32A was looking at the Sun rising from the horizon while sitting by a thick and solid oak tree near the edge of a cliff where down below she saw water as far as the eye can see. She heard the sound of footsteps coming from behind and then the sound of somebody sitting next to her by the tree. She didn't even look to see who it was but just kept looking into the horizon.
"Hi again." Ilona's voice said from next to her.
32A turned her head to look at Ilona and smiled.
"Hi." 32A happily said back.
"I'm sorry if you were worried about me." Ilona said.
"Don't be. I'm sorry that I took so long to come get you. I was too scared to come get you sooner." 32A said back.
"Don't worry about that. I've found my purpose. Things are good the way they are. I have a purpose in helping people and I've saved people's lives."
"I understand. I just wished that I could have met you again."
"I wished so too. But I never wished for you to come look for me. It would have been too dangerous."
"Well, me and 31A did come to get you out and found out ourselves how dangerous the Deadland is."
"Exactly. I never wanted to see you anywhere near that place. I just wished that you two could be safe somewhere, and I knew that meeting you again would just be a distant dream."
"I really wished you could have lived together with my family. Even though I was happy the last ten years living with them, I never stopped missing you." 32A said and leaned on Ilona, resting her head on Ilona's shoulder.
"And I've been wishing that you and your brother could have been with me where I currently live and met my people, but that will most likely never happen." Ilona said.
"At least I can still be with you here. Even if this isn't reality." 32A said and Ilona went quiet for a moment.
"That's right. This isn't reality. I'm not actually experiencing any of this. I'm not the real Ilona. The real me doesn't remember any of your dreams because she wasn't actually in any of them. I'm just your memory of her."
"I know. And I accept it. I still enjoyed all of my dreams for all these years. At times I wished to stay in them forever, even though I knew that wasn't healthy."
"You shouldn't wish that way. I'm sure your family loves you and would like to have you around. You should live in the real world."
"I know. I love them and want to be with them too. Just sometimes the dreams are so much better."
"I'm sure you'd love to live in an eternal dream, but you'd always know that it's not real. Your family is real and they're actually there for you."
"I know. That's why I have to get them back."
"So you have a mission, and so do I."
"Seems so."
"You should focus on what's important at this moment and get them back." Ilona said and 32A sighed.
"I know. I do want to get them back and I do want to live with them. Getting them back is more important than clinging on to you. Sorry." 32A said.
"That's what I was getting at. I think we should say Goodbye."
"But saying Goodbye is not easy." 32A said with emotion.
"I know. It never is. And it wasn't back then. But you should value the things that are real and not the things that aren't. You need to let go."
"Let go? Just forget about you?" 32A asked and turned her face to look at Ilona's.
"I didn't say you should forget me. I'll never forget you either. I'm saying you should live in the present and in reality. And I'm not a part of your present or your reality anymore." Ilona assured.
32A sighed.
"You're right. You'll never be in my life anyway. You're well and happy where you are, and that's what matters. If you're alive, safe and happy then that makes me happy. I need to make sure that my family can have the same." 32A concluded.
"Exactly. So you go focus on your job, and I'll go focus on mine, so we can both have a happy life in reality, even if we're apart. So we should stop meeting like this and focus on our own lives."
"Just stop?"
"You yourself know that living in the dream world is not good for you."
"I know but... I don't want to leave you." 32A complained.
"I'll be fine. I'm already fine. And you'll be fine too. You had exactly what I wanted for you and your brother. Go get it back!" Ilona said with conviction.
"You always just wanted me to have what I had?"
"I wanted you and 31A to hava a humane home and a life worth living. You had it until it was taken from you but you can get it back. I'll never be a part of that life and this is not the way to have me as a part of that life."
"Well. I guess that's true."
"You don't sound convinced."
"Yeah! It is true! I can never get the past back but I can still get my present back!" 32A said motivatedly.
"Exactly! And you still have a future ahead of you. And so do I. Let's find out what they bring us." Ilona said and smiled at 32A who looked back at her.
"You're my hero." 32A said to Ilona.
"Don't make me blush now." Ilona said back and chuckled.
"I mean it."
"I appreciate that. I never thought I'd be anyone's hero." Ilona said.
Ilona then stood up and gave her hand to 32A.
"Are you going already?" 32A asked.
"What more is there to say?" Ilona asked back.
"Well, I want to say one more thing." 32A said and took Ilona's hand which then pulled her up on her feet.
"If you want to say it, say it now." Ilona said gladly.
