Chapter 2: Worries

Looking behind her, all she could see was the fire consuming the building that Jin Thornton just went into.

Lin Jie’s eyes widened. Jin just walked back into a building before it blew up.

“Jin! Jin!” Lin Jie tried to see through the flames. Nothing was there. No bodies could be seen through the heat.

Sirens could be heard in the distance, so Lin Jie turned around and quickly ran for it leaving the scene and went back to her apartment. Walking into the living room, she threw the keys onto the dining table and crashed on the couch trying to replay everything that had just happened.

“I need to report this.” Lin Jie reached for her capsules to pop open the recording system but hesitated. ‘Don’t trust them. Please, just trust me on this.’ Lin Jie retracted her hand and reached for the capsule with a blue stripe around it rather than the red one. Pushing down on the cap, a small display of bathroom supplies spread out on the coffee table. She quickly picked up the contact lens’ case and reached into her left eye pulling out a normal looking contact. Placing it into the solution made the contact take on a red glow. The light dimmed and Lin Jie placed the contact lenses holder on top of her laptop. Using Bluetooth, a video came up.

Lin Jie quickly skipped the first two idiots and her dinner search and rewatched the video over and over again looking for something that she didn’t see the first time.

“Wait! Don’t trust who?” Jin placed a finger to his lips and walked into the building.

Lin Jie paused it and zoomed in altering the photo to look brighter and traced every detail of Jin’s body language.

“Dammit! Come on! We trained for this! What did I-“ That’s when she saw it. Lin Jie quickly zoomed in on Jin’s position of his finger and saw it was pointing straight towards his left eye. She enhanced it and tried to make something out of it, and she saw the same tint of red in his eyes as before in the light. A loud crash startled Lin Jie, but what she saw was real. It was the same red as her contacts.

Closing the capsule with another push of the cap, she pocketed it and got a bat from the doorway and walked to where she heard the crash. No creaks could be heard from her footsteps, but nothing seemed to be out of place either.

“Maybe it was just the wind.” Lin Jie kept the bat at her side and went to search every room head to toe. Thrice over.

The third time, she stood in her bedroom looking at the scene before her. The room was bare and had no life to it. ‘Reminds me of home.’ She thought bitterly, but something caught her attention. Something just felt off.

“How long are you going to stare at the same area until you realize it’s me?” Jin asked, walking out of the closet.

“I thought as much. What are you doing here, Jin?”

“Wow, no how did you get out? I was so worried! How did you get out?” Jin asked, doing dramatic poses.

“No. I rewatched everything and remembered there was no body. So, what are you doing here, Thornton?”

Jin smirked. “To see if you heeded my warning and if you saw my hint.” He said holding up his finger in the same position. The red was basically glowing in this new light. “I knew you were in the top 5. What’s your rank?”

“What do you mean?” Lin Jie crossed her arms loosely over her chest keeping a hard poker face.

“Don’t play dumb, Ms. Lin Jie Liu or do you want it to be in the form of Liu Lin Jie?” Jin sat down in the desk chair looking up at Lin Jie through his long wavy hair.

“I didn’t tell you my full name. How do you know that?” Lin Jie got defensive and placed a ready hand into position.

“Well, I may be closer to you than you want to know.” Jin stood in front of Lin Jie, pulled off his jacket, and pulled up his right sleeve showing four red bands around his bicep. “You have four gold bands, right?” He asked, pointing towards Lin Jie’s left arm. She quickly pulled a hand up to subconsciously cover it.

“Why do you know about the symbol?”

Jin sighed and pulled his sleeve down looking her dead in the eyes. “Because it’s not the first time that this has happened. They sent you here to find John Titor or a figment of him right?” Lin Jie didn’t answer trying to gauge who or what this man was. “I’ll take your silence as a yes. Now-“

“How did you get out of the fire?” Lin Jie finally broke asking the questions.

“That’s a little secret, but that was not my doing. They are trying to get rid of us.” Lin Jie looked at him in disbelief and just dismissed him walking back towards the door.

“If you’re going to spew nonsense, then can you leave? I have a job to do now that The Garden is gone. I have to find more leads.” Lin Jie sounded exasperated but done with the entire situation. She opened the door, but a hand from above came and kept it closed. Lin Jie turned around expecting to see Jin’s face full of anger, but it was the exact opposite.

Standing before her was the shell of a broken and terrified man. It seemed like that fear had been there for years. “Please believe me. Don’t send anything about my being alive to Udea. Please.” His hands were on either side of her head, but his entire posture was slumped down almost looking defeated. “I don’t know who to trust anymore. I wasn’t supposed to make it out of that fire and I know it. If they think I’m dead, then hopefully I can just live peacefully.” Lin Jie was about to say something, but Jin looked up at her with pleading eyes glistening with unshed tears. His eyes showed so much pain.

“Tell me your story and I might believe you.”

“I can’t tell you yet.” His voice cracked as he looked out the window. For a split second, Lin Jie thought she saw some form of loss, but pushed it away as Jin pushed himself off sitting down on the bed. “If I tell you everything-“

“Then tell me what you can.”

“Okay, but not now. Just promise me for this month, you will not tell Udea about me. They will try to bring you back and get information out of you before the time is right.”

“You’re making no sense.”

“Just wait a month.” Jin said looking so serious it made a shiver run up Lin Jie’s spine. It seemed like he was staring at the life or death crossroad. Lin Jie nodded and ushered Jin into the guest bedroom to at least let him sleep here for the night. A loud ping resounded around the apartment telling Lin Jie it was almost time up for her next report.

Picking out the proper capsule, all of the recording and sending equipment was placed on the table.

“Report Number 2. Came to sight of the first lead. Nothing was there except some drunk bastards who wanted to take me home. The place burned down in an explosion before I could make my way inside. Tomorrow I will follow lead number two.” Lin Jie shut down the recording and sent it to Udea. ‘You better be telling the truth Jin Thornton.’

Lin Jie walked back to the guest bedroom and saw that Jin had fallen asleep on the bed, but he was shaking like a leaf. Sighing, she got another blanket from the closet and covered his shaking frame. It took one more, but he finally calmed down. For some reason, it felt right to do this, but she had no idea why. Lin Jie walked into her bedroom and looked up at the sky. No stars could be seen in the sky, but that was nothing different from her own timeline. “Prove this isn’t going to fail.”