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spacedogfromspaceThe Vanishing
Chapter 7: Gunshots
Nyota gets stalked by strange men.
She took a deep breath and held it as she walked, looking up to the sky just for a change of scenery. As she let out her breath, a sound caught her ear, and she listened carefully to identify it. There was a man's voice, coming from somewhere down the trail behind her. She thought it strange, as she hadn't noticed anyone behind her on the trail earlier, but reasoned that they were probably walking quicker than she was and had simply caught up. She could only make out one distinct voice, but she assumed there was at least two people, otherwise, who would they be talking to?
Nyota had a weird feeling all of a sudden, like the one she always got near Christine's camp. Except that here, there was still sound. Well, now that she thought about it, there was limited sound. Just her footsteps, her breath, and the voice behind her on the trail. Her footsteps were different. Her gait had sped up without her realizing she was doing it, and her breath had become more ragged. If she tuned out her heart beating in her ears, she could pick out some of the words spoken by the voice behind her.
"... Six and a half miles up Ostrander Lake trail..."
"... Lone female hiker..."
That was all she needed to hear for her heart to leap in her chest and begin to gallop. Her brisk walk turned into a near jog as she sped up to try and put more distance between herself and whoever it was behind her that seemed to be stalking her.
Stalking her? No, that couldn't be right. Nyota forced herself to take a deep breath and slow her pace, and think about this rationally. She wasn't being stalked out in the middle of Yosemite National Park. She was just getting paranoid. Janice was right, being out here wasn't good for her. The voices were far enough back that they were just a mumble to her, she probably just thought she heard what she had heard. And even if they didn't, maybe it was rangers out looking for a recently missing hiker.
Just as she was convincing herself that there was no sinister plot, she caught two clear words.
"... Capture unharmed..."
Before she could try and reason herself back down, she took off at a sprint down the trail, hoping that she was a faster runner with more endurance than her hunters. But even if she could run faster and for longer, how would that help? She was running towards the lake, not the trail-head, where she would find escape, and help from passersby. Running toward the lake as she was, she could only hope she'd come across another hiker, and that wasn't guaranteed to deter her pursuers. No, she had to double back somehow, get back to the trail-head, back to Janice's truck, so she could get somewhere with more people, where she couldn't just be kidnapped out of nowhere.
Still running, she glanced over her shoulder to see if she could spot her hunters. She saw nobody, but that was little comfort as the trail wound back and forth through heavy foliage, and they could be as close as a bend behind without her able to see them. But for now, this would do. She veered off the trail into the thick of the woods without breaking stride, shutting her eyes against the harsh conifer branches that scratched at her face and threatened to blind her. She held her arms up in front of her face to block the majority of the branches that would otherwise smack her in the head so that she could squint her eyes open enough to avoid running smack into a tree.
Her sinking heart rose once she burst out of the clutch of young conifers that were growing along the trail and into the old growth Douglas Firs. The ground was uneven, riddled with roots, and sank below her feet, but the trees themselves only had branches high in the canopy, leaving plenty of clear space for her to run without risking getting caught up in a scratchy mess of sticks. With the terrain slightly less hostile, she risked another glance over her shoulder, relieved to see that no figures had yet emerged from the thicket. She had no doubt that they knew she had gone off the trail though— the sound of her crashing through the trees could have been heard from a mile away.
She continued to run through the forest, away from the trail, until the pine needle floor was nearly entirely concealed by lush ground cover such as ferns, in a way that would offer her lots of cover if she kept her head down. It was at this point that she stopped her run, quickly looking around and listening for any sign of her hunters. When she saw and heard nothing, she ducked down and stepped lightly through the ferns at a ninety-degree angle from her previous trajectory, in a new heading that would hopefully put her parallel with the trail and send her in the general direction of the trail-head.
Careful not to make noise or create obvious movement in the bushes and ferns, Nyota moved slowly. Her crouched posture would have made going any faster near impossible, but moving through the foliage as she was, her first concern was rustling it too much and giving away her position. The slower pace allowed her breathing and heart-rate to slow, and the far-off singing of birds in the high canopies calmed her. When she started to wonder if she had really been chased, she stopped, resting crouched down and balanced on the balls of her feet. She listened intently, waiting for any sound from something any bigger than a rabbit. Waiting for any sound of voices. But there was nothing.
