Page 20 of HaL

I would be fine.

At least, that was what I kept telling them.

I was preparing to be admitted to a special wing in Asher’s department where they would conduct more extensive studies. There was nothing my parents could do for me there except sit beside my bed and stare at the walls. I couldn’t bear the thought of them giving up another moment of their lives just to watch me suffer.

Mom worried about leaving me. I could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. But I kept reassuring her that I was in good hands and she, of all people, should have known that.

When it came to my parents, I had been incredibly lucky. I just hadn’t understood how lucky I was until it was almost too late. I hadn’t been an easy child. Far from it. But Mom had always blamed that on my hair.

Anyhow, I was lying in another hospital bed with what felt like hundreds of needles stuck all over me, while Asher was working on his tablet, slowly logging each one and its results as he removed them one at a time.

I can remember us looking at each other when the intercom system suddenly came on. Neither of us dreamed it would be an announcement that our world was only days away from ending. Asher was instantly on the phone, trying to get a hold of Mom and Dad, but we … never … heard from them again.”

I reach up and brush a tear from her cheek, but she is so caught up in the memory, I do not think she notices.

“I was on ANDI before I found out that their cruise ship sailed directly into the storm that destroyed Earth. The only comfort I have now is knowing they were together in the end. Lord knows the days that followed that announcement were pure chaos. Most of the doctors and nurses just up and left, leaving people who needed their care to fend for themselves. I can’t tell you how hard that was to witness. Asher cared for all he could in the beginning, but then one morning, he came into my room with a look on his face I’d never seen before.

The night before, I had begged him to leave.

I’d heard about a bunker somewhere up north, just before the internet went dead and every television screen went black. If Asher left without me—if he stopped wasting precious time trying to save someone who was already dying—maybe he could make it there.

Whatever they had done to me during those tests had left my immune system shattered. I could feel my own body turning against itself, every step taking more from me than I could afford to give. I wouldn’t make it halfway there, I knew that. And somewhere deep down, I think Asher knew it too. I have relived this conversation repeatedly ever since I woke on Destiny. I often wondered what I could have said or done differently.”

Whispering, she reenacts a moment in time that haunts her thoughts constantly.

“Please, Asher. You have to go.”

He shook his head.

“Asher, please. Save yourself.”

“No!”

“You don’t understand …”

“I understand perfectly, Dawn.”

“Damnit Asher, without me slowing you down, you could actually make it.”

“I still remember the look on his face when he suddenly stood up, and for the first time in my life, he raised his voice to me.”

“Let it go, Dawn!”

“I froze. He had never yelled at me before. Not once. I remember every word, and the look on his face as his chest rose and fell as he stared down at me, his eyes shining with something that looked dangerously close to desperation.”

“I am not leaving you,”

His voice broke as he dropped to his knees beside me. “Do you hear me? I don’t care where this bunker is. I don’t care if it’s the last safe place on Earth.”

He took my face between his trembling hands.

“I will not leave without you.”

“And that was when I realized he wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of living/surviving without me. He needed me as much as I did him. Asher came back in the middle of the night, gave me something in my IV, and I woke up in the back of an ambulance with several others, only to find him driving.

A tire blew about a mile from the place he had been trying so desperately to reach. He covered me with a protective sheet, placed oxygen over my face, and somehow carried me the rest of the way. I was barely conscious, drifting in and out as he carried me toward the scientific center.

Once we were through the gates and settled together in a room, I kept asking him the same questions over and over. How had we ended up here? How did we qualify for the pods? Why were they allowing us inside when they weren’t supposed to admit anyone who was sick?