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Leo’s voice reached out, grounding Rory in the present. He followed the older boy out into the hall. His legs felt shaky, and he whipped his sweaty palms against his pants. He tried to shake away the memory but it still clung to him, moving the images in his mind with reality. Rory forced himself to focus. Leo was real, this hall was real, the pain in his leg was real, the sound of their steps was real. The reached the elevator and Rory stepped inside with Leo. He grabbed the bar as the machine jolted downward. For a moment he felt sick. An engine screeched in his mind as they fell. Rory stumbled slightly and steadied himself. He licked his dry lips uneasily and looked up at Leo. “We… we had technology that could change a person. Wipe their mind like… like deleting files.” he hesitated and then looked down. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Do you ever wish they would wipe your memory?”
No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
Leo
Mind wiping tech? Sure he’d heard of it. But had he ever wished it be used on him…
Green eyes. Dark, and too often full of pain she couldn’t hide, but happy because she’d had another day to tell him it was going to be okay.
“No, or not anymore. I have wished many times that I could go back and do things, say things, differently.” He swallowed and found he was blinking back tears. He took a breath. “But some memories. Some would be too precious to lose.”
The elevator rattled to a stop. The doors swished open.
“Rory, what do you want to forget?”
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the GorkOoo! Mystery!!
Rory
Rory laughed in a choked sort of way. “Everything. I don’t have good memories, Leo.” He paused. “Well… I guess I wouldn’t want to forget the church… or you… or holding Quincy…” his voice trailed away. He lifted his shoulders several times. Images flickered through his mind. The child under the bed… tiny hands shielding large eyes… the agents storming in. Yelling, brutal blows for mistakes he’d made. Boys his same age forced to their knees. Gunshots. A shriek of a plane engine, the sickening feeling of falling, the screams of the other young soldiers trapped, begging him to save them. Rory shuddered. “I… there…” he sucked in a breath. “There was a crash,” he whispered hoarsely. He leaned against the wall, his eyes closed. “I was in flight school… I was supposed to be a pilot.” He shuddered and caught his breath.
the elevator came to a stop and Rory jerked upright, cold sweat streaking his back. He had to talk about it… but he didn’t want to remember.No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
Leo
He blinked in the dim lighting. No good memories, huh. And no childhood either. He’d just have to what he could do about that.
But the kid had been training as a pilot. Had crashed, like Jake. The terror still clung to him too. Leo swallowed and put an arm around the kid’s shoulders.
He let the quiet of the basement deep into him. The soft scritch of his boots on concrete, the steady thrum of machines in perfect order, the smell of cold iron and hot oil.
He held the break room door open for Rory. “What type of engine? On the plane. Petroleum?”
He let the door close softly behind him.
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the GorkHa. Leo would ask.
Rory
Rory stepped into the break room. “I… I don;t know. Just an engine. An engine that didn’t work…”
He sat down on the couch and stared at his hands. “There were four of us, Leo. It was a new plane they had built. It was like a fighter jet, but a little bigger, and there were two gunners, a pilot, and a navigator who ran the scanning devices. My team was selected to run the test flight. We don’t have friends there. Not really. But…. well, they were my teammates for two years. I guess I kind of felt like I knew them, even if they didn’t have names….” He swallowed hard. “Something went wrong. We were high up. They… they didn’t build ejection seats into it. They said that if it crashed we’d be alright. And if we weren’t….. who was to care. ” He carefully opened and closed his hands, and then gripped them tightly, remembering the moment. “We were spinning out of control. My mates were screaming at me to do something… we all knew we were trapped and there would be no way for us to get out. I tried to crash land, but it tipped into a nosedive at the last minute and flipped upside down. We were shaken up badly, but the thing actually held together. We… we thought we were going to be okay.” He sucked in a breath. “Then there was liquid. It was leaking all over, and… and i knew something was horribly wrong. My harness was jammed, My navigator was able to reach around and cut me lose. I fell onto the floor… roof really… of the plane. I could feel it vibrating under me. I could see one of my gunners was unconscious, but the other one was trying to get untangled from his harness straps. My navigator was trying to cut his own, and I took the knife and helped him. He dropped down and started trying to help my gunners get lose while I was looking for a place to slide out through the broken glass of the canopy. I radioed for help several times….. there was no answer. I found a spot when…. when…” Rory’s lower lip trembled and he squeezed his eyes closed tightly. “It caught fire, Leo,” he choked out. “It caught fire, and there was nothing I could do! I…. I was able to drag my navigator out but the gunners….” A sob caught in his throat. ” They were tracking the flight bake at the base!” he yelled. “They heard the distress calls before and after the crash! They should have been there. They should have come! If they had been there we could have escaped. But they left us!”