Maybe she had been paranoid after all. Maybe the days alone out in the forest doing the same thing over and over with no results were having a worse effect on her than she thought. Perhaps the voices were an auditory hallucination, and nobody was after or. Or maybe if they were real, they just hadn't bothered to chase her so far off the trail.
Just as she was deciding that she would continue her off-trail route back to the trail-head— just to be safe —she heard the sounds of something big crashing through the ferns and shrubs, heading in her direction. Heart leaping into her throat, Nyota leapt to her feet, no longer attempting to conceal herself. She knew she had been spotted. All there was left for her to do was to run.
She had gotten a short rest while hiding in the ferns, but it wasn't enough to recover from her previous sprint. Now, as she lunged up to her full speed, jumping roots and stumbling through softer patches of ground, her lungs burst into flame. Six and a half miles, she remembered bitterly. She couldn't carry on like this for another six and a half miles. She wasn't sure how she was going to make it out before getting caught by the people behind her, unless she managed to find somewhere to hide again.
Unable to hear the sounds of her pursuers over the sounds of her own flight, she took a glance behind her, hoping that they would have vanished somewhere behind her, or at the very least, she would see what she was up against. It was a bad move. Looking over her shoulder threw her balance off, and stepping into ground slightly squishier than she expected it to be easily became her demise. She whipped her head back around as she stumbled, but was unable to catch herself. She could only put her hands out to try and protect herself as she fell, inertia sending her sliding and rolling across the ground, plunging her down a dip in the terrain and landing her in a boggy spot.
On her hands and knees in the muck, she tried to get to her feet, but was barely able to rip her hands out of the sticky mud, let alone get her knees and feet free. She managed to twist around to face what was coming for her, and she felt the blood drain from her face when she saw two men in camouflage hunting gear walking up to her like hunters approaching a trapped rabbit. They were both armed with rifles. Nyota couldn't be sure what kind they were, but they looked like the type that hunters might use. For a moment, she felt relief. These were just hunters who followed a scared girl bolting through the woods. They were just making sure she wasn't lost, that something wasn't wrong. They were here to help.
One of them stopped a few meters off, raising his rifle with its sights pointed somewhere around her chest, while the other continued towards her cautiously. The speed of Nyota's falling hopes knocked the wind out of her, and she found she could do nothing but sit stuck in the mud and accept whatever fate awaited her. She took solace in the memory that one of the phrases she heard back on the trail was 'capture uninjured.' So at least they wouldn't shoot her dead. Yet.
As the approaching hunter entered her shallow ditch under the cover of his partner's gun, there was a rustling in the brush behind Nyota. The hunter looked up, and the other raised his gun just as an enormous white shape burst out of the ferns, leaping over Nyota and nearly landing on the nearest hunter, who barely managed to stumble backwards out of its way, falling on his rear-end in the process and dropping his gun. The beast stood and snarled in his face, allowing him to crawl backward at an impressive pace. His partner, who came out of his shock, raised the rifle towards the creature, and Nyota flinched as a gunshot rang out through the woods. She opened her eyes expecting the beast to be lying dead before her, but it was still standing, and lunged angrily at the two men. What little skin she could see of their faces was nearly as white as the beast, and they turned and fled into the woods, chased by the enormous creature.
From her position on her knees in the low spot, the three figures quickly vanished from her line of sight. But she could hear them as they crashed through the bushes, and then she heard the screams of men and the snarls of the beast. Then, silence.
Nyota held her breath, listening. She was worried the beast would return for dessert, and the mere idea of it made her wish she had just let the hunters capture her. Surely whatever they had planned for her couldn't be worse than being torn to shreds by... Nyota wasn't sure what the creature had been. Everything had moved so fast that she had failed to get a good look at it. She knew that it was white, and it was absolutely enormous. A... Polar bear? She shook her head. This wasn't Lost, there wouldn't be a polar bear running around in a California climate. Maybe just a white-furred Grizzly bear, it was certainly large enough to be one.
