The World's End | ONC 2024

ੈ✩‧₊˚ |𝟮𝟬| 𝗔𝗶𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿

Wylan

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Answers were all we needed. If we were going to die here, we might as well die knowing the answers. Reckless but there was nothing else that could satisfy me, and Axelle.

"I gave her a get out of jail free card, and she goes out and comes back in...and then lures my husband and the kids out of here! Just when the experiment started to work again. She took out hundreds of subjects out of the country."

Subjects. That's all those lives were. Those children, those tests. Every person that she killed, every child was just a pawn in her game.

Axelle gulped, her muscles tensing. "She loved Papa, didn't she?"

In an ideal world, neither Axelle nor I would be alive. Instead, it would be my mother and her father together, living a life of freedom and happiness.

Away from their manipulative spouses, both of them would've been together.

"She loved my husband. I care about Veridonia, Axelle. There's a lot you don't understand, and a lot that you never will."

I laughed, "Yes, of course. Your husband. After you used him for your benefit and threw my mother away."

Madame Henderson turned to me, her gaze focusing on my eyes. "I knew there was something familiar about that hair." She pushed her chair back and fixed her posture. "Like mother, like son. Meddling in everyone else's business."

Axelle stood up and walked towards her mother and knelt to face her. "If you want to kill us, just do it now."

At that, Madame Henderson scoffed. "No, not killed. That's a waste. You'll be back home. Locked. Him and that orphan on the other hand...the North seems like the perfect place for them."

Axelle hissed, and I watched in awe as her fist met with her mother's face she winced, and the chair moved slightly. It was almost the same rage I saw when she attacked the Verids, but I knew it was unreasonable.

Madame Henderson got up from her seat and walked towards the caged metal door and she found the key for it—it was a copper red and embedded with three small dots. It would be useful later.

"Well, this session didn't go well," she replied, patting her right cheek where Axelle hit her. "Axelle, I've done everything for you. I made sure that the air you breathed was clean. I made sure that you were safe from everything and everyone. For whatever it's worth...you're the only person I loved. And cared about."

She wasn't wrong. There were certain lengths Madame Henderson went to to keep her daughter safe. She even kept my sister safe, even though she probably hated her. Axelle was the only person that Madame Henderson would try to put above Veridonia, and herself.

Axelle didn't look her in the eyes. For a brief moment, I saw tears form in Madame Henderson's eyes as she hoped her daughter would see her love for her.

Axelle didn't.

Madame Henderson didn't lock us in this time, instead, she let us out and gestured for us to follow her. She was twisted, I understood that now. She had a twisted sense of what love was and she blurred the lines between love and manipulation so much that I wasn't scared of her anymore.

I pitied her.

We were led through the hallways that looked eerily similar— everything a faint metallic silver. We braced ourselves for the unknown and our fates. With every step, I felt my heart race and there was some serious lack of air here. Or I was just panicking.