TITLE: World Without End,
Book One (2/10)
AUTHOR: Rachel Anton
E-MAIL: Ranton1013@aol.com
Once upon a time there was a girl. She lived in a house. One day, the house fell down.
*************************
Mulder,
I'm writing this to you in hopes that one day, wherever you are, you will receive it and that you will decide to join me here. I understand that right now, you can't be with me. I've come to accept that over these months because I know in my heart that you are doing something very valuable, very important. Something that has necessitated this separation. I'm not angry.
Not at you. But at them, the people here, I am very angry. The lies they've told me are unforgivable. I would leave here if I knew of somewhere else to go. But the world is different now and I don't think I know how to survive anymore.
Sometimes I'm actually surprised to see the sun rising and setting every day. How can it keep doing that? And the snow. It keeps snowing just like it used to.
I wonder if it snows where you are.
I wonder if you're safe, if you're warm. We were so foolish, Mulder. So unprepared. We didn't realize.
When I was a little girl my brother Charlie had an ant farm. He kept it in a glass case on his dresser. He used to watch those ants build their cities, their lives, every day, for hours on end. One day Bill decided he didn't like Charlie anymore so he stole his ant farm. He brought it outside and dumped all the ants on the ground. Then he squashed some of them with his sneaker. Some of them he grabbed and pulled the legs off of. Some he used his magnifying glass to scorch with the sun's rays. A few managed to escape his tyranny and, I suppose, build anthills in the back yard. I thought it was gross and kind of mean to Charlie. But not to the ants.
When I was in junior high they told us we had to dissect a frog. We all thought it was disgusting but nobody asked where they got the frogs. We were learning.
The college I went to was built on what used to be a swamp. They had to drain it and kill everything in it to build the dorms. We just wanted a place to live.
In medical school we did experiments on rats. We were trying to heal people.
We seem to need more and more justification the further up the evolutionary ladder we go, the more torture we inflict, but it never stops us. Who knew that there was something higher? Something that would look at us and think, rats, frogs, ants? Something as certain as we always are in a higher purpose, worth the sacrifice? You did I suppose. Why was it so hard for me to believe it? It's not really so odd. As a scientist myself, I should have seen it coming.
I remember now, Mulder. I remember when they came. They talked to us. Not the way we talk to each other but the way we talk to our pets. To dogs. We tell them sit, stay, roll over, but we don't tell them why. We don't explain to them why we've decided to move to Florida or the fact that the vet needs to give them a shot. Or if we do, we certainly don't ask their opinions about it. They didn't ask us. And they didn't tell us. And we probably wouldn't have understood them if they had tried. After all this, Mulder, we still don't know the truth. We still don't understand any more about them than our dogs understand about us.
I remember being a slave. Every night I relive the horror in my dreams. I remember what it felt like to not remember. To have no will, no strength, no anger. I don't remember what they made me do though. Only what I didn't feel.
I remember seeing you, what I thought was you, dying, dead, bleeding. I know now that it was an illusion, that it was someone else, but at the time, it was the most horrifying thing I'd ever experienced.
Thank God I understand now. I see that it was a lie all along, a trick to get me to go to the abduction site, to leave you. Krycek, he thinks that if he shows me pictures and documents that I'll simply accept the lie and let go of you. He thinks he'll make me forget again.
I hate him.
I hate them all, Mulder. I hate everyone I see for being here with me when you are so far away.
But the people here have taken care of me, and I'm sure they would do the same for you. They've given me warm clothing and a room of my own. I live in a dorm, Mulder. In a tiny little dorm room. Every night I try to imagine you crawling into one of these miniature twin beds, your monstrous feet dangling off the end. It makes me smile sometimes. I eat in a group dining hall. Every meal I eat, a woman punches a hole in the white card I was given. Two meals a day is all we're allotted. I purchase my necessities at a large warehouse with another card. I got my period yesterday and was somewhat dismayed to find that we're only permitted two tampons per month. The rest of the time it's pads. I suppose I should be grateful we've got those.