32A hugged her.
"Thank you for making me who I am. Thank you for giving me my freedom. Thank you for being someone I can admire at a time when nobody was good to me. Thank you for helping me find my current family. Thank you for caring about me in a place where I was an animal. Thank you for showing me what is humaneness and kindness. Thank you, thank you, thank you!" 32A said with the upmost thankfulness while hugging Ilona.
"Of course! I always cared about you since the day you were brought to that facility." Ilona said and hugged back.
After a minute of staying like that, 32A pulled away and wiped a tear of melancholy off her eye.
"I never got to hug you in reality. And I never will. But I won't dwell on that. I'll go get my family back and wherever we end up, I'll stick by them, but I'll never forget my years with you." 32A said.
"And you already read that I'll never forget you and 31A either. I'll now go take care of my own people and you'll go get yours." Ilona said.
"Go do that. Go be somebody's hero the way you were mine."
"I'll try. And you could be somebody's hero someday too."
"Heh. Maybe. I don't know if I'm fit for that."
"The choice isn't always yours. But that's the future. Let's both go focus on the present and what matters now." Ilona said.
"Yeah. So... Goodbye." 32A said feeling fulfilled.
"Goodbye." Ilona said back, and turned her back on 32A to walk away.
32A stayed where she was and watched Ilona walk away further and further without looking back.
"I'll never forget you!" 32A shouted at the top of her lungs once Ilona had gotten quite far away.
"I'll never forget you either!" Ilona shouted back after turning around, and then kept walking further away.
32A kept looking at Ilona for as long as she could see her and once Ilona was out of her sight, she turned around to look at the horizon where the Sun had already risen. She raised her chin, straightened her back and embraced the new day.
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32A opened her eyes and saw the ceiling of the hut. She reached her arms beyond her head and felt that her jacket hanging from the end of the bunk had dried. She looked around and saw Ella washing her own face with water from a metal bucket by the work desk when Toivo climbed in from the window with red hands.
"Any better?" Ella asked.
"It's better." Toivo answered.
32A rubbed her eyes and cleared her throat.
"What happened?" She asked from the bunk.
"Somebody tried to get the metal bucket off the stove with bare hands and found out what hot metal feels like, and then had to go shove those same hands in the snow to ease the pain." Ella answered.
"I could heal it." 32A said back.
"I didn't want to rudely awaken you." Toivo answered.
"And if you had woken me up, I would have slapped you for interrupting that dream."
"I know. I learned it the last time I woke you up." Toivo said and mimicked the way 32A bashed his face with the old skull in the slave grave.
"That's not actually what I was talking about, haha. Sorry about that by the way. I was having a bad dream back then. Anyway, let's not waste time and heal those hands." 32A said and got up from the bunk and just looked at Toivo's hands and made the burns heal.
"That's so amazing." Ella said.
"Being me isn't always so amazing though." 32A said back.
"But can't you heal your own wounds and such? Could you even live forever possibly by just reversing the damage that aging does?" Ella asked curiously.
"How am I supposed to know? I've never been old."
"Of course. Stupid question." Ella said and slapped her forehead.
"And even though it's great that I can heal my own wounds and the wounds of others, it's not so great that I always have to stay near this goof because if I go too far away, my curse gives me unending pain. I've gotten somewhat used to that pain but there's no way I could have taken that pain for the rest of my life." 32A explained.
"Don't be angry at me. I didn't give that curse to you, probably. There's a lot that I don't remember from my life in the facility." Toivo said.
"I'm not angry at you. Don't worry." 32A said back.
"And hey, the curse has a good side too. We both always know where the other is."
"Why would I want to know where you are?" 32A joked with a smirk.
"So you're just taking back everything you said yesterday?" Toivo asked emotionlessly.
"I'm joking, I'm joking. I came back for a reason."
"And I hope that reason wasn't to come joke around. We have that problem ahead of us that we talked about last night." Ella said.
"You two have been in this area more than I have. You should know better than me." 32A said.
"Well, originally we were going to take a train but the police now knows who I am. They want me and they know what I look like and they know where we're headed." Ella said.
"To the train station then and a one way ticket to Stockholm. Understood." 32A said.
"What? No! The train station is where they expect us to go, and even if they don't find us there, they'll wait for us in the train that goes to Stockholm, and if they don't find us in the train, they'll wait for us in Stockholm's train station!" Ella said.
"That's why we'll hop off the train one stop before Stockholm." 32A said proud of herself.
