Escaping the End

Chapter 23

Mila reached out her hand and repeated her demand, "Give Klara back, right now."

The man shifted Klara in his arms and held out his own had to Mila, "Please, call everyone else out. I'd rather know for certain I won't be shot as soon as I let her go. It's not like I can hurt you or anyone else. I don't even have a flashlight for goodness sake!"

Mila looked over to Klara and watched for a second as she desperately wiggled to loose from the man. Mila then glared at the man before calling everyone out from hiding, she was determined to get Klara back. Ashton and Brant lowered themselves from the trees while Gabriel popped up from his place in the bushes. Kotone and Fionn were the last two to reveal themselves and Kotone wouldn't completely exist her hiding spot.

"Okay here," the man said, releasing Klara who gladly ran over to Mila and hugged her waist as tight as she could, "Now don't leave. I have some information about the Governor that should help you."

Mila placed her hands protectively around Klara and looked at the man, "He is only taking those with high intelligence and passive personalities so create a super race. Anyone found worthy can vouch for another, but you can still be found unworthy after that. Class as nothing to do with worthiness," Mila spat at him, "What else could you possibly tell us? Also, who are you?"

The man smiled, "I can tell you so much more and my name is Miles. The Governor wants to create such a super race in order to be rid of anyone who won't listen to his demands or was to dumb to be in his company. So you could be totally willing to be controlled, but if your intelligence isn't high enough you won't pass."

Ashton cocked his head and frowned, "Why not, if they can be controlled and that's what he wants, why not keep them?"

"Because he has a weird, almost obsession, about imperfections. In his mind, the perfect person will obey, but is also extremely intelligent," the man replied.

Mila held onto Klara tighter out of fear, she knew very well they were in constant danger if Klara was with them, but the girl wanted survival just as much as the rest of them. She was clearly intelligent knowing how to detect a distraction and getting out of view the way she had done just minutes earlier, but she wasn't willing to obey anyone she didn't want to.

"Then do you know how testing is done to know these facts? I had never taken an IQ test, nor had I disobeyed any law before my judgement?" Mila questioned.

"Scanners. It's as simple as that. The Governor has been planning this for years and has been scanning and monitoring every person since the day they were born," Miles answered, starting to relax just a bit.

Mila continued with her questions, "Can the Governor decide if someone is 'worth' even if their scans say they shouldn't be?"

The man just raised an eyebrow like Mila had lost her mind, but she was determined to ask until she got an answer to that question, "Well of course but he said there was no reason to use it unless he found..." Miles trailed off into his thought.

Mila knew that couldn't mean anything good for Klara, but she wanted to know bad enough to ask, "Found? Found who? Why would he save is grace for one person? Why would he need to?"

"Who? Doesn't really matter, lots of folks don't think they actually exist anyway, myself included. However, the Governor says that child is rather defiant and so, without his grace, they could never live," the man explained.

Mila nodded and the beckoned everyone over to her. Klara still held on to her, but it didn't feel like she was scared. She was trembling, her eyes weren't shut, she was blocking anything out like one would do if they were truly scared. Once Brant had come over, he picked Klara up without any problem and she let herself be picked up. Mila was shocked and a little more than confused by this, but didn't question it.

Mila looked around to make sure everyone was okay and then turned back to thank Miles for returning Klara to them, but he was gone. Mila decided to take this a bad sign and quickly departed from the area, continuing on their path to the colony that had hopefully been made. Though she didn't completely trust it, she let Kotone led the way.

Mila stayed closer to the back of the group with Brant, Klara, and Fionn. Fionn kept asking Klara if she really had been okay and what had happened. Klara answered each question, but it was clear she had no interest in the conversation. The only time Klara gave a true reaction to anything said was when it was about Tamara. Mila's heart called out to the poor girl, she wouldn't talk about what happened between Ashton leaving them in the cave and her escape, but she knew Klara was hurting. Ashton had been the exact same when he realised the group couldn't afford going back for Tamara and Klara.

After a while, Mila noticed how Klara kept wincing in pain when she stepped down on anything. After about the fourth time she did that, Mila stopped everyone and made Klara sit down and hold up the end of her dress. Klara did so to reveal her shoeless and completely bare feet. Mila shot a glare at Klara who hastily tried to explain. When she realised no one was listening to her story, she finally settled on fixing the problem.

"Why don't you just rip my dress and we can use the fabric to wrap my feet until we find something better?" she suggested, "I would've done it myself, but I didn't think about it until we started walking this way,"

Mila nodded in agreement and ripped six strips off and then wrapped them around Klara's feet. After she finished she had Klara get onto Brant's back so she could let her feet recover a little before walking on them again. Ashton followed closely behind them so he could talk to Klara and Mila couldn't help but smile. For the first time in almost a year, she felt light and free. It didn't feel like she was being weighed down to the Earth with boulders in the dark. The loss of Tamara still hit her hard, but she no longer wanted to take her own life or the life of someone else out of frustration.

"It's funny," she mumbled to herself, "That was the reason why I ran to begin with, to live. That Governor is good at making you suffer, but if we can stay like this, we will show him the true will of people." 

A/N

Enjoy the extra chapter this week. I felt the need to upload since I was late last week and I will still upload next week.