It was so cold that every breath was an icy hand squeezing her lungs. Nothing was easy. Not even opening her eyes, because if she did - for too long - they felt frozen solid and her vision dimmed. So she kept them closed, as she ran, for as long as she dared before she was in danger of running into a tree. If she fell now, it seemed unlikely that she'd be able to get up again. And that could not happen. Not after all she'd been through - if enduring that had been a waste, then she really could just curl up in the snow and die.

Marlena shook herself a little at the thought. No, that was not an option. This whole thing would be an epic poem, someday. Or maybe a biographical novel. Once the regime was toppled, and free speech became a treasured commodity once more, she would tell her story, and she wanted everyone to fawn over it and tell her how brave she was. That alone would make this hellish run worth it. Perhaps some grandchildren to gape at her, as well, as she told the story - heavily censored for their age, of course. Some of her fellow prisoners in the correctional facility had been a little rough.

Behind her, she heard the howl of dogs, and the angry shouts of men. She turned her head once and was startled by how close the beams of their flashlights seemed. Perhaps the snow, in its arctic howling, was muting them. Marlena had heard something like that before - in a science textbook. But maybe that was all lies, too. Just like when you were brought up in class and everyone said they were going to be your best friends for life. That was just something you were expected to say; you weren't expected to mean it, especially if the person committed a crime. It was all right to just drop them and leave them behind. Criminals didn't matter. That was what you were taught - anyone who went to a correctional facility was dangerous, and ceased to matter.

Even though she had cried so much in the past week, the thoughts of her treasonous classmates made tears streak and harden on her face. Marlena knew that her pace was beginning to slow. She couldn't feel her feet anymore, and the guards would soon catch up with her. They would throw her in a solitary cell, give her bread and water every other day, and then resume showing her mindlessly bland educational films. Films that would encourage her to be happy, loyal and just like every other girl. But she would never give in, even if it meant a life of living in facilities, or maybe even - eventually - prison.

Never.

Determination seemed to warm her up for a moment, and she ran on, through the snow that seemed to slice down through the air like a knife. Behind her, she could hear the snarls and panting of both the guards and dogs that were chasing her down. There was very little difference in the two noises for her. Both were ill signs - the dogs would snap at her, and bite her, and the guards would encourage them for a minute before dragging her back. That was how her past escape attempts had ended, although they had been in Lasak, her previous facility. Lasak was in the desert, in Nevada; back then, she'd had to worry about overheating and collapsing. Between the two, she preferred the desert. At least she could feel her feet in the desert.

She'd run through the ghost town of Las Vegas, heard the ghosts in its old signs, imagined the gambling and the laughter of women. She belonged to a different era - not this one, which was an iron fist around the people born in it.

With some dismay, Marlena realized her gait had decreased a lot. She was barely running over the snow; it was now more of a trot, and the sounds of her pursuers was abnormally loud in her ears. That was her exhaustion talking, feeding her legs their last bit of adrenaline, before she slowed altogether and came to a halt in a clearing. The trees loomed around her, made into skeletons from the winter. Her heart was heavy, and she knelt in the snow to frantically catch her breath.

This was it - another escape attempt that had failed. Her fellow inmates would leer and make fun of her for even trying, but she'd gotten farther than anyone else; that was something worth celebrating. Perhaps she would steal a guard's dessert cup for herself. It paled dramatically next to actually escaping, however. She braced herself, ready to feel a guard's cold hands on her arms, or a dog's teeth in her back, but neither came. All she could hear was her heavy breaths, almost deafening to her ears. Marlena forced herself to open her eyes and look up.

They were circling her, like sharks, with odd grins on their faces. Even the dogs seemed to be grinning, snapping their teeth and wagging their tails. They appeared to sense the mood of the men holding their leashes.

"Well, guys, what do you think?" one of the guards shouted. He had to shout to be heard properly, the wind was almost like a gale.

"I think we should feed her to the pups. Less work for the staff," another shouted, and they all guffawed at his weak joke. One of the dogs, a burly Shepherd, barked and snarled at the noise, excited.

