2634: Dalmore

Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

The next week later, when I gather  with the group we are just about ready to go back inside the walls. However, we somehow are cornered by four feathered human-looking flies. A week ago, I would have found this unusual, or maybe even scary, but everyone was right, we’ll get used to it. It’s not fun, let alone fair, but it’s normal.
I hold up my gun and shoot the monster, which obviously does not work, the fly dodges the bullet as it flies past. You can't shoot a Mutant down, it doesn't work like that, you need to think, weapons don't work. Brains over brawns after all.
So how do you kill a fly? Let alone a human sized one. The Mutants let out a gurgling sound and regurgitate out amber looking substance onto Alec’s leg.
“Ew,” His face of disgust soon turns into one of horror, the amber liquid turns into solid hard rock.
“Cover for me! I’ve got a plan,” Zion says, ducking into the jet. The Mutants swarm in closer, Alec in desperation starts shooting randomly, all bullets missing them. I grab my gun and start swinging it around, hoping that I would hit one. Instead of fighting back, I jump under the jet and hide under it. The rest of the group follow, all except for Alec. Crap, I get up and drag Alec who limps to the jet. I shove him under the jet and crawl under. Though hiding from the Mutants wouldn't last for long. Zion better hurry up. I look up to check if the flies are still there. Hearing the buzzing, I slide my gun and start shooting from where the noise is coming from. That is until I hear a door open, Zion.
She slides under with sticky foam. “Sorry Alec,” She says.
“Huh? What-” She pulls out Alec, I peer up from under. Zion sprays Alec until he’s covered in foam, looking like a gooey Mutant. “What the hell, Zion?” He yells.
However angry Alec is, it works. The Mutants fly over and are caught onto Alec. We crawl out and shoot the trapped flies.
Back at Veritas, we walk to the Dining Hall. When I get to my seat, lunch consisted of talking to Kyle and engaging in small talk with Levi, Jaxon and Ares, not to mention keeping up with Ophelia’s pessimistic attitude.
‘I’m stuck in English,’ Kyle moans.
‘Sucks for you,’ I laugh, Kyle has also explained what school is.
‘What’s happening back at Monster Land?’ Kyle asks, in the past week of conversation, we’ve both come to the conclusion that Kyle lives in the Safe Cities and I live in Veritas. After all where else could he live. I dare not tell anyone about Kyle.
‘Not much, we killed this fly monster though,’
‘Fly monster?’
‘Yeah, it was big as a human and started spitting out this amber liquid that hardens when it comes in contact with stuff. I wish I could take it and set it on Feyrer,’
‘He’s the evil guy who wants to kill Zion right?’
‘Yeah, I still don't know what to do about it,’
‘I came up with this idea, it might work but you can give it a try. You told me Zion’s hair was red, that’s not very common so she could get spotted easily. So you could dye her hair some colour like black, brown or bleach it-’ He says.
“What's up with you? You're always so pale when you eat,” Levi asks.
“Uh, it’s nothing,”
“Yeah, you're looking really suspicious this entire week, care to explain?” Jaxon asks.
“It’s nothing-”
“She’s seen death,” Ophelia laughs. “That always drains the happiness out of little kids,”
“You need mental help,” Ares says with his mouth stuffed full of peas.
“So who died? Is it one of your friends?” Her face lights up.
“Go to hell Ophelia,” I hiss at her.
“Already am,” She replies.
“So what happened?” Jaxon presses.
Not wanting to explain Kyle I lie, “Last week there were these people wearing rags, so I went to help them-”
“-And they tried to attack you,” Jaxon finishes.
“How did you know?” I ask, genuinely surprised.
“They’re the Rebels, they live in New Tyro, down South. They’re also pretty mad, because like ten years ago they used to live here and then got kicked down further South,”
“You helped them though,” Ophelia crackles.
“Shut up, anyways I didn't help them, I tried to help them,” I argue.
“Even better, you can’t even help homeless people,” Ares sniggers.
“Who’s side are you on?” I ask him.
“Mine,” He says.
“I’m leaving,” I fume.
“Bye, bye,” He waves. I check the time, 1:50. Apparently Angrove has also given watches to Ares, Alec and Soren, thank god for Angrove. Speaking of Angrove, we haven't talked to her in a while. I'm thinking of talking to her tomorrow. I head off to the jet to wait until 2:00.
As the minutes tick by, I start to hear weird noises at the back. I turn around and hop to the back.
“What are you looking for?” I ask. Zion is searching for something at the back, digging through the weapons, carelessly flinging them around.
