Chapter 9
Arcya begins to move as if to sprint back to camp, but Ociri blocks her. She backs away from him and whispers into my ear, “Run.”
I whisper back, “Not on your life. I’m not leaving you with him.”
She sighs. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
“Look who’s talking,” I hiss.
“We wouldn’t want my rebel force to accidentally harm you all,” says Ociri, smirking. He obviously hadn’t heard our whispering, though Ben must have, because he looks torn between laughing and crying at my stubbornness.
Ociri continues, “Plus, these filth known as superhumans might ruin the force’s chances of winning. Without all the young men of the village fighting on the village’s side, they’re helpless.”
“Sarah,” says Arcya bitterly, “this is Ociri, the man who’s wanted to marry me for a year and threatened to force me to the night you were captured.”
I gasp again as the puzzle pieces click together in my mind. “Rebel force?” I say.
“Of course,” he says. “The elders aren’t quite the right fit for our village. And collaborating with the tigers when we used to have such fun chasing them? It’s disgusting. And our food is being wasted on those animals.”
I’m surprised to hear the venom in his voice.
“We lost twenty men to mauling,” pointed out Arcya, growling strangely afterwards. “Plus ‘those animals’, as you so kindly refer to them, make it so we don’t have to protect the village as much.”
She shoots a glance at me, and I’m surprised to hear a voice echo in my thoughts, sounding identical to Arcya’s normal voice.
Keep him talking. I called for help from the tigers. Two are coming to help us, while the rest are going to the village to protect it.
Before I can say another word, the two tigers leap out into the open, snarling at Ociri.
Ociri gasps, turns around, and sprints away like a coward, running for his life. (I suppose he IS a coward anyways.)
As he runs away, he yells, “This is only the beginning! This village is a tiny piece of the war that’s beginning, just a miniscule bit of the master plan! Murlyn will fall, and everything else with it.”
Ociri thinks Murlyn will fall? More importantly, how does he even know what Murlyn is?
Elder Manoiv and the rest of the elders all come out from behind the trees later, after we’ve sat there, stunned, for a few minutes.
“We drove off the young men, with the major help of the tigers. They won’t be coming back,” says Elder Manoiv, who is bleeding a bit on his right arm but otherwise unscathed.
“Suffice to say, you won’t be thrown to the tigers, who, by the way, ran to tell everything to me after they forced away Ociri out of the jungle, which didn’t take very long.”
I look at him, shocked.
He begins to laugh and I notice a twinkling in his eyes. “Arcya isn’t the only one who knows tiger language. My only question is, why didn’t you tell us?”
“I thought you wouldn’t believe me, or if you did, you might force us to stay here and protect the village,” I admit.
Elder Manoiv replies with the ‘duh’ tone of voice I’ve heard Arcya use before, “Of course not. We have the tigers for that, though if you did choose to remain, you would be placed on protecting duty. But Arcya, why didn’t you tell me?”
She shrugs, looking sheepish. “I thought you wouldn’t believe me either, though I know you wouldn’t force them to stay here. Plus, they would be infuriated with me.”
Manoiv nods. “Well, I suppose that can be forgiven,” he says. “Now, go clean off in the river- all of you- and I assume that you want to leave soon, Sarah?”
Nodding, I reply, “Yes, that would be ideal.”
He said, “Well, you can postpone one night. We need to prepare a feast to celebrate.”
I shrug. I guess one night couldn’t really hurt. Everyone else in my group shrugs too, and I know the decision is made.
“Okay,” I say, and we walk back to the village.
Chapter 10
I literally sleep for three hours straight after the fight before the dinner gong wakes me. When I step out of my hut, yawning and rubbing my eyes, I’m hoisted on top of the throngs of cheering villagers.
Grown men with full beards are crying, children are dancing, and women are singing as if we saved them from utter destruction. (Well.. I suppose we did. Yippee for us.. though I suppose it’s the tigers that did most of it.)
Festive decorations are hung from every hut, and I’m finally set down in a seat of honor at an extremely long table which was formerly used for serving food on. Chairs line it up and down, and Ben, Arcya, Aria, Lily and I are all sitting closest to the elders.
The noise stops when Elder Manoiv makes a motion with his hands, and a respectful silence ensues as he begins to speak.
