Our Future
Chapter 16: Return of the Dead

“Hello, Nathan,” Melody whispered.

It sounded like her, it looked like her. But it couldn’t be her, she was dead. She had begged me to kill her. I shot her in the head. I notice the white circular mark on her temple. Was it really her?

I was in shock and Gabriel wasn’t much better. I don’t know if he felt threatened by Melody’s return or just shocked. He’d been there.

“Are we delusional?” Gabriel asks sounding scared.

“Not unless it’s a collective delusion. This is impossible, I shot her. She should be dead,” I reply.

“Gabriel, nice to see you,” Melody continues.

Toby seems nervous about the whole situation.

“Well, I’m going to go,” adds Daniel confused by our silence.

“How are you alive?” Gabriel asks nervously.

“You can thank him for that,” she says pointing at Toby.

He glances away nervous.

“What did he do?” Gabriel asks.

“He’s an angel, he can revive people,” she continues.

Was it Toby who attacked Gabriel? That didn’t seem like him. It wouldn’t have been like Melody to do it either but I was unsure about the revived one.

It wasn’t surprising I had more angels in my family bloodline; my parents had to get from somewhere. My grandparents probably passed it on to their kids and ended up in me and Toby.

I’m still in shock and haven’t spoken.

I was unsure about this new development. How were we going to tell her I was gay? That brought back the question of whether she still loved me, too or if she expected me to be dead.

She came closer to me and hugged me. Her body was warm against mine; she was definitely a living breathing human being. But I no longer felt the same attraction I had three years ago. I nervously hugged her in return, even if I didn’t love her anymore, I had still missed her.

I watched Gabriel restrain himself as we hugged.

We released each other but she didn’t try to kiss me or anything, which was a good sign.

She hugged Gabriel and he gently returned the hug.

“I heard Emily and Arran are here,” she stated releasing Gabriel.

“Here and in love,” Gabriel jokes breaking the ice.

“Them?” she asks.

“It’s how she got over me,” he replies.

“Sam and Anna still little and cute as ever?” she jokes.

“Anna, maybe but Sam is starting to grow up. Our mothers are alive, too,” Gabriel continues.

He doesn’t seem worried about Melody trying to steal me away anymore.

Toby is standing off to the side, nervous. He’d always been a quiet kid.

“Can we go visit Arran and Emily?” she asked.

She hadn’t asked about Quinn. Quinn had died after her, why hadn’t she asked what happened to her?

“Sure,” Gabriel replies.

Toby had met Emily and Arran a few times when he came to Gabriel’s cabin in the summer. It was like one giant sleep over. Our parents would all drop us off at the cabin for a weekend and they’d come back to get us Sunday night.

Our little group follows Gabriel to the cafeteria where Emily and Arran are eating lunch.

Melody heads straight for them without a second thought.

“Hey, Emily, long time no see,” Melody says excited.

“Melody? How are you...?” Emily asks trailing off.

“Thank, Toby,” she says pointing at my cousin.

Toby winces nervously like he shouldn’t of revived her or it’s a lie and he didn’t.

Arran gulps nervously. We all take seats at the table. It was like the old days except you could sense the awkwardness now that Melody had showed up out of the blue, risen from the ground.

I guess it was possible for an angel to revive a person but then again. I didn’t know the rules. I was worried. What if there were consequences for it? Or what if it only lasted for so long?

If Toby really did revive her, the question is, why? How had he even known she was dead? We hadn’t seen him since before the beginning of the apocalypse. It was like she was his lover, a thought came to mind then, and did Toby have a crush on Melody? Did he tell her how he felt before her death?

It made me wonder what she’d been doing. In the time before her death she hadn’t showed any signs of cheating, she was always around me and Gabriel. Maybe she’d sensed I was gay and was too scared to break up with because she might have been wrong about it. Maybe she didn’t love me anymore and it was because she had Toby. I wasn’t angry just generally confused about what had happened in the last three years since she had been ‘killed’ by me.

