The Ascent

Chapter 34

"Is she gonna live?" Isaac whispered when Dereck finished wrapping up Jasmine's wound who seem to have fainted in the meantime. "Tell me the truth, I am not a child. I can take it."

Even as he was saying that his lower lip trembled. However, he refused to admit to this adult, a stranger, that he was feeling any fear. After all, he could've still been a bad guy, and Isaac had spent up all the reserves of trust he had left. He refused to trust these people who looked more like children than he did.

"She'll be fine. The bullet just grazed her leg. Josef is a lousy shot... I wonder if I should be happy or terrified about that," Dereck said, the last part barely audible and ignored by Isaac.

All he cared about was Jasmine's well-being. Nothing else mattered to him at that moment because if they stayed alive, there was a possibility for a happy future somewhere out there for them.

"Are you lying to me?" Isaac asked, worry constricting his throat. "Why is she so out of it if it's not so serious?"

"I am not lying," Dereck said as the crowd slowly dispersed as the show had ended. "She must be tired out by everything, that's all. We should just let her rest for the time being."

Letting her sleep on the cold ground didn't sound like a good idea to Isaac. However, he knew that Jasmine wouldn't have liked to be carried to a more comfortable place by a stranger, so he let it go. Instead, he stayed by her side, like a dog protecting his owner.

"Isaac," Jasmine called out to him sometime later, having come to her senses, angry that she allowed herself to rest when the others needed her. "Isaac, wake up! We need to get to work."

Isaac instantly jumped up upon hearing her voice, immediately awake.

"Are you okay? They said you are okay, but I don't believe those guys. They can't do anything but carry things around. Even those guns are just for decoration or accidentally shooting someone because they don't know how to use them well. And they said it's a superficial wound, but I don't..." Isaac started jabbering on until Jasmine put her hand to his mouth to stop him.

"Isaac, calm down, breathe," Jasmine said, removing her hand. "I am fine. It hurts, but not as much as I thought getting shot would hurt, so they must be right in saying it's nothing serious, probably what they call 'just a graze' in the movies."

Even as Jasmine said that she couldn't help but wince in pain as she managed to move her leg just the wrong way. Still, she did her best to mask the pain as she didn't want to worry Isaac, nor did she want her injury to come in the way of obtaining what they came to get.

Isaac followed her instructions, although he didn't seem to believe she wasn't in pain. Still, she was awake, and that was a relief in itself.

"Could you please get me that in-charge guy?" Jasmine said through gritted teeth as the burning pain enveloped her leg. "We need to get some information about what is going on and ask for some weapons as well."

Even though the pain was an ever-present sensation, she still wanted to do her part, to help those who needed her help the most. Jasmine refused to fail anyone else.

Having been told she was a failure her whole life, she wasn't ready to hear those painful words again because they hurt more than being shot.

Isaac looked around, spotting Dereck helping another guy load a crate of what seemed to be weapons as the others carried other supplies onto the truck. So, he ran over to the guy and pulled him towards Jasmine without saying anything.

"Easy there, boy," Dereck said, annoyed. "We must finish packing and leave, or they'll find us."

"What exactly is going on?" Jasmine asked the moment he was close enough to hear her. "Tell us everything you know. Why are you guys even here? Why aren't you fighting those things?"

"Do you really think we want to be here?" Dereck snapped impatiently. "We were called in when things started going south. We never thought... Never expected that one day we would have to fight someone, let alone aliens."

"So, you are reservists then?" Jasmine asked, seeing an opening to gain more information. "Why are you the only ones left?"

The moment she asked the question, she regretted it. Firstly, because she was sure she already knew the answer and that it would be hard for the guy to answer it. Secondly, because she didn't want Isaac to hear the answer. She wanted to preserve the little purity and naivety that he still had left. But it was too late to take the questions back.

"Yes, during the times of peace, I thought of it as nothing because I never expected to be called in, not in a million years," Dereck said, his eyes glazing over as he remembered the good old days when living wasn't just about surviving. "War was happening out there, other countries. It wasn't something that could ever happen in our own country. I was naive, I guess."

He stopped talking, pinching his nose with his thumb and index finger as if trying to stop the recollections from crushing him. As if trying to keep a headache at bay.

"Then, they called us in because some strange things were happening everywhere," Dereck said, trying to recollect all the details. "It was like unusual signals in space, strange occurrences in the ocean, and so on and on. It was like the whole world had suddenly gone bonkers. And even though they had no idea if there was any actual danger, they called us in, or at least that's what they told us. I do wonder nowadays if they knew more than they were telling us even back then but didn't tell us so we wouldn't run away."

"What did they tell you? What happened next?" Jasmine asked impatiently, sensing he had some valuable information he was sharing too slowly.

"Before the military communication systems went down, the information about the aliens came through that couldn't be confirmed," Dereck said, his eyes constantly shifting as if remembering was causing him far more unease than he was ready to show in front of a woman and a child. "It said that they had some limited shapeshifting ability. They chose to shapeshift into bald men because replicating human hairs, especially those on top of our heads, was nearly impossible. So, that is the shape they took to blend in with the humans."

Even though the information was weird and unexpected, Jasmine's eyes lit up at the fact that she was still gaining new knowledge. She finally understood them a little better. Understanding a problem was one step closer to solving it. Wasn't it?

"What else do you know about them?" Jasmine asked intently, her eyes boring into the guy with the curiosity driven by the survival instinct.

A weapon, a weakness, anything would do.

"They were here, on Earth, for a long time but chose to take action only now when they deemed that the time was right," he said, shifting as it felt like he was sharing top-secret information with a civilian, which exactly was what he was doing.

"Wow, I guess those crazy theories some people had were actually true," Isaac said, excitement lighting up his face like a spark starting a fire. "But you didn't tell us what happened to the A team, to those guys who know how and when to shoot?"

The honest questions of children were so much harder to answer because they were so pure and unburdened with an ulterior motive. Jasmine pitied both her and the soldier for being the ones to break the little boy's heart, for extinguishing the light in his eyes.

"The main military forces were taken down by the signal, but we stayed safe because we were inside the base then. The signal didn't penetrate these reinforced walls," Dereck said carefully, far more cautious in his wording than when he spoke to Jasmine. "The last information they managed to get to us was that the aliens would be targeting military bases next as they got hold of the information about the locations of all of our bases. That's why we are packing things up, carrying as much as we can on this one truck that our mechanic genius somehow made work."

"The A team is gone," Isaac said with dull sadness that ripped a hole in Jasmine's heart. "Just like my parents."

A tear rolled down Jasmine's cheek.

But there was still hope, wasn't there?