A Beast with a Smile

I felt the butterflies trying to leave my stomach. The world changed from darkness to the city again, the same images as when I was falling from the dragon joy ride.

I thought that I was falling towards the pond, but I was ascending toward the dragon. He flew backwards and snatched me again. His speed increased in a reverse descent to the breach in the trees where he picked me up. I began to flow in reverse too, seeing my journey for the second time, but heading straight for the danger this time. Time seemed to freeze for a second, or at least reversing so slow it seemed still.

The world felt like a photo, a still snapshot of a single terrifying event. It had paused on the fire engulfing my entire body. When I was running I didn’t feel anything other than the heat; I knew it was on me, but I had no idea I was more fire than girl at any point.

The reverse sped up faster and I watched my clothing be magically repaired over the unbroken skin. I remembered seeing Mother Time’s memories of her flesh burning away. That was a small fire while this was a dragon. I should be dead.

The reverse sped up ten times, taking me back to the pimped-out minivan. Again, the images froze, this time on me shielding Elly when the trucks showed up. She was pressed against the floor by my hand. I looked around and saw bullets floating; they had ricocheted off of something. By my hand I saw a shoulder that bullets crushed into and others bounced off completely.

The images reversed slightly more to the lifeless body of Elly in my arms. My tears were still wet on my face and I could see Archy’s minivan ramming through the glass into the building. Little shards floated, glued in place by time itself. My tears also floated between Elly and me, glowing bright white as they touched her skin. Tears landed all over her head and hair.

When time reversed, tears returned to my eyes; some returned to their original shape, glowing white on her skin and ascended reopening small cuts on her face.

Time sped up again: the speed was too fast to see fluent images. I saw memories from my entire life from meeting Scavenger to watching him die in many different ways. It stopped one last time on my earliest memory. I was in the hospital wrapped in a blanket. My father was pressed against my mother’s cheek and Jet was pressed under her chin. They were all squishing together to see the new member of their family. My dad’s hair was cut and combed over instead of long and unwashed, Jet had a buzz cut and a tooth was missing from his smile, and my mother had long fiery red hair, the same color as mine. My eyes began to drip. I wished I could warn them about the meteor shower and I wished I could restart my life from this moment with the knowledge of the future. The memory began to play.

’Jet, I’d like you to meet your baby sister,’ my mother said. She lowered me to Jet’s eye level and he screeched with excitement. He tugged on my red blanket trying to see more of me.

“What’s her name?” he asked, jumping up and down.

She smiled and looked at my dad, “I don’t know. Jack, what should we name her?”

My dad smiled, wiping away tears.

“Um, Jack Jr.?” he suggested with an awkward smile on his face.

My mother rolled her eyes.

A nurse asked, “Can I take her off of your hands for a second? I just need to do some checkups.”

My mother handed me to her and she took me over to a table. The second she took the blanket off of me I let out my first outrage. I screamed my head off the entire time she did the checkup. When she re-wrapped me in the red blanket the tears stopped.

“Wow! I think she likes the red blanket,” Jet said.

“Jet, what did we talk about? If you’re going to talk about a color to an artist you have to say its proper name,” my mother said.

“But, momma, I don’t know all of the colors yet,” Jet whined.

My mother laughed, “Well, Jet, this is scarlet,” my mother said to him, holding me.

“So that’s her name? I guess it suits her. Matches her hair,” he giggled.

My mother looked me in the eyes and said, “Yes, Jet. This is Scarlett.”

My dad hugged her and also looked into my eyes.

I broke down, floating in the air with time stopped on them staring at me. The memory faded into black and my feet touched the black ground. I was in complete and total darkness. A door sized shadow opened up, revealing a bright light.

Guess that’s the exit, I thought to myself.

I walked through the door and felt a rush through my body. My eyes snapped open to Elly and Archy staring at me in awe. I felt familiar wrinkly hands on my both sides of my forehead.