"Not a bad idea, actually." Toivo added.
"Are you both crazy? That's not going to work!" Ella said.
"The police doesn't know who I am. I've yet to do anything illegal and just like Toivo, I don't even have a passport and there's no record of me in any of their database thingies." 32A argued.
"Well, good for you. So do you intend to go alone? And you'll need a passport to get that train ticket. Domestic travel has been restricted, probably thanks to us, so you'd need to show your passport to get a ride." Ella pointed out.
"First of all, I won't have to go alone if you two hide inside some suitcases." 32A said.
"Suitcases? We won't fit inside any suitcases!" Ella argued.
"Would you not? There has to be some pretty big suitcases. I've never actually seen a suitcase outside of pictures and videos." 32A wondered.
"Well, I can tell you that a person won't fit inside one. Well, maybe you might barely fit inside because of how skinny you are, but you're the only one who doesn't need to hide your face. And besides, we still have the problem with the passports."
"I was about to get there. Once we steal two suitcases, we'll likely find a passport from one of them that I can use." 32A proudly put her idea forward.
"But we won't... Fit... Inside any suitcases!" Ella insisted.
"Surely you will! Both of your heights are in the low end of the 170s. You said that I'd be the only one who could fit in a suitcase but I'm taller than you both. It'll be you two who get stuffed in there, not me." 32A said with casual confidence.
"So you really believe that this will work?" Toivo asked.
"We can think about better ideas if we have time." 32A friendlily said back.
"That's another thing. We don't know how much of a hurry we're in. We don't know what happens if we're too late or if anything happens at all." Toivo said back.
"We learned in Ilona's case that we shouldn't assume that we have enough time." 32A pointed out, with no sadness in her voice or mind, knowing that her hero is fine.
"That's actually a very good point." Toivo replied.
"So it's down to the minutes?" Ella asked.
"It might be." Both of the twins said in synchronization.
Ella took a deep breath.
"Fine. We'll try your idea. And if it doesn't work, we'll just have to cause more havoc and escape somewhere again. That's worked a few times now." Ella said, clearly uncertain about this plan.
"So are we ready to go?" 32A asked while putting on her jacket.
"I'll just wash my face and get a big sip of water but other than that, I'm ready to go." Toivo said.
"I've already done that. I'm ready to go." Ella added.
"I still have one more thing that I need to do." 32A said while putting her bottle in her jacket's pocket.
She opened the lid of the stove where the fire inside had gone out. She rubbed two fingers on a burnt piece of wood and used those two black fingers to draw a lagre black X to the front of her gray jacket.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvRhw64k0q1
Toivo did what he needed to do and then climbed out of the window. Ella took the flare gun and the pocket knife and then climbed out the window too and 32A climbed out following her.
"What are you looking at, Toiv..." Ella was about to ask but then looked to where Toivo was looking and saw three officers and a dog searcing the shore of the island in the distance.
Ella got low and pulled the other too low as well.
"How did we not hear them come in?" Toivo asked whispering.
"They must have been quiet while walking along the ice." Ella figured.
"They must have just gotten here if they haven't found that hut yet. Let's get out quietly." 32A whispered.
"Do we even know which way the train station is?" Toivo asked as the three of them were crouching behind trees and getting further away from the officers.
"There was a map of the city in that hut. It's in my pocket now, but I won't take it out now. Too loud." Ella quietly replied.
The three of them made it to the opposite end of the island from the officers without trouble and started walking across the ice and towards the nearby city. They had gotten a good distance away from the island when they heard a dog barking behind them.
"Well, time to run." 32A stated and started running on the ice with the two other running behind her.
The three officers who were with the dog were alerted by the barking and ran to their dog.
"You there! Halt!" One of them shouted at them.
"They're behind us and chasing us! And their dog is is pretty fast." Ella pointed out worriedly.
"We can't make it to the city before the dog catches us." Toivo added.
"Please don't hurt the dog, or any of them!" Ella begged.
"I won't." Toivo said and turned around.
He stopped where he stood and focused on the ice behind him. A long and wide bit of the ice was shattered into pieces, creating a large hole that the pursuers would have to go around in order to catch up.
"That should buy us some time." Toivo said and started running again.
After some more running, all three of them heard a gunshot that scared all of them. It came from behind them but nobody saw where the bullet landed.
"They're shooting at us now!" Ella souted extremely worriedly.
"I heard!" 32A shouted back and picked up speed after exhaustion had made her slow down.
