The Survivor (Book 2)

Chapter 30

Sin helped me collect the virus into a few tubes to make it look official, and we packed them away tightly in a lead briefcase-looking thing. I was on my way to Earth with Sin and Zack at my sides when a portal from Earth opened. I stopped dead in my tracks, waiting for the humans to step through.

But they didn’t. Instead, we were greeted by the blaring noise of missiles being launched into Heaven. They struck buildings which crumbled to the ground. People were screaming and pushing back toward the southernmost point of Heaven. Sin told me he’d open a portal and get everyone through, and that I was to stay with Zack and wait for the humans.

I pulled out my sword–thank God I had it to go visit the humans anyway–and twisted it between my fingers nervously. The sounds of agonized screaming broke my heart, and I itched to go help whoever was in need. Zack rubbed my shoulder quietly.

One missile zoomed by us–and nearly took my head off–and crashed into the Purity building. I screamed and tried to run for the building, but Zack gripped my waist. Eros and Iris were in there. Av was in there. I didn’t know where Taylor was, but he was probably in there! Gen and Phoenix, Apollo, everyone I felt a sense of responsibility over was in that damned building.

“Treble!!” Lionel screamed over the noise, and I quickly turned toward the sound of his voice. He gripped my shoulders, “Don’t let them close the portal, okay? I’m going in to see if they’re okay.”

“But the building’s on fire!”

“No, it’s fine,” he nodded. “Remember how I was your Sergeant?” I nodded. “Master of elemental breathing. Fire, water, earth, air. I can put it out. I can save them.”

I took a deep breath, “Okay, but be careful, all right?”

He nodded and took off for the building that was my home. All was silent as the missiles stopped flying, and I turned to see that the portal was desolate of humans and guns and anything else. Just a green portal.

And then tall people in hazmat suits stepped in, breathing through gasmasks. I clutched my sword tighter, and Zack did the same. The hazmat people followed the cobblestone path and ended up in front of us.

A breathless Sin caught up to us and I handed him a sword. He leaned onto my shoulder. “They’re all gone. Nel got everyone that was alive into Aragon. Portal’s closed.”

“Were Eros and Iris with him?” I gulped. Sin shook his head. My breath felt like water in my lungs, and tears cascaded out of my eyes. “They’re dead?”

“As far as we know, yes,” Sin said quietly. “I’m so sorry, Treble.”

I stuffed away the rest of the tears and launched my sword into a white suit. It was no longer white, to put that outcome kindly.

“Treble,” Zack sighed as I fumed over to grab my sword out of the collapsed corpse. The hazmat-suited people gaped at me.

As their stares built up, I went into full-on attack-mode. Slicing, chopping, hacking, I was going to town on the humans that may have killed some of my best friends, and a not-even-a-year-old child that I loved as if she were my own.

One person was left, but they pulled out a small rectangle and dropped it on the ground. That’s when I realized they weren’t wearing gasmasks because of the virus, but because they needed to stay awake to carry us out of Heaven when we fell unconscious.

White gas plumed out of the rectangle. I didn’t comprehend what was going on before I slipped into darkness.

I woke to the sound of human voices–disgusting, human voices–and I recognized Moore’s. My eyes shot open and I sat up, reaching for my sword. I got a fistful of air and some of Sin’s leg, but that was it. He looked like he’d been awake for hours with his back pressed against the metal wall of this small room. One wall was mostly glass, though there was a panel of buttons and shit on our side. It was dark on the other.