When Forever Ends (Part 1: A Game of Chess)

XXII

~{§}~

T w e n t y - T w o

I peer through the gloom, the light of the fires illuminating the smoke and making it almost impossible to see anything. The smoke stings my eyes and makes them water. I wipe my brow with my hand, leaving a smear of dirt and sweat streaking my forehead.

There are shouts all around: cries of anguish, people calling to one another, the silent sound of death. One comes from my right. A few moments later, the street before me thunders with thousands of footfalls as someone leads a charge down the road. The current they create swirls the smoke around, clearing the area of it for a brief moment. The mob rushes past again, in the opposite direction. It is a moment before I realize why they flee.

At the end of the street, to my left, I see three figures outlined by flames climbing their thick suits. They appear to be ablaze, but completely unharmed. Each one carries pocketfuls of grenades; every now and then, one of them would pull the pin and toss one in the general direction of the crowd. The ground never stops shaking in between each blast.

Another stream of people tries to stand up to the demons, or whatever they are, but without success. They topple like dominoes in their haste to flee the grenade that has just been tossed at them.

I avert my eyes as it explodes, incinerating the people, and a few bystanders.

I happen to glance upward and see stars above me. A huge shape blocks them and I see a small burst of light from its underside. A missile comes shooting down through the sky and buries its tip deep in the brick road at the center of the crowd. It blinks once, then sends shrapnel flying in every direction. and begins yet another fire, this time, in the middle of the road. More missiles are launched, hit the town, and explode in rapid succession.

In the midst of all the chaos, I crouch against the library, in an alcove between a curved wall and the back steps. I am terrified, sure I'm going to die. There's nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Every single building is being torn apart by the attack.

Suddenly, through the haze across the street, a figure appears. It is the strangest sensation. I have the feeling that it's someone I know very well, yet I can't imagine who it might be. The longer I watch the figure, the weaker the feeling becomes. I try to remember where I'd seen that silhouette before, but I come up with nothing. It scares me, but I can barely remember fifteen minutes ago, and nothing before that. It's as if there's a leak in my head and my memory is draining out.

The figure holds out a hand to me and beckons, telling me to cross. I rise, still trembling, and take a step away from the wall.

Before I can cross, however, I am deafened and thrown to my knees as the wall I had sheltered beside explodes outward with a sound like nothing I've ever heard before. I flatten myself to the street, trying to make myself as small as possible. Chunks of stone and charred books smash into the ground all around me, but, miraculously, I manage to avoid most of the debris. One, small pebble whacks me hard in the head.

When the shaking has lessened, I lift myself off the ground and look up. Standing above me is the same person who called me across the street. Their features are hidden in shadow and it doesn't help that the fiery demons are now behind them, shining their light and heat into my face. I can tell it is a girl with really long hair, blown about by the explosions. Once again, she reaches out a hand to me. I see her shadowy lips move, forming words, but I can hear only a dull throb.

Then, the exhaustion of it all overcomes me and I know no more.

━━━

I stiffened, pressing my back against the cold wall. That particular dream seemed to be recurring a lot more often than the others. It was so vivid, I could almost believe it had been real. I sat still for a moment, massaging my temples, then shrugged off the uncertainty and turned my brain back to the present situation.

Our cell was dimly lit and sparsely furnished. It was a cube with solid stone walls that was about five meters in each direction. The ceiling had two bare light bulbs hanging from it by their cables. One corner was curtained off, presumably with some sort of toilet behind it, and a pile of tattered blankets sat nearby. A small, round drain was embedded in the center of the cold, stone floor.

Will was sprawled out on the ground, fast asleep. Sofie lay on her stomach on the blankets, with a faraway expression fixed on her face. Against the wall directly opposite me leaned Erin, looking exhausted, and I couldn't blame her. Maya was trying to help by holding a scrap from one of the blankets up against Erin's neck, but a small trickle of blood still wound its way down Maya's arm and onto the floor. The metallic scent of the blood hung faintly in the air and didn't help the gloomy atmosphere of our low spirits.

I shivered and hugged my arms more tightly. I was still wearing the same clothes I'd put on the day we were kidnapped at the library: my smiley face tee shirt (I was not feeling at all very smiley) and jeans. They had taken our shoes before putting us in there and my bare feet were cooled by the stone floor, which was made even colder by the fact that there was a vent in the ceiling blowing frigid air down at us.

A buzzer sounded and I started. A slot opened in the steel door in the wall to my right with a scraping sound. Five orange and grey prison suits slid into the room and dropped to the floor in a heap, along with a note. The slot scraped shut.

I moved over to the door half-heartedly and picked up the note.

"Put these on. Resistance would be counterproductive."

I had already decided that there was no point in refusing, so I pulled one of the suits from the pile and stood up, holding it against me. It was way too tall for me, so I tossed it over to Erin. The next one I grabbed looked like it would fit me, and the rest were the same size, so I passed one to each of my friends. Luckily, we were all about the same size, so there would be no problem.

We took turns using the curtained off area as a changing room, until we all wore the same orange suits with grey collars, wrists, and ankles, and there was a small pile of our clothes by the door. Maya helped Erin get on her suit so she wouldn't make her injury worse.

Soon, we were back in the same positions as we were before the arrival of the suits, and a black-clad giant came to collect the clothes. The only difference was that now we had been stripped of all our belongings but our names.

After a few more minutes of dreary silence, I drifted off again.