Maryellen Brady đđ - 1922 Baltimore City, Maryland - A lost child was out sliding and snow fell so fast and furious, one minute play & the next fearful & freezing. Near Lock Raven.
The Aurora Archives: Day 4
ARCHIVE ENTRY: 1922-DEC-24 LOCATION: The Abandoned Town of Warren, Maryland (Loch Raven Valley) SIGNAL RESONANCE: Critical / Harmonic OPERATIVE: Field Medic Unit (Sub-type: Resonator)
TRANSCRIPT OF RECOVERED CORRESPONDENCE:
To Dr. Albright,
You asked me when I found my voice again. You assumed it was the therapy, or perhaps the passage of time that finally let me speak after France. It was neither. It was the snow, the silence, and one of the rabbits.
It was the Christmas of the Great Snow. The blizzard had swallowed Baltimore whole. My little sister, Mary-Ellen, had run off toward the valley, chasing a fool notion of finding a Christmas tree in the woods and playing in the snow, she hoped it would cheer me up if she found a good tree. As if a tree could help erase the memories. When the whiteout hit, I got scared for her, but I knew where she would end up: Warren. The ghost town. The city men had already emptied it to flood the reservoir. It was just shells of houses and a silent mill, waiting to be demolished.
I went after her. When I walked into those empty streets, however, the snow swirling through the broken windows and the mist off the lock waters⌠I wasnât in Maryland anymore. I was back in the Argonne. The ruined houses, the dead silence... My chest seized. The wind whipped about me, cold as death, and I fell to my knees in the snow drift, paralyzed by the ghosts of the war, waiting for the noise of a shell to pass overhead.
Then I heard it. Not a shell, but a thrumming. A vibration in my teeth, in my bones. It cut right through the panic.
I looked up. Sitting just a few feet away from me was one of the rabbits. I didnât think they lived around here due to my peoples religious beliefs, but there it was, white as the snow, but wearing a starkly red shawl around its shoulders that cracked in the wind. It was completely still and wasnât shivering despite the cold. It was staring right at me, and that humming sound was coming from its mouth. It hopped towards me, but it didnât sink in the snow, it stayed on top of it, light as a thought. Barely leaving an imprint.
It nudged my hand with its nose, warm as a coal stove, and whispered in that weird clipped way they use our words, âComeâ. I confess I was jealous that even a rabbit could talk when I could not. The hum in its chest got louder, a steady, rhythmic purr that matched the beating of my own heart, slowing it down, syncing it up. It turned and looked toward the old general store. It thumped its foot. Once. Twice.
I followed it. The dread vanished, replaced by a strange, golden calm. We found Mary-Ellen huddled in the doorway of the store, blue with cold. The rabbit sat on her chest, humming that same rumbling sound while I put my jacket around them both to warm them up.
When I scooped my sister up to take her home, the words just... fell out. They didnât get stuck in my throat like before. I said, âIâve got you, Ellie. Iâve got you.â The first words I had uttered in nearly four years.
The rabbit watched us go, its ears turning like radar dishes, before it vanished into the white.
That was the night I came back from the war, Doctor. The night the ghost town and a rabbit gave me my life back.
Yours,
Davie
ARCHIVISTâS NOTE:
The operative was utilizing âBio-Resonance Projection.â This rare ability allows a Rabbit to broadcast a stabilizing frequency via the its vocal chords that are in synchronisation with a persons string, specifically targeting the nervous system of a traumatized subject. By synchronizing the subjectâs heart rate with their own, the operative effectively neutralized the panic response. This is a technique humans were not aware of in the turn of the 20th century. It makes you wonder, if human-rabbit relations were better, how many combatants could have been saved from severe PTSD. Note the âsurface skimmingâ on the snow, typical of high-level gravity control.
Wow! God, I got chills!
This whole series is so clever, Graeme!