The World We Made

Chapter 8

I sat silently on my makeshift bed while everyone else slept deeply. Blake forced me to come back and sleep but I couldn't. Every fragment of a sound made my body shiver and shake. "I need to get out of here." I thought. "I don't want to be here."

I quietly opened the window a few centimeters at a time, hoping that the creaking wasn't loud enough to grab anyone's attention. I stuck my head outside just enough to see my surroundings. The air was still cool and the Sun would rise in a few hours, but the Moon gave just enough light that I could see where I was going.

Blake said he would bury Flynn's body somewhere in the forest and clean everything up. Looking at the state of the market, it was almost as if the last few hours were a dream. Or maybe it was just that I hoped it was a dream.

Every time I saw the market, I was reminded how I wanted to save them. I wanted to save my friends. I wanted to save everyone from this future. I would do anything to know that they'd live a full life.

I walked up the one of the doors on the wall, I gently drag my fingers down it until I reached the bottom. There was a 2mm gap between the ground and the floor, maybe I could breathe the same air as them just once more. I missed them. I missed them so much it hurt. I couldn't live knowing they were dead.

"I'm sorry." I cried. "I'm so sorry for leaving you."

I was crumbled on floor, tears pouring down my face. I began banging my fist on the metal door, I didn't care how much it hurt, I wanted to save them at any cost.

I leapt to my feet and kicked the door with all my strength. The sound of impact was deafening but I couldn't hear anything through my tears. But no matter how hard I kicked the door, it wouldn't budge. I whipped my head around, scanning the market, looking for anything that could open the door. I grabbed chairs, rocks, sticks and planks of wood and threw it at the door.

"Why won't it open?!" I screamed. "Please... please just open."

"Cassidy!" someone shouted.

Why? Why, why, why was Blake always there? Why couldn't he just leave me alone to fall apart? Everywhere I went, he was there too. Every time I wanted to be alone, he was watching me cry my heart out. He had only ever seen my worst and I hated that.

"Cassidy, I told you to go back..." but when he saw my face, his words trailed off.

His face softened and his arms clasped around me but I pressed my hands firmly against his chest and pushed him away.

"Go away." I said. "I don't want you here."

But Blake gave me a disbelieving look. "Do you mean that? Do you really mean that? Because if you do then I'll walk away right now and let you cry here all night."

I glared at him. I hated him right now. He could act so coldhearted and then turn around and comfort me. I wondered what was going through his mind when he saw me in this pitiful state. My hair was all knotted and messy, my eyes were bloodshot and my body was crumbled on the floor. Did he care about me or did he just feel bad for me?

"It'll be okay."

"You don't know that!" I spat. "You don't know anything! You act like you care but you just pity me. You don't know how much I want to save them. They were all good people."

"And I bet you were too. But look at you out here. You're barely surviving, this world isn't for the faint-hearted. Some of your friends wouldn't survive out here. You know that, don't you?"

"Don't convince me that I shouldn't save them!" I shouted. "Wouldn't it make your life so much easier if I just gave up on my idea and stop being so troublesome? Isn't that why you want to stop me?" I remarked.

"I'm not doing this for my own good. I'm doing this for yours. I could've walked right past you. I could've let you destroy yourself, but I want you to see that this isn't the right thing to do. You could save them if you really tried. It's not impossible, but how much are you willing to sacrifice? You're throwing away your life trying. Don't save them, Cassidy. Some things just aren't worth it."

"Not worth it? So, you're saying that saving the people I care about isn't worth it? I get that your family used you and sold you off for money, but don't try to push your morals onto me."

The second I said those words, I instantly regretted it. I could see the change of emotions in his face, there was pain in his eyes now, a pain that I'd never seen on him before.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." I mumbled.

Blake stayed silent for a few seconds. His hands curled into fists and his breathing grew deeper and slower. He was holding back all his emotions, he was a bottle about to burst. I was an idiot to assume that he was always just cold-hearted. He was broken inside. But he had to hold it all in, he couldn't show his weak side. People believed in him too much to see him fall.

"You're right though." He finally said. "I don't understand what you're going through. I have only seen the worst sides of humans. I don't understand what it means to care about the people that raised you. But I'll say this, you can save your friends if you really want to but you can't do it alone. And some people will help you, you will find people that understand you and want to help you. But you'll destroy everything you have out here. Anyone associated with you will be killed. You and your friends will be on the run forever. Most of them will die. Most of the people helping you will die. Can you handle all that?"

I didn't dare look Blake in the eyes because I knew he was right. I caused a fuss about something, I made trouble and made others suffer for it. But only because I didn't want to admit that I was in the wrong. I made excuses to believe that I was doing the right thing. Saving them would only put them in more pain and misery.

"Saving them is morally correct..." Blake began. "but just because it follows your morals doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."

"So, do I just carry on with life now? I don't know what to do anymore."

"You could go back to being a slave. Or you could do whatever you wanted. It's your life. Don't spend all of it living to help other people. Live for yourself, not for your friends." Blake said.

"I'm always going to think about them, not matter what I do. I'll always wonder about what would've happened if I had saved them."

"And I pray that you keep wondering. Out there in another universe, you would've tried to save them. And it would've destroyed you. I saw it all coming and that's why I'm trying to stop you."

"What did you see?" I asked. "What would've happened if you didn't stop me right now?"

Blake thought for a second. "Well... you'd try to save your friends and get caught. And then everyone helping you and everyone in your room would've been killed or tortured. And you would've blamed it all on yourself. It would've completely destroyed you. You might've even... jumped."

Blake had only known of my existence a few days ago, yet he was able to read me like I was an open book. He knew how I would react to everything. He knew that I was always blamed myself. He knew that would destroy me.

"How did our world become like this? Why do I have to choose between saving my friends but making them suffer or leaving them to die?" I asked.

"We made our world like this. We fought with each other and destroyed everything. We hopped our way up the staircase and with a slight imbalance, we came all the way back down. Now we're back to slavery and torture. People tried to be nice and helpful at the start but their morals, their values, they didn't work anymore. People didn't want kindness, they wanted survival." Blake explained, sighing.

"So, this is the world we made. A world where nothing is morally correct."

Blake nodded and stood up, wiping dirt off his ragged pants. "We should go back. The Sun will rise soon."

I nodded in response, standing up and copying his actions. I stared back the door. Maybe this would be the last time I'd see this door. Maybe this is the closest I'll ever get to my friends. Blake told me not to save them, he told me that saving them is morally correct, but that morals get you killed in this world. But isn't it also a moral to do what you're told?