Episode Three, Part 6:
Unforgivable Things

Bas breathed heavily as he ducked behind the cover of a tree, hurrying to pull the radio from his bag before it could make too much noise. He was out of breath, anxious to hear the message, almost dropping the radio down the slope of the ground. 

"Hello?" He whispered into the device. 

The voice repeated the same back, not having expected him to speak. "Who is this? Bas?" They asked. 

"Yeah." He replied. "Riverly?" 

"Yeah, it's me. Why do you have Dreea's radio? Has something happened?" 

"You could say that," Bas mumbled, hitting his head back against the tree. He glanced around, waiting until the Sovereign jumped back into sight. 

"What is it? Where are you?" Sol panicked down the line, immediately assuming the worst. Bas hadn't been quick enough to continue his explanation, allowing room for all the possibilities to fill Sol's mind. 

"No, w-we're fine!" Bas answered, resolving her panic. "Just... Stuck." 

"Stuck?" 

"Hold on..." Bas grunted, quickly halting their conversation. He looked around, staying close to the stump of the tree, glancing in every direction until he saw Dreea. 

He knew calling her name would be too risky; there was a chance that they would hear them, so he had to get her attention some other way. 

Bas stuffed the radio back into the bag and place two fingers into the sides of his mouth, whistling to get her notice. Dreea looked over, locating Bas and nodding to say she understood his gesture. When she knew it was safe, she sprinted over across the small plane of dead bush and crouched down low beside Bas. 

"Alright," she breathed heavily, "what was so important that you had to get me over here? I thought you knew the plan: follow them without being seen and get back to camp ASAP?" 

Bas rolled his eyes, retrieving her radio from her bag that he had possession of. 

"River's calling." He smiled sarcastically, enjoying their bickering as he passed her the device. 

"Riv?" Dreea asked, holding the radio close to her mouth. Like Bas, she was also keeping her voice quiet - cautious of being heard. 

"Dreea! Are you guys okay?" Sol asked, no doubt clinging tight to her device. 

"We're fine. We-" 

"I need you both to get back to Basilisk. It can't wait." 

"It'll have to," Dreea told her. 

"Look, whatever it is, you have to forget about it. Kodiak and I need to discuss strategies with you... Targo are going to come back. Rogue confessed..." 

"There's only one problem with that," Dreea said. "They're already here." 

//// 

The sky above turned dark and a cold wind swept past Elara. How long had she been sitting here now? It must have been a while because her brothers were gone. 

She looked down past her feet, debating whether or not to jump down, but it was suddenly a much further drop than she remembered. Hurrying to scramble back and walk off the roof as it merged into the ground, she found there was something pressed up against her back: a wall. 

She couldn't move. 

Elara closed her eyes and began to count to 10, hoping that she was dreaming and she would wake up soon. But she reached 10 and continued counting, knowing that nothing would change when she opened her eyes. 

What interrupted her was a voice; she couldn't work out where it was coming from. She could feel it inside of her head, but it wasn't her's, and at the same time, it hummed like it was spoken from the sky above her. 

In every direction, no matter what she did to shut the voice out, she could still hear it. Talking to herself, yelling at the noise to go away - nothing she did worked, and so she knew the only thing left to do was to listen. 

"You will be home soon." 

Her worried heart searched for a speaker, for someone she could trace the voice back to. She struggled to make sense of how she could feel so surrounded, yet so alone at the same time. 

"We're coming for you. We'll take you home." 

"Who are you!?" Elara screamed out into the night. The splash of her tears onto lips was the first recognition that she was crying. She thought she was stronger than that, but there she was - crying, trembling, gripping onto the edge of where she sat for her life. Gripping on so tight that she could feel the skin of her palms begin to blister at the pressure. 

There was a flash of lightning that tore through the sky above, and a roar of thunder that stole the breath away from her chest. She had never experienced it before and had no idea how deafening it could be, or how it felt as though the sky was being ripped apart. 

