章 33: 2.2
[Warning: graphic gore]
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I tried to shoot you," Victoria spoke gently after a long period of silence. She'd brought me to sit on the guest bed, waiting patiently for me to snap out of my trance. I had been trying to rearrange all these newfound fragmental memories into a more linear pattern, mostly unsuccessfully.
I shouldn't have this problem. System should be here, helping me sort the memories so it was like watching a movie before consciousness. Not scattered so bad I had to fight mentally just to retain them.
I waved my hand dismissively, "I don't blame you, I should be dead."
Her eyes nervously glanced at the door at my words, "they'll start to worry soon, you ready to go back?"
I nodded, standing up to feel more self-conscious at my nipples poking through the thin fabric. It was the middle of winter, and though not as cold as the last country I'd lived in, it was cold enough.
"Is there a bra or something?" I asked, my arms protectively covering my chest, "and a jacket?" It was so fucking cold.
Victoria glanced at my chest, though the t-shirt was maternity-fitting one, it only meant the stomach area was baggy, I was larger than Ivy and my breasts pressed right against the fabric.
I knew I was stupid asking. Victoria didn't even reply.
Dizzy, I sat back on the bed, clutching onto the duvet. Victoria leaned against the wall, realising I wasn't quite ready to get going yet.
My hand plucked at the loose fabric around my stomach, remembering what Ivy had looked like. Beautiful, lively, and so excited to finally be expecting their first child. They'd been married for only a year, though they had been dating on and off since high school.
Will had gone straight into the military. Being seven years older, he left home when Hannah was still a child at eleven. Afterward his visits home were brief and mainly spent with Ivy.
Hannah had been very jealous at first. Over time after Ivy's parents finally accepted Will, Ivy made an effort to reach out to Hannah, likely at Will's request.
When Will and Ivy moved here a year ago after their wedding, it had become a second home to Hannah for a few months. Unfortunately, after the news of her pregnancy, Ivy's mother had driven Hannah away.
Hannah was a problem child. Dressed in heavy gothic makeup and dark clothing that would cover every inch of her skin, even in the blistering summer sun. She was not the kind of person people like Ivy's parents wanted their children to have anything to do with.
Though to me, from what I could piece together from the memories I could access, Hannah was just lonely. Oh so lonely.
Trying to ground myself, I focused on recent memories, only recalling that Hannah had last seen her brother not so long ago during the new year celebrations. I wasn't even sure what year it was.
"Victoria, what year is it?" I finally gave up trying to figure it all out myself, my head hurt too much.
She scanned me up and down before replying, "have you hit your head or something?"
"Something," I muttered, reaching for the thin inner blanket and using it to cover myself up as I stood. Eager to get back to the rest of the people that I needed to adjust to.
"It's 2020," she replied, which made me almost trip over the blanket. I was used to the year 2022. Going off Wei Zhiyue's memories, there had been a pandemic around this time, not a zombie apocalypse.
It truly was a whole new dimension. This time I felt relief at the thought, that meant the people I knew before weren't suffering from this at least.
"O-okay, thanks," I nodded entering the living room behind her where four men sat around the coffee table, cleaning guns.
I didn't even know the names of all these people and now they were multiplying. I frowned while studying the new face on the sofa.
He looked around their age, mid to late twenties, with mid-length jet-black hair swept back, showing pale skin. When those void-like, dark black eyes glanced up at me the sharp pain hit alongside an unwanted memory.
I was pressed under him on a bed, naked.
My face turned a shade of beetroot as I did a complete one-eighty and walked back out of the room.
I heard behind me Victoria scold him, "Noah, get that look off your face, you've scared poor Hannah away."
At the sound of his name, I leaned against the wall to steady my weak knees.
"Just what on Earth have you been up to without me?" System's voice gloriously rang through my head.
"System," I was so excited I accidentally spoke out loud. Moving further away from the open door I let my weak knees finally cave as I sat on the floor against the wall, pulling the blanket even tighter across my trembling frame.
"Where the fuck have you been? Why aren't we in the void? Why am I in a world with fucking zombies?"
"Slow down," System chided, "I don't know why we're not in the void. Last thing I know we were leaving Zhiyue's dimension and then you were having dirty thoughts about a handsome soldier boy."
"Shut up," I cursed out loud, pushing myself to stand again, my anger giving me newfound strength, "I don't belong here, I don't want to be here, take me to the void," I ordered whilst pacing.
"Impossible, now we're in Hannah's body we're obliged to stay here to prevent her from turning into a remnant."
No. I did not agree with this. I was pulled into this body by force. I was not obliged to do anything.
Frustrated, I slapped my hand against the wall before leaning my head against it, relishing in the stinging pain from my palm.
"I can confirm that Mo Zhiyue reincarnated in the end," System tried to brighten the mood.
"She did?" I asked excitedly at the news of my last life, "what about Lex, Jianyu? What about Meilin and her baby?"
"Now we've left the dimension. I have no knowledge of what's going on, only that Mo Zhiyue joined us when we left, her soul is now disconnected from ours and I have a good deal of energy in return."
I sighed, "I hope they're all okay, I want to go back."
"I'm sure we'll meet again," System comforted me, filling my new body with its fuzzy warmth, "for now you have me."