Marlena closed her eyes. It had been a waste. All those years of resistance and rebelling, two qualities the society hated, and now she was going to be torn apart by dogs.

One of the guards dropped his leash. He had been holding an enormous, thick-furred dog that looked like it had Husky in it, and it dove forward and latched onto Marlena's left arm. It locked on, and she couldn't help it, she shrieked, because its teeth felt like a vice as it yanked her side to side. She was too weak from her running to hold her ground or fight it off; it jerked her around, bruising and cutting her flesh, while she whimpered.

The burly Shepherd was released next, and it grabbed her other arm and started doing the same thing. The pain made her head whirl and her entire body scream. They weren't just biting her - they were rending her - and she could feel everything, because the activity made the blood return. Wanting dignity in death, if nothing else, Marlena closed her eyes and set her jaw to prevent any other sound from escaping her lips, while the guards grinned and occasionally laughed.

But then she realized that the air was very warm for being in a snow storm. Too warm, by far; it felt like a summer breeze. Gold shimmering lights appeared in the air and in the sky. Orb-like, they hovered and zoomed as though they were fireflies basking in the summer air. The dogs let go of her, and the others on leashes barked in confusion; the guards themselves just stared stupidly with their mouths open.

"What the hell?" one of them said, a little angrily. "Somebody wake up the fireflies?"

"Those are too big to be fireflies, you idiot," another snapped. "We don't even have them here. Not anymore. Get your dogs."

The Husky and the Shepherd were grabbed and yanked back to the perimeter that the guards had made. They whined and barked in irritation, but Marlena could barely notice. The edges of her vision were getting fuzzier and fuzzier, and the snow on the ground was... red? The trees were blotches of dark brown and green, coated with white in certain areas, and then all she could see was them and the blurry blackness of the nighttime sky. Her arms were balls of hurt that somehow were still attached.

And then she saw it, and heard it.

A bright white-gold flash appeared in the sky, and she could see an inky blackness that the sky around a city could never have, in a circular shape in the sky. And, with a deafening rumble, a plane flew out of nothing and into the air right over their heads - barely clearing the trees. It was a massive thing, with many engines on its wings, some of which seemed to be on fire.

"Jesus christ!" a guard yelled, and they all ran back the way they'd come, dogs leading the way, whining in terror. But Marlena couldn't see that; she could only hear the softening of their voices, and then a tremendous thud as the plane either crashed or landed. And then the forest was quiet, as though nothing had happened.

Her vision dimmed even more.

She thought about her mother, which took her by surprise. Nina West had always had thick, beautiful blond hair. Marlena had always wanted blond hair like that, but she'd gotten her father's light brown. She played with her mother's hair as a little girl, tugging on it when she'd been a baby. Now that she thought back on it, it must have irritated her mother beyond all reason. But she thought of her mother's hair, now, and the graceful way her mother had always moved. She'd had dance classes, and she was ridiculously good, but Marlena's father had been firm - a woman's place was at home with her family, not on the stage. Marlena had resented that. If her mother wanted a little activity, and maybe a little fame, she should have gotten the chance.

What did the factory worker know of his wife's wants? He'd never been there, anyway.

Her mind went blank for a few moments, and then she heard the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard in her life. It was like she was back in fifth grade, on the field trip to the aquarium, and she was watching the presentation on whales. The beautiful sound was like whale song. It was lonely, and haunting, and it felt like a mother's arms being wrapped around her. The sound seemed to care, somehow, and after so many years of hatred in correctional facilities, Marlena almost cried. She could almost feel it asking her, are you okay? What's wrong? How can I help you?

The song lulled her into the blackness that was overtaking her eyes.

It was, ultimately, the sound of coughing and the smell of smoke that brought Marlena West back into consciousness. She felt warm, and her arms were numb, but it was the sound of a human being reacting to smoke that snapped her eyes open. Replacing the view of the night sky was a metallic ceiling, tube-shaped.

Then she heard the beautiful sound again. It seemed hurt, somehow; sad and in pain.