I'm not entirely sure where they get all of their supplies. It seems as though the situation is tight but not completely desperate. There is a farm here where many of the people work everyday. A lot of the food we eat is grown here. But it's winter now and they cannot rely on self-sustenance for everything. They have connections. Connections Alex Krycek was forging long ago while we spun our wheels around in a dank basement office. Connections to the rebel race. It's a tenuous alliance, as all of Krycek's alliances are, but it's beneficial to both parties.
He was doing their work when he found me, fighting a war with the colonist's agents on Earth. My "master" was one of them, a traitor to his race, to his planet. A man who chose to be turned into a mutant, to become one of them rather than fight. That's what Krycek says anyway.
I can't help but wonder why it has to be this way. So few human beings managed to survive the initial attack. Why must the lucky ones remain only to finish the job of destroying our species, killing each other for causes that have nothing to do with us, for creatures who live in the sky, hovering above, watching us destroy each other for them, a couple of mercenary armies.
I'm reminded of the wars fought for America so long ago. Of the Spanish and the French and the English killing each other for land that really didn't belong to any of them, of the natives choosing sides, allying themselves with whichever power promised their tribe more of a chance for survival, more of the supplies necessary for daily life, more of what the tribe deemed most valuable. Krycek seems to have chosen freedom for his tribe. He'll fight for the faceless rebels, put his life on the line for their war so that he and his people can live here relatively safely.
I can't fault him for his choice. Without it, many of these people would surely be dead. And I would still be a slave.
I'm not sure how long this group has been here, how long they've been allowed to exist. I don't know how they managed to escape submitting to The Order in the first place and I don't know if there are others like them. We're tucked away up here in this cold wasteland, this frozen landscape that used to be Eastern Canada, far away from the settlements. Perhaps they don't know where we are. Or perhaps we're completely inconsequential. Perhaps we're like those ants that managed to escape from my brother. He never bothered to chase them.
I wonder where Bill is. And Charlie. Mom…
I try not to think about them, Mulder, but sometimes I can't help it. Sometimes they come to me in dreams, telling me that they're gone now, that I need to carry on without them. I don't want to believe them. I don't know what to do.
I think you might like it here with me, Mulder. I think it might be the best place for us. We might be safe here. At least we'd be free.
I miss you, Mulder. I'm so lonely here. I hope when you get this you decide to come back to me.
Yours always,
Scully
*************************
I tuck the folded letter into the pocket of my bulky, white parka and pull my woolen hat onto my head and mittens over my hands and push open the heavy metal door with my shoulder. The wind is harsh today and it offers a great deal of resistance. I have to thrust against the door with all of my weight.
Once I am outside I realize that even as bundled as I am, the cold bites through to my bones. The sky is gray and ominous but so far it hasn't snowed today. The path leading from the building I live in to the library is one of the better traveled walkways on the campus so the snow and ice aren't as densely accumulated as they are on most of the other trails. It's not a terribly difficult walk. Which is good for me because I'm pretty sure there will be a mailbox somewhere near the library.
From what I can tell, the six floor building that houses the library is the largest one here. Aside from the dining hall which, thankfully, is about two steps from my front door, most of the public facilities are either in the library building or in one of the smaller buildings surrounding it.
Patterson Hall is about halfway between the dorm and the library and when I reach it I sigh with some relief, realizing half the walk is behind me. This building is where most of the planning and organizing that keeps this community together takes place. I've never actually been inside but supposedly there are offices, belonging to the heads of the various committees, as well as conference rooms and a large lecture hall.
As I pass the building I see a man approaching me, the first person I've seen outside today. I can't tell who it is because of the black ski mask covering his face. Wish I'd put mine on. My cheeks are almost numb.
As he gets closer I notice that his black jeans have a hole in the knee and that underneath them, he's wearing a pair of white long johns. That might have been a good idea for me as well.