I smiled faintly, "yes I have you."
When I reentered the room only Will faintly looked up at me, before looking back at the map now spread across the table.
Noah was explaining the route he planned to take. Currently, we were just northwest of Los Angeles, in a fenced-in housing estate for the well-off. He wanted us to travel North to the Oregon border.
Perching on the edge of the sofa beside Will, I tried to study the map, which was unfamiliar to me, but familiar to Hannah, making my mind feel even more muddled.
Over time I found myself focusing less on the map and more on the sound of Noah's heavily British-accented voice. Though his accent felt out of place amongst his American colleagues, it really suited him.
His almost pitch-black eyes seemed cold and vacant as he elegantly explained the exact route he planned for us all to take. Repeating himself several times giving alternative routes should we encounter danger we couldn't handle. As if anticipating that any one of us could be separated, he seemed to be trying to ensure each one of us, well them, could move to the next meetup location without problems. If that was the case, shouldn't I make sure I know it too?
"If you focus on the map instead of your new lover boy I'll record it for you," System nagged.
"Fuck that, I've had enough of men, he's just Hannah's problem, not mine. Just let me wait to find Jianyu again," I grumbled internally. My heart ached. It had only been moments but I missed him, I longed for him to just hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay.
I folded my arm under the blanket like a child throwing a huff and quietly sat through the rest of the briefing.
Once Noah ended, William abruptly stood up and pulled me out of the room by my elbow. I could feel Noah's cold gaze on my back as I left. What did it feel like he hated this body?
William brought me back to the guest room from before, sitting me on the bed and crouching before me, "Vic said your memories are still a little hazy?"
He was such a big, muscular guy, the uniform he wore barely fit him. Yet he looked up at me so earnestly, and gently, scared as if I'd break as easy as porcelain. It was unnerving.
"I remember enough," I replied, unable to avoid the sassy undertone. I thought Hannah loved her brother, but there seemed to be a lot of unaired grievances. Great.
"We were going to call him Johnathan," he caught me off guard, clearly talking about the baby. "Should I still call him Johnathan Hannah?" he asked, fresh tears falling.
He sat on the ground, leaning sideways to rest his head on my lap, and my hands subconsciously moved to stroke his short auburn mess. I recalled the fuzz on the newborn's head was a similar shade, unlike its mother's sandy blonde.
"He looked like you," I helplessly commented, unsure how I should react or speak to the large blubbering mess in my hands. I could barely stomach the events myself.
Ivy had been lying on the floor, her mother crouched over her bloody body, tearing and pulling away flesh to her mouth. At the sight of fresh blood, the woman staggered up, walking with an awkward limp closer and closer.
An already bloody knife raised in Hannah's hands, piercing directly through her eye into her skull too fast for me to comprehend as Hannah stumbled backward with the body falling to the ground, the now completely dead woman beside her.
I felt Hannah's panic and grief as she crawled towards Ivy's body, frantically scanning the stomach to see it deflated and bare. Looking around the room she saw a bloody mess on the bed sheets.
Still crawling, she moved towards the bed, pulling herself to stand, and saw a moving baby. The brief relief was shattered when she noticed the pale blue of the skin, and the fog in its eyes.
The blood was still fresh, and warm, as she lifted to hold the babe in her hands. The babe was a newborn with no teeth, yet it still turned to her hungry, seeking her flesh.
She collapsed beside Ivy, sitting in the pool of warm blood, rocking the babe back and forth. She had been too late. Could she have saved them if she'd been a few hours earlier?
"System," I called out internally, snapping out of the memory, unwilling to go further. William still leaned against my lap, crying. I found I was now crying too.
Gulping I forced my face to tense, holding in the tears, I needed to be strong. There was an urge to protect the man before me. A haunting, foreshadowing of death lingered around him as if the original soul was expecting his death after hers. Even now I was here in her stead as she willed, the feeling did not dissipate.
The warm fuzz filled me, concentrating on my fingertips that still stroked through his hair, I hoped somehow I could bring this man peace, to ease the ache in my chest.
In time he pulled himself together to turn and smile up at me, warming my heart in a way I had never felt before. Mo Zhiyue had Meilin as a cousin, but no siblings, was this what it felt like to have a sibling?
"Thank you Han, for being here, when I thought you were gone too..." he choked up again, fresh tears falling.
"Shh," I wiped as many tears as I could with the blanket, "I'm still here, Ivy would want us to keep going, what about Leo?"
Leo was Ivy's younger brother. He was two years younger than Hannah, who was only eighteen, still in the middle of her senior year at high school.
Unlike Hannah who attended a public high school, Leo attended a private boarding school for the gifted, though it was mainly just rich kids or kids good enough for scholarships.
Will nodded his head in agreement, "yes, you're right, Ivy would want that," he cleared his throat, pulling himself together, "I'll go ask Noah now, he should be at the boarding school since he refused to come home for the holidays."
Like Hannah, Leo was a tad rebellious.
I feigned a smile whilst ushering him out of the room with reassurances I was fine. Though my entire body was beginning to painfully ache and despite the cold air now the blanket was off my body I could feel myself burning up.
"Don't worry Host, I've just sped up your transitioning."
I frowned, staggering back to the bed after closing the door. "What transitioning?"
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