Another gunshot was heard and Ella and 32A heard from behind them how Toivo screamed in pain. They both turned around and shouted his name and stopped.
"You keep running! I'll help him!" 32A said to Ella who understood what she meant and kept running.
While running to get her twin, 32A got a bullet in the palm of her hand that went right through. She screamed in pain but didn't stop. She just healed her own wound and continued. Once she got to Toivo, she put her hands under his arms and raised him and used her ability to heal his wound that was in his leg. The bullet was pushed out and the wound healed. They heard another gunshot from the direction of the pursuers but neither was hit.
"Thanks. Let's run." Toivo said.
"We'll just get shot again. I have an idea." 32A said back.
"What is it?"
"Shield me."
"What?"
"I'll use you as a human shield, and you'll keep breaking the ice behind us as we run."
"I'll get shot!" Toivo argued.
"And I'll save you every time!" 32A argued back.
"Agh, I guess that's our best chance."
"This might hurt. But you trust me, don't you?" 32A asked.
A bullet whiffed by their heads.
"I trust you!" Toivo shouted and spread his arms.
32A grabbed him and used him as a human shield.
"I'm sorry!" 32A yelled as she was dragging Toivo along.
"This is the stupidest idea ever!" Toivo shouted.
"Just keep breaking the ice!" 32A shouted back.
Another gunshot sounded and Toivo screamed.
"Did it hit you?" 32A asked worriedly.
"It didn't! I just got spooked." Toivo answered and broke some ice.
Another gunshot sounded and 32A didn't hear Toivo make a sound.
"Did that spook you?" 32A asked, but Toivo wasn't responding, only spitting blood.
32A looked over Toivo's shoulder and got spooked by the sight of the wound in his gut, but didn't waste time before healing it and letting the bullet get pushed out.
"Are you okay?" 32A asked but Toivo just looked at his stomach in confusion.
32A slapped his head.
"Get back to work!" She shouted at him.
"Sorry. I'm here." Toivo replied and broke some more ice.
There was now an even wider hole in the ice between them and the pursuers.
"You think we can make it the rest of way by running?" Toivo asked but then screamed again when he got a bullet in the knee.
32A touched the knee and repaired it quickly.
"I think we can run the rest of the way, but let's not run at a straight line." 32A suggested and let go.
They looked at where the pursers were and then ran at a crooked angle from the pursuers' point of view so that they couldn't hit them so easily and would insead have to predict their shots. Toivo kept breaking more ice behind him as they ran further away from their pursuers. The gunshots stopped coming but they kept running away anyway for a good while until 32A looked behind her.
"I don't think they're chasing us anymore." 32A pointed out and slowed down.
"I think we made it." Toivo replied exhaustedly.
"I think we did." 32A replied and chuckled weakly.
"Hey, Three."
"Yeah?"
"Are we unstoppable?"
"Probably not. But pretty close."
"I can destroy anything that is in my way and as long as you're behind me, nothing can harm us."
"So is that how you want to get our family back from wherever they are? Just bust them out by force and make me have your back?"
"If that's our only option, I'd be willing to do it like that."
"Does it not hurt?"
"It hurts a lot."
"If you wanted to do it, I'd have your back. But let's try our best to avoid that route."
"Whatever happens happens." Toivo stated straightly.
"And whatever happens, I'll have your back."
"And I'll have yours." Toivo said and extended his fist, expecting a fist bump.
"What are you doing?" 32A asked curiously and laughed.
"Isn't this what people do when they're like a team or something? I've seen it in movies."
"I wouldn't know. But here." 32A said and gave him the fistbump and laughed.44Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLYLMaAUrM4
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They both walked for some time on the quiet bright ice towards the nearest shore until Toivo noticed a distant figure.
"Looks like Ella is still there. She hasn't made it into the shore yet." He pointed out.
The two of them changed course to follow Ella and after a long walk, they all reunited near the shore.
"Are you both all right? I noticed a while ago that they stopped chasing us." Ella shouted at the twins while they were on the ice and she was on the shore.
"No permanent wounds on anyone!" 32A shouted back.
"And did you hurt anyone?" Ella specifically asked Toivo once they were all on the shore.
"I didn't. I only broke ice behind me and they gave up." Toivo promised.
"Good. And I have some good news too. We're on the same side of the city as the train station." Ella said and showed the map that she was holding.
"That is good news. So let's go." Toivo said.
"And more good news. There should be train tracks on the other side of those buildings, and we won't have to follow them for long before we find the station." Ella added.
