The Clearing

Sometime between Chloe getting in the driver's seat of the car and them managing to get on the highway, Michael fainted.

When he woke up it was night and the car was stopped, his leg was bandaged and the bandage was stained with his blood. Chloe was not in the car. Fear rose in him and he bolted upright. Outside of the car all he could see were woods and darkness.

"Chloe!" he yelled as he stepped out of the car, stumbling because of his leg. "Chloe answer me!"

A rustling in the bushes made him turn around and crouch, ready to pounce on whatever came out of the woods. The gun, where's my gun?, it was in the car and he had no time to get it. It turned out he didn't need it, what emerged out of the woods was a deer. It stopped when it saw him, man and animal locked in time waiting for the other to make a move that would restart time. A second noise from his left made him turn quickly and the deer ran off in the other direction.

Chloe came out of the trees carrying something on her jumper, which she had pulled into a bowl shape.

"You're awake!" She said when she saw him, "And just in time too, I got dinner"

She walked over to him and handed him some of what was on her jumper, they were berries.

She walked to a spot just a few feet away from the car and sat down. Michael walked over to and saw it was a campfire that he hadn't seen because the car was obscuring it from his view.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"About ten miles outside of the city, I stopped when I saw you passed out. Your leg was bleeding pretty badly. I patched it up."

"Thanks. Is it safe out here though, I mean Vidic will be looking for us and that car probably has a lowjack on it."

"You mean this?" She pulled out of her pocket a small black square about the size of her palm, wires were sticking out of both ends. "Yeah I disabled it hours ago, if he is looking for us, well there's a lot of woods to cover before he finds us."

"How'd you know where it was?"

"Same way I knew how to talk to you through the animus, my mother, she designed most of the systems present in the machine and she also was part of the R&D team at Abstergo. She had access to all kinds of technology, this little thing being one of them. I have her memories now so they came in handy."

"Your mother works for Abstergo?" What kind of woman would let her child be experimented on this way, she must have known the risks!

"She worked for Abstergo, past tense. She died a year ago."

"Oh. I'm sorr-"

"Don't say that. People say that all the time when bad shit happens. You didn't know her so why should you be sorry."

"It just...seemed like the thing to say."

She was silent then, eating her berries. She looked very fragile to him all of a sudden, he felt the overwhelming urge to go over to her and hold her. An image came into his head of her crying into his chest and him brushing her hair and reassuring her, it's okay, I'm here it's okay. He did none of this instead he kept on talking.

"How'd she die?" he asked.

"They killed her, Abstergo. I'm sure of it."

"Why would they kill her?"

"You've seen what they're like, they don't care about people, just how much use you are to them. She probably just disagreed with something that prick Vidic said and he had her killed." Her accent had changed abit, it had got distinctly more Irish as she was speaking. Michael guessed it was one of her ancestors mixing with her. The fact she didn't realise it made him nervous.

"Well if they did kill her, how did you end up in that lab? Didn't you try to run?"

"They got me when I was asleep, came into my room one night and took me. They do the same to you?"

"I...I volunteered." He was embarrassed to admit this although he knew he shouldn't have been. I didn't know what it was going to be like.

"Dumb fucking choice."

"You swear a lot, anyone ever tell you that?" he said this a slight smile on his lips. She looked at him and then broke into laughter. She laughed long and loud. He laughed too. It felt good to do laugh after months of all the insanity that was Abstergo. Her laugh slowly changed, it slowed, it changed into her crying, quietly, she trembled with the effort to stop herself. He went over to her and grabbed and held her. A much less romantic version of the vision he had in his head. She looked up at him after a while.

"Who are you?" She said. Michael didn't know what to say, then she pushed herself away from him. Her accent had changed again. New York, Brooklyn. He recognised the distinctive husk of it. "Who the fuck are you?!" She said again.

"Michael, I'm Michael don't you remember me?" He was being as calm and reassuring as he could possibly be, smiling at her in a way which he hoped was nice and not creepy.

"Buddy I don't know you from dog shit. Where am I?"

"In the woods outside of Flint, Michigan. You drove us here remember."

"No I don't remember, what the fuck am I doing in Michigan?!"

