The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter seventy-eight

  Cyrus and I decided that we were going to build our own home. It took a week, but once we had finished, we had a small log cabin in our midst.

  We had no furniture, and we slept on the floor with a small fire burning in the center.

  Outside, we had placed four tombstones made from wood, signifying Aurora, Jensen, Kian, and Toby’s deaths.

  I had seen a whole new side of Cyrus, and I knew that his life hadn’t been perfect like I thought it’d been. He was wounded just as much as I was, but he never told me, so I never got the chance to help him. Until now.

  I told him he wasn’t all bad, that he had some conscious that what he was doing was wrong, but he and I both knew what it felt like to lose yourself in battle.

  The weeks we spent in our cabin were lonely, even though we were together; it wasn’t the same without Jensen, Aurora, or Kian. The overall mood of our stay was somber; full of grieving.

  And soon enough, it was our birthdays. The one year anniversary of my initial Journey, and almost a year since we had initially met.

  In our mediocre kitchen, Cyrus prepared us a very homely cake, and he sang me a happy birthday song that I had never heard. He told me it was important to learn Pre-Landie customs. Although it was difficult to practice them all without any of the supplies we used to have.

  Not only did we grieve for Cyrus’s family, but for the destroyed paper, pencils, drawings, and other artistic things we needed.

  We still had our paintings from the lake, though, and we hung those on the wall right above the shoddy fireplace. In a corner we had several empty canvases, where we spent most of our time, painting away our sorrows.

  It was on our birthday that a knock came upon the door. I was eating cake, not truly enjoying it as I should.

  Cyrus and I made our usual eye contact that mean something was wrong. We didn’t hesitate before opening the door. What stood outside was a broken, bloody and bruised Axel at our doorstep.

  “I’ve come to deliver a… a…” he looked around, eyes blinking away blood, “a… message?”

  He seemed dazed, and confused. I sensed his lack of balance, and went to grab him to hold him up. I acted too late though, he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  If he was alive or dead, I didn’t know. But either way, I knew what this meant. He had returned for an answer.

  And I was going to say yes.

  Cyrus nodded, wordlessly telling me that he would back me up. We had nothing else to live for anymore. We both wanted to avenge Cyrus’s family’s death. We wanted HQ to go down. Our lives would not be happy until each and every HQ member begged on their knees for out mercy. But of course, we would not show any, because they never showed any to us.

  We were going to become rebels.