Chapter 19: Am I a bad person?

Sept. ?, 2015

Rick slowly came to in a dark room. There was a little bit of light coming from somewhere, but he couldn’t tell from where. He blinked a couple of times, trying to get his eyes accustomed to the dark. The events he had just been through slowly came back to him as if from a dream. His head still ached as he sat up, but at this point, he did not care.

“Cadi?” he whispered, looking around in the darkness. He began to feel around, realizing he was on a bed, and then there was a wall… and then… a light switch! He flicked it on without thinking, and then immediately closed his eyes in a wince as the light blinded him. He put a hand over his closed eyes and then slowly tried to get used to the light.

When he could finally see again, he found that he was in a small room with two beds and no windows that seemed a little bit run down. The yellowed wallpaper was peeling in some places, and there was a little bit of water damage in one corner. There was also a bathroom with only a toilet and a sink and no door. In the other bed, there was a small person lying underneath the covers.

“Cadi!”

Rick stumbled out of the bed he was in and staggered over to pull back the covers.

Sure enough, it was his sister.

His heart skipped a couple of beats as he leaned in closer, and then felt a huge wave of relief flood through him as he found that she was breathing. She was alive.

“Cadi? Cadi-wake up!” he whispered, nudging her shoulder. At first, she continued to sleep, but then, slowly, she started to wake up.

“Er…. Rick?” she yawned, rubbing her eyes. She tried to sit up and then put a hand to her head in pain.

“Take it easy now…” Rick told her, helping her up.

“What-what happened?” she asked, wincing.

“I’m not sure… I know that the scientists used me to pause time, but I blacked out after that and just woke up.” Cadi yawned, coming out of her daze.

“You-you paused time?” she asked. Her older brother gave her a little smile.

“I sure did. Sorry about that.”

Cadi gave him a smile, which disappeared a second later.

“Wait-they-they made me-.”

Tears filled her eyes as Rick hugged her.

“I-I could feel him dying Rick… He… he died… I killed him…”

“No you didn’t. Don’t ever think that you did. They did. They killed him.”

Cadi hugged her big strong brother, listening to his heartbeat and feeling glad that she wasn’t alone. She knew it wasn’t her fault that the man had died, but… she couldn’t help but feel haunted by the feeling of the spikes going through her body as she felt the fast forward, or the weird feeling she had gotten on her skin when she had figured out what was happening.

She gritted her teeth, feeling livid with the people who had forced her to do such an unforgivable thing.

At this moment, her stomach growled.

“How long have we been asleep? What day is it?” she asked, realizing how hungry she was.

“Hmmm…” Rick looked around and discovered a loaf of cheap bread with peanut butter and jelly with a couple of plastic knives sitting on a table stand. There were also a couple of water bottles set beside them.

“Well at least we know that they aren’t going to let us starve.” Rick said a bit grimly. “Do you want a sandwich?”

Cadi nodded vigorously, trying to get her mind off of the officer. The tears kept wanting to break through the pressure in her face, but she was tired of crying. She wanted to be strong like her big brother. It seemed like he would get them out of this. Somehow. He always was able to figure out something.

She swung her legs back and forth over the side of the bed and watched him make them a few sandwiches.

The whole concept of death still felt weird to her. She had never really known anyone who had died, and the whole thing felt weird. She did remember once when her great grandpa died, but she hadn’t been very close to him at all, and she was only five at the time when it happened. She remembered walking up to the coffin at the funeral and looking curiously into the coffin. He hadn’t looked like himself at all, even though people kept saying that is simply looked like he was sleeping.

For some reason, she had thought that if she had touched his hand, he would sit up and say hello and give her candy like he did whenever they had family reunions. And even though she had been terrified, when her mother turned away to talk to someone, she had reached into the coffin and touched his hand.

It didn’t feel like a hand.

It was a weird type of mushy.

And cold.

As she recalled this experience, she couldn’t help but think about how the officer person wouldn’t be able to have anyone reach into his coffin and feel his cold hand cause he was dust now. She wondered what it must have felt like to get old so quickly. Did it hurt?

The thought of it made her shiver.

“Here.” Rick said quietly, handing her a sandwich. Cadi scarfed it down and then when Rick handed her another one, she put it in her mouth and sucked on it for a second. While she sucked on it, Rick tried the door only to find it was locked. He sighed.

“Well, it was worth a shot…” he mumbled, plopping down on his bed.

“Rick, if I killed somebody, does that make me a bad person?” she asked.

“No.” he said immediately. “And it wasn’t you. I told you that. It was that Emille lady.”

“Does that make her a bad person?”

Rick scowled. “I think she was a bad person even before she did that. Besides, a good person doesn’t kill people.”

“But Mommy said that Grandpa killed people. Does that make him a bad person?”

“No. He was in a war. That’s different.”

“How is that different?”

Rick took a swig of the water bottle and finished swallowing part of his sandwich.

“He was saving people. Sometimes, you have to kill to save someone. Grandpa was helping some people who were being hurt by the people he was fighting.”

Cadi swallowed.

“Would you kill somebody to save me?” she asked. Rick stopped chewing and looked at her.

“Let’s hope it never comes to that…” he said, swallowing and starting to feel a little sick to his stomach.

Cadi put down the rest of her sandwich and rubbed her arms.

“Do you think these powers make me a bad person?” she asked solemnly. Rick sighed.

“Cadi, you’re not a bad person. And your powers aren’t bad either. Remember that bank robbery we helped stop? That guy was about to kill somebody. You stopped that. You saved a lot of people. People with families, and kids and stuff. I saw it on the news.

A tear escaped Cadi’s eye, and she hurriedly wiped it away.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Another tear came, and Cadi tried to hold it back without success. Rick came over to her bed and sat down, leaning against the wall. He gave her a soft smile and patted his lap, so she crawled over to him and lay down on his leg.

“Are you scared Rick?” she asked, looking at a spot on the wall that looked like a singing rat. Her brother didn’t answer back right away.

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

For the next few minutes, the two of them sat in silence, and then quietly, Rick started to sing a song that their parents would occasionally sing to them when they were little and trying to go to sleep.

“Que sera… sera…

Whatever will be… will be…

The future’s not ours to see…

Que sera… sera…”

Rick continued to sing quietly while a tear fell down his cheek without his little sister seeing.

“Que sera… sera…”