After a few minutes of waiting in shock and fear of the bear's return, Nyota rolled herself backwards, peeling her knees out of the mud and sitting back on a relatively stable piece of ground, setting to work at freeing her feet from the mud. The bear didn't sound like it was coming back, but she didn't want to wait around for it to change its mind.
When her feet finally came loose from the mud, they came without her boots. And her left ankle seemed to be sprained. Exhausted, she felt like she could weep in frustration, and briefly considered walking back to the trail-head in her socks. However, after reflecting on the six or so miles back to the truck through forest with rocky, woody, mucky terrain, she decided against it, reaching back into the mud and dragging her boots out one by one. Luckily, using her entire body weight to pull against the muck was just enough to dislodge each boot. Unfortunately, both times that she freed a boot she was sent sprawling, and she walked away from the ordeal with a skinned knee and a scratch to the face from careening into a tree stump. But she had her shoes back on her feet, and covered in mud, blood and sweat, she began the slow limp back towards the trail-head.
Getting back was difficult on account of her injured ankle and her sheer exhaustion. She had her GPS and compass clutched in one hand, and her map held open with the other as she attempted to navigate as straight a path as possible from where the bear attacked to the trail-head. As she limped along, the memory of the event played through her head over and over again. She was starting to doubt that the creature was a white grizzly bear. She had only seen the back half of it, but she felt certain that it had a long tail. The only other animal she could think it might be was a wolf. But no wolf she knew about rivalled the size of a grizzly bear.
As she pondered, she stopped paying attention to her surroundings, and was surprised when she looked up and saw a figure standing only a few meters ahead of her, standing in her path. Nyota let out a startled yelp and jumped backward, stumbling over her injured ankle and falling flat on her ass, left gaping at the figure like an idiot.
Her fear turned to confusion, then to anger as she recognized the person she had nearly walked into. It was Christine. Part of her was relieved to have run into a friend, someone who could help her. But the other part was still furious with Christine for betraying her. Against all logic— probably due to her sheer exhaustion —the anger won out.
"What the hell, Christine," Nyota grunted as she struggled to her feet. "I told you to leave me the fuck alone!" Christine didn't answer, and just stood looking down at the ground and avoiding eye contact. "What are you doing here?" Back on her feet, she got a good look at Christine. The woman stood slouched, one arm laid across her chest to hold the other at the elbow. She was covered in as much grime and sweat as Nyota was, her clothing torn in places and her grey flannel hanging loosely off her thin form. Nyota's anger faded when she saw the red bloom in the flannel, on the arm Christine was holding.
"You're hurt," Nyota said, limping up to her. Christine looked up at her, her yellow eyes flighty and nervous. "What happened to you?"
"Noth— Nothing," Christine said weakly, shifting awkwardly as if she might be preparing to bolt. But she stayed put.
"You're bleeding," Nyota said softly, realizing that Christine might be in shock. She tried to make herself look small and unimposing as she approached Christine, worried she might take off. "Let me take a look, okay?"
Christine bit her lip, taking a step back. Her eyes flickered off into the woods, as if deciding which direction to bolt.
Nyota paused. "I'm sorry for what I did last time I saw you," she said. "I found out you weren't truthful about your job and I got mad and it wasn't fair of me to freak out on you. But right now I don't care about being mad because you're bleeding a whole lot and you need help. So please, Christine. Let me help you."
Finally, Christine looked at her and gave a nod. "Okay," she whispered.
"Why don't you sit down," Nyota suggested, steering Christine toward a fallen log. She went along with it as if in a trance. Nyota had to move Christine's good arm away from the injured one and maneuver the flannel jacket to uncover the wound, then pushed up the bloody sleeve of Christine's T-shirt. The movement caused Christine to wince, but she held as still as she could. Nyota gasped when she saw the wound— a bleeding hole punched into Christine's shoulder.
"This is from a bullet," Nyota whispered. "You were shot!"
Christine let out a breathy chuckle. "Yeah," she said casually, through her chattering teeth.
"What on Earth happened to you?" Nyota asked, picking up Christine's hand and pressing it to the wound to help slow the bleeding while Nyota found something to wrap it with.
Christine shrugged, then let out a hiss at the pain it sparked in her shoulder. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she said, her face screwed up from the pain.
