Toxic

Chapter 13: Trample

Anthony

"We just reached the coast of Hawaii. It's go time.", Owen says to us all.
I'm nervous. I'm also motivated. I can finally get my revenge on Marcus for everything he put me through. Not only physical abuse, but also mental and emotional abuse. I'm gonna make him pay.
"Blake. I love you. We're gonna come out of this as heroes.", I say to him.
"You're already my hero.", Blake replies.
I hug him tightly followed by a kiss that lasts about six seconds. My hand grazes the side of his face and rubs against his neck. I love this man. He's my world. I don't want to give this up. We have an amazing future waiting for us. We just need to fight for it.
We head towards the Descension town after we're transported onto the dock. Blake and I split up from the others and watch as the Descension army is prepared for us. They start shooting. Blake and I immediately take cover. The Ascension army fires back and prevails, clearing a path for us all to carry out our objectives with less resistance. Looks like more blood will be shed than we thought.
"The main Descension tower is just up there. We just have to take out that guard first.", I say to Blake.
We walk up and try not to alert the guard. As soon as we're about to knock him out in order to get to the entrance, he turns towards us and raises his gun. Daniel saves us out of nowhere by shooting him from afar. Phew. Daniel continues with Emmett in search of Marcus and Garrett at their homes. Blake and I walk into the tower and head to the elevator. We head up to the floor with the reset transmitter.
"I know exactly where it is. We just have to break down the door in case they changed the lock code.", I say.
The elevator door opens and we continue up to the door to the transmitter. I knew it. They changed the code.
"We need to find something we can use to break down the door.", Blake says.
"We can try this fire extinguisher to break the lock.", I respond.
I hand Blake the fire extinguisher and he uses it to pound on the door handle. It worked. We're in.
"To turn this off, this lever needs to be held down onto the off setting and locked into place for fifteen seconds.", I say.
"That should be pretty simple. I can hold it down. I mean, I am the stronger one, if you know what I mean.", Blake teases me.
"I hate you.", I joke back to him.
Blake begins to push down the lever as I head back out to get my gun I left by the fire extinguisher holder.
"Blake. Close the door. Get out of here as fast as you can after it's done. I love you.", I yell to him as I see the elevator door light up with a ding.
I'm frozen in place in terror of who may be coming up the elevator.
"Anthony, no! We only have five seconds left. You can make it.", he says.
I look back at him through the doorway. We lock eye contact as he's holding the lever down. I can hear the door open behind me and I can tell it's Marcus by the look of Blake's face. The tip of a gun is nudged against the back of my head as I see Blake release the lever and the transmission turns off. Blake looks at me in terror and despair as he shuts the door per my suggestion and escapes. Then Marcus pulls the trigger and the new world I envisioned is stolen from me once again.

Owen

Rachel and I break down the door to Meredith's house. We split up. Rachel looks upstairs and I look downstairs. There's no sign of Meredith whatsoever. That means she's either at the main Descension building or at Garrett's house.
"I can't find her anywhere. Any luck?", I yell upstairs to Rachel.
"No. It doesn't seem like she's been here for a while. Where do you think she could be?", Rachel replies as I see her walk to meet me at the bottom of the stairs.
"I don't know for sure but there's a few places we could try. I was thinking we...", I say as I'm interrupted by a knife piercing through my lower back.
I see Rachel look in terror and hear her scream as I collapse to the ground. I see Garrett step over me and grab Rachel by the neck, choking her and forcing her down the stairs and out of the house. My vision slowly fades more and more as I struggle to fight the pain from my bleeding out.

