VALERY KONINGSBRUGGE

"Run!"

Val continued to put pressure on taking over control of the water completely. Ben was losing blood quickly, the gashes on his face contributing to this remark. The blade that had been before, was being pulled in different ways and reshaped.

"No, I must confess to Ben," I said, "Val, stop it! The medicine to treat Jennifer with is in your hand, Ben." I could see Val slightly slow down the current of water cutting into Ben's side.

He did not let up though because revenge was what he desired and so easily he could achieve it in his position and with his opportunity.

I would love nothing less to be rid of this killer whale, but the truth would set us apart, or together, depending on the circumstances we found ourselves in after my explanation.

"Why do you think I was hiding in a pharmacy? I needed to fetch the medication inconspicuously and three is quite a crowd, especially when two of aforementioned three are not from this Earth. And I knew you wouldn't agree."

"Lies, lies, lies," Ben said. "From an impudent - AAAHH!" Val dug the blade deeper into Ben's body.

"Stop Val! If you don't believe me, give me the tube and I will wake Jennifer from her coma."

Ben looked at the tube and I could tell he had scruples about handing it over to me.

"Fine! But tell this mooncalf - argh - to get off me!"

"Who are you calling a mooncalf?" I promptly laid Jennifer on the floor and gave Val a strong shunt. The water splashed at our feet because none of them were controlling it anymore.

Ben's hand swooped to his side to put pressure on the deep wound. His blood was mixing with the blood of the Floater whore which in turn, was pooling against the water.

I held my hand out to Ben, asking for the tube. He exhaustingly slapped it into my hand with his free hand.

Val shook his head as he walked away to the backroom, possibly to clear his safe as he had planned to do before with his missus. I lurched back to Jennifer and took her helmet off. It was only for the time being so I could induce the medicine into her system.

I never use artificial medication from the pharmacy, I always use the natural remedies sold here. But I kind of have an idea on how to use the tubes. I opened her mouth and shot the green gloo down her throat. It made a gurgling sound as it travelled down her throat.

Strings of the syrup hung onto the sides of the tube and I held it over her mouth for a while longer so she could get every drop of the medicine. I threw the tube aside and listened closely to her chest for a heartbeat.

"Is she alive?" Ben stands over us after limping over here by transforming the water into a cane in which he supported himself with. There is silence within her chest.

Nothing runs through. But the steady drums of the heart pour through to a sweet sound in which the innards begin to dance to.

I have to take my head off Jennifer because she starts to move. The slime has given her new life. She sits up with her arms behind herself to hold herself up with each heaving breath.

Ben cannot bend down but I realise he wants to embrace her. Val returns from the backroom with an argent, which is a flexible container that can be closed for holding, storing or carrying items. It was bloated with shells. But something ruined this reunion of crooked pieces.

Unexpectedly, the automatic doors sped wide open, liquid nitrogen blasting from above to regulate the temperature clouding the identity of the figure that entered.

Then as the cold settled around the overhead ducts, the man in an Iko suit pulled out a protterer from behind him.

Inside the suit was a recent memory rebuilt as an inane person. It was Earl, the Compeller I had trapped in a bubble above water. Ben's father even though Ben was clearly from the older generation.

The barrel of the protterer was aimed down at me. I considered blowing another bubble to trap him in, but I could sense Earl was a trigger finger. Jennifer was comprehending the action so she crawled away from being anywhere close to the protterer.

Ben turned on us as soon as he saw his father. He compelled the water quickly into Val who was behind him. Val stopped it in midair and the water was phasing in and out of its molecular structure, so much so that it became blurred and unstable.

"You're probably wondering how I got out of your - bodily contraption. It was rather easy. Because I had help from the outside." As Earl found himself to have the tenable upperhand, another shorter person appeared from behind him.

The shorter person was a child and a child I treated as my own at times and had to take care of all the time. Molly stood differently once revealed by Earl to be his outside help.

I had never seen her to be so confident. She was usually timid and I wondered if she had found a voice.

"Molly?" I asked, "what are you doing here? Head back to the settlement." Then I watched in slow motion as her mouth opened to utter words.

"I will do no such thing." She sounded like an adult, not only in language but also in the bass and vibrato of the voice.

"You see, Valery Koningsbrugge, she is my mother," Earl said. "And your grandmother Ben. Younger than I and much younger than my son. This is what has happened to us upon arriving in this unique world." Ben is still keeping the water in midair, but he turns to look at his family. "You may not know this Ben, but I spent my years in the Antarctic because I was searching for my mother. She was missing and I didn't want to lose her. Who would think that the same occurrence befell me?"

"And I was searching for you. When I was betrayed by my own partner." He turned back to Val and the bolt of shifting liquid, showing signs of a push.

"This is what the snow has done to us. I will never trust it again and I hope I never see an iceberg in my life. The water is where my future lies. It contains so much history - I can feel it - even in these waters."

Jennifer was keeping quiet in the corner of the pharmacy, but she was shivering. Her helmet was still on the floor next to me. I reached over for it.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Earl asked as he pressed the barrel of the protterer against the side of my head.

I closed my eyes, relaxing myself from mentally exploding from the closeness to death. I could almost feel it at the end of the barrel, locked and loaded. A liquid nitrogen canister to the head would freeze my brain to oblivion.

"She needs her helmet on, so the heating can function." I heard Earl kick the helmet to her.

"Put it on, the Wayfarer thinks it best that you don't catch the shivers." I opened my eyes and turned my head so that the end of the barrel pressed against my forehead instead.

"Consider this. Even if your Molly was frozen as a child, how could she give birth to you?" Molly stares down at me, wide-eyed but with a hint of defiance.

"Oh, but that's where it gets interesting," Earl said. "Very interesting. Apparently, you, and you alone, are the cause of her reverse aging."

At first, I had no clue what he was referring to. Then the haziness cleared, just like the liquid nitrogen in the room. The snippets of memories and dreams alike came together and there was a sort of revelation.

For me at least because these memories were mine. I thought I would freeze up again from the nostalgia of a memory, but this memory was not a happy one. In reality, I had subconsciously broken it apart and jumbled it up in my mind on purpose.

But there was no escaping it now. This was the truth. My truth.

                                                             ⚡⬅

I did reach the pack I was supposed to be the leader of. This was reassuring. One of them gave up their inflatable bed for me because they could tell I was tired. They were all adults, including Molly.

I got to know them for the next few months, but this knowledge must have fluttered from my head. I built our pack into a wall, impenetrable by other packs of Wayfarers. I prided ourselves on communication and maturity.

But one day, they chose to turn on me. Mutiny, I called it. I was too dictating, they said. Dictating was necessary to uphold loyalty. What more could they want? I had given up everything for them. I had nearly died getting here. It was troubling me how society worked.

So I blew a bubble. The biggest I had ever blown. It captured the entire settlement. They were no longer displaying attributes of good communication and they were acting immature, so I took both of these values away from them. Just by thinking about how much better they would be off without these characteristics.

They turned into children before my very eyes. I popped the bubble and they tried to speak but couldn't. And then they were loyal to me to a fault, as I wanted.

Something shattered in me that day. My mind covered it up because I, too, was affected by the bubble. I wasn't acting like a leader anymore, so it stripped me of these memories so I could fill my mind with conflated ones. Memories of a leader, true at heart.