~øyne~

Lisa stared her brother for a long time. Then she closed her eyes. When she closed them, she could feel the world disappear, all of it just vanish as her eyelids brushed it down and out of sight. And when she opened them, two things happened. The first was that Erik had left her standing in the front yard; she could hear the front door closing with a loud click. The second was the soft kiss of a tear sliding down her cheek. She could almost hear the explosion when it hit the ground.

Lisa ran as hard as she could. There was no tactic to her running. She ran because that was all she could do. There was no end destination in sight for her, no path to follow, just blind, helpless fear running alongside her. Or perhaps it was chasing her, maybe that was what she was running from. Or running to. Lisa couldn't tell. All she knew was that she had to run. Run away from everything. Run away from her problems; after all, that was all she was good at doing, wasn't it? Running away. 

She didn't care where she would go, or where she ended up. 

She just needed to get away from home. To get away from Erik, to distance herself from home, to leave behind things forgotten and dreams that had never come true. She plodded along, her lungs burning, urging for her-screaming at her to stop. Her legs felt like melting gelatin duct taped to popsicle sticks, dripping and becoming useless for every step she took. But she did it anyway. She took each step, never knowing if she would just quit running in or tumble to a stop. She didn't care. 

She wanted to run forever. 

One step at a time. One pace at a time.

One leap at a time. 

She ran and she ran until she didn't notice the burning fire in the sinew of her thighs. She ran until she couldn't realize that she was running at all. One step at a time.

Then Lisa tripped.

She tore open her jeans, scraping her knee and tearing her flesh on the jagged sidewalk, the concrete ripping the fabric and cutting into her skin. Her hands burned as they hit the ground, and her legs scissored in a jumbled motion as she collapsed onto her side in pain. Four points of pain burned in her body: her right palm, her left wrist, her scraped knee, and her abdomen. The latter sensation was more of an emotion, welling up from inside of her that felt like someone inflating a party balloon too much, pushing the limits of the plastic balloon to the extent that it might burst. And if it burst. . .

Lisa lay curled in a fetal position for minutes on the sidewalk. Once she cleared the tears from her eyes and could see clearly without gasping in shallow, rapid breaths, Lisa realized where she was. She inhaled deeply. She was at the cemetery. She was at the entrance of the white picket fence that encompassed the thin rows of crude tombstones. She could see the headstones staring back at her, the vast array of names gawking at this sobbing girl that had ran from who knows where and had suddenly flopped onto the sidewalk in front of them. A McGregor, a Stanley, two Collin's, a Barr, and many more names solemnly and silently peeked through the cracks in the fence, watching what the young woman would do next. Watching this newcomer that had stumbled upon their doorstep by seeming chance.

Then Lisa heard it.

A very familiar sound that only last night she had heard so clearly. A groaning that struck a chord so deep inside of her viscera that Lisa thought she would begin to groan too. Lisa sat up and gripped the fence with the edges of her fingers to haul herself to her feet. Looking all around her, she pinpointed the sound. The graveyard was arranged in such a neat, column defined way that the keening noise caromed off the gravestones, bouncing from name after name, being exchanged by the residents of the cemetery until the sound came to Lisa. Lisa hopped the fence, ignoring the pins and needles that stabbed into her hands and her knee and trudged through the soggy grass, searching with her eyes and ears. Her wide eyed, methodical gaze scanned the rows of the grave site as she stumbled over roots and tufts of grass that clutched at her every foot step.

The groaning grew louder, decreased, then increased again. It rose in pitch, it broke and fell into a low timbre of vibrato that echoed deep across the yard. It grew in depth, in length, and then died all together, causing Lisa to stop.

She waited, turning in a slow semi-circle, and stopped face to face with a man. The man was standing ten feet away from her.

It was the man at the airport.

The man in the gray corduroy jacket.

"Surprised?" He asked. His voice was the same. Uncannily smooth and full of depth, as if amplified through a set of overhead high definition speakers.

Instead of stepping back, Lisa moved forward, her arms down, her chin jutting out as square as she could make it.

"Who are you?" She replied, her eyes slitted. "What do you want?"

The man in the corduroy jacket grinned down at her. He was at least a foot and a half taller than her. Maybe six foot eight or ten. His skin was leathery and tanned in uneven spots around his neck and head. He had bleached blond hair that made it hard for Lisa to distinguish what was white and what was blonde. He looked in between his 40's and 50's. Like Lisa's father. The stranger's eyes were a distant foggy gray, a pair that danced in place inside his sockets and seemed to send out a soothing message.