"Scully?" he calls out over the wind. It starts to snow lightly.
He reaches the front entrance to Patterson Hall and waves me over to join him. Maybe this is where the mailbox is. He opens the door with a key and we walk in together. The sudden warmth hurts my face.
He pulls off his mask with a familiar grimace.
"Scully, what are you doing outside today? It's gotta be 40 below out there."
"Where's the mailbox, Krycek?"
His eyebrows knot together and he sits down on a small wooden bench. It seems to be the only place to sit in the lobby of this building so I sit down beside him.
"The what?"
"The mailbox. I've got a letter I need to send. And I need an envelope too. I couldn't find any at the warehouse."
"There's…there's no mailbox. There's no mail anymore, Scully."
"No mail?"
Panic gathers and constricts in my chest. How can there be no mail? How will I send my letter?
"Not this time of year. The roads are impassable. Nothing can get in or out of here unless it comes from…" he drifts off and points towards the sky.
"Well, I've gotta send it that way then."
"Scully, it doesn't work that way. They don't…"
He sighs heavily and shakes his head at me, obviously too impatient to explain fully. He does that a lot.
"What have you got to send anyway?"
I debate for a moment about whether or not to show him. It's a private letter but maybe if he sees how important it is, he'll help me figure out a way to get it to the right place. I reach into my pocket and pull out the paper and hand it to him.
His face is expressionless as he reads. When he finishes he closes his eyes for a very long time. When he opens them again, I don't like what I see there. It looks like pity.
"Scully, you can't…"
He takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair, looks away from me and out the window.
"You can't send this."
"Why not?"
"For more reasons than I could possibly enumerate. First of all, Scully…Mulder…Mulder's gone."
No. More lies. I should have known better than to ask him for help. God Mulder, why can't you come and make him stop telling these lies about you?
I grab the paper back from him and shove it into my pocket, biting back an angry and frustrated tear. I stand up from the bench, needing to get far away from Alex Krycek and his stupid, pathetic lies. He won't let me go though. He grabs my sleeve with his leather gloved hand.
"Scully, wait. Even if he were still alive, you can't just send a letter with 'Mulder' written on the envelope and expect him to get it and even if you could, you can't go around sending out letters like this! This is….if the wrong person read this, Scully, we'd be dead. Do you understand that? There are certain things that you can't just go blabbing about in a letter. You can't…"
"Go to hell," I whisper, pulling my arm away from him and running out the door, back into the cold. I'll find my own way. I'll find you, Mulder. With or without anyone's help.
*************************
It's been almost nine months since I found Dana Scully, brain dead and robbed of her spirit, living in the mansion of a traitor. Nine months of absolute hell.
It's been three months since that January day when I found her wandering aimlessly through the snow, clutching that piece of paper like a little girl with a letter to Santa. I hadn't realized until that day just how bad it really was. My sources had given me the documentation, proof of Mulder's death, several weeks before that day and I'd honestly thought that she'd believed it. She hadn't been eating or talking much since I'd shown her the papers but that wasn't any more unusual for her then than it is now. I'd thought she was mourning quietly.
That day I realized that she wasn't grieving her losses yet. She was completely delusional.
Denial is the first stage in any sort of difficult process I suppose, and Scully's denial was a long and sad one. I had to carry her back to her room that day, over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, after I found her semi-conscious, huddled under a tree, several hours after our conversation about her letter. She was still gripping the paper in her blue-ish white hand, still looking for the elusive mailbox. It was the most pitiful thing I've ever seen.
The weeks following that day were worse than the ones before it. She was growing thinner and paler every day and she refused to speak to me or anyone else. It was bad. But it's never been as bad as it's been for the past two weeks.
Two weeks ago she decided to believe me, to believe the proof, the documentation that I found. Two weeks ago she finally started to let Mulder go.