No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
"If I don't like something, it's probably sanctification. Ugh." -E.C.S.
Leo
Fury, red hot and searing, boiled up in his throat. Leo closed his eyes, trying to choke it down.
Inexperienced, trainies, used as test pilots. No escape plan. Destress calls ignored. Fire,screams, acrid smoke. And the lost. His fists clenched.
Stay calm. Keep control for the kid. He doesn’t need your anger.
He exhaled and opened his eyes.
“Rory. Oh, kid.”
Lord, I can’t help him on my own. Give him peace.
He sat down next to him on the couch, waiting for him to go on. Quiet. Listening.
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the GorkBwahaha. YES.
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the GorkManiacal laugh.
No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
Poor Rory. I actually feel bad.
Rory
Rory hoked back another sob and sucked in a shuddering breath. “My navigator was injured. The fire got him across the right side of his face, neck, and shoulder. He…. he broke down and started crying, and I held him. He was just a kid, Leo. We all were! It was the first time I had ever seen one of the first born cry like that. It was the first time I held another person who was in pain.” Rory swallowed hard. “They came for us eventually. The medic gave me a glance, said I needed to get cleaned up, and turned away. They took my navigator to the hospital. It was only after I got undressed that I realized I’d been burned down my left arm.” Rory absently pulled on his sleeve, habit taking over to make sure the scars remained unseen. “The next morning we were back out training. My navigator returned the week after. He… he had scaring, Leo. They didn’t want that.” Rory looked down, tears dripping into his open hands. “Their soldiers had to be perfect in everything… including the way they looked. He was standing next to me when one of our officers came by. He tried to look away, but the man saw his face.” Rory couldn’t breath, and he felt like he was being choked. “They terminated him, Leo. He didn’t fit into their picture of a perfect soldier…. so they killed him.”
No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
Some things never change
"If I don't like something, it's probably sanctification. Ugh." -E.C.S.
Poor kids indeed.
Leo
He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, and slowly let it out. He was not cut out to be a counselor, alright.
But he was a brother. Leo pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.
“They haven’t let you grieve right. When did the crash happen?”
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the GorkRory
Rory swung his foot against the floor and sniffed hard. “Two years ago. I… I was fourteen.” He rubbed his scared arm again. “I couldn’t go near planes again. I knew they would kill me, but I’d rather die then go up there again. I thought they would find out… but then i was transferred to another base. I don’t know why.” He sucked in a breath. “If they saw the wound, they would have killed me too. My navigator survived the crash….. and then they terminated him because he had scars!” Rory clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms, causing them to bleed. “He would have lived, Leo! He would have survived….”
No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.
Leo
He took Rory’s hands in his own, forcing him to stop cutting his palms.
“Rory, you’ve been carrying a lot of things on your shoulders. What you’re telling me–that was wrong. Horribly wrong. But it’s not your fault.”
He pulled the kid into a hug like he was five year old Quincy. Rory was shaking.
Leo sighed, and began to quietly pray. For peace, for healing, for hope. Because Jesus knew pain and anguish.
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the Gork
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