“The Mother of Time. Hmm. I think I understand now,” I said, standing up.

“Scarlett. You revived me. You brought me back from the dead,” Elly said with a pale face.

“I don’t know how. I never knew I could do any of the things that I did,” I responded.

“Well whatever or wherever you got your abilities from, it wasn’t any special serum. I found zero trace of Alpha-serum in your blood stream. You have more Alpha-serum on your clothing from your dip in the Gene Pool than in your bloodstream,” a girl wearing a torn-up lab coat and holding a clipboard in the shadows said.

“Abby… introduce yourself,” The Mother of Time said.

Abby’s face grew shades of red that I didn’t know existed.

She stepped out of the darkness and said, “Oh, sorry. Where are my manners? My name is Abilene. I mean Abby. Sorry. I’m the Biochemist in training here.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said with a smile.

She blushed more and returned to the shadows.

“Don’t mind her. She’s just a little awkward,” Archy said.

Elly punched him in the arm and sent his hair into a fright. Archy gave her an ugly look and held out his hand. There was a flash of white light and a comb was in his hand. He brushed down his hair and looked at Elly’s unbroken grin.

“Will you two behave? Seriously, how do you two manage to sneak out of here as a perfect team, but can’t manage to be five minutes without being at each other’s throats?” The Mother of Time shouted.

I noticed that The Mother of Time looked much younger than in my dream. She still looked absolutely terrifying with her skin revealing her perfect, white bone as plain as day, but her hair seemed to have returned within the last half hour. In the dream she had single strands of hair covering what was left of her skull, not the full head of white colored hair she had now.

She made herself more ghoulish in the dream as a test of character to see how someone would treat another person who looked like a monster but had the heart of a mother. You know, don’t judge the book by the cover kind of thing.

I began to look around the room more and I saw a lot of things that I didn’t notice before. For instance, the window in front of me had a drop off where a crowd of people stood and watched. They were of varying ages and heights, but they were all staring at me.

“They are scared of you. Your power is the greatest that we have ever seen. They don’t know whether to cower or to worship,” The Mother of Time said, noticing my unbroken gaze.

I spun around to see everyone in the room staring at me too. There were more people in this room that were hidden within the shadows.

“I don’t know what to say. How am I powerful?” I asked.

“No one has faced our friendly neighborhood fire breather and lived to say they were his dentist,” Elly said.

“Or fallen a couple thousand feet into a small toxic pond and washed around in it like a bathtub,” Archy added.

“All while being completely 100% human. No special serum to changing the way your body operates,” a new voice joined the conversation, bringing along a thick Russian accent.

“Don’t forget bringing our power supply back from the dead,” another voice threw in with a British accent.

From what I could tell, the heavy Russian voice was a boy and the swift British voice was a girl. They both were hidden in the shadows, but I saw Elly’s fists clench as she faced me with her plastered-on smile and steam spilling from her ears

“Don’t you ever call her that!” Archy screamed into the corner.

The voice laughed

“And what are you going to do about it recycling plant?” the voice taunted.

I saw a thunderstorm brewing in Elly’s eyes; blue lightning bolts flashed repeatedly from the pupil of her eye.

“Archy calm down. She’s just trying to get inside your head,” Elly commanded.

“Aw, baby sister’s stepping in for her big bad brother. How pathetic. Can’t even fight his own battles,” the voice mocked.

“Coming from someone too scared to flee from the shadows. Why don’t you show your face?” I growled.

Elly snapped her fingers and the lights flickered on. I saw Chris shimmering in the corner immediately. His body lacked his reflective armor, but his face still bore the horrid scars.

He smiled and bowed, “I too risked my life to rescue you.”

“Hello, Chris. And I think we have different definitions of risk and rescue.”

“Oh, you mean the giant flying fire breathing demon of death attacking you? Ah si. Me not stepping in only benefited you.”

“Again, different definitions of benefits.”