"I know, I know," she heard someone - a young woman, maybe - say. Close, too. And then the vision of boots appeared next to her head. "Oh! Hello. How are you feeling? We... no, I... was concerned."

The face was slim and fair-skinned, and her smile was somewhat infectious. It had a warmth to it that Marlena hadn't seen on another human being in months, if not years. She wrapped a slim, warm arm under Marlena's body and gently assisted her in sitting up, which temporarily pushed the room out of focus. And then her head adjusted.

Marlena found herself sitting in an airplane, a very cramped one. There were boxes and objects everywhere. Some of the objects were unfamiliar to her, with multiple screens and wires and bulky shapes, and some of them weren't, like a few calculators and an enormous car battery.

"Can you talk? Are you all right?" her rescuer inquired, which focused Marlena's new-found vision on her.

Young, most likely in her mid-twenties, with dark hair that was probably brown; she had a mischievous look to her. She had gloves that retreated all the way into her sleeves, and wore a button shirt and a brown striped vest, with sleek trousers and very tall leather boots.

"I'm... okay," Marlena forced out. Her voice was hoarse and she cleared her throat once. "I think." She glanced at her arms. They were neatly bandaged now. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour, which is how long it took to dress your wounds." Her rescuer grimaced. "Nasty piece of work, that."

"Thank you, very much. I thought I was going to die. Who are you, anyway?"

She hesitated a moment before she answered, which made Marlena feel slightly suspicious before she realized that, if she were asked the same thing, she would hesitate too. They were on even - suspicious - footing, it seemed.

"You can call me Elle. Everyone does. Uh, almost everyone. How are your, uh, arms feeling?"

Cautiously, she tested them. Her vision whited out for a brief second before she stopped moving, yelping loudly. When she opened her eyes again, Elle was standing over her, a hand on her forehead and a peculiar-looking lens in her hand. She scrutinized Marlena's eyes with it, like a doctor examining a patient.

"Sorry," she said, sounding supremely guilty. "I didn't really mean move them - just how painful they were. Ahm, let me make you some tea."

Elle moved out of her line of vision, and she heard a clattering of porcelain. But she couldn't really make herself care about the fact that she was lying on a plane with a stranger - she felt drained, weak and cold. She was helpless. Nothing could make it worse.

Then the noise, the singing like whales underwater, came again.

She could practically feel the arms again, feeling warmth flood her legs and arms. It made her feel strong, at least a little bit, but she lost track of time. It was as though she could see through the metal ceiling and into the sky outside. The stars shone brightly around her like a net, and the singing lulled her. It reminded her of some of the prisoners in the correctional facilities, ranting about their drug trips.

Her 'trip' was cut short by a thin, lean arm under her back, pulling her into a sitting position. She opened her eyes, but couldn't formulate anything to Elle, who looked partly amused and partly disturbed.

"Easy, easy. I have some tea for you here. Chamomile. It should make you feel a little better," she said, holding Marlena up.

She offered her a saucer and cup, white with a blurry blue design Marlena couldn't make out. When she realized that Marlena couldn't hold it up, she tipped a few sips gently into her mouth, treating the other woman as though she was glass.

"See, the thing is, I probably stopped infection, but we really need to get you to a hospital. Um. Otherwise you might be scarred for life, and you might lose the ability to move your fingers. Or, uh, something like that - I'm not exactly a professional in these matters."

Marlena grimaced. Not because of the tea, which was a welcome warmth in her body, but because of the fact that she'd been bandaged or stitched up by someone who said 'um' and 'uh' so much. How much was she not a professional? Had she just been stitched by a crazy person while she was unconscious?

Hospitals, though, were entirely out of the question. And that was... well, not good.

Elle misinterpreted the gesture, putting down the cup. "What's wrong? Did I stretch something? Tea too hot?"

"No," she managed.

"To all of the above?"

She tried again. "No. Hospitals," she emphasized, which sent her into a coughing fit that felt like her lungs were trying to escape. Elle patted her back, a little awkwardly, and nodded.