"Well let's go then!" Toivo exclaimed.
"But let's not walk on the tracks and get ground up like coffee beans. Let's stay on the side of the tracks." Ella added and took the lead.
"I bet you miss coffee right now. It's been a couple of days now." Toivo said cheekily.
"How on Earth could you tell?" Ella asked sarcastically but Toivo just chuckled.
"So we just need two suitcases and somebody else's passport. Somebody's passport who looks like me." 32A mumbled.
"I'm starting to lose faith in this plan." Ella stated.
"You don't actually even have to look like the person in the passport if the person checking it doesn't care. Worked for me." Toivo added.
"There's no chance that would work a second time." Ella argued.
"You can't know. Maybe transportation workers are just a very unmotivated bunch." 32A suggested.
"I don't know anyone from that bunch so I can't know. I wouldn't put my faith in that." Ella replied.
"We're just about there already so we can't really change course now." Toivo added.
"I'm sure we could if we really wanted to." 32A replied.
"Well, the boat plan is obviously out of the question." Ella added.
"And I can't think of any new ideas right now. Guess we'll go with Three's plan." Toivo also added.
"So big sister is right again." 32A said victoriously and grinned.
"Big? You're not older than me!" Toivo argued.
"Oh don't you two even start. We just need to cross those roads there and the railroad is right there." Ella said and pointed forwards.
They all crossed the roads that were between them and the railroad and looked around just to see if anyone was around to see them, and then got to the raildoad.
"Just follow the one with the map. That being me." Ella said and took the lead again while they were walking by the train tracks.
"Hey!" 32A exclaimed as if a lightbulb had gone off.
"What is it?" Toivo asked.
"I might have a better idea after all." 32A said.
"Please say it. It has to be better than the other idea." Ella begged.
"Okay, so Toivo will have to destroy the bottom end of a tree and then we get the tree on the tracks. When a train comes, it will have to stop. And when the train is stopped, we sneak in without needing tickets. What do you think?" 32A explained.
"That's... Actually better than the other idea, I think. We won't have to go to the station where there might be people around, including the police." Ella answered.
"And we won't need passports or tickets." Toivo added.
"Exactly! So let's do it!" 32A said excitedly.
Ella and Toivo looked at each other and then looked around.
"Let's do it." Ella said and Toivo didn't argue.
"So just do your thing. There's a bunch of trees right here. Just get one of them down and we can drag it on the tracks and then hide behind the other trees while we wait." 32A said and ran to the nearby trees.
"This looks like a good one. It's the nearest to the tracks." 32A said and tapped a tree in the bark and the other two followed her.
"We're sorry, tree." Ella said to the tree.
"I don't know how to cut trees the right way so it might not fall the way we want it to." Toivo warned and kept his distance from the tree.
He focused on the low end of the tree and shattered it to splinters, and the tree indeed didn't fall where they wanted it to fall.
"Great. Well, nothing worth doing has ever been easy." Ella said.
"Exactly. We have six arms. We can get it on the tracks." 32A said and got ready to lift and drag the tree.
The other two helped and together they dragged the tree to the tracks with coordinated pulls while getting the skin of their palms ripped off by the rough bark of the tree.
"Whew. That was hard. But now we wait." 32A said while looking at the tree on the tracks and healing her own palms.
They all walked into the midst of the trees to wait quietly and listened for any possible sound that might come from the direction of where the train station is supposed to be.
"So when is the train supposed to leave?" Toivo asked Ella.
"I don't know. I don't even know what time it is currently." Ella replied.
"Of course. Silly question."
"Heh. It's okay." Ella replied and chuckled.
"Wait. Quiet now. Is that a train?" 32A whispered.
"It is! Oh no, here we go." Ella said nervously.
"Trust the plan." 32A reassured as the train's noise came closer and closer.
They all looked at the direction where the sound was coming from and once a train came to their vision, they all lied down. The train slowed down once it got closer to the tree and then came to a complete stop. The driver stepped out of the train and looked at the tree on the tracks. The driver then pulled out a phone and made a call. The people who put the tree there were completely still and waiting for a moment to move.
"A tree has fallen on the tracks. I'll have to drag it off and you should tell the other stations that we'll be a few minutes late." The driver said into the phone and then walked to the end of the tree and started dragging it off the tracks.
"Okay. Now is a good chance. Be quiet." 32A whispered and started sneaking towards the the tail end of the train with the other two following behind her. At the back of the train was a slidable door and a button. 32A mashed the button frantically and the door opened.
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