The Ascent

Chapter 42

The people suddenly surrounding them were just terrifying dark shadows at first, but Jasmine was pretty sure that none of them were bald. However, whether that was a good thing or a bad one remained to be seen. Besides, she was convinced that the aliens would have never used something as low-tech as a knife for a sneak attack.

Before she had the time to fully process the situation or do anything but stare in shock, a loud scream pierced the air. Instead of waning after a while it seemed to keep gaining strength, echoing in the quiet of the forest far too loudly.

"Shut her up, or we'll all be in trouble!" one of the men cried out, extremely agitated. "She'll get the aliens on our trail if she hasn't already."

Before the person whom he addressed to silence Ariyana had the chance to do something they might all end up regretting, Jasmine promptly moved to Ariyana's side, putting her hand over the girl's mouth while quickly whispering in her ear.

"This is just a silly game that adults do to see if someone can join their game so that they can go on playing together," Jasmine said, clumsily thinking up the lies on the go, which wasn't an easy task for someone as honest as she was. "They would never hurt your daddy. They just want to see how brave he is, and that's why you need to be fearless too."

Knowing this was up to her, because Asher had other things to worry about (such as not being murdered in cold blood by a bunch of jumpy humans), Jasmine felt very anxious about making a mistake in dealing with a panicked child, but she did her best to hide it.

"Right Isaac?" Jasmine asked, realizing after a short inspection that he was more composed than the other boy.

"Sure thing, I heard adults are crazy like that," Isaac said nonchalantly, although Jasmine was pretty confident that he didn't even hear everything she whispered to Ariyana even though he was close by.

Finally, Jasmine removed her hand from Ariyana's mouth, relieved to notice it was closed with no sound coming out of it. It was progress.

"Really?" Ariyana asked beseechingly.

"Really," Jasmine said, while her heart broke for lying to the sweet little angel. "If we just pretend, play along, and do as we are told, everything will be fine. Okay?"

"Okay," Ariyana said, nodding her little head vigorously.

In the meantime, the conversation between their attackers and Asher had continued, and Jasmine missed the most vital parts of it. From what she could tell, they wanted to check if they were aliens or alien-adjacent. How that was to be achieved with a knife under one's throat was beyond her.

On the other hand, the world had turned into a very dangerous place, and being overly cautious could mean the difference between life and death. Not everyone was like Jasmine and her group, trusting their instincts and hoping for the best.

"If we pass all of your tests, will we be allowed to stay in your town for a while to rest and resupply?" Asher asked, every movement of his Adam's apple making him one step closer to being cut with the huge knife that was still at his throat.

"If you pass all the tests, then maybe," one of the guys said. "If nothing else, we can guarantee you a safe passage."

"What are the tests?" Jasmine asked, feeling a powerful need to know, stronger than any she had ever felt before.

She chalked it up to their lives depending on the tests, but part of her was unsure, part of her thought there was more to it.

"Nothing much, a few blood tests, mostly medical stuff to prove that you aren't aliens in disguise," the same guy grudgingly replied. "I'm Arson and that's Plague, and we'll be your guards for today."

"Your names are Arson and Plague, really?" Jasmine asked sarcastically before she could stop herself. "Did your parents give you those names?"

"No. When the societal chains fell off our backs, the names given to control us slid off into oblivion as well," Plague said, removing his knife from under Asher's throat but still staying very much on alert.

However, there was no need for that, neither Asher nor Jasmine were stupid enough to go against a large group of people with three children as their only backup. Furthermore, it was clear that there were more people than they could see with Plague and Arson, and trying to fight them at that moment wasn't worth the risk.

"Follow us," Arson said, leading the way swiftly, reminding Jasmine more of a soldier than the actual soldiers they met.

"Alright children, we are going to go with these men to check our health, see if we are fit enough to play their game," Asher said, trying not to lie to his children but also not to scare them too much.

The truth was that they didn't know what they could expect if things didn't go well. According to Jasmine's movies and novels, they could be murdered in cold blood or worse.

There were far worse things that could be done to them and Jasmine refused to even think about them.

Still, they all obediently followed the strange men, two of whom must have been philosophers in another life to talk so strangely. While walking, Asher was holding both of his children's hands, squeezing occasionally in support. Even Isaac didn't protest when Jasmine held his hand as it was the encouragement that they both needed.

"Are they really going to help us?" Isaac asked quietly when Asher and his children started walking a little way ahead of them. "Or is it a trap?"

"I don't think it's a trap," Jasmine said, doing her best to calm her breathing, which was slowly getting erratic. "But it all depends on how the tests go. I think they'll probably check if we are contaminated in some way."

"And are we?" Isaac asked, his face a stern mask behind which hid a waterfall of pain.

"I'm not sure," Jasmine said, wiping the sweat from her lower lip with her other hand. "You are probably fine, but Asher and I had close contact with the aliens... So I'm not so sure about us."

"That means that if there are any bugs, viruses, and stuff like that, you could have them?" Isaac asked, his eyes getting so big that they reminded Jasmine of saucers.

"Anything is possible," Jasmine said vaguely, picking at her cuticles, not even feeling the pain even though they were already starting to bleed from the incessant scraping of nails over the sensitive parts.

"And what will they do to us if that happens?" Isaac asked, his tiny Adam's apple bobbing up and down like crazy breaking all the laws of physics, or at least that was how it looked to Jasmine.

She wished she could offer him some words of comfort but finding none of those in her heart, she decided to go with the truth. No matter how scary it could be, sometimes the truth was the only answer.

"Decontamination," Jasmine said honestly, omitting to share the type of decontamination humans were prone to.

Surely in real life, people didn't kill each other just like that, just because someone caught a virus or something.

Then she remembered those islands of death where people in the past used to leave behind those infected with the plague. Therefore, maybe people did do horrible things like that.

Instead of trying everything in their power to help them, to save them, they abandoned them at the first sign of trouble which spoke volumes about human nature.

The innate will to survive even at the cost of someone else's life, always terrified Jasmine.

It was in human nature to be selfish, and Jasmine couldn't help but wonder if history would repeat itself. After all, people never seem to learn from their past mistakes and keep repeating the same ones so they couldn't even begin to guess what they should expect.

Will they be cast away?

Brutally murdered?