I was eating my lunch in the cafeteria when I saw her. She was standing in line, waiting for her stew, when suddenly her face turned deadly white and she dropped her dish to the floor, shattering it to a million pieces. I ran to her and took her by the shoulders, looked into her eyes, and I knew immediately.
"He's gone. I can't feel him. He's gone," is what she said. I brought her back to her room and she sat down on her bed and curled up into a ball. I expected her to cry, or maybe to kick me out. But she didn't do anything, hasn't done anything. Nothing at all. I haven't seen her leave that room one single time since that day.
I've been bringing her food every day since she refuses to bring herself to the cafeteria anymore. I leave a full plate on her desk at noon and another one at six. Usually there's no more than a bite or two or three missing from the meals when I come back to pick them up.
Yesterday I brushed her hair. It's grown to the middle of her back and could be quite beautiful if she took care of it I suppose. Lately it's been hanging over her face in greasy, knotted clumps. I told her she was going to have dread locks soon if she didn't let me run the comb through. She didn't respond at all so I did it.
It makes me sick. Seeing her turning into this shell of a woman, this pathetic Sylvia Plath wanna-be, is just too symbolic of how completely fucked up the world has become. And besides that, she's become a drain, taking up space and resources and not giving anything back. We can't afford her. I can't afford her. I can't spend my days playing nursemaid to a crazy woman who doesn't even want to recover. If she doesn't get better soon, we'll have to send her away. I don't want that to happen.
I can't believe it's March. It's been a long, deadly winter. Endless. Colder than usual with even more snow. The claustrophobia is overwhelming. Just walking from the cafeteria to Scully's room, carrying this plate of food, is an ordeal because of the wind, the bitter, painful wind, and the ice on the ground.
I wonder how the others can bear it. I pass groups of them, huddled together in their second-hand hats and mittens, laughing and smiling despite their discomfort. Until they see me. When they see me they frown and nod and scurry in various directions. Scared. They're scared. Of me.
It still surprises me. Sometimes it even amuses me. An entire population, almost four hundred people now, and they're all afraid of me. They respect me. They look up to me. I'm the boss here, for the first time in my life. Although I never expected it to happen in quite this way, this is exactly what I've been looking for, craving, chasing forever. It's what I've killed and nearly died for. It's what I've sacrificed all semblance of a normal life for. I should be happy as a pig in shit. And some days I am. Some days. Some days though I wish it had taken less than the annihilation of the world for me to get to be in charge.
When I get to her door I open it without even considering knocking. I finally realized a few days ago that she was never going to answer when I knocked so I've started just walking right in. It's not like she's ever doing anything private. She's never doing anything at all.
She's as tragic as ever, her knees pulled up to her chest and her hair disheveled, rocking back and forth like a B-movie mental patient, looking down at her arms. I follow her gaze, down to her left hand which is tightened into a fist, her arm resting against her curled thighs, her right hand clutching a knife and cutting precisely and expertly into her flesh. A line of crimson stains the porcelain of her wrist and for a moment we are both so startled by it that all we can do is stare. Her with detached curiosity, me with horrified understanding.
I look back and forth between her arms, the knife and the tray sitting on her desk, uneaten slab of meat on a plate and a fork resting beside it, unused. No knife.
The moment seems to dangle for an eternity, the two of us staring at the trail of blood as it starts to thicken and drip until finally she looks up and meets my eyes, breaking the strange stalemate and bringing life back to my limbs. The tray I'd been balancing on my prosthetic arm clatters to the floor and the sound of breaking glass fills the room.
"Scully…SCULLY!"
I kneel down in front of her hold out my hand.
"Give me the knife."
She blinks at me, recognition barely coloring her clouded eyes.
"GIVE ME THE KNIFE!"
