The Initials | Nanowrimo 2023

70| The Uprising And The Orphans

"None of this is about him," he replies, sinking further into his seat. "Not really anyway."

"But it is, isn't it?"

Arden presses his thumbs against each of his fingers in a repetitive cycle instead of immediately answering her question, only choosing to once he stops. "I needed a monster."

Sky folds her arms with knitted brows. "I'm listening."

"You understand what it feels like to be the most powerful person in a room...sometimes we take that for granted."

Sky leans back in her seat, feeling strangely calm, the cool breeze in the room cooling down the excessive heat she was feeling whilst trapped under her covers.

"But to know that at any moment, we could literally kill everyone in a room if we really wanted to...does that not scare you?"

"I'm not a murderer."

"But you could be, if you wanted." Arden turns his head slightly, averting his gaze once their eyes meet. "Nephilim aren't just powerful, we're closer to the gods than we are to our own people. None of them will understand what that's like."

"But that's just it," Sky whispers, letting her thoughts roll off her tongue. "We aren't gods."

"No, not gods." he mutters, picking at the flaking skin underneath his nails. "The Initials are a different kind of messed up."

Sky snickers, brushing strands of her hair out of her face, surprising even herself. "I'd drink to that."

"The price of Freedom is always Chaos."

Sky flutters her eyelashes, finding herself unsure of how to respond to that. "I'm sorry, I don't follow. Is that from a book or something?"

"No, just something they used to teach us..."

"I see."

"I feel like I have these two sides, constantly fighting one another. There's Arden before the Academy, and then there's who I am now." he confesses, sighing to himself, feeling fidgety after sitting in the same space for so long. "I have control, for now...but there could always be a day when I'm not me anymore. When I'm that other guy."

Sky sucks in a harsh breath, peering down at her hands. "I know a thing or two about that."

"In human fairy tales the hero always slays the monster. But it isn't the same in other words, heroes don't slay monsters, only other monsters do." Arden makes direct eye contact, a moment that feels like a rare event "And I've found myself another monster...I'm just sorry it had to be your boyfriend."

"But why? What about the other Orphans? Why does it have to be this monster?"

"I've thought about it but the risk of them becoming sentimental is too high."

She asks him if the other Orphans are regularly sentimental, and he admits that they are not.

"After the program it was all gone for me. It was probably the same for Isla and Sage too, most likely because we were the youngest." Arden's voice softens, becoming so low and quiet that Sky wonders for a moment if he is trying to hold back tears. "They took a lot of things from us. Things we're only just realising we're missing, like, politeness."

"I don't know about that. You're not too terrible, at least in comparison to some of the people I grew up with." Sky remarks, shifting in her seat when her mind words are followed by awkward silence. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm just trying to figure out if you're making a joke or not."

"Sadly...no, I'm not."

Arden hums, keeping his opinions to himself as he recounts his earlier thoughts, his mind naturally wandering onto Elijah. "The others were a little older so their hardwiring is a little different. They already had memories of what normal was like."

There is little Sky can say after hearing something as sombre as that, especially after having built them up in her mind as some crazed lunatics. "Were any of the scientists your parents?"

"Sage and I were orphans when we got there...but they did raise us like we were their own. For better or for worse."

"Your given name is Arden Snow, right? You wouldn't happen to have any affiliation with the House of Snow, would you?"

Arden interlocks his fingers, seeing through Sky like a sheet flapping in the wind. "Ask what you really want to know."

"What was it like?" Sky asks, seemingly catching the same bug as Arden, losing control of her mouth. "Murdering the people that raised you?"

"It had to be done."

"It had to be done." she echoes, looking down at the carpeted floor as weighs up the pros and cons to her own problems. "It has to be done."

Before Arden leaves, he parts with a friendly suggestion. "You should start thinking about getting your own monster. Preferably before you turn into the thing you hate most in the Nine Realms."

"What's that?"

"Before you turn into me," he replies, turning away from the light coming through the door. "Before you become a murderer."