“Friends and family. Today we have been saved from the brink of death by these brave men, women, and tigers. They will leave shortly to return to fight their own battles in the world out there. Arcya, my granddaughter, has requested that I allow her to join them, and I will let both her and her tiger, Cilla, join them and assist them in any way possible. In gratitude to these men and women, I have given them gifts of food, clothing, and weapons, to send them on their way. But for now, let us celebrate, for the rebellion is quenched without a single life lost!”
Everyone cheers and the general hubbub and din begins again as everyone begins eating. Instead of the usual unappetizing mush, there are fruits and other less unappetizing foods. Everyone’s either talking or maintaining a companionable silence.
The festivities last long into the night, with everyone eating and talking and laughing and dancing and generally enjoying themselves.
Arcya comes up to me at one point, after hours of revelry.
“It is okay if I come, right?” she asks, looking at me somewhat anxiously.
“Yes, of course,” I assure her. “We can use any help we get if we’re to stop the plague and the potential war.”
She smiles. “Good.”
“Don’t be offended,” I begin, “but how old are you?”
She begins to laugh hysterically before replying, “Sixteen, just like you, and before you ask, I just guessed. I think you’re older than me, though, because I’m a September 14th birthday.”
I nod, joining her in chuckling as I reply, “I was born on March 17th, and yes, I’m sixteen. But I have a question.”
She looks at me. “It’s about my ability to send thoughts to people, isn’t it?”
I gasp but nod my head slowly.
“Well… when I was on Tieryl City, they did some experiments on me. They wanted to see if they could do it, and if they did, their goal was to make groups of mind-reading, thought-sending superhumans. That’s my guess, anyways. I was almost perfect, but because they did the mind-reading ability first and because they had people they believed to be stronger than me, they experimented on them instead. Most of the experiments had at least one defect.”
She sounds bitter again, then must’ve read my mind because she continues.
“Yes, my voice-throwing is just a natural talent. I really don’t know how I came by it.”
I nod, half in satisfaction and half in sadness. So we’re not the only ones operated on by the people of Tieryl City. We sit there for a few minutes before the celebrations start to die down, due to parents kicking the children to bed and ending up not coming back out.
All of us superhumans (and Arcya, and the elders, and some of the adults) heave and push at the table, eventually getting it back into the hall before taking all the chairs and putting them back in there too.
When I turn to leave, I’m stopped by Elder Manoiv.
“Our village will always support you in times of need,” he says.
I nod. “Thank you, sir.”
“Take good care of my granddaughter,” he continues, gruffly.
“Yes, sir. Wouldn’t dream of not taking good care of her.”
He smiles before letting me go, and I walk back to my hut, thinking over the strangeness of today.
When I finally sit down, I fall asleep quickly, but a dream comes to disturb my sleep.
Matthew, Mariella’s brother, is sitting down in a seat rigidly.
“So, Matthew, I’ve come to offer you a proposition,” says a gray-haired man, unpleasantly smiling.
Matthew sat there, stone-faced.
“You will be honored by all, if only you accept,” he says, trying to get a reaction.
Matthew doesn’t budge an inch.
“You will be general of our armies.” This time, the man is clearly waiting for Matthew to jump up and down in excitement.
“No,” replies Matthew.
The man’s silly smile slips away. “What did you say?”
“You heard me perfectly well, Mr. Thunsgen. I said no,” answers Matthew.
An ugly smile forms on Mr. Thunsgen’s face. “Well, Matthew Dunnen, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”
“Don’t I?”
At these words, men burst into the room, armed with guns.
“You’ll be brought to safety, away from the plague.”
Matthew begins to lose his calm at these words. What about Mariella?
“Don’t worry, my boy, you’ll be perfectly safe,” continues Mr. Thunsgen with a patronizing smile. “That is, if you cooperate.”
I see one of the soldiers change the setting on his gun to stun, and before I can warn the dream-Matthew, he’s shot and drops like a stone, and I can’t even protest when they carry him out of the room.
I follow them, and after only a few minutes, Matthew wakes up again.
With an awful pit in my stomach, I watch the part of the dream that I know from an earlier dream.
The men are trying to force him into the truck.
