Connor awoke early the next morning feeling remarkably pain free. It was a welcome sensation. Sarah remained fast asleep as he silently left the bed and put on a pair of shorts. Connor left the room to check out his new battle wounds. When he entered the chilly bathroom he carefully shut the door and turned on the lights before stepping into the mirrors reflection. He stripped away the bandages off his chest. Thankfully he became a Balancer and no longer suffered the dread of having any fine bodily hair getting pulled off along with the bandage. Looking closely in the mirror he noticed that the wounds created from yesterday were healed and only two small pink patches of new skin showed where they were.
He then quickly removed the bandage that covered his forehead. Connor thought he must have been seeing things because there wasn’t a single abrasion on his forehead, only soft pink skin remained. “Sarah didn’t say that I would be able to heal this fast.”
Returning to the bedroom he sat down on the bed and began rubbing her shoulder softly, knowing Sarah just had to see this. She slowly awoke from the gentle touch. She then stretched and sat up, bringing the bed covers up with her to cover her breasts. “Good Morning.” She yawned. “How are you feeling?”
“Take a look for yourself!” He stood and walked over to the light switch, turned it on and returned to the bed again.
Taking a minute to focus her eyes Sarah saw exactly what he meant. “Connor, your wounds, their all healed!” Sounding astonished would be an understatement for the way she spoke.
“Yes, you never told me that Balancers could heal so fast.”.
“Connor, your mistaken. Balancers don’t heal, we regenerate. And we can’t. Not this fast. Well we can add another oddity to our circumstance.” She put her fingers to her temples and rubbed. She exited the bed without the sheet and walked over to her dresser to put on her black lace undergarments. She put on some brown jeans and a black sleeveless shirt.
She sat down on the bed, crossing her legs as she patted the bed in front of where she sat. Sitting down comfortably, she explained precisely what she meant. “Connor, we regenerate our cells, not heal. When a normal human’s cell divides, the copy is slightly degraded. That’s the only reason why humans die of old age. If the degradation process didn’t occur they would be as immortal as we are. Their cells cannot make an exact duplicate like ours can.
“Ours on the other hand makes an exact and perfect replacement to the original cell. Not only that, but our system is flooded with Stem Cells. If we lose a limb, and we don’t die from blood loss, a Balancer can regenerate any severed extremity in time. Father is a prime example of this because his left arm was severed in a battle five hundred years ago and it grew back in about six months.
“The odd thing I was talking about was how quickly you regenerated. Normal Balancers regenerate only slightly faster than a human, but not by much to be noticed. Unlike you that is.” She smiled, stood up to walk out the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To test out another theory.” She said sweeping past the door.
A moment later Connor felt through the bond that she was in pain. He rushed out of bed in a blur and entered the kitchen to hear the sink running. Sarah’s forearm had been thrust under the flowing water and turned red and a red stained carving knife sat on the sink table. “What happened?”
“I’m experimenting to see if I heal as quickly as you.” She smiled and turned off the water. He ran around the table, grabbing her arm to see how much damage she did to herself. It wasn’t too deep, but just deep enough to draw blood. The injury was located over the top of her forearm. It was an inch long and he ran to the bathroom to patch up her arm. As he came back in she smiled. “I was right!”
“You cut yourself. How could you be right?”
She held her arm out. “The bleeding has already stopped.” Connor looked for himself and noticed that it did. “I’m still going to cover it!” She didn’t object to his worry for her. It was a foolish test and she well knew it.
After he finished taping her up they walked into their room and opened the closet. They grabbed their hiking packs and filled them with four pairs of clean clothes, several kinds of packaged foods and two canteens filled with fresh water. Connor slid Tool in his belt and grabbed both of their bags as they left the house.
Taking a normal human, leisurely stroll through the woods was a pleasantly calming experience. Most of the travel time had been spent as they smiled at each other. Before they crossed onto Jack’s property Sarah blurted out of nowhere “Did you realize that this is to be our first double date?”
She made him smile. Connor looked up at the tree canopy saying “You’re right I never thought about it that way.”
Breaking through the tree line Connor spotted Mark’s brown jeep in his mom’s driveway. He must have gotten here early. Connor sat the packs in the back of the jeep and then they went inside the house. Kara wore blue jeans along with a pink shirt, covered with a brown jacket. She already laced up her hiking boots. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. “Hey Brother, you ready?” He nodded. “How about you, Sarah?” and Sarah nodded as well.
Mark came out of the hallway, that led down to Kara’s room, carrying a brown pack, filled with things. “Kara, is this all you need?” He wore blue jeans and a silver shirt along with black hiking shoes.
“Yes… Wait!” She stormed off to her room again, skirting around Mark. A minute later she returned with a long wooden case that was instantly recognized by her brother. Kara sat it down on the couch.
“Kara, what’s in the box?” Sarah asked in an interested voice.
“Oh this?” She pointed to the case. “Well you know Brother’s weapon Tool. This is my weapon.” She bent over and opened the case. She lifted her weapon out of the box to show everyone.
A finely crafted silver Longbow appeared. One she asked Connor to create for her a few years ago. Kara sat the end of the bow down and the tip of the bow remained strung with a black string and it stood as tall as her shoulder when the base touched the floor. She reached in the box again, bringing out a quiver of arrows along with a leather hip holster.
“Why would you need to bring something like that?” Mark asked.
“Because I don’t go camping without it.” She stated matter-of-factly.
“Alright let’s get going.” Mark said, slinging her pack on his back.
Kara wrapped the bow across her back, the string clung snugly across her chest. She quickly stuffed the quiver into the holster as she ran out the door.
Sarah and Connor shared a smile at their relationship. Mark had accepted her simple statement without asking why she wanted to bring her bow.
Mark drove for several hours to a destination Connor hasn’t seen in years. Sarah sat with him in the back while Kara and Mark took the front. Mark pulled into a heavily forested area. “We’re here.” He said and all exited the vehicle.
The sun hung high in the sky with scattered clouds and the weather was a perfect seventy five degrees. Connor had a feeling that this was going to be a good idea for a perfect weekend getaway. Sparse clouds and low humidity told that chances of it raining would be negligible at best.
Connor put on his pack, as did Sarah and Mark. Kara strapped the holster of arrows to her waist and the bundle hung from her left hip. She strapped the bow over her head again before they all took to the trails. Connor grabbed his sister’s bag because he knew she couldn’t strap it on over her bow.
The four of them walked together for twenty minutes through the woods. Connor wanted to get camp setup as soon as possible. “Hey Mark?”
“Yeah, Buddy?”
“I think we should go ahead first, and set up camp.”
He looked at Sarah and Kara first and then came back to his friend. “I agree. Let’s go.” He said in understanding the simple logic and reasoning.
“Brother, what if we lose you.” Kara asked in her chirpy voice.
“You won’t as long as Sarah’s w
ith you.” Kara nodded and he looked at Sarah. “Take your time, Princess. Have a nice girls chat.”
Both men picked up their pace along the mountainous trail, but didn’t run.