The Insurgence: Bleeding Silver

Now The World Spins Backwards

         My eyes slowly fluttered open, revealing fresh sunlight peaking through thick treetops. It reminded me of home. Home.

Reality came flooding back in, and with it a flash of violent coughing.

I sprang upright and coughed into my stained and tattered black shirt. I felt every muscle clench, revealing pain in different places my mind was blocking out. Dirt and saliva squirted onto my shirt making my stomach unsettled. My lungs felt heavy and burned with each breath and every cough I forced out of them.

Relaxing, I sat back with my weight on my hands, taking slow and easy deep breaths to try and calm myself down. I was suddenly reliving the events of everything that somehow only happened last night. Ethan really did betray the base, his own brother being his melting point. Ethan killed my parents and took their bodies here to scare me, I watched him smile and talk to them before too. Was this always the plan?

I grimaced and looked around. I was surrounded by others laying on decrepit white mats. The smell of blood and charred flesh mixed in the air with the pine trees. It was cold with the air thin but my body felt hot. It was all so quiet.

All around me I could slowly see the destruction. Trees were dead, their leaves fell into ash below them. Bricks and papers were scattered around and dancing throughout the air were tiny black pieces of ash. The bodies around me seemed to have it worse than I did, irritated brown and red sores and blisters covered parts of the skin, sometimes larger areas like half of the body or some laid on their stomachs with their exposed scalded flesh facing the air. I saw some with a bandage around what was left of their leg or arm, horror frozen on their faces.

I shook my head and tried to stand up, crashing onto my kneecaps and harshly gasping. Pain shot up and down my legs and awakened the rest of my sore, pulsating body. I felt it in my back, my hips, my chin, my chest and stomach, the back of my head was rippling with pain. Everywhere was on fire.

People were looking now.

And the thought of them possibly blaming me crossed my mind. They might look at their missing limbs and think about how they'd still be whole if it weren't for my arrival. Except... they'd be right. It slowly sank in that I was the reason that base was now a pile of rubble.

Jasmine was right.

Mavis walked through the medical area and froze when she looked at me, no smile or overjoyed hug. I felt a sinking feeling take over.

"Mavis," I sighed. "Mavis I can't stand up."

She visibly gulped, looking around before making her way to me and sitting down.

"Ayla you are one of the lucky ones, I can't be wasting my time on you." Her eyes were swollen, lined with sunken dark bags. She looked like she'd lost her spark, even her hair wasn't as vibrant in pink. I couldn't help but feel like she was mad at me... which only added to the guilt.

"I..." I shook my head, unsure of what I could possibly say to her to lighten up this situation.

She closed her eyes, her expression falling. She stood up and walked away from me and tended to other rebels who weren't so "lucky" as she put it.

I couldn't stay here. I felt like I could throw up with all these eyes on me.

I slowly stood up again and carefully made my way out of the general area and found paths marked with lanterns. There were tents scattered randomly throughout the trees and I noticed there really wasn't a lot of them, not enough anyway.