Ms. Klugh., so this group had become her family of sorts. In her short life she’d seen only those she lived with. But then one day something strange had happened. The ground beneath her feet shuddered, and the small structure erected at the edge of camp collapsed. She still remembered the noise it made: metal clanging and grating upon itself. With her face hidden in Tom’s shoulder, she prayed it would all stop soon. A moment later it was quiet.
The unprompted events caused commotion in camp, and she was both relieved and terrified that it was unfamiliar to them too. Nobody seemed to know what to do next, whether or not it would happen again. Then He had come out, emerging from his compound like a God. And that’s how everyone in camp treated him, as their ruler, one to be worshipped. One to obey. Alex never knew why he held so much power over these people. The few times she’d seen him he didn’t appear very special to her. He calmly ordered everyone to forget anything happened, and get to work rebuilding the destroyed structure. Only later did she discover what it was. A cell, used to house captives. But why would they need it if they were the only ones on the island?
Alex had a bad habit of wandering off on her own, and it was one day, while she hid in the bushes, playing with dolls made of twigs, that she saw a man. His light brown hair was short, and his clothes were cleaner than hers had been in a very long time. In his hand rested a crudely shaped spear, making it clear enough to her that he was hunting. Whether man or animal was questionable. When he’d gone, she ran back to camp, telling Ms. Klugh that very night.
“There was a man,” Alex began, as she worked through the tangles in her hair with a small plastic hairbrush, bristles damaged from years of use, “In the jungle.”
“There are many men in the jungle. He sent them out yesterday, you know that.” Ms. Klugh answered, intent on something she making composed of leaves and bamboo. What, she didn’t know.
“I’ve never seen him before.” She pressed on, trying to make a point. “He was new.”
Ms. Klugh put her work down in her lap, choosing instead to focus on Alex. “You’re sure of this?” There was some unease in her words, and Alex thought it odd. Alex merely nodded, watching the woman rise from her seat, and exit, without a word as to where she was going, and if she was coming back.
The next day the camp seemed empty, desolate. Save for the men who finished the cell, everybody had left. He was there though. He watched the men toil away, and then He watched the jungle with the same intensity. Never once did He spare a glance towards her. The sun was at it’s highest point in the sky when she heard gunfire. He didn’t even flinch.
At night fall they came in as one steady line of people. They were bound at the limbs, gagged at the mouths, and some were badly wounded. Someone ushered Alex away, but not before she caught a glimpse of these people’s ultimate destination. The cells. She heard screams all night long.
Some time passed before she saw these people again. She’d seen bodies removed from the metal building, and she could tell by their pallor that they had been long dead. But a few people-four to be correct-came out alive. One woman, and three men, including the man she’d seen in the jungle.
The woman’s name was Sylvia. She was five months pregnant. Her husband had died in the crash that stranded her and the others here. A plane crash. Sylvia was often scared out of her mind, but she took a liking to Alex. Maternal instinct apparently. More and more Alex spent nights talking to the young woman, who would tell her stories about her home that couldn’t possibly be true because they went against everything Alex had been taught to believe about life outside the island. It was supposed to be better here. The farther along Sylvia got, the more she disappeared from camp. Tom said they had to test her, that there were things they needed to know about Sylvia, about the baby. Then, near her due date, they took her and she didn’t come back. Nobody ever told Alex why. Just that what had happened was very unfortunate, but necessary.
The men were also tested, but she often saw them injecting something out of small vials into their veins. And somehow they went from being ordinary men to a more primal being. They stared a lot, with glazed over expressions, like what she imagined robots must look like. One of them didn’t survive. It was something in the solution they were injecting. He just turned up dead on the hard jungle floor, blood trailing from his mouth down his chin. A while afterwards they stopped talking the solution, and though the machine-like expressions were gone they were never completely the same.
The man she had seen that day, while idling, was Ethan. He made her wildly uncomfortable, and she did her best to avoid him. It was something in his smile that made her shiver and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. The second man was slightly less creepy. He called himself Goodwin. She liked that he could make something out of almost nothing; he was handy. But as time passed, more and more he became less the man she liked, and more loud and angry. Those were the times she hid from him, after she learned her lesson the first time, when he had thrown her onto the bed, and climbed on top of her. Only a chance intervention from Tom had stopped anything from happening.
Eight years later, and they were both dead. They’d found Goodwin with a spear through his heart. His eyes were still open, and he had that look on his face, like when he would throw her handmade dolls into the fire. When they returned to camp, she vomited. Silently she found herself thanking whoever it was who had murdered him.
Ethan brought a woman back with him, obviously finding more success at his task than Goodwin had. They had been sent to opposite ends of the island by Him, following yet another shudder of the ground, reminiscent of the one eight years ago. Apparently He wasn’t taking any chances. The woman was a short blonde named Claire. She was eight months pregnant. And they took her for the same tests that they’d put Sylvia through.
The first chance she got, she helped the woman out of there. The guilt she had stored up about doing nothing to help Sylvia was heavy on her mind as soon as the woman stepped onto their campgrounds, and she made the decision then and there that this time she would do something. And she had. She got the woman out and set her free, all without getting caught herself. When they asked how the woman escaped, she put on her best display of childlike innocence, and watched as their eyes passed right over her, turning on each other like she wasn’t even in the room. Unassuming. Or so she thought.
She was peeling fruit, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, when Tom sat down across from her. “Why did you do it?”
He didn’t need to elaborate for her to understand his question. “I wasn’t letting the same thing happen again. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
“You’re too young to know what’s right. You just think you do. You’ll understand why we do what we do one of these days. When you’re older.” He huffed a breath, and then cleared his throat, signaling that his next words were important. “If he ever finds out…He is not a forgiving man. He won’t understand that you’re still just a kid.”
“If it saves someone’s life then it’s worth it.” She bit into the fruit, licking the sweet juice from her lips. Alex wasn’t like these people, they had different beliefs, different ways, she knew that now. Still she looked up at him nervously. “You’re not going to tell are you?”
“Now why would I do that?” Tom pushed himself off the ground, looking like he was going to leave, but then stopping at the last moment. “But if it happens again, you won’t be so lucky.” With that he turned, leaving her alone surrounded by flickering flames, and worries that he might not keep his promise.