In the brief and sudden light above, Elara could see something; a vision painted into the clouds above. 

A flash of faces - too close for her to recognise, but then they were far away and walking forwards as if approaching her. She knew it then. It was the City of Targo. 

"Don't be afraid. We're coming to take you home." The voice repeated as the vision faded away. 

"No. I won't go. I won't go. I won't go." Elara muttered to herself, cradling her head in her hands, trying to escape. 

"You're the Heir-" 

"I will never go!" Her voice tore through her, scratching her throat so she could taste blood on her tongue, heaving viciously as it pulled the air from her lungs. 

Seeming to be a direct result of her resistance, alarms began to pierce through the sky. Her heart pounded along to their beat, but she didn't mind. It was so loud that even the voice had stopped. 

She would bear it as long as she had to- 

"Elara!?" 

The young girl flinched at the sudden contact, looking up to see who's hand was on her shoulder. 

Quill was beside her, but it was Wynn who had yelled her name. She looked over, seeing him standing beside Ares, a couple of feet away. She was relieved to see them but confused more than anything; it was still daytime just like she had remembered when they were sitting together, and it seemed as though barely any time had passed. 

"What are you doing?" Wynn asked. He sounded impatient at first - eager for her to follow as they tried to walk away, but his gaze quickly softened, noticing that something was wrong. She was void of the same urgency or awareness to what was going on as the rest of them were. 

"Ell?" Ares said from beside Wynn. He turned to face her completely, recognizing that she still hadn't made any attempts to get up. 

As he took a step forward, Elara shook her head, trying to straighten out her mind. The alarm she had heard in her vision was still pounding, but the only difference was that her brothers seemed aware of it. 

"You can hear that too?" She asked, her voice barely loud enough for them to hear, but they remained stumped by the question nevertheless. 

Ares looked back at Wynn, sharing a concerned look with him. What was she talking about? He thought. Of course, he could hear it.

"Yeah," Ares replied, sounding like he was asking. "Something's happening. That's why we have to go and find out what." He spoke slowly and cautiously, unable to settle the fear in his chest as he watched Quill help her to her feet. 

She wiped under her eyes completely detached from herself; everything had been too chaotic for her brothers to notice that she had been crying whilst in her vision, but they knew it now.  

Carefully, Quill guided her towards Wynn and Ares, and they all moved to reach the centre of Basilisk where everyone else seemed to be headed. 

Even with their fast steps, the three brothers managed to glance down at Elara as they walked. She was unphased by the panic everyone else seemed to be in and walked without intent or questioning at where they were going. 

"Quill, take Elara to the Sovereign's Quarters until we know what's happening. Go to the back entrance. If River or Kodiak aren't there, then get Aeryn to let you guys in." Aeryn instructed, both him and Wynnlow stopping in the tracks as they allowed Quill to pull her in the opposite direction. As feared, she followed him without defiance or a demand to see for herself what was happening, and that was yet another warning that Elara wasn't herself. 

The two brothers picked up their pace, weaving their way through the crowd that had gathered. 

"What do you think happened just then?" Wynn asked. He looked over his shoulder to see if he could still see Elara, but they had disappeared from sight. 

Ares sighed heavy with worry. "Something to do with the serum. It has to be." 

Wynn exhaled, wishing Ares hadn't confirmed his fears. "I think she's getting worse." He admitted. 

Ares came to a stop. They had pushed their way to the front of the crowd, seeing a team of armed guards surround the gates, and more at each side of the fence. 

"I think you're right," he looked over at his brother, unable to say anything else. He didn't even know where to start when it came to saving her, and that terrified him more than anything else. 

Wynn nodded, trying to refocus on what was happening. He looked towards the gates, trying to see what the guards were aiming at, noticing a lot of movement from the other side of the fence. 

His heart sunk in his chest. A gut-wrenching feeling. "Is that...?" 

Three // Part Six
She struggled to make sense of how she could feel so surrounded, yet so alone at the same time.

27/03/20.