Nyota had dumped the contents of her backpack on the ground, and she looked up from riffling through them. "Try me," she said. "Tell me who shot you." She grabbed a shirt that lived in the bottom of her bag and stood back up, using the shirt as a makeshift bandage, tightly winding it around Christine's shoulder, under and around her arm, and tying it uncomfortably tight in hopes that it would actually slow the bleeding instead of just soak it up. Christine still hadn't answered her question by the time Nyota finished her improvised bandaging. "Do you think you can walk? We need to get you to a hospital."
Christine shook her head, and it wasn't because she couldn't walk. "I can't go to a hospital," she said.
Nyota's brow furrowed. "Why not?"
"I just... can't." Christine said, shoulders slumping at being unable to explain. "It's not safe for me."
"What do you mean it's not safe for you?" Nyota asked. "You need medical treatment, you'll die without it."
Christine winced. "I'll— I'll be fine."
Nyota scowled. "There's no exit wound. Even if you could heal from this on your own, you have to get that bullet removed, or it'll kill you."
"Going to the hospital will kill me, too," Christine said. Then with a sigh she added under her breath, "or worse."
"Christine, you aren't making any sense. Why is the hospital such a danger to you?"
"Because as soon as they run a blood test they'll know..." Christine looked down at her feet. "They'll know about me."
"Know what about you?"
Christine seemed to curl in on herself, as if bracing to be hit. "That I'm not human," she admitted quietly, eyes closed against whatever was about to happen to her.
Nyota blinked at her, trying to process what had been said. "Not—" And then the pieces began to click together. Christine living out in the wilderness alone with no equipment. Her wild yellow eyes and unusually long canines. Hair too white to be natural on such a young person. The giant white-furred creature that saved Nyota from those men. The one that got shot before running out of sight. "You— Were you that— that thing that chased off those hunters?"
Swallowing and chewing on her lip, Christine gave a short nod. Her eyes were still on the ground, but she watched Nyota through her peripherals, and sat on the log hunched over and hugging herself like an animal that was too injured to flee and had to settle for making itself small and still in hopes that its predator wouldn't see it.
Reaching out, Nyota caressed Christine's arm, near her bullet wound. "You— You saved me," she said in quiet astonishment. "After I went marching into your camp and shouted at you and was cruel to you. Why did you save me after that?"
Christine's head lifted, and her yellow eyes grew large as she realized that Nyota wasn't going to beat the shit out of her for being something other. "Because you're the only friend I have left," Christine said. "And I know you only acted the way you did because you were scared of things you couldn't understand."
Nyota blinked as her eyes prickled. "You're a much better person than I am," she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Looking down at Christine's face, she noticed how pale she was. Christine was white as a sheet normally, but her complexion was now ashen, and her lips were turning blue. "We need to get you help. You're going to die."
Christine sighed. "I'd rather die out here than get dissected in a lab."
An idea came to Nyota then, and she brightened. "I know someone who'll treat you," she said excitedly. "It'll just be him, and he's a friend, so he'll keep your secret safe."
Christine looked at her warily, but a glimmer of hope flickered in her eyes. "You're sure he won't freak out?"
Nyota grinned. "Oh, he'll freak out. But he'll fix you up and keep his mouth shut about it. Now come on, let's get you back to the truck."
Christine had insisted that she could walk, and while Nyota disagreed, she knew she wouldn't be able to carry her on account of her own sprained ankle. The two of them made their way back to the trail-head at a much slower pace than what was ideal, but they made it, and that was what mattered. As soon as they got into the truck, Nyota started down the highway, her cellphone in one hand as she watched for even a single bar to appear. The moment she got cellular reception, she pulled over and made a call.
"Hello?"
Nyota's face broke into a grin, purely by habit. It wasn't as if he could see her. "Hey, Doc. It's Nyota. Listen, you're still in town, right? I need a huge favour."
There was a pause on the other end. "Go on," Leonard said cautiously.
"Can you come to the White Wolf Lodge with some medical equipment, like, as soon as humanly possible?"
"I'm kind of at work right now," Leonard said, sounding more confused than anything. "What exactly do you need—"
"Please? It's an emergency," Nyota interrupted, begging. "It's my friend. She's been shot."
