The world was dark and it didn't make sense. She remembered daytime.

Her mind sorted through the sensations of her body as it swam up from the murk of unconsciousness.

Hot day. Was she in her village in Kenya?

Arms supporting her. Gently spiced cologne. A man.

Low voices.

"Eshe?"

Eshe. Eshe was her.

A large warm hand smoothed her hair back. "How long is she normally out?"

A smaller, cooler hand felt her forehead. "A few minutes at most."

"How do you manage this when you are alone?"

"It's rare. This has only happened once in the six years I've worked for her. She said it used to happen a lot as a child until she learned to shield herself from whatever was in the ground."

"What did she see when it happened before?"

The haze had cleared enough that Eshe could feel the strain in the silence.

Finally, Leora smoothed Eshe's hair again. "We're not allowed to talk about it. It took her months to recover fully from the toll."

But Eshe was awake enough to remember now. The mass grave. The atrocities that had been committed to the people in it. The government that had lured her there saying they'd discovered fossils, but really were just trying to uncover evidence.

Leora had seen the pictures that Eshe had drawn. The pictures Eshe had to draw in order to get the information out of her head and let the emotions run their course.

Pictures that she'd drawn again of what lay nearby. Something they wanted to remain hidden. Her mind shied away from the memory.

Not yet, not yet.

She sent tentative feelers out into the ground but only sensed the calm peace radiating out from a samurai below them. She relaxed into the emotions, wrapping them around herself like a cocoon.

Although Leora vehemently denied having any sixth sense of her own, as always, the young Ecuadorian woman had known exactly how to ease Eshe's inner turmoil by bringing her here - or having Ruslan bring her here.

Eshe fluttered her lids and winced at the bright sunlight bouncing off a white wall nearby.

A shadow cast by Ruslan's head fell over her, blocking the rays. Relief washed over his face and filled his smile.

"Eshe," he said, voice cracking slightly. He moved her slightly from where he cradled her in his arms to hug her tightly. She felt the rumble in his chest from his deep voice when he said, "You gave me such a scare."

Eshe wrapped her arms around him and hugged back just as tightly. She said into his shoulder, "The intensity caught me off guard. It was so unexpected to find something like that under a park."

She pulled back and saw Leora squatting nearby, worry plain on her face. Eshe held out her arms and her assistant held the hoverboard aside as she rushed to hug her.

Leora pulled back and searched Eshe's eyes. "Are you okay?"

With a nod and a gentle squeeze to the younger woman's hand, Eshe said, "I will be. I know you'll make sure of it, my little-mom."

The apples of Leora's cheeks turned red at the good-natured teasing. "Just doing my job."

Eshe squeezed Leora's hand again in thanks, "You do much more than that. I'm grateful to have such a wonderful friend in my assistant."

Ruslan said, "I've sent Joey to get you food and a drink. Do you need anything else? To rest?"

"Yes, but I need to face what I found first." She smiled at Ruslan and moved off his lap to sit on the bench beside him.

"Are you sure you're ready?" Leora asked, concerned.

Eshe leaned over and patted the ground. "Our samurai friend here has been a very good influence."

Ruslan blinked in surprise and stared at the ground hard, as if he too could see down into its depths. "To see what you see!"

A shudder wracked Eshe as a brief glimpse of what lay below the park popped up. Ruslan smiled apologetically then wrapped an arm around her, giving one quick squeeze, but left it touching her back draped along the top of the bench.

Holding her hands together in a yoga prayer position, Eshe closed her eyes, took a deep breath and centered herself. After a few moments, she looked at Leora and said, "Let me see the papers."

"Most of them make sense, but I've never seen you write letters before."

"What?" Eshe took the stack Leora held out and riffled through them. As expected, many were filled with people in various death poses. Some were barely recognisable as human. Then came the pages upon pages of letters stacked in columns separated by lines.

"Do you know what it is?" Ruslan asked.