“I think I dropped the sticky foam can back there,”
“It’s only sticky foam. We can get some more,”
“Yeah I guess…” She says, as we climb back out of the back.
“Well, anyways, I have this plan,” I tell her, “So you know your Feyrer problem, I was thinking that we could dye your hair. Hear me out, your hair is quite...noticeable, so if we dye it some colour, we could disguise you,”
It takes Zion a minute to process what I just said. “What?”
“We dye your hair…” Nervous on her opinion.
“I don’t think it's a good idea,”
“Why not?”
“It's just that… Adria, you know that our parents are dead. I've never met them and it’s the only thing that reminds me of them-”
“But it could be temporary dye-”
“Adria, no,” Zion shakes her head.
“OK, OK, I was just suggesting...” I slump against the seat.
Killing off Mutants today wasn’t that great either. It is a blue hairy wolf today, it grabs me by the scruff of the neck and throws me against a wall. I think I have a concussion. Groaning in pain, I try to get up, however my efforts are to no avail. The creature lets out a roar, attempting to tear me apart. I somehow manage to get up and run around aimlessly, the Mutant follows in lead, finding a crook in a building I jump behind it. I see the creature’s nose flare, I feel for a rock and fling it across the room. The wolf turns to where the rock hit and I run, my head feeling slightly better. Looking back around, the Mutant appears to have figured out my trick. I stare at it in the eyes, it looks back at me and I start to slow down, walking backwards slowly. Howling to scare it off, I pick up a stick and wave it in its face attempting to look more dominating. This works, it walks off backwards, it’s body shrinking, the blue ears flattening. Until it pounces one me, it waves its claws arounds as I try dodging every swipe. In desperation, I grab the stick and poke it in the face multiple times before spotting my gun at the foot of the building I hid in. As I run to grab it, the wolf regains its strength and lies down on top of me. I stretch my arm out, grasping the gun before managing to shoot it in the face four times. Stage 5, the scope says.
That’s when I bump into Zion running from a boar the size of the Lobster-crab, arrows sticking out from its leather hard hide. Scrambling to my feet, I follow Zion running from the fuming boar.
“I tried killing it. I thought it died and then I jumped up and started chasing me!” Zion yells between breaths. After continuously running and hiding from that thing, I search my surroundings, behind a dumpster. The floor is littered with vines, sticks and metal rods from the destruction. That’s it, I grab one particularly long stick and place the metal rods to form a giant fork, a trident. Tying the vines to keep the trident in place, I charge at the boar who turns and  charges at me. When it opens its mouth, I shove the trident up its mouth, hoping to poke something important. That I did, the boar falls onto the ground. “Wow,” She says, looking down at the creature.
“Wow indeed,” I say, pulling the trident out from its mouth and chucking it away. “C’mon, lets go help the rest,” Spotting the rest of the group not so far away wrestling a stubby alligator, a platypus tail for the rear end of the creature. Alec is pinned down on the ground whilst Cora and Reeve try shooting it's arteries which looks to be a near impossible task. Zion hands me a crossbow as we rush to help.
“Keep it still!” Cora yells at Alec.
“I’m trying it’s so mucky and slippery,”
“Sit on it!” Zion yells.
“What?” Everyone looks at her as if she’s gone insane. Ignoring everyone, she climbs on top of the monster and keeps the Mutant still. Hesitant, Reeve does the same whilst Cora motions me to do the same. Holding the alligator still, Cora shoots it in the head. When I get off, my hands and butt are covered in gooey muck.
As I wipe the goo off onto a wall I hear something. A shriek, a desperate cry for help. A quick exchange of looks later, I sprint towards the shriek the rest following after me. Looking around, no one dares not go to where the screams are. They look nervous and mutter to each other. Some heads are bowed down. In a dark abandoned warehouse, I arrive at the source of screams.
Some other people in our year group approach behind us. Reeve pulls out a torch, moving it around the room. The screams stop. Everything becomes silent. I snatch the torch of Reeve, grab the hand gun out of my pocket and walk into the building. The door shuts behind me, I have a bad feeling that it is locked. Locked door, pitch black room, extremely eerie and with only a torch and a handgun, not very fair. The first thing I notice is the smell, a rotten coppery smell. The smell of blood. The smell of death.