"Good god woman, take her to a hospital! What the hell are you doing calling me?"
"She can't go to a hospital," Nyota said, looking over at Christine. She bit her lip, hoping she would be able to convince the Doctor to come help. "Just... look, just trust me, Doc, and believe me when I say that you're her only chance at survival right now." There was a long pause on the other end. "Please," she begged.
There was a long, drawn out sigh. "Alright, fine. I'll call it a family emergency. But this better not be something stupid."
Nyota's shoulders dropped in relief. "Trust me, it's not. And thank you."
"Yeah, yeah," Leonard muttered as he hung up the phone.
Nyota turned to Christine and smiled. "We've got you a doctor on the way." Christine, despite looking deathly pale and exhausted, managed to smile back.
With Janice's help, Nyota smuggled Christine up to her room at the lodge without anyone noticing. Janice was alarmed, to say the least, when Nyota rolled up with this seriously injured stranger, but to her credit, she took it in stride and immediately set to helping out as best she could.
"Nyota..." Janice said cautiously as she helped Christine get settled on the couch. "Who is this?"
"Oh, right," Nyota said. "Janice, this is Christine," she said. "Christine, Janice."
"Pleasure to meet you," Christine said drowsily. She was starting to have issues remaining conscious, and it seemed that perhaps delirium was setting in.
"Yes, it's nice to meet you too," Janice said flatly, clearly more concerned with the blood seeping through the cloth wrapped around Christine's shoulder than pleasantries. "Nyota, why haven't you taken her to a hospital?"
"It's okay, Doctor McCoy is on his way over," Nyota said distractedly as she fetched a blanket and gently wrapped it around Christine. If she remembered correctly, it was important to keep the injured warm. Or maybe that was for shock. Christine was probably in shock too, so either way she was covering her bases.
"But—" Janice was now looking at Nyota with concern, as if she was the one who had something wrong with her, not Christine.
Nyota paused under this look. "Look, I know this doesn't make any sense. But it's the best way. Trust me."
Janice looked at her skeptically for a long moment, but her expression eventually softened and she sighed. "Okay. If this is what you need to do. I'll go wait downstairs for when your doctor shows up."
Nyota smiled at her in relief. "Thank you, Janice."
"Anything for you and yours," Janice answered kindly as she left the room. "Call the desk if you need anything before the doctor gets here."
With Janice gone, Nyota fetched Christine a glass of water and pulled the other armchair close so she could sit beside her. "How do you feel?" She asked, after helping Christine guide the glass to her lips.
"Like I got shot," Christine said, her voice little more than a whisper.
"Leonard will be here soon," Nyota said, whether to reassure Christine, or herself, she did not know. "You're going to be okay."
"Okay," Christine said weakly, her yellow wolf eyes closing, long eyelashes fluttering as she tried to keep her eyes open. Nyota swallowed hard, seeing the poor state that Christine was in. She silently urged Leonard to drive faster, and reached out to take one of Christine's hands in her own. Her skin felt cool to the touch, and like her lips, the beds of her fingertips were turning blue.
"Just hold on a little longer," Nyota begged her under her breath.
After what felt like an eternity but was in reality, less than an hour, the door to Nyota's hotel room opened as Janice used her master key to let herself in, disgruntled doctor in tow. He was carrying a bag laden with medical supplies, and looked ready to scold Nyota for the whole situation when his eyes landed on Christine. Her poor condition threw him straight into doctor mode, and the idea of chastising Nyota left his mind entirely. Right now he had a life to save.
"This is worse than I thought it would be," he said in a low voice as he examined Christine, taking her vitals, making her open her eyes so he could shine a light into them, trying to get her to talk to him, but finding her unable to respond. He turned to Nyota. "What's under this?" He asked, pointing to the shirt Nyota had tied around Christine's shoulder. "Was there an exit wound?"
Nyota shook her head. "No. There's a bullet hole in the front of her shoulder, about here," she explained, pointing. The red blossom of blood soaking the shirt was too large to make the wound's location evident. "But no exit wound."
Leonard sighed, turning to Janice and tossing her his car keys, which she caught easily. "Go into the trunk of my car and bring the suitcase that's in there."
