Lost to the Night

Posted on Mon Dec 30th, 2024 @ 19:09 by Jacqueline Myers & Doctor Astrid Hohenberg

Chapter: Days of Future Past
Location: Kielder Forest
Timeline: 17th January 1991
2176 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure

With winter evenings came darkened skies and biting cold, especially along the forest’s edge. Jackie parked the van in the gravel-strewn public car park, the headlights briefly illuminating the frost-slick ground. Tugging her padded jacket snug, she adjusted the gifted scarf around her neck and jammed her hands into well-worn fingerless gloves. The van door required a firm shove before it clicked into place.

“Careful! Nelson doesn’t take kindly to being slammed,” James chided, his hand resting protectively on the battered Transit’s patchy exterior.

“Next time, it’s all yours!” Jackie shot back with a grin, stepping around to loop her arm through his. Tucking her free hand into her pocket for warmth, she shivered as her breath marked the air. “Come on, or I’ll end up like a flat battery.”

“Alright, alright. Can’t have that.” James leaned his head against hers briefly, a moment of shared warmth before they began their climb up the familiar worn path. The chunky yellow torch in his other hand sent a narrow beam of light cutting through the shadows as they made their way home. Nelson would never have managed the uneven back road, not if they wanted him to scrape through his next MOT.

It was an unremarkable Tuesday evening, just past five, though the treasured dark skies of Kielder made it feel much later. The towering trees loomed, their skeletal outlines framing the horizon, where a faint silhouette of their home appeared—nestled on a bank among sparse trees. The thought of the wood-burning stove waiting inside lent comfort against the creeping chill.

Their conversation meandered, gossip about the reception staff at work blending into complaints about Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, who had left their lakeside cabin in a state that horrified the cleaners. The occasional sound of movement in the underbrush was easy to dismiss. It was nothing unusual—foxes, badgers, the wind. Who else would be out here in freezing temperatures, far from the safety of a car?

Hidden among the skeletal treeline, figures watched the couple with predatory focus. Their dark clothing melted into the shadowed underbrush, but the faint glint of equipment straps and tranquilizer rifles betrayed their presence to anyone sharp-eyed enough to notice. A low whistle passed between them—a signal. The lead operative raised a hand, palm flat, halting the subtle movements of the others. A dart was loaded, the faint metallic click swallowed by the oppressive stillness of the woodland.

From their vantage point, they had a perfect line of sight to the woman. The target. The operative steadied the rifle against a tree trunk, their breath slow and deliberate. Her gait was uneven, her breath puffing visibly in the freezing air as she walked beside the man.

The occasional rustle of underbrush no longer felt so innocent. James slowed, tilting his head toward the trees. Jackie glanced at him, her steps faltering. “What is it?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper.

“Probably nothing,” he replied, though the edge in his tone betrayed him. Slowly, he stepped away from her side. The torch beam wavered slightly as he turned it toward the treeline, but the darkness beyond seemed to swallow the light whole, leaving only a suffocating void.

The hairs on Jackie’s neck prickled, her fingers flexing inside her fingerless gloves. They’d walked this path countless times on dark winter nights, but this silence felt heavier, unnatural. “It’s probably a deer,” she murmured, her voice trying to reassure herself more than him. “The trees are warmer than the open. They like to shelter here.”

A faint snap echoed through the frigid air. A branch underfoot? A fox startled from its foraging? The silence that followed pressed down on them like a weight, thick and oppressive. Jackie’s chest tightened, her breaths forming shallow clouds against the night.

“Let’s pick up the pace. The fire won’t light itself,” James said, his attempt at calm undone by the tension in his voice. He adjusted his grip on the torch, and the beam swept ahead of them.

Jackie nodded, forcing herself to match his quicker strides despite the ache in her legs from the uneven ground. The crunch of their boots on frozen dirt felt deafening, like a beacon in the oppressive quiet.

Then it came. A faint whistle sliced through the cold, sharp and unnatural. Jackie froze, confusion crossing her face before a searing pain burst in her side. The breath knocked out of her, her knees buckled. “James—” she choked out, her voice breaking as she crumpled to the ground.

As one the unit hidden in the treeline burst forward from their hidden positions. Within a breath and two blinks the cottage was surrounded. "On the floor!" The voice was commanding, heavy. It was clear it wouldn't accept anything other than compliance. He motioned at two of his squad and pointed at the target. Then he raised his sidearm towards the man that had been escorting her. "I said kiss dirt!"

With the sense of danger came a transformation Jackie couldn’t fully control. The skin near the dart’s entry point thickened, the creases of bark forcing the small projectile free from where it had pierced her jacket and jumper. Her body trembled as pain and fear fueled her abilities.

James lay close beside her, his hand still clutching her arm even as his grip faltered. The torch lay forgotten, its beam casting fractured light across the gravel, catching the boots of the advancing figures. “Jac,” he whispered, his voice strained but steady as he reached out to gently touch her cheek, his thumb brushing against the rough bark spreading over her skin. “We can’t win this. Stay with me. Please.”

The pounding of her heart drowned out his voice. Panic rippled through her, and her power erupted with raw, unrestrained force. Thorns and brambles burst from the frozen ground around them, spreading in erratic, jagged spirals. James pulled himself tight against her, shielding her as best he could. The sharp thorns tore through his clothing, pricking his skin as the vines coiled into a cocoon, driven by her desperation to protect them both.

