The Reasons Why

Chapter 2 ~ Yesterday Is Dead To Me

(damion gladstone)

Caught in the middle of a clouded flare and untouched crops, we watch. Watching as the hurricane dismantles itself in the forest terrain, knocking down lengthy trees in its final moments. My adrenaline finally settles as the unwelcome urge to violently vomit reaches into my throat and takes me by the tongue. I bite my tongue in response, my stomach grumbling as my eyes scan over the bloodied tulips.

I wish my eyes weren't drawn to the fair-skinned crop workers who had been drawn into a battle they never should've been part of, their skin torn from their faces. They weren't anarchists or part of the Society, they were just collateral damage. That only makes the feeling worse. 

I was told I wasn't supposed to feel this way; that my gut should act similarly to how my mind operates – to stomach the gore and remember the cause. That their lives are replaceable and therefore unimportant. It's the same rhetoric, always and forever. It's the right rhetoric. With that, I force my closed, red-hot fist into my abdominal area and silence the gurgling.

Harper, who seems to be lovingly gazing at my bloodied face and melted chest plate, begins to sharpen her blades against her elbow pads. The scratching and slicing visibly angers me, wanting nothing but peace and quiet for a few minutes. My ears still ringing.

"Catching feelings?" James mumbles into Harper's ear, just loud enough so I could hear. 

"...only the bad ones," her face quickly crinkles into disgust, as she leads the march into the bloodied grass fields, scouting out for any surviving soldiers to dig up.

"We only need four," Cassie reminds Harper, pulling her back from entering the eternal graveyard.

"Four what?" I snarl, a burning aroma continuing to emit from my body.

"Mortals," James responded, being the closest to me, his shoulders broad and brooding.

My mind pagers for a few moments, considering how many ways I could kill them right now if they were truly mortal. Perhaps I'd rearrange their heads, or stretch their arms so far around the thickest tree that they'll beg for the gift of death. I could use their weapons, and their supply, if the elastic backpack Cassie is carrying isn't empty.

"That includes you too, sweetheart," Harper approaches me, tapping my chest with one of her curved, smudged blades.

I yank the blade as quickly as it made contact with my crisped chest plate, squeezing it tightly into the palm of my hand. Staring her dead in the eyes, determining how far back I could snap her head. Or, maybe she'd make a better prisoner for the Society, given how she and the other two survived the cave collapsing without a scratch, whilst being... mortal... no? They couldn't've been mortals and survived a crushing weight like that.

The three seem to just stare at me, waiting for me to notice an unbearable aching coming from my right hand. I drop the blade onto the crops beneath me, oozing blood getting lost in the crops with it. Blood seeping from my hand, a hand that should be healing immediately, but isn't.

"...I don't understand," My voice deepens, pressing my hand against my still-hot chest to cauterise the wound, remaining poker-faced.

"It's happened," Harper excitedly announces, clutching my right wrist and licking the blood off of my hand, her cold tongue piercing running along the wound to create a stinging pain.

"WHAT'S HAPPENED?" I snap, pressing my thumb into her larynx and forcing her head back, as she lets out a pained exclamation.

Harper's scream is followed by the cocking of a gun, as Cassie firmly presses the firearm against the base of my skull, nudging me with it repetitively. Waiting for me to release Harper. The wind is quiet for a moment, the sound of flies buzzing around our blood-drenched feet irritating me. The daylight struggles to creep its way through the smoke and haze, the trees and the crops have never seemed more dead than right now. For the first time in my life, if I don't comply, I might actually suffer the consequences. Maybe if I'm going to kill these amateurs, I need to understand what's happened first.