"On it," she said, dashing off without hesitation.
"Managed to smuggle out a bunch of equipment on my way out of the hospital," Leonard explained to Nyota as he stood and assessed the room. "Couldn't bring an operating table though. We're going to have to lay her down somewhere."
There weren't a lot of options. "Would the bed work?" Nyota asked.
Leonard frowned. "Not the most sanitary space." He eyed the coffee table. It was too short to lay a person out on, but Christine was short. He took the empty arm chair and dragged it over to one end of the table, nodding when the seat was near flush with the table's surface. "We'll put her on here, use a chair to extend it so her feet have a place to go." He opened his bag, putting on a couple of layers of surgical gloves, and disinfecting the table's surface with an alcohol solution.
Janice returned quickly with the suitcase in tow, bringing it over quickly. "What do you need me to do next?" She asked. She spoke fast but her voice was calm. She may not have any medical knowledge or experience, but she was cool under pressure, and that might be just what they needed right now.
"We need to move her onto this table," Leonard said. "I'll take her head, Nyota, take her legs. Janice, you're our spotter."
They worked quickly and managed to get Christine laying flat on the coffee table. Her head to her hips lay on the table's surface, and her legs were supported with the help of the armchair. She hadn't responded to them moving her. Leonard got to work preparing for surgery as quickly as possible, taking a surgical tray from the suitcase and loading it with tools. Janice rushed out of the room and brought in a few small, flat stools, sufficient enough to balance a tray of tools on to keep them close at hand.
Then, carefully, Leonard unwrapped the shirt from Christine's shoulder, and cut away her T-shirt where it interfered with his access to the wound. He stripped off one layer of gloves, and sanitized the site quickly. The blood had slowed, and Nyota couldn't tell if that was good or bad. She just handed Leonard the scalpel and forceps when he asked for them.
Nyota wasn't bothered by blood, but watching someone use sharp instruments to dig around in someone's shoulder made her blanch, and she had to look away, just keeping an eye on the progress through her peripherals and being ready with more tools as they were called for. Janice was standing across the table from Leonard with a sterile towel from the suitcase, poised to pounce on the wound every time the doctor's tools were withdrawn. Agitating the wound had caused the bleeding to accelerate again, and there was an alarming amount of blood.
But eventually, a bloody piece of warped metal with tiny pieces of flesh clinging to it was removed from Christine's body. The wound was doused with ethanol to kill off foreign bacteria, and Leonard set to stitching her up. Nyota had flinched at the disinfecting, but Christine didn't respond to the sting of it at all, not even a whimper. That worried Nyota. Though she was glad Christine wasn't conscious for the surgery, she wished she knew that she was okay.
"Is she going to be okay?" Nyota asked.
Leonard gave a half-hearted shrug. "Well, I'm not giving up on her yet," he said, finishing with wrapping gauze around Christine's shoulder and ditching another pair of gloves. "Ideally I'd be giving her a transfusion but I couldn't just steal bags of blood from the hospital," he said. "But I'll give her some fluids anyways. Keep her hydrated." He started assembling an IV stand that was in pieces in the suitcase, and got Christine set up on a saline drip. "Now, you gonna tell me what the deal is with her?"
"What?" Nyota asked.
"Why can't she go to a hospital?"
"Oh," Nyota looked down at Christine's ghostly face. "It's not really for me to say."
Leonard grumbled, but didn't push the issue. He, Nyota, and Janice were huddling around Christine's prone form, anxiously thinking of what to do next.
"Could we move her to the bed?" Nyota asked, looking at the hard surface of the coffee table. "It would be more comfortable for her, for when she wakes up."
Leonard nodded. "Let's carry her over. Just be careful not to yank her IV out." Between the three of them, they picked up Christine's limp body, wheeling the IV stand along with her as they transferred her to the bed. Nyota had pulled the warm quilt down, and used it to cover Christine's legs and torso to keep her warm.
"You're absolutely sure we can't bring her to a hospital?" Leonard asked, looking down at his patient with concern. Nyota shook her head. "Well," the doctor sighed, plunking down in one of the arm chairs. "All we can do now is wait."
