26. Make It Happen.

Ava dreamt of the sea. She was trapped in another time piece, one that opened underwater. When she swam for the surface, the rippled underside of the waves was utterly impassable, like some kind of thick, shifting glass. She slammed her fists against it from below, desperate for air, but she may as well have been pounding on solid stone. 

Her lungs screamed. In the distance she could hear Charlie's gruff voice insist that she figure this out. "That's what you're here for," he snapped. "Make it happen!"

25. The Cleared Skies.

He sprinted through the trees and back towards the field. She was probably fine, he told himself. She would probably laugh at him for worrying at all. She was probably already on her way. Right?

He burst out of the trees and down the slope towards the wreckage of the old plane. A slumped figure lay in the grass ahead, easily visible in what was now a clear and starlit night. "Ava!" he cried.

She was unconscious, and so pale as to look gray in the silver light. He knelt down in the mud next to her and tried to shake her awake, but her side and stomach were covered in blood.

24. The Eight Minutes.

Abe was sleeping soundly, tucked away from the storm in the hollow part of an old tree. He dreamt of a seaside he didn't recognize, with strange people on the shore who ached with a torn-up sort of longing. He hoped they wouldn't see him. He felt somehow that their pain was his fault, and that they would certainly kill him if they knew he was near.

A sharp, sudden slap on his cheek woke him up with a start. The rain had stopped and he heard footsteps, but when he pulled himself out of his little shelter no one was there. "Ava?" he yelled. 
Ava! He checked his watch and his heart dropped to his gut. He was already eight minutes late.

23. The Faces of Ghosts.

She held her gun out steadily with one hand and lunged forward for what looked like a steering wheel with the other. "No!" the far pilot screamed and pulled his pistol out, but she pushed forward with all her might and the plane lurched downwards. She heard something explode, and a blinding pain in her side knocked her to the floor. She lay there in a daze, unable to rise, and vaguely wondered what was so warm and wet that crept across her shirt.

The pilots' faces lost all color as they desperately tried to regain control of the plane, but it was too late. They were locked into the nosedive and gaining enormous speed. They looked at her, then at each other, furious and confused. One grabbed the photograph of the sea, barely catching it in all the shaking, and clutched it in a white-knuckled fist. "I'm sorry," said Ava between labored gasps, but her voice was far too small for them to hear.

22. The Photograph.

It was her fifth time through before she finally made it to the cockpit. Two men were at the controls, and a third asleep in the corner. She raised her pistol before they could reach their weapons, and they eyed her suspiciously. "You a spy?" one of them yelled, the propellers nearly drowning out his voice. Neither of them looked overly frightened. And why should they? she thought with a twisting sensation in her gut. She didn't feel frightening, even with a gun in her hand. She felt like a fool. 

A photo taped to the console caught her eye. "That your home?" she yelled. It might have been a postcard, so lovely was the bright morning view of the sea. One of them nodded. "Good," she cried. "Keep your eyes on that."