Daniel took a deep steadying breath as stared at the sun set framed by the sand dunes from up at the terrace. The World War that had always seemed to be on the brink, had finally broken free from the forces that kept it contained.
The battle did not happen between different continents or counties. It was fought in between the people. In their minds. In their hearts. They had hoped for a better tomorrow. But everyone has a different opinion of tomorrow...
He shuddered and covered his face properly with the brown cloth which had slid over to his neck. He wasn't going to think about all those vividly gruesome images that visited him frequently in his nightmares. He sighed as he stared up at the sun.
Now even the sun seemed to hate him as it showered its UV radiations while the idiots who started the war are sitting behind tinted glasses as they patiently watched the drama unfold before them.
Three years! And everything has changed since that day.
He still couldn't wind his mind around the fact that it has been three years since NSI happened, and his mind went back to that day...
"Line up for checking!" a soldier growled, "Move on! Move in a line!"
There was a soldier at the end of every line jabbing the sensor into their arms, testing if they were worthy of being trusted. My heart was beating wildly but
"Hey, hands off me!" he heard Ariadne say, facing forward completely ignoring the soldier as he showed her forward.
"Oh! She's feisty!" he laughed, "You know that I can report Mr. Wright and he would throw you to the dogs, right?"
Ariadne turned to face him, and he was glad he hadn't seen her molten grey depths then because the soldier visibly flinched at her glare. If he thought that threats would shut her up, he had a lot to learn about Ariadne Rosa.
As he slowly moved up the line, his palms started sweating. He was nervous. But he had no reason to be. He knew himself, right?
Right?
He looked around at others. Most of them were panicking, but nobody would talk to another. Nobody trusted anybody, because as Mr. Wright put it, anybody could be a Deviant. His Mom, Dad and even his brother could be one.
"Next!" the soldier called out and Ariadne walked behind the screen, where she would be 'tested'.
They would get an imprint on their wrist later to classify them. Pure or impure. Good or Evil. They would be marked forever, not because of their character or status, but their DNA.
He remembered Janson's words.
"It's not how you feel,
But the way you were born,
That determine who you're loyal to,
Only a few can live,
And the others will die,
So you need to choose whether to,
Stay loyal and lie,
Or to betray them and speak the truth,
Help the world,
Or save your friends,
Survive alone,
Or Die together,
It is after all, a no-win situation..."
And finally Daniel's name was called. The guy testing him was wearing a paper robe which was a sickly hospital green. He decided to call him 'Green Robe'. He strapped him to a chair and Daniel wondered if anyone had tried to escape before. He stuck the needed in his arm. Daniel's limbs seemed numb as the as the numbers on the digital screen started increasing.
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
Daniel felt dizzy...but he knew himself, right? He knew he wasn't one. He was sure of that. And then, the weirdest thing happened. The guy who was testing him had his mouth hanging open as well.
"What are you doing, boy?" Green robe asked grabbing him roughly by the arm.
Daniel couldn't speak.
The screen displayed 2.8.
"You were supposed to be cleansed, boy!" he said, "I'm going to report to Mr. Wright!"
'Cleansed?' Daniel thought as his mind conjured up dark pictures of what it meant.
Green robe left the shabby tent only for a minute and was back with Mr. Janson Wright. For some reason, Daniel didn't like this man. His eyes seemed cold and his body didn't speak of office work. No. As a jock, he knew the amount of effort one had to put in to maintain it. If he had not been so taut with tension he would have said that it was the body of a warrior.
The testing guy seemed to explain everything to Mr. Wright... no, Janson. He wouldn't call him Wright because Daniel was sure he wasn't right.
Janson's dark eyes bored into Daniel and he couldn't keep his face blank, then settled for a smug look which was a part of him being a jock.
"Ah! Looks like we have a shielder who knows exactly what he is doing," said Janson eyeing his smug look. And Janson took one of the knives lying on the medical table. He played with it, balancing it on his finger.
"Have to break his concentration," he said nodding at 'Green Robe' who left the tent.
Sunlight gleamed of the blade, blinding white. The silver seemed so pure. Until Daniel's blood tainted the blade.
He shook his head to get rid of the fear that came with the memories and stared up ahead. A flicker of movement caught his eye and focused on a lone figure on one of the sand dunes. It seemed to be coming towards the Shack which was their home. He was prepared to duck just in case it turned out to be the NSI but this person seemed to be staggering. A wave of compassion washed over him but he quickly doused it out with the strict rules that were drilled in his head which they followed in the case of an emergency.
The person was closer and he was able to see properly as the stranger had moved away from the glare of the setting sun. His eyes went wide as he realized that the person was in fact a girl and she looked so much like someone he knew from a different world her. A world in which his biggest worries where his Chemistry paper and League matches. He shook his head as he glanced at the tousle of raven black hair some distance away.