"Chloe snap out of it c'mon, just fight through it."

"Who the hell is Chloe, I'm Alma."

"Alma?" The name rang through his head. The name Chloe had said to him the first time they'd met. Why would she say this woman's name?

"Yeah Alma, the girl you've kidnapped, and don't bullshit me about Michigan, we're just in central park. I can hear cars nearby."

"Alma, I haven't kidnapped you I assure you of that. Now this might sound weird, but what year do you think it is?"

"What kind of dumbass question is that?"

"Humour the dumbass."

"Nineteen Twenty Two. June."

Why is that date so important?

"Hey I don't know what your game is but I'm leaving, and if you try to follow me I'll gut you."

With that she turned and ran into the woods to where the sound of cars was coming from.

"Chloe. Alma wait!" He ran after her, limping, through the woods, he could see her running in front of him, and shadow in the darkness. He followed her but he couldn't keep up, his leg was hurting him too much and he had to slow down. Soon he lost track of her. He kept moving slowly going in what he hoped was a straight line. Following where she had disturbed the branches of trees as she was running through. He saw her after a few minutes. She was sitting in a clearing in the trees. She was hugging her legs and was very quiet.

He stopped and just looked at her for a minute, not wanting to scare her. Then slowly he moved closer to her, his foot stepped on a twig and broke it. She turned around and kicked away from him with fright.

"No no no no, don't it's okay I'm your friend" That didn't sound creepy as hell. To show he wasn't dangerous he took a step back and sat down next to a tree. His leg was killing him. They sat in silence for a while, staring at one another. Michael was rubbing his leg to try to massage some of the pain away.

"You hurt your leg." Said Chloe. He stopped rubbing he leg and looked at her.

"Yeah. Somebody shot me."

"You're a bad man."

"I'm not. Why do you think I'm a bad man?"

"Only bad men get shot. My mom said that."

"Well I'm not a bad man, a bad man shot me though."

"Why?"

"Because he was told to."

"By who?"

"Another bad man."

"Who are you?"

"Michael. What's your name?"

"Sarah. I'm not supposed to be in the woods after dark."

"How old are you Sarah?"

"Seven and three quarters."

"Do you know what year it is Sarah?"

She looked at him puzzled for a moment. Then.

"Eighteen sixty six."

She's going further back. I have to snap her out of it. He stood up then slowly. He walked up to her and she made to run away but he raised his hand in front of him, palm facing her, basically saying not to worry, slowly she sat back down again and he walked to her.

"Do you want to see if we can find your mom?" she nodded and stood up. She must have thought he was a really short man because of how close to her heigh he was. Nevertheless she grabbed his hand like she was child be led and followed him as he led her back to the car. Halfway through the walk she changed again. This time it was Chloe, but she didn't make any indication that she had, they merely walked in silence holding hands. At the car she spoke.

"You gonna let go of my hand or what?"

Michael turned to her and saw that she had changed again, she was smirking. He quickly let go of her hand and moved away.

"Sorry about what happened, how long was I gone for?" She asked.

"About an hour. Does it happen often?" he said.

"It's becoming more frequent, there's whole parts of my memory that are just a fog."

"Do you remember anything about what happens when one of your ancestors takes over?"

"Just flashes here and there. Why? I didn't do anything stupid did I?"

"No, it's just that one of the people that you changed into was this woman, Alma, does that name mean anything to you?"

"Fontaine, that asshole, said she was a great great aunt from the twenties, nothing else really. Why?"

"Well it's just that you said her name to me the first time we met, you looked right at me as you said it. I thought maybe it was important."

"Sorry I don't know why I would just say her name."

"It doesn't matter anyway. Let's just finish this feast you gathered for us. Then in the morning we'll decide what to do."

They sat by the campfire eating the berries. At one point the deer from earlier showed up again but it got spooked when they tried getting closer to it and it ran off. Nothing else happened during the night and they both slept in the car, moving the front seats as far back as they would go and reclining them as far back as it could. Michael had the urge to touch her during the night. He didn't know if it was a sexual thing or whether it was just a need to feel safe with someone else there. Maybe a bit of both.