Terranovus

It was someone calling my name that brought me back to consciousness.

I gingerly opened my eyes and reeled at the chaotic mess of metal and steel. I looked down at my body, and though I couldn’t see any major damage apart from a few minor scratches, I wriggled my toes, legs and fingers then arms to make sure and realised it was a miracle that I was still alive.

I heard someone shout my name again but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. To the right, or left? I felt weirdly disorientated. Was I upside down? I couldn’t tell.

“Hyun?” I called out. I listened but heard nothing. “Hyun!” I called out again.

I released my seatbelt and slowly untangled my legs from the maze of debris, careful not to scratch myself on the jagged and broken bits of steel.

“Tilly,” I heard Hyun quietly whisper.

I turned around and saw Hyun lying trapped underneath a steel beam a few metres away. I scrambled over my seat towards him and noticed how pale he looked.

“Let me get you out of here,” I said and went to heave the metal beam off him. Hyun snatched my wrist away.

“Don’t,” he warned and grimaced in pain. Confused, I looked down at the beam again and gasped as I took in the pool of blood that was gathering at his side. A part of the beam, at least three inches wide, was broken off and penetrating his chest. Hyun looked up at me sadly.

“Tilly,” he began. I shook my head and felt my hands trembling.

“There must be a hospital nearby-” I started. His chest, I couldn’t stop staring at it.

“They’ve all been destroyed,” stated Hyun. He tried to raise his head to look at me properly but winced and started coughing uncontrollably, gasping as he did so. When he stopped, he rested his head back down and I noticed specks of blood now lined his lips.

“There must be something we can do,” I insisted, “stay here and I’ll go search for help.” I went to move but Hyun grasped my wrist again.

“Tilly, I want you to promise me something,” he said so quietly that I barely heard him.

“No Hyun, wait here! I’ll be back in a few minutes-”

“Tilly!” he said forcefully. I stopped and looked back at him, not able to keep my tears at bay any longer. He looked at me sadly and gripped my hand tightly. “I want you to find Sahil. I want you to find Sahil and tell him that I love him. That everything I did was for him and he should never give up on his dream.” I shook my head furiously.

“No Hyun, you will tell him that yourself-”

“Please, Tilly!” he begged and I watched tears fall and trickle down his cheeks. I leaned forward and softly wiped them away as my heart fought with my conscious. I knew Hyun was right, help was probably miles away, but I couldn’t let him just die! He was looking at me desperately and my stubbornness faltered.

“I promise,” I said. “I promise I’ll tell him.” Hyun smiled and as he did so I realised blood was now trickling out of his mouth. He was dying.

“I promise,” I repeated in a stronger voice, ignoring my own tears trickling down my cheeks. “I promise I will find Sahil and tell him that you love him. I’ll tell him that everything you did was for him and that he should never give up on his dream.” Hyun continued smiling and he squeezed my hand reassuringly. I sniffed and continued, “I promise. I promise I will find Sahil and tell him that you love him. I’ll tell him that everything you did was for him and he should never give up on his dream.”

Hyun’s grip on my hand wavered and he closed his eyes to rest. His chest was struggling to rise to take another breath.

“I promise,” I said again, “I promise I will find Sahil and tell him that you love him. I’ll tell him that everything you did was for him and he should never give up on his dream.”

Hyun’s grip on my hand relaxed and I took a deep breath and forced myself to repeat the promise one last time. “I promise I will find Sahil and tell him that you love him. I’ll tell him that everything you did was for him and he should never give up on his dream.”

Hyun’s chest was no longer rising.

He was gone.

Shock, grief, anger, and guilt overwhelmed me. My mind was numb and despite feeling overwrought with sorrow, I found my cheeks dry from tears. I had no tears left. Out of all of the emotions, I found guilt tore at me the most. This was my fault. I should have listened and obeyed Philon’s orders at the dinner party. If I had, the missiles wouldn’t have launched.

I let go of Hyun’s hand and was surprised to see he looked surprisingly at peace, and for that I was thankful. I’m not quite sure how long I stayed there staring at him, perhaps it was seconds, minutes or hours. I was in my trance when I heard someone call my name in the distance.

I turned puzzled and looked out of the cracked cockpit window but saw nothing but rubble.

“Tilly!” the person called my name again. The voice belonged to a male. Was it Philon? Had he come to rescue me again? I heard footsteps approaching.

“Hello?” I called out.

“Tilly!” the person said again and this time a pinprick of recognition reached through my muddled mind.

“Tommy?”

His face appeared through the smashed glass of the cockpit window. My heart leapt and soared and crashed in a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It was him.

“Watch out,” he warned and he kicked his foot forward and smashed the rest of the glass. He leaned down again and held out his hand for me to take. “Come on,” he said, “your fuel tank is leaking and the jet may blow at any second.”

“But Hyun-”

“Leave him,” he said forcefully. I turned back to Hyun, mentally apologising, but knew he would understand.

“I promise,” I whispered to him one final time and turned away. I crawled out of the cockpit window and Tommy helped me to my feet. As I took his hand I realised his hand felt bigger and more muscular than I remembered and it was covered with calluses. I went to hug him but he stopped me.

“Come on,” he said and led me away from the aircraft. We jogged over rubble and came to a rest behind a half-collapsed wall. Tommy turned to me and looked at me sincerely.

“Are you hurt?” he asked as his eyes flickered to all of my limbs, checking me over.

“No,” I said and admired his face which had changed so much within these past few, how long had it been? I’d lost track. He looked older, more mature, and more ... alert.

Suddenly he leaned forward and started kissing me, at first I was shocked and surprised, but then disgust took over and I pulled away. He looked confused and a little hurt.