“A beautiful girl as strong as you don’t need to be rescued. No, no she is the rescuer,” he winked and returned to leaning on the wall.

The next person I recognized from high school. He had been a freshman foreign exchange student when I was a senior, the same year Scavenger supposedly died.

“You. I remember you. Um, Rory, right?”

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“You caught me. I was adopted out of Russia by Atom and brought to America to be a lab rat. He gave me a few shots and boom I’m Russian Superman.”

He could’ve popped Superman like a water balloon with one flex of his muscles.

“I’m guessing you have super strength?” I asked.

He blushed and said, “Oh, no. I remember everything I see, hear, or feel.”

“He’s the old hags assistant,” a girl in a dark blue sweatshirt with her hood up said.

The Mother of Time turned and faced the she devil with her eyes glowing, “Raven you are pushing my patients.”

Raven began to wobble; she was dazed from an unseen attack. She fell to her knees and looked up in mercy to Time itself.

“I apologize mother. OH please, pretty please, forgive me,” she said, grinning with false defeat.

The Mother of Time let out a sigh and let the girl rise back to her feet.

“Rory is no assistant and he certainly will not be considered anything less than an equal among peers. Understand me?”

Rory stood tall with a big smile. Raven finally regained her strength and stormed out of the room.

“What’s her problem?” I asked.

“Not everyone wanted to escape the facility. Some saw the prison as a sanctuary and didn’t want to leave the grasp of their unholy god,” Archy responded.

“She liked hurting people. I don’t think that will ever change,” Elly said, still holding back her rage.

I stood up from the bed and walked toward Elly. I hugged her and felt a surge of energy through my body. She smiled at me and the storm disappeared.

“Now how do I find my walking dead best friend? Where is this thing that only I could use?”

The room was quiet as they looked at me with blank stares.

“Elly what is she talking about?” The Mother of Time asked.

“Well you see I…” she paused and looked at Archy, “We found a way to contact Scavenger, but it’s kind of sort of broken.”

“And you think I can fix it? Sorry to break it to you, but broken stuff isn’t my expertise,” I slumped my shoulders.

“Just nicknames and fighting off supervillains,” Elly smiled.

“It’s not exactly broken more…locked than anything,” Archy elaborated.

“And you think that I know where to find the key?”

“No. I think that you are the key. Just trust me. You have to see it to believe it. Just come with me. I’ll explain it on our way.”

A clock tower began to play musical trumpets and drums in the distance. When I looked out, I didn’t see a clock tower. I didn’t see much of anything.

“Where are we heading?” I asked, confused on where I even was.

“Elly drained herself of electricity with that EMP blast. She doesn’t have a lot left in the tank,” Archy answered.

“We have to go turn the lights back on,” she said smiling and grabbing my hand.

“Try not to almost get yourselves killed this time,” The Mother of Time rose from her chair as the sun began to rise in the distance.

As the light slowly rose over her feet, her tattered clothing began to regain both stitching and color. Her faded grey dress was turned into a dark blue fabric. The dress forgot its age everywhere the sun touched and then it reached what was left of her skin. The skin played in reverse similar to how I watched my memories. What was once muscle and bone was returned to old saggy skin. Where the light touched, I saw the skin growing back into place. Her face was free of the burns and was gifted with old age. Her hair spurted from her freshly healed scalp, revealing a fifties hair due with the hair color to match the age of the style. She had transformed into a younger healthier woman; she appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties.

“I understand why they call you the immortal.”

“And why do you think that, Ms. Archer?”

“You live your past the same time as your present; it’s almost as if you’ve already lived through the ages and have yet to see the end.”

She smiled with her newly remodeled face.

“Ms. Archer, I’m only thirty, not much older than you if I’m not mistaken. If you think my look is surprising now, just wait till Sunday. Now everyone gets to work we have a long day ahead of us. And Scarlett, one more thing, welcome to Paradise Valley.”

She waved us off like kids going off to their first day of school.