The night passed slowly. Janice had left— she had to man the front desk —but she stopped by once in a while to check on them, bringing them soup or coffee. Nyota sat in an arm chair, pulled up to Christine's bedside. She held her friend's pale hand in her own, comforted by the pulse she could feel faintly through Christine's skin. Leonard got up every few minutes to check on Christine, noting her heart rate, taking her blood pressure, occasionally pulling her eyelids open to watch her pupils dilate. He nodded to himself after each test, which Nyota took as a good sign.
The sky outside began to lighten in the hour before dawn, and despite the coffee, Nyota was falling asleep in her chair. She fought to keep her eyes open, but must have simply passed out at some point, because the next thing she knew, dawn had arrived, and Leonard was nudging her back into consciousness.
"Hey," he said, shaking her gently by the shoulder. "She's waking up."
Nyota's head jerked up, suddenly awake. She looked down at Christine, who's face was scrunched up, her eyelids flickered blearily. Her hand tightened around Christine's. Eventually, Christine's big golden eyes blinked open, pupils darting around the room in disorientation for a moment before landing on Nyota.
Nyota smiled softly at her. "Hey, you."
Christine relaxed, knowing she was safe. "Where are we?"
"Janice's lodge, remember?" Nyota said patiently. "You passed out shortly after we got here, but my doctor friend showed up, and he patched you up."
Christine's eyes flicked over to Leonard, who was standing at Nyota's shoulder. He raised a hand in greeting. "Hi," he said, awkwardly.
Blinking slowly, Christine gave a shallow nod towards him. "Thank you," she rasped.
"Don't mention it," the doctor said, then turned to Nyota. "Now will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?"
Christine looked at Nyota, surprise held weakly on her face. "He doesn't know?"
"Know what?" Leonard asked, but was ignored by both women.
Nyota shook her head at Christine. "I didn't tell him anything," she assured her.
"I wish someone would tell me something," Leonard grumbled, but once again, it was as if he wasn't even in the room with them.
Christine smiled at Nyota, her ghostly face regaining some of its former radiance. "Thank you," she said, her soft voice dripping in sincerity as if she truly believed that Nyota would have given away her secret until this moment. "The doctor is your friend, and you trust him. We should tell him what has happened. There are parts you don't know, either."
"Finally," Leonard said under his breath.
Christine looked over to him. "We'll start at the beginning."
Nyota and Christine explained together the circumstances that lead up to all of this. They truly did start at the beginning, with Nyota reminding him of her investigations into the many mysterious disappearances in the park over the years. She told him how she stumbled into Christine, and Christine explained that she hadn't been truthful regarding her reason for living out in the wilderness. And about how she, too, was suspicious about the disappearances, and decided to team up with Nyota to try and find answers. Nyota explained how she caught Christine in her lie, and overreacted when Christine didn't want to give her the truth, and how they hadn't seen each other for a time because of that. And then Nyota explained her flight from the hunters in the woods, and her rescue by an enormous white wolf that shielded her from a hunter's bullet.
Things got more difficult to explain as they came to the part where Nyota came across Christine, bleeding in the woods. Nyota looked at Christine, telling her with her eyes that they didn't have to explain any further, but Christine went on.
"Nyota found me injured in the woods," Christine said. "I had been shot by the same hunters that had chased her. It was then that she discovered that I— I am not human."
Leonard had been weirded out, but was taking everything rather well, until now. Now he looked like she had told him she was an alien, which in a way, was what had actually happened. "What do you mean, not human?" He asked, not understanding.
"I am a shape-shifter," Christine said. "This wilderness is my home. There used to be more of us, but my family disappeared one by one. Now it is only me. I decided to help Nyota find her missing people, because I believe her investigation will lead to finding my family. I couldn't tell Nyota what I was doing out in the woods because I would have had to admit to what I was, and that could be dangerous for me, if word got out. But I was looking for her, when I saw her being attacked, and I had to help. She kind of figured it out after that."
Leonard was looking at her like she had three heads. He looked at Nyota, skeptical. "This is a joke, right?"
Nyota shook her head. "This is why she couldn't go to a hospital," she explained. "Could you imagine what would happen if someone found out what she was? She would be locked away and experimented on and treated like a monster."