What had she been doing? Where had she been? Why hadn’t she tried to find us after being revived? Did she consider that a visit from her may chill us to the bone? She obviously came here not expecting to find us but decided it was time we knew the truth.

Or part of the truth.

“I’ll be right back,” I mumble.

I get up from the table.

As glad as I am to see her alive I can’t help but feel like she’s lying. Toby’s nervousness made it evident, he wasn’t one to lie or lie for you. He was an honest kid. Not necessarily perfect because no one is perfect.

“Nathan, where are you going?” Gabriel asks through the mind link.

“She’s making Toby lie about something, it’s not like her or him to lie. They were the honest people; could they be like Landon and your father?” I reply.

“Toby seems genuine but there’s definitely something off about Melody. We should figure out if he’s actually an angel. She might have told him to attack me in the alley,” he replies.

“But why would he follow her orders. Why would she want to attack you?” I ask.

“Maybe it happen by accident. Maybe she just wanted to check to see if it was me, “again he had more in her than I did.

Maybe that was because I shot her point blank in the skull as tears fell on my cheeks. She’d begged me to do it because she didn’t want to become one of those things after she was bitten. I regretted it to the day but back then I knew if I didn’t do it someone else would even if that meant Melody herself had to pull the trigger and now she was back in front of me alive and well. It made me wonder if I’d done the wrong thing by killing her or if I’d even killed her. Had the bullet missed her brain somehow?

I was still unsure Toby had revived her, it was a believable story but the question was why hadn’t they bothered to tell us what an angel was and show us his wings? They didn’t know we were angels or at least they shouldn’t have. Had Daniel told them? It seemed unlikely but who knew?

“That means we have to get Toby away from her. How are we going to do that?” Gabriel asked.

“Leave and then signal to him, you remember? We used to sneak him out of his house when we were younger,” I reply.

When me and Gabriel were younger Toby’s mom, my aunt, was very protective of her only son and this resulted in her not letting him go outside unless he was dressed for the weather. This meant, in his case, that if it was sunny in the middle of winter he wore sunscreen. Ridiculous, right? Who wears sunscreen in the winter? Toby did if he didn’t sneak out of the house. We’d climb the trees on the side of the house and check to see if his mother was distracted and he’d sneak out the back and into the back road. He’d wait there for us and we’d join him after sneaking out of the tree.

The link went silent and I pulled up the mind map and watch Gabriel’s mind separate from the group and then Toby joined him ten minutes later, they found me easily. I closed the mind map down.

“Hi, guys,” Toby mumbled still nervous but less so than when he was around Melody.

“Are you an angel?” I ask calmly.

“Yeah, but I didn’t revive her. I don’t know what she’s talking about. She showed up one day, all bloody and she claimed to be dying and being bitten but she never turned. She recovered and said the injuries must have made her hallucinate. I asked her where you guys were and she said you were dead. This was a lie, obviously. She’s not herself, I don’t know who she is,” Toby replied nervously.

“I hate to say this but she might be dangerous, we’ve encountered people who look like people we know but aren’t them,” I comment quietly.

“What are we going to do?” Toby asks.

“Confront her,” Gabriel suggests.

“Have fun,” I comment waving.

“What? We can’t wait for something to happen we need to know why she’s lying now,” Gabriel replies.

“At some point you guys have to tell her the truth, too, don’t you?” Toby mumbles.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re gay, aren’t you, Nate?” he questioned. “It wasn’t obvious before but it kind of is now. Melody always suspected it but trusted you would tell her if you were.”

“We have to figure out why she’s lying before we tell her anything,” I reply.

“You are though, aren’t you?” he whispered nervously worried he’ll anger me.

“Yes, Toby, okay?” I reply annoyed and nervous.

“Great, so, who wants to go get Melody?” Gabriel asks.

I look at them and they look at me.

“No, just because she used to be my girlfriend doesn’t mean I should do this, no, I’m not going to do it. Nope, not happening, never,” I say crossing my arms.

“Nathan, come on. You knew her best. She’ll listen to you,” Gabriel tries to convince me.

“Maybe she’ll kiss me, too,” I mumble.