“Mariella!” he screams. “I would never leave you! I love you, Mariella!”
Then the men who forced him into it shut the door, and the last thing I see is the haunted look in his eyes, the look of prey that’s been cornered.
The scene changes, and Matthew’s running around a track. He’s sweating bullets, but keeps going because of the man behind him with a gun set to stun.
Then Matthew morphs into Ben, who gives me an easy smile when he sees me, and then Ben turns into Maria.
“Take care,” calls Maria. “Defend our cause in the coming war.”
Maria disappears, revealing Mariella.
“Go get them, Sarah,” she says. “Get those traitors and make them regret what they did to me. They did it on purpose, you know. They did it on purpose.”
Mariella morphs into Lily and Lily into Aria and Aria into Penelope Whitman, the creator of the DEK program.
“Sarah,” she says. “Don’t give up hope. The traitors that made the zombies on purpose for the war.. they won’t win.”
I wake up, breathing heavily. This dream, too, couldn’t be true.
There couldn’t have been traitors who knew that they’d make zombies, right? I sigh, pushing my thoughts to the back of my mind and getting changed.
It’s a quiet send-off. We pick up the bags filled with food, weapons, and other supplies the village gifted us with. Arcya says goodbye to Elder Manoiv and he’s struggling to hold it together.
Before long, we’re setting off and the sun’s starting to fully rise in the village. Cilla, the tiger, follows us, and if a tiger can look sad and determined, she looks sad and determined.
As we walk out into the forest, I can’t stop thinking about what Ociri said about Murlyn falling. Was it a deranged man’s insanity or a half-insane man’s prediction of the future? Only time will tell, and just for now, I’ll have to keep my guard up.
Just like when we fell from Tieryl, we don’t know where we’re heading.
We’ll just take it as we go, fighting zombies, attempting to save lives, and trying to survive and help other survivors.
-A few days later-
It’s nighttime, and I fall asleep, only to be plagued by another nightmare.
Matthew is standing in a gigantic swarm of men and boys wearing the same uniform as him. They’re marching out of the gate on the edge of..
My stomach gives a jolt.
Tieryl City.
All of them are walking out, and all of them have the same scars Ben, Lily, Aria and I do.
“What is our goal?” booms a microphone out at the soldiers.
“Looking for the renegade superhumans! Convince them to our side of things or eliminate them!” shout the soldiers as one.
A chill goes down my back as I realize it was all but one soldier that responded.
Matthew stands there, looking sort of stunned.
“I must remember my life before,” he repeats to himself in a monotone. “They kidnapped me and forced me to leave Mariella.”
He keeps repeating the words to himself, even as the other soldiers scream their response to the microphone over and over again.
Then a man who is tall, brawny, and looks to be a high rank interrupts Matthew, asking, “What is our goal?”
For one heart-stopping moment, I think that Matthew is going to respond with his monotone.
Instead, he says with fake excitement, “Looking for the renegade superhumans! Convince them to our side of things or eliminate them!”
The man nods with satisfaction and lets Matthew continue walking.
Matthew goes back to saying his monotone to himself.
I wake up, stunned.
“What’s wrong?” asks Ben, looking at me with concern.
“Nothing,” I reply, acutely aware that Arcya’s staring at me and knows exactly what’s bothering me.
Arcya challenges, “Really?”
“Yes, nothing,” I say.
Arcya doesn’t press the point any more, and after eating our breakfast, our group sets off.
We finally reach the outskirts of the jungle, enjoying the sunlight that we are now able to see in full, but what lies before us is a wasteland.
All of us, Arcya included, stare in shock.
The buildings are all gone, if there were any, and only ashes remain. There are long stretches of dirt with no grass covering them, except for in patchy spots where the grass is scorched-looking and miserably scraggly.
What’s the greatest shock is that, in the middle of this wreck, there’s an enormous, but somehow unscathed, white building. It’s modern-looking and shiny, gleaming to almost perfection and looking like an oasis in this dead land.
We start towards the building, and I covertly take out my knife to defend myself. The others do the same. Suddenly, there are lasers targeted right at our heads, and a voice blares over a microphone telling us not to move.
We’re scooped up by a helicopter, and just before I can get a clear look inside, everything goes black.