The Look in your eyes

Jason awakens in a rustic hospital bed inside a town clinic. An IV is hooked into his arm. He looks around. The room appears to be built out of what remains of a large store or shop from the ancient Wed Mal structure. The remnants of old concrete and rebar are proudly visible where the plaster hasn’t fully covered them. From a window to his right he can see the window toward the town square. On the his left a inscribed and calligraphic inspirational poster of the 10 Commandments.

"Be not a cancer on the Earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature."

His heart is racing as he looks around for another bed. He’s alone in the room—only the IV bag on one side of him and a space heater on the other. There’s a knock at the door, and he begins to pull himself upright. He freezes as his bandaged and slung right arm reminds him what happened.

The towering silhouette of the nurse enters with a calm, practiced bedside manner. "Is the great Cryptozoologist feeling better?"

When she sees him trying to get up, her façade of sweetness evaporates, and she commands him to sit back down. He refuses, and with his one good arm swings himself off the bed, stumbling in the process and landing on the floor and bringing the IV down on top of him. Jason cried out, with the pain amplifying his call to a near scream.

“Where’s Cassie?” he asks. “I was brought in with her." The Sasquatch woman, her hair padded up in nets and cloths helps him up with a firm but swift gesture. Jason accepts the help but he resists being put back on the bed.

"You were both brought in last night. You both brought in suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia....and that's not including your other injuries." 

"You didn't answer  my question is she safe?

"We need you to calm down you could risk tearing your arm."

"Is she safe!"

The woman nods with an icy stare.

Jason walks towards the door and rushes out before she can protest, carrying the IV tube with him. 

"Sir, I must insist."

"I know more about my health than you. What room is she in?"

The nurse looks him up and down, decides it’s not worth the fight,

"I don't know. You can ask the desk if you want.

Jason grabs the IV stand and marches out of his room into the normally quiet lobby of the sleepy medical clinic. The place is buzzing with the excitement of an actual emergency. The orderlies and vets, accustomed to the occasional ski or mining accident, ware abuzz over the mysterious car and the three people who were brought in.

Jason approaches them, asking questions. “Have you seen her? Where’s Cody? Where’s Cassie?”

Instead of answers, he’s met with questions of their own.

“So it was true?”

“Did you see the moose?”

“How big was it?”

“Did you see the scars on those two?"

"Can you take us there?"

"That Moose crushed cars, I'm going nowhere near that!”

“How did you survive its antlers?”

"How much for a tour?"

“Was it friendly?”

"They actually saw one, did you see the photo?"

"Dude they had to shoot it and it still went after them."

"Its the moose hunter"

“Clearly not—what did you do to make it mad?”

"How do I study Crpytozoology"

“How did you figure out where it was?”

“What was your secret?”

"What else did you see out there?"

Jason ignores them, weaving through the crowd until he spots Cody down one of the hallways.

Cody is staring at himself in the mirror as though seeing himself for the first time. He’s wearing the same clothes as before, minus the weapons and equipment. His shirt is stiff with dried sweat, blood, and mud. Aside from scratches and bruises, there isn’t much visibly wrong with him. He’s not like Jason, hobbling forward with an IV holder cradled in one arm and his other arm in a sling.

Jason calls out to him. Cody hears him and slowly turns, then stops, keeping his eyes on the floor—or occasionally on Jason’s sling.

“It’s good to see you back up,” Cody says. “They said you were pretty messed up. Guess that’s the cost of adventure, huh?" 

"Have you seen Cassie? Is she all right?”

“I have, She was sleeping when I asked about her. The doctor said she’ll recover -- physically at least.”

Cody turns back to the mirror, pulling the fur around his snout, studying his eyes, the folds of his ears, observing the folds.

“What do you mean by that?” Jason asks. “I asked if she was all right.”

“Were any of us all right?” Cody strikes back.

“Cody, what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the anthropic fallacy,” Cody says. “A noted harpy scholar coined the term about fifty years ago. She argued that all post-Youzonian literature speaks to a common melancholy: an ache, of phantom limbs, a numbness, feeling like nothing "fits properly.”