He’s going to be mad I said that.

“You guys don’t have to worry about that, she likes me. She told me a few days after she showed up all bloody. We haven’t done anything because I was nervous that I’d be betraying you,” Toby whispers.

“I don’t care what you do with her as long as you don’t hurt her. But I’m not doing this,” I yell annoyed.

I walk away back towards the room Sam and Anna are in. I enter quietly. Anna looks up.

“Where’s Gabriel?” she asks worried.

“He’s fine, Anna. He’ll be back soon,” I tell her calmly and quietly.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m just a little annoyed with people right now,” I whisper.

“Is it Gabriel? Is he annoying you?” she asks.

“Kind of but don’t worry we’re fine,” I whisper, sniffling.

I hear the door behind me screech open. I sigh.

“Nathan, you have to do it, please,” Gabriel pleads.

“Why? You know her as well as I do. Toby should do he’s been with her for the past whatever. He obviously knows her better if she likes him,” I say in a dead tone voice.

“Nathan,” he said in a ‘like I should know better’ tone.

“I’m not doing it,” I repeat.

“Why then? Tell me, why?” he asks.

“You know why, you idiot. You can see inside my mind. You know why,” I yell pointing at him.

“Just cause I can read minds doesn’t mean I do it all the time. I like to give my boyfriend privacy because I know I wouldn’t like it,” he pleads quietly in return.

“I didn’t ask for privacy, when you decide to use your power for what you’re supposed to I’ll talk to you. Till then I’m not talking to Melody,” I yell and storm out.

I end up on the roof somehow. I find Daniel there, Joey isn’t anywhere in sight oddly.

“So who were your friends?” he asks.

“The guy was my cousin, Toby. And the girl was an old...friend,” I reply quiet.

“Now is that ‘friend’ or ‘girlfriend’?” he asks.

“She was my girlfriend. We never officially broke up. She got bit at the beginning of the apocalypse and begged me to shoot her and I did,” I say calmly and point to my temple. “Point blank in the head, so she should be dead. But here she is alive. And now comes the matter of ‘why is she alive?’ She said Toby was an angel and that he had revived her. Now Toby is an angel but he said he didn’t revive her so we need to figure out why she’s lying and they want me to ask her why. I don’t want to because...if I ask her I’m scared she’ll feel the need to ask me whether I’m gay or not. It’s not usually normal to come out to a dead person and I wasn’t prepared to do this because I thought she was dead.”

“Doesn’t she deserve to know?” he asks.

“Yeah, but if I tell her I’m afraid she’ll think she was a disguise for me when I was too scared to come out,” I whisper. “I did love her, maybe not in the romantic kind of way but I did love her. I probably just didn’t realize it because I’d never been in a relationship before with anyone and I was afraid of what others would say.”

“And you don’t want to tell her because you’re worried she could use this to blackmail you or what?” he questions.

“I don’t know if it’s her. We’ve run into people before who look like people we know but aren’t. Landon’s one of them, he looks like my dad but he was faked into it. He was told I was his son by a clone of Gabriel’s father. He lost his memory and he was told these things,” I answer.

“So where’s this clone now?” he asks.

“We don’t know we kicked him out. We let Landon stay because he seemed harmless,” I reply.

“You know your friend went for a walk, right?” Daniel asks changing the subject.

“What? Melody?” I question confused. “A walk? Where to?”

“I don’t...know. She just kind of left. I tried to stop her and ask her what was wrong but she just kept walking,” he answers.

“No, no. Outside the fence?” I ask worried.

“Yeah, she was armed, wasn’t she?” Daniel responses.

“I don’t know, probably. Don’t know how she would have survived otherwise,” I whisper rising and proceeding to the edge of the roof.

“Where are you going?” he calls.

“I got to find her, Daniel, even if she is a clone she doesn’t deserve to die. She hasn’t hurt anybody,” I reply.

I near the edge and spread my wings. I look back at the midnight black feathers, it’s the first time I’ve spread them since I showed Daniel and Joey. I flapped and toke off.

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