The Normals | ✓

T H I R T Y - F I V E

Bear asks Arden for some time to talk to me and Arden obliges, retreating to another room within shouting distance. While he’s gone, Bear cleans the place on my neck where the device was and wraps it up.

“Where’s Sniper?” he asks suddenly, breaking the quiet but comfortable mood of the room. I immediately tense up and he senses it. “Arthemis?” But I don’t need to say anything more -- he knows.

He leaves my side and the bandages for my neck and goes to sit on a stool nearby, dropping his head into his hands with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I did everything I could to save him.”

“I suppose it was for the best,” he replies hoarsely. “He wouldn’t have been happy if they had brought him back here. Even less than you.”

“They probably wouldn’t have even brought us back here if he hadn’t died. The whole reason I ended up staying with Arden was because I didn’t have the will to do anything and he took pity on me,” I say. “If I hadn’t stayed with him, they wouldn’t have caught me. They wouldn’t have brought Arden back here with them.”

“It’s not your fault,” Bear says.

“Yet I can’t help thinking it is,” I reply. “I feel like if I had done something. If I had tried harder. Maybe if I had let him go first. Maybe then he wouldn’t have gotten shot.”

“But then maybe you would have been in his place.” Bear dries his face and comes to sit next to me again. “He wanted to get out there. To feel the wind on his face and to know what it’s like to have no restrictions. He was such a curious person, someone who was constantly searching for answers. But one thing that he didn’t have that you do--” he pokes me in the shoulder-- “is the ability to keep on going when all is lost. He would’ve never been able to survive here if he had been brought back. Probably would’ve taken his own life before they could try. But you, you’re a fighter. You’re strong mentally, where so many of us aren’t. You can be in the most hopeless of situations and still find a way to get out of it.”

“But--”

“No buts, Arthemis. There’s a reason why you’re here and he isn’t. You’re the one who can get us out of this place. For good.”

I give him a smile. He looks pained at the loss of his friend, but determination simmers underneath the surface. I know he’s right. Everything happens for a reason and although those reasons might seem painful at the time, things eventually clear up and show themselves. Of course I would’ve chosen for Sniper to live if I had had the choice, but now, with the help of Bear, I know why I’m still here. I know what my purpose is.

“When you went missing,” Bear says, “Captain and I thought you were just sick or something at first. It was a bit suspicious since we’d never heard of you getting sick before, combined with the fact that Sniper wasn’t there either. But then after a few days, we figured it was something else. They had been really quiet concerning you and him, and would always tell us off for asking when you’d be back. Captain was really worried -- she cared about you, even though she didn’t act like it -- and one day she was with me in Training, and the next she wasn’t. Gone, just like that.”

“Did you ever find out why?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “She must’ve done something while I wasn’t around. But the next time I saw her, she was walking down a hall with a squad of other Masks, heading to the hangar.”

“She was on the plane that brought me here,” I tell him. “Helped capture me herself.”

“I went looking for answers after that,” he continues. “I managed to steal a keycard and I searched Captain’s room first; found nothing. I went to yours next and saw the missing clothes and stuff. Sniper’s had the same. Several pairs of clothing missing off the shelves, as well as some shoes, a jacket, even one of the blankets off his bed. That’s when I knew that you must’ve found a way out. I didn’t want to believe it at first. I was naive, and I wanted to believe that the Core was all there was to life. I had never questioned anything before that, but you guys were disappearing without warning -- how was I supposed to stay quiet? It opened my eyes, Arthemis. I finally realized everything they had been hiding from us.”

“There’s a whole society out there,” I tell him. “People like they’re trying to get us to be, only ten times better. And they tell each other stories about us. They tell their children that if they don’t eat their vegetables then they’ll become a Different and will have to get shipped off to here. We’re completely surrounded in mystery, while they get taught about us in schools. And I’ve only scratched the surface. There’s so much more to the outside world that even I don’t know.”

He shakes his head. “This whole system is so messed up. And I’m not the only one who thinks that.”

“You talked to those people who are always spreading rumours?”

“I did. And I don’t regret it.”

“They can’t be trusted,” I tell him. “Even if it’s stuff you agree on.”

“That’s the thing,” he says. “A lot of the stuff they say might sound crazy, but they’re always rooted in truth. You know that rumour that went around a few years ago about the reason for a bunch of new people appearing in our classes?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “They said it was because that whole generation of kids were sick with an old virus that suddenly resurfaced and would eventually kill everyone at the Core.” I cross my arms over my chest. “How could I not remember that? People were quarantining themselves in their rooms for weeks after.”

“Exactly. But that actually did happen. Back when people were still figuring out the Recovery. A variation of the virus that caused the Outbreak resurfaced. It killed a whole lot of people before they got it back under control. But there’s evidence of some people still having a genetic trait that makes them more susceptible to catching it if it comes back. Rooted in truth, don’t you see? They know things, these people. And I was willing to bargain with them for their help.”

“What did you bargain with?” I ask him.

“Myself.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I told them that if they help me execute this plan I had come up with to get out of here, then I would help them with some of their own plans. It’s… not the best, what they want, but it’s what I need to do in order to make this work.”

“What did you agree to, Bear?” I ask him slowly.

“They want some people dead. No one we know. No one who isn’t a Mask.”

“You agreed to assassinate someone in return for help with an escape plan? Bear, you really don’t think properly sometimes.”

He shrugs. “Not all Masks are flawed, but as I see it, they’re supporting a flawed system. I’m just hoping it’s not Captain they want dead.”

“And if it is?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“If you come to it,” I correct him. “And let’s hope you don’t.”

He nods. “Some good came out of it, though. I met someone. 1139. They’re willing to help us get out of here. More willing than the others. Even if everyone else drops out last minute, they told me they’re staying because they believe this isn’t the right way to do things.”

“The Masks talk about you, you know. They say you’re not going to make it to graduation.”

He chuckles. “I’m not planning on making it to graduation.”

“Oh?”

“I want to see this place burn before that.”