"Okay, okay. No hospitals. Whatever you say - you're the one with the hamburger arms."

She sighed, heavily, which only brought one cough. Was this woman completely out of touch with reality? Marlena looked every inch an escapee from a correctional facility. Her mouse-brown hair was cut unevenly and marred with tangles, her fishnet tights were torn and ripped all over, her boots were older than she was, and her other clothes - a sweater, and denim pants - were worn as thin as silk. She didn't wear the bright, gleaming attire of a happy U.S. citizen.

Then again, neither did Elle, whose color palette was limited to browns and off-whites. Her sigh made Elle shift, and Marlena thought that she looked extremely uncomfortable.

"I'm a newcomer here, so I'm not sure what to do, exactly. Do you want me to drop you off at a friend's, or maybe with your family? Molly should be able to function in a few hours."

Marlena frowned. "Who's Molly?" she rasped.

This made Elle smile, though her discomfort didn't vanish entirely. "This is Molly," she said, gesturing at the plane. "Molly, the one and only. Just like me."

She thought about asking about the singing, but reconsidered her condition. Perhaps the singing was her own, bloodless brain having an episode. Marlena decided to keep this to herself, at least for the time being. Perhaps she would ask an actual doctor.

"That's an interesting name for a plane," Marlena said carefully. "She's very... sturdy. I heard you crash before I passed out."

Elle smiled more widely. "Yes, that you did. We kind of, uh, crash a lot. We never intend it, but it seems to happen. And this time we - er, I - managed to annoy the wrong people, and they sent a missile at us."

Marlena's mind glossed over some of the information given to her, specifically, the part about 'we.' She was already convinced of this woman's instability. But missiles at a plane, on U.S. airspace, wasn't uncommon.

"Look, Elle, I appreciate the help. Don't get me wrong. But what country are you from?"

As she said this, Elle's expression - the infectious smile - faded a little. "What country are we in?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Answer mine, and I'll answer yours. Truthfully," she added, on Marlena's suspicious glare.

"Fine." Talking was starting to make her lungs feel like punching bags, and she breathed in deeply for a moment before replying. "You're in America. A few miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Probably one mile from Hillcrest Correctional."

She brightened. "Am I? Oh, good. I've never been to Pennsylvania before." When Marlena glowered at her a little more, she added, "Oh, um. I'm from Britain, actually. But it's probably not what you think."

Marlena gaped at her. That was completely impossible. Wasn't it?

"How did you escape the camps?"

"Camps?" Elle blinked slowly, and then smiled again. "Oh, I'm crafty. Very crafty."

"No, crafty has nothing to do with it, if you escaped you'd be dead. The toxic fumes over there..." She went quiet for a moment. That was one piece of human history she wished she hadn't read. "They're deadly, no survival, not even in a plane. Period."

Elle squinted at her. "Do I even know your name?"

"Uh." This crazy person obviously could not be trusted with her real name. Maybe she was only masquerading as crazy to gain Marlena's tentative trust. Maybe she was going to take her back to Hillcrest and claim the reward that would be posted in the morning. "I'm Sally. Sally... Winter."

"Well, Sally"--she didn't sound very convinced of Marlena's fake name--"let me give you a piece of advice. Absolutes aren't healthy. Live a little. Deal with mystery. Think about the impossible. If you do, life tends to reward you."

Marlena snorted. "Are you saying my crappy life is from being a Sith Lord?"

Elle blinked at her, that same lost expression she'd had, briefly, when the camps had been mentioned. "Um... probably not."

She pressed her advantage. "Do you even know what a Sith Lord is?"

"Of course I do," Elle scoffed, leaning Marlena back against a wooden crate and standing up.

"What, then?"

"It's... a... Lord of Sith... stuff. Look, it's not important." She walked over to a set of controls on the wall and hit a few switches; the plane rumbled a little, still whale-like. "I'll just drop you off with family or something and you can be on your way."

Marlena felt, distantly, surprised. "Really?"

