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“Would it be such a bad thing if he doesn’t wake?” the male voice asks.
“How can you say that?” The female sounds distressed now. Her touch moves from my temple and squeezes my hand. Mara. Her scent floods my nostrils suddenly. Another sense has come back to me. Samara, the woman I love, but she’s dead? Did I see it in my dream? Damn it, eyes, open. I groan loudly in anguish, and the room goes silent.
“Archer, I’m here. I’m here.” She holds my hand a little tighter. I can feel my mouth moving, as though I’m replying to her, but nothing comes out. This body is useless; it’s weak and vulnerable. Somehow, I know that I’ve always been strong before, and it angers me. “Hunter, he’s waking this time. His eyelids are fluttering.”
“Don’t get too excited, Buttercup. It could be another fit.”
“No, it’s different this time.”
The man sighs heavily.
“He won’t wake up as the boy you remember from your childhood. He’s done too much since then. He’s a . . .”
“No,” she shouts at him. “Don’t say it. Neither of us are the children from the past. I’m as bad as him.”
“Our pasts have destroyed us all.” The man sounds defeated, broken, and even though I get the sense I want to kill him because the pain I’m in is his fault, I can’t help but wonder what has made him that way. “I’m going to go fix us some food. Check on the intelligence; it’s been a few days since he disappeared. I’m sure they’re looking for him.”
His voice gets farther away as he speaks. The touch against my hand leaves me, and I want to call out for her to come back.
“Hunter.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.” I hear the sound of a kiss. I want to scream mine, but again nothing comes.
“I’ll bring you some food. When he does wake, he’ll need you strong to help him get better.”
There are no more words spoken, just the quiet click of a door closing. I feel Samara’s presence come back to me, and she again entwines her hand with mine.
“He’s wrong about one thing. I know you can hear me. None of us knows what you’ll be like when you wake, but at least it will be you controlling your thoughts and memories and not a piece of metal.” She laughs, it’s small and nervous. “I always remember you talking about that film all you boys watched so often. The one where they controlled all those soldiers, clones. What was it called? Damn it.”
Star Wars I want to scream at her. They didn’t control the stormtroopers with chips, but it was close enough. They trained them from a young age to be soldiers. It was one of the only films we were allowed to watch.
“Anyway,” she continues, and I picture her shaking her tangential thoughts away. “I don’t know if you’ll remember anything. In some ways, it would be better if you don’t. You left me. I was raped and mutilated, and I know the Archer I fell in love with would destroy himself over that thought.”
Raped? Mutilated? I feel my mouth moving again. I want to ask her more questions, but nothing is coming out. My dream, or was it Hell?, comes back, and Dr. Hickson appears in the vision I have. I feel a sense of great delight wash over me. I killed him; I sent that bastard straight to Hell in a blaze of agony. I strapped him down to a table; I remember it all so vividly now. His cries as I sliced his vile dick and balls from his body and stuffed them in his mouth to keep him quiet. I ripped open his chest with a sharp knife and cut his black heart from his body before throwing it on the fire. I killed him because he was the one who sanctioned what happened to Samara. He promised me if I did as he asked, he would let her go. That’s how the chip was inserted into my brain. Memory after memory comes crashing back with a vengeance. I scream out in pain as I see every face that I killed, again and again, weak men, damaged women, frightened children. I arch my back off the bed and thrash wildly. My hands fly up to my head, and I try to tear at the edges of my memories to rip them from my brain.
“Archer.” There’s panic in Samara’s voice. “Hunter!” she calls, but nobody else comes. “Archer, I’m here.”
I shout again. My throat is raw from lack of use.
The visions stop instantly when warm lips are pressed against mine. Compassion, kindness floods through me, and I sink back down on the soft bed not moving.
“Mara.” The word leaves my lips. Another sense finally recovered. “Mara.”
“I’m here.”
I will my eyes to open, and this time they do. Light floods into the periphery of my irises and across to the depths of my black pupils. In the center is an angel. She’s framed by edges of the light that illuminates her from behind.