Eshe shook her head. "No, but I can find out." She rose and looked at Masahiro who sat quietly nearby, looking guilty. "Where is the park?"

He got on his hand and knees and touched his forehead to the ground. "Eshe-san, I am so sorry that you became upset. I only wanted to help such a wonderful person. Please forgive me."

Eshe bent and gently pulled on Masahiro's elbow. "I forgive you, but there is nothing to forgive. This is normal life for me. Since the day I was born. Please take me back to the park so I can figure out what I've found."

WORD COUNT 996

Masahiro got to his feet and nodded. He quickly gave them directions, then gave a small bow and said, "I will go find Joey-san and tell him where we are."

Ruslan looked down the road behind them. "Yes, where did Joey go? He said he knew a store nearby, but he's been gone a long time. "

"Do not worry, Ruslan-san. I will find him and bring back drinks for everyone." With another small bow Masahiro rushed off.

Eshe caught the remorse on Masahiro's kind face before he hurried away. "I hope he doesn't feel too bad. It's not his fault." 

Within minutes they approached the park. Its facing benches and swing set looked so innocuous. A large rat ran across the packed-dirt ground making Leora cry "Ahh!" and jump back before it disappeared under the hedge on the far side.

"That was a very large rat!" Ruslan exclaimed, turning astonished eyes to the women.

"I hate rats!" Leora said. "We had many problems with them in my village."

Eshe squeezed her hand in reassurance. "It's gone. Let's focus on what is here."

With the pages she'd written earlier in hand, Eshe took a deep breath to prepare herself for the onslaught. As she walked forward into the park, closely followed by Leora and Ruslan in case she fainted again, she allowed single images and emotions to wash over her with every step, giving her snapshots of what had happened.

In the centre, she dropped to a knee, closed her eyes and put her hands on the ground. Her consciousness sunk down through the dirt and stone. She allowed it to balloon out to embrace the entire area so she could read everything at once.

"There was a laboratory. They made a biological weapon. One of the scientists felt remorse for creating something so deadly. She knew how it would be used."

Eshe leaned into the ground and allowed the impressions of the grief-stricken scientist to fill her. Eshe clutched at her chest at the depth of the dead woman's emotions.

"The virus acted quickly. It did terrible things to the subject's bodies...convulsions and spasms that broke their backs. Internal organs and skin liquefied. Vomiting blood.

"She knew the antidote was only to protect the people who would weaponise the virus. Innocent people would suffer. Children would suffer. Pictures of her niece and nephew finally made her act. The guilt of inflicting that suffering on someone else's family finally got through to her.

"It was such secretive work, no information was allowed to leave their lab, so she decided to destroy every trace of the virus. One night she destroyed the samples and wiped the computers. Used acid to destroy the paper records and subject's bodies.

"Then she sabotaged the communications room so no one could send out a message. The next day when she knew everyone was at work, she engaged the emergency lock-down procedure to seal the entire level." 

She looked up with tears streaming down her face. Ruslan and Leora automatically dropped down on either side of her and held her hands.

"Some kind of foam-like concrete filled the elevator shaft and all the ventilation shafts. Even a few rooms. While that was happening, she went around setting as many fires as she could. Everyone was trapped. If they didn't burn, they ran out of air!" Her voice broke into sobbing.

Eshe sensed Leora nod and then Ruslan scooped Eshe into his arms as if she weighed nothing more than a child. She buried her face in his neck, leaning into his strength, and held out a hand to anchor herself to Leora as well.

Eshe raised her head. "We must never tell anyone of this place. There is nothing to dig up. The letters I wrote are-"

Masahiro ran towards them, voice full of stress when he called,  "Eshe-san!"

He looked back over his shoulder before his frantic eyes locked on Eshe's. She stood up in the face of his fright.

Leora rose and took a step to meet him. "She's okay, just upset."

"We must go. Now!" the Japanese man said forcefully. He grabbed Eshe and Leora's hands and pulled. "Follow me quickly. We must leave before they come!"

1780 words   (Round 2: 818 words)