Expletives and shouts filled the air as the ground burst open around the operatives that had descended upon them. After a moment it got quiet. Then an order was barked, "You knew what you were signing up for, grab the machetes and start chopping. We need her alive. The boy is collateral."

Exhaustion weighed Jackie down, as her thickened skin protected her from the barrier she had created. “No, no, no.” Her speech slurred in desperation trying to bring herself around. She curled her fingers around the fabric of James’ jacket searching for his warmth in the cold of the night.

From the ground, snaking stems of brambles sought the legs and boots of those who intended to encroach, coiling tightly and tearing skin. Hacking slashes halted the growth but split the head of the hydra. If all they wanted was her then the path of least resistance would be the safest option, “WAIT!” She shouted mind frayed and unable to subdue the hysteria that controlled the plants, “Please!”

Her eyes sought out his face, contorted in pain with eyes closed but still there, “I can’t stay.” She whispered. Despite her plea the overwhelming fear controlled her abilities, what had previously been fine thread roots to nourish her in times of need were deep-seated and tied her to the ground. The coarse bark skin of her hand found his face. “Please make it stop.” She willed as shards of torchlight blinded her through the gaps in the barrier.

"Drop the defenses, we'll make sure your partner doesn't die from the wounds you inflicted on him." It was an educated guess, knowing the dossier on this particular mutant. The sedative should've prevented this but they hadn't properly taken her altered biology into account, it seemed. An interesting note to make in the after action report, something the scientists back in the labs could properly investigate.

“Drop the defences?” Jackie echoed softly, the words barely audible over James’s pained breaths. How could she? The plants grew relentlessly, stubborn and unyielding. They didn’t retreat, they sprawled, flourished, and consumed. Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, closed as the guilt twisted in her chest. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

She tried to focus, imagining the vines collapsing under their own weight as they sometimes did. But what if that hurt James even more? Doubt clawed at her resolve. Think of summer heat—the way it scorches the leaves. Think of winter, when everything goes still and dormant. Her brow furrowed, her body trembling as she willed the wild growth to subside.

When the plants refused to die back, an idea rooted itself in her mind. If she couldn’t stop the vines from growing, she could perhaps shape them, guide them to carry her and James. Jackie concentrated, coaxing the tangled stems to weave together into a sturdy, cradling hand. Slowly, it rose from the cocoon, carrying James in its outstretched palm, his unconscious form draped like precious cargo. Jackie clung to the vines as they lifted her alongside him, her breath hitching as she whispered again crumbling down beside him, “I’m sorry.”

The military operatives around them quickly closed in, using the machettes to cut a path through the now wild growth of vines and bramble. As they got within reach they resorted to a more tried and trusted method of subdueing a target. The closest to Jacqueline flipped his rifle and swiftly hit her in the back of the head with the butt, in an attempt to knock her out cold for at least long enough to fasten the zip-tie handcuffs and pull the black burlap sack over her face. The extraction vehicle was close by, and it had more advanced ways to make sure the trip back to the labs was safe, mostly for them.

"What do we do about this one then?" One of the voices, now muffled by burlap, asked.

There was a moment of quiet consideration, "load him up, who knows, the Doctor might have use for a control group."

It didn’t take much for Jackie to be knocked out cold, she was already limp with exhaustion, lying next to her fiancé. As her body slumped, the rigid structure of vines and brambles began to sag and collapse. Her thorny bark-like skin faded, leaving only a faint green hue against her pallor. Fine, threadlike roots had replaced the thick ones that had originally torn from her body when she rose, leaving gaping holes in her tattered clothing.

The jolts of movement stirred Jackie back to consciousness. Pain radiated through her body, but the sharp ache at the back of her head stood out, throbbing in time with her heartbeat. The bag over her head trapped the sound of her ragged breaths, amplifying each panicked inhale. Her wrists and ankles burned with the tightness of restraints, every tug against them sapping what little strength she had left.

“James?” she rasped, her voice cracking under the weight of exhaustion and fear. The name felt like a lifeline, fragile and desperate. As the fear began to seep back through her, she could feel the tips of thorns forcing their way out of her skin. She winced, unseen in the darkness, the sharp pain mirrored by the shuddering breath that escaped between clenched teeth.

There was a sharp kick from the soldier that was in the back of the van with her. His boot digging into lower couple of ribs with pinpoint accuracy. "Shut up, bitch, before I make you shut up." He barked the order as if to a dog. He pushed himself a bit further away on the bench in the van as he saw her body react to the situation. He grabbed his rifle a bit more firmly, it was one of the new energy based weapons they'd gotten from their military contacts over stateside. They had assured them the maximum stun setting would be enough to knock out an elephant.

The kick landed with a sickening crack, her delayed reaction giving it full impact. Jackie’s body folded over her knees, a muffled groan escaping through clenched teeth. Bark ridges split through her skin, protruding from torn fabric as fine-threaded roots writhed in search of sustenance, mirroring her own desperation. But there was no response to her call, no reassurance from the man she’d reached for. The possibilities churned in her mind, Unconscious. Dead. Taken somewhere else. Or worse… She swallowed hard against the rising panic, tears stinging her eyes as she forced herself upright, pressing her back against the cold, unforgiving wall of the vehicle. Her breaths came sharp and shallow, each movement a reminder of the soldier’s threat. She didn’t dare make another sound. Compliance was her only option now, woozy with pain and exhaustion.