No response. I grab the offending object, noticing absently that I've clutched it by the blade, with my real hand no less, and that I'm probably going to bleed to death myself, and wrestle it from her weak grip. I let it fall to the floor with another clatter and my mind seems to implode with the force of my panic. I have no idea what to do. I grab her by the shoulders and shake her.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
She's still staring at me and she's still bleeding. I look around frantically for something to stop it with. Socks. She's wearing socks. I take her foot in my hand and pull one of them off and tie it around her wrist as a make-shift bandage. It's not exactly medicine for the millennium but it'll do.
"Dammit Scully, I know you're in there. Say something. Anything."
Neurons begin firing in my brain finally and I realize it would probably be a good idea to take her to the infirmary. The sock is already turning red. I try to stand and haul her up by the shoulders but she's so slack and lifeless it's almost impossible to get a grip on her. She slips through my fingers and back to the floor.
"Scully you've gotta go to the doctor. You've gotta get up. Come on."
I reach for her again and she pulls away slightly.
"Just let me die," she whispers, so quietly I barely hear her, and curls up against her bed. It's the first thing I've heard her say in two weeks.
Just let me die, she said. What the hell does she think? That life is a right these days? A given? Doesn't she know how fucking lucky she is? There are some things I have absolutely no patience for and this kind of disgusting self pity is one of them.
"Dammit Scully, what the hell is your problem? Don't you know how lucky you are to be alive? How can you throw that away?"
She stares through me, her head sagging against the mattress and her arms hanging limp now at her sides.
"I have to go…I have to go to him. He's going to be looking for me. He needs me to be there."
"He's dead, Scully. DEAD. He's not looking for you. He's not doing anything. He's GONE. That doesn't mean you have to go too. He wouldn't want this, Scully. He wouldn't want you to do this."
I kneel down in front of her, that damn panic bubbling in my chest again, and clutch her upper arms in my hands, shaking her.
"You don't have to do this! DON'T DO THIS! Dammit, look at me! LOOK AT ME!"
Her eyes meet mine again and this time there's a response, a change. From utter lack of cognition to sudden, darkening fury. Her brow furrows and her pupils dilate and then she spits a glob of saliva onto my cheek.
"Get your hands off me," she whispers with some actual feeling. More than I've seen from her in ages.
"We have to go to the doctor Scully. You…"
"No. You should be dead. You should be dead. WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD?"
Suddenly she's darting across the floor, groping for her knife again. I see her right hand about to close around the handle and stand up, planting my foot squarely on her wrist.
"I don't think so, Scully."
I reach down and pick up the damn thing and stick it in my jacket pocket, making a mental note to never bring Scully a meal that she has to cut again.
"You…you should be dead. YOU! WHY NOT YOU?"
Why indeed. It's not as though I haven't asked. Same reason as all the other non-merchandised humans who managed to live I suppose. I was willing to do what it took to get my hands on the vaccine. Survival of the fittest. That's not really what she's asking though. She wants to know how the universe could be so cruel as
to allow a scum-sucking bastard like me to carry on and to cut down her precious angel Mulder. Why me and not him. Why him and not me.
"Get off the floor and come with me to the doctor, Scully. This isn't gonna bring him back."
"Let me go. Just let me go to him…"
"STOP IT! WAKE UP! You're not gonna go to him if you kill yourself. You're not gonna go anywhere. You're just gonna die. That's all that happens Scully. You don't see a white tunnel with Mulder at the end. You don't run off into the sunset of the afterlife together. YOU DIE! You die and you rot away in the ground and that's all."
"SHUT UP! Stop it! Stop it!"
She scrambles to her feet and before I know what the hell's going on her tiny fists are pummeling my chest. Her sudden show of strength takes me so completely by surprise I literally almost fall down.
"You're a lying piece of SHIT! That's not what happens…not…not to him…not to Mulder…Mulder…Mu…"
I finally manage to get a hold of her flailing hands and she sags against me.
"Mulder," she whispers and a lone tear trails down her cheek. I have a feeling it's the first of many.
End Chapter Two
Continued in Chapter Three
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