Elle turned around and looked at her with a bewildered expression, one slim hand on the console. "Of course. What did you think I was going to do with you?"

"Uh, I dunno. I've never met you before."

"I assure you, missy"--Marlena scoffed a little, Elle looked only a few years older--"that I'm no scallywag or serial killer, and you'll be returned safely to wherever you call home. Now, where to?"

She clearly expected a readily-spoken destination, and Marlena felt a wave of despair. There was no such place. Her parents would take her back to Hillcrest if she went home. Her friends would report her and do the same - again. She had no contacts. All she had... was a crazy woman, inside of a plane that maybe sang and was named Molly.

Her long pause, probably a minute or so, prompted Elle to sink down on her knees next to Marlena. "Sally? Are you all right?"

"No," she managed. "I'm not. I..." Well, why not, she thought, tell her the truth. "I don't have a place to go. The government did this to my arms, Elle. I'm kind of a wanted fugitive now."

"Oh." Elle seemed to take that a lot better than Marlena had expected. It was as though she was thinking, yeah, so? And that was a... rare thing. She smiled. "Well, we can find you a safe place. I'm kind of good at that, actually. Uh, that is, if you want my help."

Marlena sighed quietly. "Like I have a choice not to accept. I can barely move."

"We'll find someone who can fix that." She put a hand on Marlena's shoulder. "Promise."

She was crazy. No one helped a wreck of a young woman, like this, who had been nearly torn apart by dogs. If the government was targeting you, and men were authorized to kill you on its behalf - people stayed away. It was for their safety. The population just didn't stick their neck out for others anymore, or they ended up dead, too. For the benefit of your family, you had to be selfish. Marlena could understand that on some level, but she could not understand those who just turned over people. People they'd known their whole lives.

"Why are you so nice? You barely know me, and yet you've taken me in, and made sure I didn't bleed to death. And now you say you're going to help me, a fugitive, when you have a crashed plane to deal with, too."

Elle continued to smile cheerfully. "I'm nice because that's how I am. Simple as that."

Somehow, she managed to sleep. Even though she was warmer, now, and Elle had found her a blanket, her arms were still painful; she expected to be awake for quite a while. But the singing returned when Elle said she was 'stepping out to take her measure of the world', whatever that meant, and it put her at peace. She was less convinced, now, that she was going to die.

Before she'd left, Elle had shown her to the back of the plane, where the fuselage was obscured by a thin white sheet. There was a hammock there, with many baubles and odds and ends tied in long strands to the bottom. Elle had insisted, for her comfort, that she lay there instead of the metal floor; Marlena had only objected once before the had idea became too good to refuse.

Above it hung more baubles - small gears, beads, dreamcatchers, tiny toys, Christmas lights, a tiny lantern. It reminded her of a synthetic forest, the long white string reminiscent of willow branches or vines. That, and the beautiful singing, lulled her once again into the darkness.

She dreamed strange things. In one dream, she was back in her childhood home, with the 'No Place Like Home' stitched sign above the door. Her grandparents were visiting, and she hated them; she hid in her room and climbed under the bed, to sit with her cat in the stiflingly warm space. Her cat, Lily, purred and played with her hands, but she could also speak in the dream. She told Marlena of the things she would do. She would fly with whales, she would sing to dead stars, she would gaze into the emptiness and feel better for it. Lily was sure that she would be successful in all her endeavors. But then her grandparents came up, and her parents dragged her from the bed, and they told her what a silly child she was. Worthless, unaccomplished, broken. She would never do anything worthwhile if she sat under beds and talked to cats all day.

In another dream, she was in arctic wastes, and it was dark. Her legs had given out and her whole body couldn't feel anything. But then Elle was there - only it wasn't the kindly person who had bandaged her up and sheltered her. It was someone else, with the same face, smirking down at her. She grabbed Marlena by the hair and started to drag her through the snow, and Marlena was glad that she was numb. There were lights and stars above her, in patterns she'd only seen in pictures. Eventually she was dragged into the yard of some kind of medical or military facility, only it was run-down, and the lights flickered constantly. She could hear shrieking and snarling inside, punctuated by whispers. Not-Elle stared down at her, coming to a halt in front of the door, and Marlena knew that - whatever was inside - it would not end well if she went in.