Heart rate quickening, a deep low growl emits only meters away from where I am standing. My body tenses, there is no doubt I’m in here with a Mutant. The hair on my arms and legs stand up, something tells me I’m not going to get out of here with just a scratch. I raise the torch and move it around the room until it hits something. It looks like a brown carpet until it jumps into the full light of the torch. Hair covers the faceless beast as it lays on all fours over something. I try shining the light onto the thing under it but the Mutant’s body covers it. Chomping noises erupt from the monster, it's eating something. Finally moving to the side, it shows what it is eating. My heart stops.
A girl, not much older than I, lays beneath the Mutant, her insides ripped apart. The monster reaches out to her face, biting off the skin and flesh. There is more blood than I have ever seen in my entire life. I want to move, I need to move, but I can’t. My feet are paralysed, fixed on to the ground like I am stuck in mud. This is all too overwhelming. I try to close my eyes to get rid of the scene but I can’t. The monster keeps on tearing and tearing away until you cannot tell that the corpse was ever human at all. Bones litter on the ground. The head and the neck are gone, ripped off in shreds. A few bits of body are scattered around. You can still see the eyes staring out of it, the skull and other parts of skin. Time slows down.
Eventually, someone busts the door down but I don't pay attention to that. They end up killing the monster but the image is playing over and over until I feel Zion dragging me away. My eyes never leave the scene, the place where someone who didn't deserve to, died.
The jet ride is painfully long and quiet, but I don't mind. The image appears to never stop leaving my head. The blood, the lifeless body. It wasn’t fair. It wasn't fair that someone with so much life ahead of them should die like that. If I were just a little faster maybe I could have saved her. 
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have done anything,” Cora says, reading my thoughts. I’ve never seen anyone die, people can't die like that. It can't be real.
After taking a quick shower, I go down to the Dining Hall. During dinner I still don’t say a word, Jaxon, Levi and Ares aren’t here yet which leaves me with Ophelia. Usually if this happened I would have complained but today I don't feel like it.
“What’s up with you? You look more of an unfortunate case than last time,” Opheila says after a while.
“I saw something-” I begin, poking the food on my plate.
“Someone died, someone died!” Ophelia crackles jumping up and down in her seat.
“Yeah…” I trail off, “Someone did die and I don't know why you're so happy about it,”
“Looks like miss sunshine is not going to be so happy after all,”
“Hahaha,” I sneer, feeling anger build up inside of me.
“Do you want me to explain or not?” She says taking a sip of water.
“What is there to explain? People are dying and you're here laughing like its the funniest thing on Earth,”
“You get used to it. All the dying, it's normal, everyone’s seen it, gone through it. You might think it's not funny, but over time you’ll see it's normal. It’s nothing to be scared or worried about. You’ll become someone just like me,”
“I’m not like you,” I say, staring into her eyes.
“You can care all you want, you can try to save them, but don't expect us to try to save you. Things here, they’re not as bright as you saw them. This place rips hope out of everyone that enters here,”
“I don't need any of your lectures,” I huff, stuffing more slop into my mouth. Ophelia doesn't say anything, she smiles sinisterly before continuing eating her food.
‘How do you kill a spawn of Satan?’ I ask Kyle.
‘What?’
‘How do you kill a spawn of Satan?’ I repeat.
‘I don't know, you do all the killing, shouldn't you know?’ He says.
‘For your information, I do not kill people, I kill Mutants there's a difference!’ I yell at him, hand clenching around my glass of water.
‘Calm down, I thought a spawn of Satan is a Mutant or whatever, not a human,’ He says.
‘Whatever,’ I say. Taking a look at Ophelia’s sardonic smile. I roll my eyes and get up to head off to bed.
“No, I haven't finished,”
“Of course you haven't,” I mutter while taking a seat back down.
“That person you saw die, she most likely will be forgotten by everyone, even you. There are no roll calls, that is why we lose people and don't realize who's gone until a lot of people die. Oh, and that is just the beginning,” She adds.
Honestly, her dead stuff obsession rambling is really starting to get on my nerves more than ever. I can't stand another week of it! I’d rather listen to Ares, which is something I’d never thought I would say. I swing my dorm door open and flop on my bed. Some of the girls are already asleep. However, I can feel Reyna and her friend’s gazes on me. Well I can kiss goodbye to the idea of going to bed not when Reyna’s awake. Hopping off the bed and reaching underneath it, I feel for the small watch box. I jump under the covers and open the box and pull out the watch pillow. Inside is the Ixora puzzle. I look at each of the pieces carefully when I see writing scribbled over one upturned piece. I’ve never noticed that before. ‘Don’t trust them’ it reads. Don't trust who? I turn over more pieces, more messages, ‘AIC are not your allies’  AIC? Until I get to one that says, ‘Join the Rebels,’