“I...” I started to explain, “I just can’t. Not now.” My head was still swarming with thoughts of Hyun, the Army, the resistance, the missiles...

Suddenly I became aware of the cries of help and pleas of mercy all around us. I saw children, women and men, frantically pulling and tugging at the rubble, desperate to reach their loved ones. My heart poured open and an overwhelming amount of guilt washed over me.

“I couldn’t save them Tommy, we tried but we didn’t reach the missiles in time, there were too many of them...” I started to explain.

“Shh,” he comforted, “you don’t need to explain. I know. This isn’t your fault.”

I looked up at him questioningly. The initial shock and surprise of seeing him slowly wearing off.

“How-” I went to ask but Tommy shook his head.

“I’ll explain another time,” he said. He then looked down at his Ingo and started typing something but I continued to stare at him. How did he know this wasn’t my fault? What did he know?

His Ingo vibrated in seconds later and he swore angrily.

“What?” I demanded but the sound of fighter jets flying fast and low towards us answered that. I saw too and ducked my head as they flew over. There were five of them.

“They know Hyun’s dead and they want you dead too,” Tommy read off his Ingo. I looked up at the sky confused, how did they know Hyun was dead?

“Who are you talking to?” I asked him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said and he took my hand again. He pulled me along and guided me through the debris and rubble at a fast pace.

We could hear the fighter jets turning around and making their way back to us. Tommy glanced down at his Ingo again.

“Damn it! There’s a tracker in your neck! Why didn’t you tell me?” he yelled. I was taken aback for a moment but then I remembered the “vaccine” the nurses had given me upon arrival. “We need to get it out,” added Tommy.

“Are you crazy?” I yelled in response and touched the back of my neck.

“Do you want to survive or not?” retorted Tommy whilst still dragging me. I glanced up at the nearing jets and ducked behind a fallen wall as they passed over. They were lower this time. Tommy looked at me.

“Fine,” I said, “but you better do it quickly!”

Tommy made his way behind me and gently swept away my hair. The touch gave me goosebumps but I stayed still as he pressed his fingers into my neck to feel for the tracker’s location. He paused at a bump in the skin that I hadn’t felt before and braced myself as I saw a flash of a knife and felt it pierce my skin. I gasped then cried out as he dug it in further.

“Tommy,” I hissed between my clenched teeth.

“Hold still,” he said angrily and the words tore my heart. Who was this person? This wasn’t the Tommy I knew. The Tommy I knew was fun, smart, kind and loving. Tommy wouldn’t have been able to stick a knife into my neck without hesitating.

“Got it,” he said and stuck a bloody finger in front of my face. I squinted, the tracker was tiny. I took it from him and examined it. It was the size of a full stop. I grabbed a small piece of broken rubble from beneath my feet and used it to smash the tracker against the wall.

Tommy then ripped off his sleeve and used the fabric to bandage my neck. Once he was finished, his Ingo vibrated and I managed to read the message myself this time.

They know you’ve destroyed the tracker. Run.

In response, the fighter jets spun back around towards us and started their descent.

“Go! Go! Go!” screamed Tommy, and it was deja vu running away from the Toffs. This time in a war zone.

We ran and leapt over the rubble as fast as we could.

“Left!” yelled Tommy behind me and I stumbled over a fallen wall, banging my knee in the process. I grimaced through the pain and forced myself to keep going.

I felt a rumble shake the ground and I realised the fighter jets must have landed. Flying between these buildings would have been too dangerous, it would be easier to kill me on the ground. We ran faster.

“Quickly, head towards that building!” said Tommy and I looked over at the building he was pointing at. It was a half-collapsed office building that had a few survivors huddled near the entrance. They were watching us wearily and with worried faces. They must have heard the fighter jets land too.

As we ran towards them gunshots sounded and we ducked just as bullets passed over our heads. Pieces of glass and concrete exploded around us and Tommy used his body to shield me from the debris.

I heard shrieks and peered beneath Tommy’s arm to see some of the office survivors now lying dead on the ground. Blood poured out of the many bullet wounds and their colleagues were at their side wide-eyed. I went to lurch forward to help them but Tommy held me back.

“No,” he said. “We have to get moving.” And he pulled me away from the office block and down an alleyway instead. We ran quickly and turned a corner. I didn’t recognise any of the buildings around us. Suddenly he stopped and kneeled next to a sewage manhole cover. He began to prise it away.

“You have to be joking,” I said, remembering the time Jack almost died.

“I’m not,” he said simply and lifted the grate off and placed it to the side. He turned back and held his hand out for me to take. I glanced back the way we came, aware how little time we had. Damn it, we had no other choice.

I took his hand and looked down the hole. There was a rusty ladder that led down to the sewage pipe. The pipe itself was large enough to fit a fully grown man and had a thin stream of sewage running through it. An overwhelming stench of sewage filled my nostrils and forced myself to swallow back some vomit. This is nuts, I muttered under my breath. I positioned myself over the ladder and started my descent down. Once safely on the ground, I called out to Tommy and stood back to watch him carefully climb a few steps down and stop to replace the manhole cover. Seconds after he did so, we stilled at the sound of running footsteps and watched half a dozen soldiers run over the sewage hole. Their shadows danced across the sewage waters. We waited and only breathed a sigh of relief when each and every footstep was out of earshot.

Tommy turned to me and jumped off the ladder and embraced me in a tight hug. We had made it. His hand stroked my back a few times before he pulled away and looked at me with one of his old soft, loving and caring smiles. I smiled back but froze at the sound of footsteps behind us. Petrified, I spun around ready to fight but immediately relaxed at the sight of a grinning Jack and Simon. They were closely followed by a group of people I didn’t recognise.

“Ayup!” cheered Jack. “Glad to see you’ve finally joined us, took your time didn’t you?”