“Esoteric literary theory?” Jason says with a laugh. His attempt to be jovial bounced of Cody like a steel plate.

“She concluded that this common poetic thread disappeared... with the first encounters with the Fridgemen. She never pressed on what that meant -- left it to the imagination. Everyone’s had their theories, and rebuttles but her point remains."

Cody turns to Jason and stares at him. For the first time, Jason recoiled from his friend's gaze." Moths, Sasquatches, Amaroks, Harpies—we all carry this ache for a culture we’ve never seen. For a people we never were. Then your people dug themselves out of the ground.”

"Cody?"

“There was something we saw,” he continues. “Something we were afraid of. Something you pointed us toward.”

Jason tries to change the subject. “Cody, listen. I just want to say thank you. For everything. For saving our lives. Cassie and I got pictures of the Guidestones. Maybe they can help with your book—if you want to revise it.”

"My Book!" Cody stiffens, almost angry, then exhales half a laugh, half a groan. With a mournful shake of his head, he brushes it off.

"Kindling"

"Where are you going?

“I’m going back,” he says. “Take care of her, Jason.” He gestures toward Cassie’s room as he walks away.

Jason can only watch as Cody walks out through the ward doors into the town square.

Jason rolls his IV stand down the hall and knocks on Cassie’s door. Her voice—unusually chipper—calls out, “Come in.”

He opens the door. Cassie sits upright in bed, wings and arms wrapped in bandages and gauze. One good arm is braced against her knee. Papers and journals are spread across her lap.

“Oh hey,” she says. “I think I recognize you. You’re one of Cody’s friends, right?”

Jason winces tries to smile as he steps inside.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Cassie continues, “but all things considered, this isn’t too bad. We’ll probably need to go to Point Pleasant, though. The docs here don’t know what to do with my anatomy. One idiot almost cut off a wing.”

Jason picks up a clipboard. “It says here your wing is severely mutilated. Never fly again.”

“I think that’s what they call an opinion,” Cassie says. “You’ve seen Cousin Scooter, right? Do ya know how many times has he come in like this? Wise men know how to fix it with grafts. Otherwise every moth man and moth girl would stop flyin by thirteen.”

She gestures for him to come closer.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“All things considered? Pretty good.”

Jason hesitates. “Listen. I want to apologize for all of this. I was thinking -- we go back, I'll  get the RV, take you back to West Virginia. I’ll find something else to do.”

“What?” Cassie says. 

"You might need to drive a little because I only have one arm but..."

Cassie sits straight up. Her voice serious.

“We can’t turn back. Not now. After everything.”

She leans forward. He can see the tremor in her body as she ignores the pain from doing so.

“I spent all this time angry at you, trying to explain away what you were doing. But you were right. This is the first time it all made sense. You’ve been searching for real answers, and I’ve just been dancing around the edges of the crater. I’ve been to this city how many times and never. Never stopped to think what was really there. I've been so blind.  Goldflake zones? I was staring at it this whole damn time. ”

"Cassie what are you talking about?"

"The Iron, Gold, and Lead in the Craters." Ive spent all this time just scooping it up for money, I never asked how. How is that natural? It never made sense and I never. What happened to your people.."

"Cassie, my people destroyed themselves.."

"With weapons that can boil gold? I can't believe I swallowed that bull-"

"Cassie please!" Jason's voice broke into a plea, almost a prayer, and a gentle touch. She grips his arm. Her hands on fire.

“We have to go back. I didn’t get enough pictures. We have to know—the origin of us, the myths, the truths, what really happened during the collapse. That city -- we have to see it before it falls apart again.”

She pauses, breath shaking.

“I didn’t understand you before -- I do now. The moose was the beginning of something. Something bigger. I see it now, and I’m not looking away again. I need to know the truth. And I’ll do anything -no, everything to find it.”

Cassie leans forward, eyes blazing. For the first time, Jason sees in her the same fire others have always seen in him.

“It’s out there, Jason,” she says. “Its with your moose, and we’re going to find it.”

Jason blinks.