When Natalia awoke, she was alone. Alone in an unfamiliar room, which was mostly empty, apart from her own rucksack and a bag that she did not recognise.
"Tals, oh my god I thought I'd lost you." Her rescuer, whomever he was, was tall, a year or two older than her and dirty blonde. He reminded her somewhat of Carter.
"Who are you?" She asked, the hurt in his eyes was badly masked at her question. "Where's Carter?"
"I- I could only save one of you, they took him... I'm sorry." his voice broke slightly. She looked away from him, why hadn't he helped Carter, he could have gone back for him, he could have done something, couldn't he?
"You should have saved him." She said without looking at him. He sighed.
"I had to help you."
"Why me? We've never met." She replied stronily, although he was vaguely familiar and something deep down told her to run to him and never let him go.
"But I... You should remember me." He looked upset. "Please tell me you remember anything about me." He begged her, she just stared blankly at him.
"Natalia, please, it's me, it's Connor." He continued. "You have to remember."
Connor... She knew that name, but from where? The boy from her dream. It was him, but older, no. She was being stupid, Of course that wasn't him. Of course it wasn't him. He was dead, that was what her dream had hinted at. He was dead, so it couldn't have been him. So who was this boy? The boy in her dream was just a dream, it had always just been the three of them. Hadn't it?
"I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are." She told him. He sighed.
"But I... What are you doing?" His eyes were wide, staring at her as she pulled herself up, grabbing her back.
"Thank you for your help, but I have to help my friends." She told him.
'Tals, answer me, I know you can hear me.'
Again, she heard Isaac's voice echo in her head. It had been too many times for it to be her mind now, but what on earth was it? Maybe she could answer it.
'Zac?'
No reply. She concluded it had to be her mind. Probably just from where she banged her head.
"you can't leave, we... We can help you." He said, she paused, turning to look at him.
"We?" She asked.
"Me and... Me and my Friend." He continued, she was watching him intently, he seemed to be telling the truth. "We have weapons, we can help you save Zac."
"How do you know about him?" She asked sharply, not only he knew of Isaac, but he knew his nickname too.
"I was your friend Tals, you, me, Zac and Nik. My friend. They experimented on all of us and when they decided Nik and then Me were 'failed experiments'. They made us forget and chucked us out, keeping tabs on us as one final experiment." The boy, Connor, paused. "Nik found me, he helped me remember." His hand grazed the scar on his neck, remnants of a cut similar to the one he had made on Natalia's neck.
"Helped you to remember?" She asked, her fingertips following the clumsy stitches he had made.
"In my neck, there was a chip, it... Well it send electrical information to my brain that told it to forget him, you have one too, so does Zac." He took a breath. "You also have one to forget me, that's why I-" he gestured to her neck. "but it didn't work."
"Then what did you take out of me?" She asked. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and unwrapped it, a small, blinking circuit lay in the centre of the fabric. "I think that's..." She didn't want to sat it.
"A tracking device." He finished. She nodded.
"Then they knew..." She couldn't finish. Because this meant her suspicions were correct. they had experimented on Carter, somehow gotten the plan out of him and put a tracking device in her, maybe all three, she wasn't sure. It explained why they had stopped after they had taken Isaac, why it took them so long to come after them, but found them with ease. "They knew."
'Natalia? Tals are you okay?' She just ignored it, she didn't want to deal with the voice in her head at that particular moment.
"Tals?" Connor reached out to her, she pushed him away.
"They knew." She sank to the floor, trying to stop the tears from falling. "They knew." She repeated once again. Her dreams of freedom and normality were slipping away from her, just like that.
"We should go, We're maybe a day's walk from our safe house." Connor told her, she shook her head at him.
"It was all just another experiment." she pulled the faded cuffs of her jumpsuit over her hands. He looked at what she was wearing.
"You kept it." He muttered, crushing the tracking device under the heel of his boots.
"What?" She looked up.
"My jumpsuit, the one I gave you." He said, throwing the pieces of the tracker out of the window. "You kept it."
"I'm not going with you, I'm going to get Isaac and Carter back." She told him adamantly.
"You're not strong enough, and you can't do it alone." He tried to reason with her. "Please let us help you."
She shook her head, not saying anything else.
'Tals, I know you can hear me.'
His voice, she could always hear his voice. She decided to try again.
'Zac?'
'Tals, are you okay? They just brought Carter in.'
'I'm fine.'
She stopped focusing, turning her attention back to the boy in front of her.
"If I go with you, do you promise to help me save my friends?" She asked slowly. He offered her his hand.
"I promise." He said, smiling as she shook his hand.
"Then we'd better get going."