"Please," she whispered hoarsely. "Please no."

"It's been expecting you," Not-Elle said, with another smirk, and she swung the door open. Marlena was aware of a hundred screams and grey, rending flesh before she started awake, lying in a hammock in the strangest aircraft she'd ever seen.

She then jerked, again, because Elle was standing next to her. Only her expression was deep concern - not macabre pleasure - and Marlena found that strange for a second. It didn't match the other face. But then she remembered which was the dream, and which was the reality.

"Are you okay?" Elle asked her. "You were screaming."

"Nightmares," Marlena managed, trying to breathe more slowly. "Sorry. My head's kind of... jumbled... and your plane is very... Well. It's strange."

Elle smiled briefly. "That's one word for it," she agreed. "I should take a second look at your injuries, see how they're doing. Is that all right?"

"You told me before that you aren't a doctor."

"I know... some of the basics. And I know if wounds aren't healing properly," she added. "I'm pretty good at that. Lots of bad experiences under my belt."

Moving was still difficult, but Marlena managed. Her arms, when she moved them, were only painfully sore; her vision didn't blur at the gesture. Elle, with long and slender fingers, began to open the bandage up. She did so with enough care and precision that Marlena could tell she had bandage experience, at the very least. When she'd opened them to the flesh, though, Marlena stopped looking. Her stomach churned at the mere sight of her own, mangled flesh.

"Yes, it isn't pretty," Elle agreed, when she'd flinched. "But it doesn't look infected. Seems to be doing okay. Still, I'll sleep better when we find someone with medical expertise."

Marlena sighed. "Did you miss the part about me being a wanted fugitive from the government?"

Surprising her slightly, Elle actually grinned. "On the contrary. But we'll have to move the plane to get there - the talk in town is pretty suspicious. We might have visitors in a few hours if we don't, and I don't want to see you going back where you came from."

As nice as that sounded, she could hardly believe she'd just stumbled upon the nicest person she'd ever met. What was this woman's motive? It wasn't making itself very apparent.

"Why?"

Elle was already turning around, towards the cockpit, with the same grin on her face. "You're so cynical, Sally."

"This is a fascist, controlling world that I live in," Marlena snapped. She didn't know why she snarled it out. Something about the whole situation was just bugging her. She was waiting for Elle to turn her over to the feds, and... she hadn't brought them back after her excursion. What was she waiting for? "I have a certain right to be suspicious of other peoples' motives."

"Oh, of course you do." Elle was out of sight, up in the cockpit. "But it's not necessary. I'm really just trying to help you out. I can't turn people away if they need it - it's a quirk of mine. But, um, you should probably grab hold of the plane somewhere. Molly's not very smooth these days."

"You can't take off here, there are... trees everywhere!" she objected. "Won't you snag on them or something?"

"Molly doesn't need much space. I'll tell you what, though, we'll need to hit the Invis."

Marlena frowned, grabbing frantic hold of the metal to her right. The spot was awkward, but it was decent, as the plane jumbled and sputtered to life around her. "The what?"

"Invis. You'll see!"

With a sinking feeling in her gut, Marlena held on to the side as tightly as possible. The roar of the engines - four, she remembered seeing - was near-deafening when they'd all gotten up to full churn. But the sound wasn't all bad; layered under it was the sound of singing and wailing, the beautiful whale-song. She felt calmer for hearing it, and when the plane gave a sudden jerk directly into the sky, she wasn't as frightened as before.

She was frightened, however, when the very walls of the plane began to disappear around her and she could see the snowy forest outside. It seemed to melt away, as though something in liquid form was devouring it. By then they were up, up, and into the sky, and she could see the lights of the nearby city. The singing wasn't calming her nerves anymore - she felt a rush of panic, and then jolted, and the last thing she remembered was the snowy tops of the dark trees.