The approaching figure cast one long look at the sun clutching her throat and collapsed tumbling down the small hill. He ran down the stairs as if someone's life depended on it; well actually it did but he just wanted to take a quick look at who that was.
"Daniel, where are you going?" Natalie asked startled as he picked up the Dev-Sensor and a bottle of water and shoved it in a bag.
"Someone's outside, near the dunes" he said as he slung the bag over his shoulder, "I'll be right back, okay?" he said as he slammed the door shut behind him, not waiting for an answer.
He ran with a purpose. In the distance he could see the brown trench coat that completely covered the girl. He was a foot away from her and he crouched down and pushed the coat away from her face. He gasped; it was her.
Ariadne. One of the people who haunted his thoughts for three years.
But he needed to follow the protocol. He looked around. There was no one in the vicinity. He grabbed the Dev-Sensor from the bag and muttered an apology as he pulled her towards him and jabbed the needle of the Dev-Sensor into her arm. The digital display showed 2.4.
She was awake now, peering up at him with her molten grey eyes as he gave her some water.
"Daniel?" she croaked out her voice rough, "What are you doing here?" she snapped.
"Hey! You collapsed due to lack of water. I was trying to help," he said, "Come on, Let's get you in," He slung her arm over his shoulder and wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up. She was heavy, like she carried half a ton of steel with her. He had no doubt that would have been easier for her.
A normal human can get food quite easily. He briefly wondered if she had been one of those who sat behind tinted windows as he half carried and half dragged her to the shack. He shook his head. She might be rude, yes, but she was basically a good person.
Natalie stood near the door waiting for him and she had a pistol ready in her hand. She came running towards him and then she noticed Ariadne. Her eyes went wide and she gasped which was surprising as she was usually calm and composed. Ariadne seemed to faintly register that she was staring at her best friend and gave her a small smile when she was a couple feet away. Natalie then helped Daniel to safely deposit her in the infirmary bed, when they realized that she had lost consciousness. She picked up the spare Dev-Sensor but Daniel slapped it away and showed the reading on the other one which still displayed 2.4. She nodded and injected her with a transparent fluid.
"It's glucose," she said carefully cleaning the needle with warm water in a basin nearby, "She should recover pretty soon,"
They left the infirmary and walked down the corridor towards their dorms.
"I can't believe that after all these years that all of us are finally together," Natalie said, her black eyes lighting up as she thought about the old days, "But I really wonder how she survived, I mean we took a couple of years to organize the shack because we couldn't survive alone," she stopped walking and glanced up at him with questioning eyes, "Are you positive that nobody else was there?"
"Yes, I guess so,"
"You guess so?" she shook her head, "I don't believe it! I told you to follow the protocols perfectly. I mean- never mind; I'll do a patrol now!" Natalie said as she left him standing alone in the corridor.
He sighed. He knew that feeding another mouth is not going to be easy with their shortage of money. He walked down to his room and took a notepad, leaned back in a couch and started jotting down their necessities for the month against which he wrote down their prices.
FOOD - 10x32 = 320 Cad
SUPPLIES - 5x32 = 160 Cad
WEAPONS - 100x3 = 300 Cad
TOTAL - 780 Cad
The money left over from last month was just 20 Cad and the month was about to end. He had no idea how they were going to manage 31 people, 32 right now. Only Natalie, Nora, Marco, Alan and himself knew how to use guns or any kind of weapons for that matter. Laura just screams when she sees anything metallic with something that looked like a trigger. Elizabeth was worse. He placed the notepad nearby and closed his eyes as Natalie's words came back to him.
'I can't believe that after all these years that all of us are finally together'
Slowly darkness engulfed him and he drifted off to nightmares filled with a grey eyed girl partly buried in the sand asking him to leave. But before he could get close to the girl, a shrill scream woke him from his slumber.
Ariadne...
'No! Don't do it!" screamed the voice as Daniel ran towards the infirmary.
"I'm telling you it's all my fau-" she stopped screaming the moment he threw the door open so loudly that it rattled on its hinges. She was sitting upright on the bed and gazed at him wide eyed still clutching her head and muttering something under her breath, tears streaming down her face. His eyes swept over the room, noticing that the windows were all tightly bolted returned to Ariadne's petrified face. She was as white as a sheet as she wiped away the tear stains, scrapping at her face. Then when looked at him, she had masked all her emotions at once and she glared at him with anger.
"Where is my bag?" she snapped, which seemed to be the last question that might come out of her mouth. She didn't seem to care that she was dressed in a hospital robe or that she was in a very strange looking infirmary; it was as if she had done this a million times before.