"I'm here to make sure your dad doesn't kill himself." The man said, stepping forward, his gaze becoming more angled. "Or anyone else."

"He's hurting, and he's not a murderer! He wouldn't kill anyone!" Lisa said, stamping her foot. "Why can't anyone see that! He doesn't need drugs, or-or Silver Stars or reporters; he needs his family!" Lisa felt a tidal wave surge inside her throat, like water lapping at the brim of a dam. But she ignored it, crying out,

"He needs me!"

And then Lisa covered her face and began to cry. She crumpled to the ground, sobbing like a newborn withheld from her mother. Loud, keening sounds that rivaled the groaning noises Lisa had heard only minutes ago. Tears cascaded down her face and mixed with the blood in her hands as she covered her face with her hands. She knelt just knelt in the soft grass of the cemetery. Alone.

But then she felt a hand light upon her shoulder. Another hand smoothly grip at her elbow. Pretty soon, she was standing, facing the man in the jacket, his chiseled features staring into her tear soaked eyes.

"Lisa Travers." The man spoke, his voice a soft breeze, a thrum that ebbed her sobbing. "Why do you think I'm here?"

Lisa wiped away the tears from her eyes.

"Get out of here!"

Both Lisa and the man turned their heads simultaneously towards the voice. To the far left stood First Lieutenant Don Travers, dressed in urban battle dress uniform. Lisa's eyes tried to find the outline of where her father's suit mixed in with the gray headstones, but as she did it was hard to define any shape of her dad from the waist down. The camouflage did its job well.

The First Lieutenant's hair was bedraggled, gray peppering the sides of his temples and sweat smearing his cheeks. He held a gun in his hand. But Lisa noticed it wasn't the standard Beretta M9 from last night. It was much smaller. It didn't even look like a gun at first glance, because it had no sights, trigger guard, or trigger for that matter. It was 'L' shaped and chrome plated, with a horizontal diagonal barrel ending with a muzzle an inch in diameter. It was pointed straight at the man in the corduroy jacket.

"Jack." Lisa's father said, saliva coating his bottom lip. "Who choked and made you HR?"

Lisa looked at her dad, then at Jack. She didn't dare say anything, and even if she had wanted to, she couldn't. Her lips were clamped shut and immovable.

Lisa watched her father stare at the man named Jack for what seemed an eternity before she said, "Dad. Come home. Put down the gun."

"No."

"Please-"

"No!"

Lisa inhaled through her nose sharply and glared at her father.

"Don," Jack began, eyeing the barrel of the gun in Mr. Travers' hand. "Do you know what you have there?"

"I have what's rightfully mine!" Don cursed, spitting and then retching a glob of yellow gunk. He wiped his mouth and then continued, his voice hoarse, "It's mine. You don't know what I had to do. . . to get this."

Cupping the gun with both hands, Mr. Travers' thick fingers curled around the tiny grip.

Jack held up a steady hand, palm outward, fingers splayed. Lisa noticed half of his thumb and middle finger were cut off at the joint.

"Give me the weapon, Don." Jack's voice was low, amplifying steadily inside the graveyard. "Your daughter's here, for God's sake, just put down the weapon!"

"What is it?" Lisa whispered, her lips barely moving. Her gaze was still riveted on her manic father. Jack paused, started, then stopped. First Lieutenant Travers said, "It's what kept me alive out there, in the desert, 'Lise." His voice was shaky and cracking, as if he had run a marathon. His eyes quivered in their sockets, blue balls of flame that danced in the fading sunlight. Evening was fast approaching.

"I just got word from Tech that whatever you have in your hands there is extremely unstable, sir." Jack's tone changed from friendly and affable to demanding, yet respectful. Sounding like a soldier. Like a man with a cool head being held at gunpoint. "Whatever is being used to power that thing. . ." Jack paused, licking his lips before continuing. "It's affecting you, Mr. Travers. Tech has reason to believe it's messing with your mental state, bringing upon psychosis-"

Lisa's father held the gun higher, shouting, "My mental state? I've been through hell, Hades, and Satan's bosom! What do you think my mental state is like?"

"Sir, you're not thinking rationally." 

Lisa at her father's wild eyed expression and then at Jack's cool complexion.

First Lieutenant Don Travers spat into the dirt, sniffed, and then wiped at the corner of his mouth.

 "I've never been so awake."