12.1
Smoke, ash, and dust clouded the air at the bottom of the crater. The ground was moist, so the fires wouldn't spread far.
Five had gathered: Jelani, Nikki, Yumi, Sasha, and Corvus. They stood side by side, each of their faces bearing a varying degree of blood and dirt.
But they were alive.
Now, the question of life or death rested with only one of the occupants in that pit in the earth.
The answer escaped Eve's lips in a frail, painful gasp.
Echo's hands relaxed, and she took a step backwards, releasing her daughter from her desperate embrace.
With their faces at an arms length away, Eve's eyes opened.
Jelani had never seen even a trace of a smile cross Echo's lips–until that moment.
Echo's eyes, always so cold and unforgiving, melted. She looked pure and innocent, as if she had been reborn, every one of her sins washed away.
Eve's reaction, on the other hand, was utter confusion. Her mind, thick with fog after her run-in with death, was being forced to process the impossible.
But when she recognized those pink eyes and loving smile, along with every other tiny detail of her mother's face, her mouth sealed tightly shut and her eyes shimmered.
Eve reached out, wrapping her hands around Echo's neck and pulling as close as she possibly could. She buried her face into that strong, steady shoulder and cried.
She cried the tears of seven years.
Echo laced her fingers through Eve's hair, resting her palm against the back of her daughter's head.
She closed her eyes, joining Eve as a tear rolled down her face.
"M-m-mom."
Echo responded with silence, holding enough happiness to last for the rest of her life, because her purpose was there, enclosed inside her arms.
A few dozen yards away, Nikki cried the hardest of anyone, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and sniffling as quietly as she could.
Eventually, the embrace between Echo and Eve ended. The two faced each other, conversing in voices that no one else could hear.
For the time being, they kept their reunion short–there would be plenty of time to catch up later–and they turned, hand in hand, to face the others.
"Hey," Echo said with a nod of greeting to the other five. "Are you Nikki?" she asked, turning towards the sniffling woman.
Nikki nodded and barely managed, "y-yeah. w-w-w-what's your n-name?"
"I'm Echo. Eve's mom."
"Nnff… Hic- w-w…WAHHHH"
Nikki erupted in a bawling fit, resisting the urge to leap forward and wrap her arms around both Echo and Eve with all her might.
Echo smiled at her in amusement before turning towards the dark, looming figure of Corvus.
"Corvus, huh? You're scary, dude."
Corvus bowed his head a little lower, presumably in greeting.
While all this happened, Yumi and Sasha stood, watching with their heads titled in confusion.
Echo noticed, and she turned to Jelani.
"Jelani. Why don't you explain everything?"
And so Jelani told the entire story, starting from the beginning. He told them about how, as a soldier of Hoodsdale, he'd been sent on a mission to capture rebels that ended with him as a captive. Expecting to die, he'd instead been welcomed into Blake's group and joined them on their adventures with the mysterious end objective of reaching Portland.
But then he consumed the element of death, and it took everything he had just to survive. On the top of Mt. Hood, he returned, immediately faced with a pack of bloodthirsty wolves, which he fought to the death. And just when he'd thought he'd won, Echo found him.
Despite knowing nothing, he joined her, vowing to help her chase down Blake's squad and intercept them in the center of Portland. Together, they nearly made it, but before reaching their destination, they met Yumi and Sasha by pure coincidence. In a boxy, white van, they drove into Portland, survived the twilights, and finally found the crater.
As she listened to this, Eve found her memory and watched Jelani with ever widening eyes.
He was supposed to be dead.
Jelani…
Jelani noticed Eve's gaze and smiled at her.
"Hey, Eve."
Eve grinned a little and waved her hand at him.
"Watch how you talk to my daughter, kid," Echo spat.
Jelani bowed his head. "Ah, sorry."
Echo snorted a laugh, smiling at Jelani gratefully.
Nikki almost started crying again at the sight, but she pulled herself together, reminding herself that she had to get to business.
First, she turned to Yumi and Sasha, who she had yet to introduce herself to.
"I'm Nikki! I'm so happy to meet you guys!"
Yumi pursed her lips in some resemblance of a smile and held up her signature peace sign.
Sasha glanced at her uncomfortably before turning back to Nikki, as it looked like he would have to be the one to speak. "Uh… Hi, Nikki. I'm Sasha. This is Yumi."
But there was more than one reason for his hesitation around Yumi. When they'd both been caught in the midst of that fire, she'd rescued him from what should have been inevitable death.
He'd been woozy from the smoke, but he was still certain that Yumi had done something nothing short of superhuman to save him. He needed to thank her, because he knew he would only get more uncomfortable the longer he hesitated.
But now wasn't the time. Although Sasha was thoroughly impressed by the story Jelani had told, he wasn't aware of the key, earth-shattering detail that immediately followed it.
The strangers' arrival, and Blake's departure.
It had been ignored for long enough, and now that everyone knew each other and had at least the bare minimum understanding of the situation, Nikki spoke.
"Jelani's story got a little cut off, and there are some things I want to add. Just before all of you arrived, that was when the strangers came. Blake took us to this crater, and there was a man standing at the bottom of it. Blake knew him somehow, and apparently, it was thanks to him and the other person who appeared that we even made it into Portland."
"But of course, Blake hadn't told us anything about it. He just said that they were his 'friends' and that he wanted us to work with them. Work to help him do… something."
"From the moment I met him, I was always a little suspicious of Blake, but he was impossible to read. I'm certain that he knew I was able to see through him a little, and he was constantly putting up a front, pretending to be someone he wasn't."
"You're right," Echo interrupted. "That man isn't Blake. He's Silas Black, the one who was in charge of elements in Blackpool."
At the name "Silas Black," Nikki's face fell. She'd suspected something all along, so it was depression rather than surprise that she felt.
"Well," Echo continued, "he did say something like 'Silas Black is Blake,' but the details don't matter right now."
Nikki shook her head and took a deep breath.
"Ok. Yeah, we'll talk about the specifics later. To finish my story, when we didn't agree to join him, Blake told one of those people to attack Eve. He still thought that he could get Corvus and me to join him, but he was wrong. Echo saved us, and then he just left, taking his… 'friends' with him."
"Those 'friends' were probably subjects from the Blackpool lab," Echo said. "There are definitely more than two."
Nikki bit her lower lip.
"This isn't good," she muttered. "He's gonna do something soon."
Jelani spoke up.
"Let's get outta here. We can figure this out somewhere else."
Nikki nodded, and they all agreed to stick together, at least for as long as it took to escape the clutches of Portland.