"It's right here," said Laura's voice near the door, "Can I come in?"
"Sure," Ariadne said her face flushed. She seemed embarrassed that her cries woke Laura up.
"You need to stay down, you know," Laura said closing the door behind her, "You collapsed due to dehydration girl, take it slow," she said handing Ariadne her bag. Ariadne's brow furrowed for a few seconds and then her lips twitched. But then it turned into a frown.
Must be a trick of light! What did she find so funny about the whole situation... she is the type who expresses herself quite easily.
Ariadne snatched the bag and asked the directions for the bathroom. She seemed quite alarmed for some reason as she grabbed the bag and entered a door to her right.
"I'll check on her when she's done," Laura said as she turned to leave and standing near the doorway was Nora. Laura left quickly aa they never really adored each other.
"I can't believe she is actually walking," Nora said concerned, "She suffered a high level of dehydration, you know?"
"Hmm," Daniel replied not exactly listening to her words. He instead focused on the weird sound that came from the adjacent room.
Clink!
There, the same sound again like something metallic hitting the basin. He could hear through that door because he was a Marginal. Marginal are the ones stuck in between the two races, Deviants and Humans.
Clink!
Clink!
Clink!
Clink!
Then the sounds were drowned by the sound of water. Natalie also seemed to be in deep thought but he knew better, those might be guns.
"Did you examine her bag carefully?" Daniel asked coldly.
He hadn't forgotten, Oh no! He wouldn't forget it in a hurry even if he wanted to. She had been just staring at her friends as they were loaded onto trucks. She had that victorious grin on her face as they were taken away by force, separated from their friends, lugged from their families... If it hadn't been for T-
"No, I didn't," Nora said exasperated, "She's our friend and have you heard of the word 'Trust'?" Nora was there with him that day when it happened... why is she defending Ariadne then? For the starters, Nora used to hate Ariadne with a fiery passion.
"So tell me you went out of your way ignoring the Standard Protocols," Daniel began through gritted teeth, forgetting that even he didn't exactly follow them this morning, "That you gave her a second chance?" he said his voice merely above a whisper.
"No! You know, unlike you I have something called brains," she said pointing her head, "And last time I checked, that's my department!"
Daniel sighed as he ran his hands through his hair and stared at the bathroom door which had a SpongeBob sticker that was plastered on it by the kids in the shack.
"Look! I don't trust people like that," Nora said placing her hands on her hips, "And if I do trust people, I do so with a very good reason. Do you remember that I am almost a Deviant like you or that I can sense feelings way better that you can?"
"Well, umm-it might hav-"
"It might have slipped your mind! Is that what you're trying to say?" Nora said infuriated, "I'm not in the mood for this! I skimmed through her aura and it had nothing on it-"
"What do you mean by 'nothing on it'?" Daniel asked cutting her off.
"Well, it means that there was only a very thin layer of Envy, Pride and-" she shot him a look, "Lust..." she trailed off knowingly. Daniel felt his years turn red.
"Anyway, as you might have guessed, her aura is very similar to many among us, including Natalie,"
"So you think that we can trust her,"
"Trust me, if her aura was even a bit dangerous, I would have gladly thrown her out," Nora said smiling slightly, "But there was another reason why I decided to trust her, because at this moment, she is feeling extremely guilt, and I have a feeling that it would be because she feels like she betrayed us,"
"Now it makes sense..."
"What makes sense?"
"Did you hear her screams?"
"Yes, but I couldn't make out the words though,"
"I did," Daniel said leaning against the wall near the bed post, "She was having a nightmare and she said something about how everything was her fault,"
"That's all fine, but who in the world spends so much time in the shower?" Nora said pointing at the door.
"Ariadne?"
"I'm dead serious and I think we should follow Protocol #7" Nora said grinning opening a cabinet at the corner, "The one that states 'Every occupant must be welcomed with gu-"
"Shh!" Daniel said grinning as the sound of splashing water stopped, "Pass it to me," he whispered slowly. Daniel and Nora positioned themselves on either sides of the door and had the guns ready.
The reason why this protocol existed was to make sure to kick out anybody sent by the NSI. It was hilariously stupid but still, the NSI seemed even more stupid. Any guilty person on the sight of guns would strongly feel that they suspected him/her and would choose the lesser of the two evils, provide information valuable to the shack. But the funny matter was they were just water pistols painted in black.
Slowly the door creaked open and they waited, holding their breath. A figure stepped out, but only its hair could be seen. Blood drained from his face and he felt cold all over. It was as if someone had mistakenly attached the head, turning it through an angle of 180 so that it faced the other side. It slowly turned to face him and he felt the air leave his lungs as darkness slowly engulfed him pulling him away from the monster. The last thing he heard though was a concerned voice calling out to him.