“We were running.” The powerful winds were growing even stronger, blowing snow and earth all around them – so much that they couldn’t see ahead or behind.
“Don’t let go!” she’d shouted over the roar of the wind.
Then he lost her hand, lost her grip – stopped – spun around searching. Where was she? Why had she let go? He called out her name, but couldn’t even hear his own voice over the howling wind. He felt around for her frantically, blinded.
“I found her on the ground, I couldn’t see her, but I could feel her arm, her head, her hair.” He shut his eyes again, tears welling as they had then, but the pain was different. “There was so much dirt in the air!”
There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could go. In the continuous roar, he kneeled over her. Tried to wake her, tried to find out what was wrong with her. Her whole body had gone limp. He couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. He held her close to him, opened his eyes a crack – to look into hers.
Kaelin’s eyes were open, staring.
“What happened to her?” Althea’s voice was distant, prodding his memories.
“She just fell.” It was all he could remember. “She wasn’t breathing. She was staring up at me, but her eyes…” were dead.
She was gone – and the great mech was coming closer – its roar overwhelming everything! It was too much; he scrambled to his feet and ran and ran and ran.
Traejan couldn’t sit still any longer – lurched blindly to his feet – passed the Consortia woman – right into an engine block. The sudden pain stopped him again. He held the cold metal block, leaned against it, seeing nothing through the agony of memory.
“How did she die?”
“I don’t know!” he cried out. He hadn’t seen any wound. He held her body in the screaming wind, cradling her, not wanting to leave her.
“Did you kill her?”
He whirled around to challenge. Saw the Consortia woman standing right there – hand on the block, eyes blazing.
“No!” he shouted at her. “I didn’t, I couldn’t, I loved her, I would never hurt her!”
“Then why did you leave her behind?”
He couldn’t remember! He remembered holding her, remembered the storm around them – running, running, running and never looked back – not until he’d collapsed in exhaustion: the horror, the mech, the dead – far, far, behind. He closed his eyes tight, leaned heavily on the engine, gripping it. Remembering–
“The storm took her away from me.” One moment he was holding her – then, “I tried to hold onto her, but I couldn’t. It just pulled her away.”
He felt a hand on her shoulder, squeezing softly.
“It’s all right,” she was telling him. “It’s over. It happened a long time ago.”
He loosed his grip on the hard, solid metal, looked over at her.
“Did it? Did it really?! Then why…”
