Joel Adrian - A Shattered Future

They both looked up to see a red-eyed Tanner enter the vicinity. His eyes were sunken into his face, and his hair was messily laid atop his head.

“Hey,” Emersyn said, standing up. “I’m so sorry.”

“She was my best friend. I loved her like a sister.”

“She’s in a better place now, amigo,” Catalina offered.

Tanner scowled at her. “To hell with that. She should be here! She was only 23 years old. 23!”

He groaned and planted his back to a gnarled tree opposite theirs. He slid down to the ground, burying his face in his hands. “Bravon’s not doing good. That b—” He stopped himself, looking up at Emersyn. “Mona just doesn’t get it.”

Nodding, Emersyn moved to stand between Tanner and Catalina. “No, I get it. At first, I could only see traits of myself in her, and I sort of… admired her. But she’s cruel, emotionless. We can’t do that.”

Tanner scoffed. “I don’t know what else we can do. She’s the only one who knows how the Requiem gem works. If we strike off on our own, we’re going to get caught in a nuclear war.” He looked up, exchanging glances with both Emersyn and Catalina. “I don’t know about you two but I don’t plan on getting blown away by some Russian bomb.”

“We’ll get back,” Emersyn said. “We just need to get her back to reality. I think she’s been in wars for so long, she’s forgotten how to respond… normally to these things.” Emersyn always felt pressure to not refuse people and avoid confrontation. Mona not only couldn’t care less, but she seemed devoid of any standard emotion when it came to death.

“Let’s go talk to her, yeah?” Catalina said. Emersyn offered her a hand, and she took it, standing.

“You guys go if you want,” Tanner said, “but I need to be alone right now.”

Emersyn looked the blonde-haired Specialist. She felt for him and wished she could think of the right words that would comfort him. But seeing a close friend, a comrade, killed like that… she doubted anything she could say would be of any help.

She let a hand trail down to pat him on the shoulder as she walked by. “We’re going. Just don’t stay out here too long.” Emersyn knew how addicting isolation could be, and she would never wish it on anyone.

Mona was going through the items they had at the clearing when Emersyn and Catalina approached. She turned, grunted at them, and continued.

“What’s the plan here?” Catalina asked, stopping next to Emersyn.

“Continue back to the mountain,” the older woman replied. She tossed a magazine of pistol ammo into a pile. “Get you guys home, hope that word of mouth is enough to stop this war.”

Emersyn exhaled loudly. “We can’t just forget Naomi died. Bravon’s not doing great. We need to help them.”

Mona held up a finger and turned. She stuck the finger at Emersyn. “One, you need to listen to me because I’m the only one who's been to both worlds. Two, Bravon made it clear to me that if things went south, I’m to get you guys back ASAP. Leaving you trapped here to get blown away by the bombs isn’t doing anyone any damn good.”

“Hey, who’s getting’ blown away?”

Joey Del Core had made it to his feet, and he waddled over to the group. He spotted Bravon’s wounded body and Naomi’s corpse. He spent all of two seconds studying them, then continued like they were dead insects.

Mona’s eyes flared at the big man. “Just sit down, Joey. We’ll get you home, don’t worry.”

The Italian mobster’s jaw opened in shock. He looked like someone had just smacked him across the face. “What did you—”

“You heard me,” Mona said. She nodded towards Bravon. “He might have thought it was okay to ask you to do things and warn you. I’ll tell you the way it is. Anything you’re about to spew isn’t going to help, so just shut it and go sit down.”

Joey’s fists clenched. Catalina stepped past Mona and put a hand on one of his meaty wrists. “It’s not worth it, ese. We need to work together to get out of here, okay?”

Joey didn’t spare her a glance. “Nobody talks to me like that. Nobody!”

“Back off, you overstuffed sausage.”

The group turned to see Tanner emerging from the thick brush that fed into the woods. Emersyn noticed he didn’t look any better—his eyes were redder than before—but seeing him rejoining the group was a step in the right direction as far as she was concerned.

“The hell did you just call me?” Joey asked, his cheeks flushing red. Emersyn could see the anger swelling in the obese man.

Tanner didn’t hesitate to ball his fists and start towards the man. Despite Joey Del Core being three times the size of Tanner, the Specialist didn’t seem phased. “Sit your ass down. We’re already down two men, don’t make me make it a third.”

Joey Del Core swung a hard right into Tanner’s face.

Specialist Tanner Highwall collapsed to the ground, out cold.

Joey turned, sticking a fat finger at Mona, Emersyn, and Catalina. “Now, I’m done with this ‘sit down and stay out’ crap. I’m on the mission, just like you folks. I’m tryna get my bid reduced! I got a family, too, ya know that?” The big Italian man folded his arms and looked them over. “Might even be some help if ya let me.”

Emersyn glanced from Mona to Catalina. She could tell neither of them wanted anything to do with the mobster Joey Del Core. But she knew the severity of the situation. She didn’t agree with Joey’s decision to knock Tanner out, but the last thing they needed right now was to poke the bear.

She stepped forward, motioning to the group. “Um, Joey, we’re all exhausted and we’re in a bit of a shock right now. None of us expected things to go south this quickly.” She studied his unchanging expression. “You’re right though. We need to work together. I’m sorry we excluded you.”

Mona looked at Emersyn, disgust strewn about her face.

Joey shrugged. “Water under the bridge, cute thing. What we doin’?”

Emersyn pointed at Bravon. “Right now, he’s not looking so hot. He got impaled when we transferred through. Stick was stuck right here.” She put two fingers on her lower left abdomen. “We tried to stop the bleeding, but, well, we weren’t too successful.”

The big man sauntered over to the body of Bravon Pearson and looked it over. “I seen a lot of guys die before. My guys. I don’t think we need to add another one.”

“No,” Mona interjected, “we need to get back.”

“Just how are we going to do that?” Emersyn asked, not trying to hide the annoyance from her voice. “A, we haven’t gathered any of the evidence we need. B, Naomi is dead for Christ’s sake, and C, Bravon’s down for the count. We can’t move him.”

“I could,” Joey offered.

Emersyn and Mona both turned to the big man, surprised. Emersyn could see Mona narrow her gaze almost immediately, not trusting the big man.

“Y-you mean, you could carry ‘em?” Catalina asked.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Joey looked the aging Sergeant Major over. “He’s what, a buck eighty? I could do it. Maybe not for miles and miles, but I could do it.”

Emersyn, Catalina, and Mona all looked at one another.

“Ain’t like we got a better plan,” Mona reluctantly admitted.

Emersyn put a hand out to stop her from walking away. “Whoa there.” She stepped forward. “I still don’t think we should just leave. We need to gather this evidence.”

Mona sighed. “This man’s dying and you wanna hang around?”

“No. There’s five of us left. I say two of us start trekking back towards the mountain. Let’s be realistic, Bravon’s gonna slow that group down a lot.” She turned and pointed east of their current position. “I think… yeah, that’s gotta be where the road we came in on is. The other three head down there. As soon as we hit a town, or people, or something, we gather intel. We’ll use our phones to take pictures, videos, whatever.”