Blake

My heart is pounding like never before. I quickly escape down the stairs out the back door of the transmitter room before Marcus can move onto me. Then I hear the gunshot. Anthony is gone. I try to wipe my tears as I run down the stairs. My world is collapsing around me. I want to break down, cry, and give up. That's not what I'm gonna do though. Anthony would want me to keep fighting. I'm gonna persevere through this all for him.
I finally escape the facility and run out to find the rest of our group. I hear gunshots firing all throughout the town. I hear screams. This isn't going as well as we thought it would. I see bodies in white, red, blue, and grey lying all around. But, there's more white and red bodies than blue ones. We can't lose. That's not supposed to happen.
"Are you ready to discuss your surrender?", I hear Garrett say as he walks up behind me.
He has Rachel in his arms with a gun pointed at her head. She looks like a mess. There are tears all over her cheeks, her eyes are full of fear, and her face is red. I've never seen her like this.
"We aren't gonna surrender. You know that.", I say as my gun is pointed at Garrett.
"What are you all even after, anyways? I don't get what you all want. You were perfectly fine where you were. We created a better world. Why are you trying to mess with it? It'll just get you killed.", Garrett says.
"The world you all created is evil. We're going to put an end to it, whether you like it or not. We're also here to rescue Meredith. She's suffered long enough being your punching bag. Where is she?", I reply.
He laughs.
"Meredith shot and killed herself as soon as you all left her behind. You all killed her by doing that. That wasn't my fault. That's on you.", Garrett says.
No... no. There's no way. My heart sinks. Who knew I'd be feeling bad for Meredith's death after everything. I'm trying so hard not to blame myself. I see in Rachel's eyes that she's experiencing the same guilty feeling.
"You're wrong about that. You all are wrong about everything. Let go of Rachel. I'm not afraid to pull this trigger.", I say.
"Very bold of you, Blake. It's cute how you're not afraid. Although, you should be. I'll just go ahead and pull my trigger right now. After all, I'd be doing Rachel a favor. I wouldn't want her to see you suffer and die. She can get it out of the way now. Ladies first, right?", Garrett says as I see his finger start to move.
A loud gunshot sound radiates from the scene.

Rachel

Garrett falls to the ground next to me with a gaping wound in the back of his skull pouring blood onto the ground. I turn around and see Owen limping with his gun pointed with one hand and the other hand pressed against his lower back. He saved my life. He saved Blake's too.
I start to run towards Owen until I see Marcus walk up behind him and press his gun against his head. He kicks him and forces him down onto his knees.
"Blake Adams and Rachel Bennett. I didn't think you two had it in you. You should consider yourselves special. You're the last two of your whole entire crew alive. As you know, Blake, Anthony was a piece of cake to deal with. He was almost too easy. Daniel and Emmett put up more of a fight but they didn't last long. Neither will Owen. This is what happens when you underestimate me. I figured you all would know better than this.", Marcus says to us.
"You evil bastard. You'll burn in hell for this. We outnumber you. We can easily shoot you and end this right now.", Blake says.
"Step away from Owen or I'll shoot.", I yell.
"Shoot away. You'll regret it.", Marcus says as he holds up his wrist.
"I'm the number one. If I die, I have an emergency mechanism set in place to ensure that if I don't win, nobody can. As soon as my heart stops beating, nuclear bombs will detonate across the entire surface of the planet.", he reveals.
Blake and I immediately put our guns down. I'm speechless. We can't win no matter what. We don't have any choice. We all die regardless, I bet. I'd rather die than be tortured in this society. The reset transmission is off. That means the rest of the billions of humans around the world are alive and confused right now. I'm not sure what to do. All I can really focus on is making sure Owen stays alive. If we can just bring Marcus down to a solution then we can save Owen and figure something out. Scarlett and Jared will be able to figure something out to save us. This isn't over.
"We can come up with a solution, then. We surrender. Now please, can you let Owen go?", I ask Marcus desperately.
"I don't answer questions, especially not from traitors. I don't cooperate. I follow my own rules. I make up my own solutions. Don't worry, I have the perfect solution in mind. Starting with this.", Marcus says.
Marcus immediately pulls the trigger and shoots Owen in the head, finishing him off. I can't help but scream. The anger and rage overpowers me and consumes me. I instinctively raise my gun and shoot Marcus right in the heart.
"Rachel NO! Why did you do that!?", I hear Blake yell.
I didn't even mean to do that. Marcus drops dead to the ground and I run up to Owen's body, hugging him and crying over him. The ground starts shaking violently like a massive earthquake. Gigantic nuclear explosions erupt from underneath us all. The ground burns. The town burns. We all burn. Everyone on Earth. It's over.