Leonard shook his head, tired and unable to believe what he was hearing. "This is ridiculous. I would think this was a stupid joke if it wasn't... so insanely elaborate. But this is unbelievable."
"If I need to prove it—" Christine started slowly, but Leonard raised a hand.
"You're injured," he said. "I don't want you moving, much less... morphing or whatever it is you do. Just..." he looked at Nyota. "Are you certain that what she says is true?" Do you swear that this is real?"
Nyota nodded. "It's real. I swear on the stars and my missing twin, this is real."
"Huh," Leonard said, sitting back in his chair, his eyes adopting a far off look.
Christine looked at Nyota, confused. "He's... taking this well," she said.
Nyota nodded, looking back at Leonard. "Uh... How you doing, Doc?" She asked gently.
He shook his head, snapping himself back into reality. "Well, my worldview has shattered, but other than that..." he shrugged. "Guess it was only a matter of time before aliens or bigfoots turned out to be real. The thing that really has me is... why are you telling me this?"
Nyota raised her eyebrows at him sarcastically. "Would you ever have stopped demanding answers if we didn't tell you?"
"Fair point," Leonard grumbled.
"Besides," Christine said. "Nyota was certain that you would be able to keep this a secret," she said. "Maybe having another person who knows would help us."
Leonard shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't know how I could help. I don't know any more about this whole... conspiracy or whatever than you two do."
"You've already helped," Christine said. "You saved my life."
There was a long silence. All three of them were exhausted and carrying a conversation was getting difficult. But then, something crossed Nyota's mind. "You said you were looking for me?" She asked Christine.
Christine nodded, looking as if she had been reminded of something important. "That's what I haven't told you yet," she said. "I was looking for you because I found something."
Any sign that Nyota was beyond exhaustion vanished as her eyes lit up and she leaned forward in her chair. "What? What did you find?" She demanded in a rush.
"After you told me you didn't want to see me anymore, I kept looking for clues," Christine continued. "I was out in a boulder field when I caught this... smell. I followed it to the forest's edge, and just beyond it I found an area enclosed in a chain-link fence."
Nyota blinked, her heart beating quickly as she tried to process what that meant. "Were there any signs? Is it just some regular parks facility? Or a research station?"
Christine shook her head, but she wasn't confident. "It is far too remote to be anything normal," she said. "It's so well hidden and out of the way that nobody would have ever come across it."
"Well," Leonard said, having recovered a bit from his shock. "Nothing screams 'conspiracy' more than a secret facility in the middle of nowhere."
Christine nodded. "I was tracking you," she said to Nyota. "I needed to tell you what I found. I didn't try to go in there. But I have this feeling that the answers we've been looking for are inside that fence."
"We have to find out what that is," Nyota said excitedly. "Will you be able to find your way back to it?"
Christine nodded and was about to speak, when Leonard interrupted. "Hold your horses, you two. You aren't going anywhere," he said sternly. "Christine is recovering from a gunshot wound, and don't think I haven't noticed your ankle," he gave an accusatory glare at Nyota, who pouted.
"It's just a sprain," she muttered.
"And you can't go tromping off through the woods with a sprained ankle!" Leonard said. "And what if you come across something dangerous? In fact, it sounds like you're specifically going out to find something dangerous! You don't know what that thing is, and if someone tried to kill you just for looking, what do you think is going to happen if you're caught out there? You wouldn't even be able to run away."
Nyota huffed, but Christine nodded grimly. "He's right, Nyota," she said. "Even if you could walk on your sprained ankle, I can't even get out of bed unassisted."
Putting her face in her hands, Nyota let out a deep sigh. "We're so close..."
"We can go when we've recovered enough," Christine assured her. "They've been hidden for years and years, they can stay hidden for a few more days. It's not like they're going to pick up and move their base."
"I suppose you're right," Nyota said, still seeming dejectedly.
"Thank god," Leonard said. "I was worried I'd have to restrain you."
Nyota ignored him, suddenly getting an idea. "We can't go out there until we're healed enough, but that doesn't mean we have to sit on our asses twiddling our thumbs," she said, grinning. "I have a call to make."
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