CONCENTRATION

Chapter Six: Awakening

I left. I left for me, I left for them. I left for everyone.

I drove to my old school that looks as if the ground had been torn up. Lines for miles. Of parents. I feared the worst. I drove down by the lines of people. Riding my breaks. Keeping an eye out for people who might try ending there lives with the speed of my car.

It was dark now, after spending the day alone with people who gave up on hope. I took the chance. My car has my best weapon I had stole from the garage of Abby's home.

I wore a hood to cover my face and used black liquid eye liner to hide my idenity. When I made it up to the door in the back, I stepped out of the car with a growbar and cracked my knucles. The window was broken, an easy opening.

I crawled on my hands and knees glass carving scratches in my skin, and stood up. The halls of my senior high were dark and messy. Blood splatters and rooms were dark and boarded up. I could only imagine what has gone on. I slipped through a door in the main entery way to see what I was in for. There was a parent. A full grown adult. sitting in a chair, I though it was only normal. Nothing looked abnormal.

I moved slightly and a chair behind my foot moved slightly. The adult looked over at the boards and launched tward me, screaming. Blood foaming from the mouth, I shot back and he was reaching out for me, scraping the air.. almost like he was a zombie. He must have been starved. I looked up, "Expirament 89038."

I had then realized, I'm never going to see my parents again. I crept through the halls. Keeping weary of the invaders.

The locker room was open, scavenged... rotting from the inside out. I closed the door behind me and picked up a flashlight the coaches used for lockdowns when those were a thing. and clicked it. Rats and roaches fled the light and I cringed at the thought of it only being a few weeks sense everything fell through.

I moved my way past lockers and rotting flesh and came to the door, that had been a long tunnle now.
A worm hole almost. Something you would have seen in a horror story... I pressed my hand against the bloody like walls and dragged myself down the slick floors.
I made it to the bottom. How lucky have I felt, to not have been caught.
For a world of perfection, there is hardly anyone to stop something from ruining everything.
-
Back at home, Linda and Abby have been worried, worried sick that I did not take a no for an answer. I didn't stop, I didn't fall. And I left. Axel and Jason were in the car on there way to "save me", when in reality, it would provoke me more.
They were close to the school and were carrying the red water in flasks, hoping for a protection.
"I don't know why we weren't better, and supported her." Axel glanced at Jason as he was driving.
"Axel, she doesn't take no for an answer. Crystal is very strong headed and you should know this." Jason sounded exhausted, "besides... this might be a good bye-"
"Do not say that, goddamn it."
The car was then overdrawn with a rough wind sound and silence.
"I'm sorry." Jason sighed.
-
I'm walking around looking for a core. When I hear crying of an adult and people hushing it.
I walk to the back room, a storage room and showers. I walk in, and people stay silent. "Hello...?"
I ask.
"Y-you're a child..." a man had stood up. Naked, bare. Hardly any skin.
"I am... I'm here to stop this."
"You're saving us?"
"I'm saving more then just the adults." I whisper, "the world isn't so perfect outside of here either. Adults aren't the only ones being taken and killed."
The man sounded disappointed and broken, "have you seen my son?"
"Who is he?" I continue to whisper.
"Jason? Jason... Bruno...?"
Jason Bruno... I know him. And he's was with us, back home... I hear his voice telling me he hates me for driving everyone sick with worry.
"I do. He's okay, he's back at home."
"What, really??"
"Really, Sir." I here people hush each other. Creepy sounds echoed through the ceiling. Dripping red water clinking the drain.
"Save us... please. Save our children."
I nodded and I went further and left the men and women.
I will. I will do it. I walked in to a room, and saw a frighting bitter realization- that there is a core. And I can break it.
"Crystal!" A harsh whisper grabs my attention. It's Axel.
"What are you doing here?" I whisper back.
"You're leaving everyone behind."
I shove him back so we won't be heard, "No. stop, I know what I'm doing, Axel."
"Do you really?"
"Do you know how close I am? To saving the world, and you? You selfish ass hole-" he cut me off with a kiss that pulled my cheeks close to his. His hands felt as soft as they always did, he pulled away. It silenced my thoughts... "I don't know what I'll do with out you, Crystal... please come back to me. Please don't leave, don't die. We know how this will end. They will capture you. You'll die in the process."
"And what if I don't?"
"If you live?"
"Yes."
"And if you don't?" He replied.
His words branded my heart. Filled my eyes with tears. I hugged him. "I'm sorry." I pushed him away and gripped the crowbar and climbed up the stairs holding Axel's hand. On the ledge.
Down below us, is a woman. A robot.
A person who isn't a person- an invader. Who is sniffing around and stopped controlling the world. Her body is implanted, and tubes and everything in the earth. The soil. Bodies she's fed off of. And people in captivity. Experiments.
"That's the core..."
"That thing- is the core." He is stunned.
"If she's gone, everything will stop. Jason's dad- I saw him. He was upset." I whisper.
The woman creeps up her head and looks around us.
The wall hiding us. She looks away. And continues to pump goop in to her tubes. To the earth. Feeding off the carcass of person.
"If I end it. You'd have freedom." I take the ring off my finger and hand it to him, "you'll be free..."
"Maybe I don't want to be free when I only will remember you in the end." Axel is crying.
"It will be fine... I promise." I kiss him and caress his cheek. Warming him. "I'll always love you, Axel."
I depart slowly and wave as I get ready to leap, "wait no!" Axels yell breaks the silence, the woman looks up and screams and I leap down and she smacks me with her arm to the wall. I get up gasping for air. I aim the crowbar to her face. And she bites down on my arm. I scream back at her growl, prying it from her teeth. Axel throws an egg like object to the back of her head. She turns around leaving me, and chases after the egg. I take the opportunity to run. And stab her back. "YOU INSOLENT HUMAN!" She growled. I pulled the bar from her back, and threw it. It broke between her eyes. She fell bleeding. She fell, on me. Acid, dripping on to my face.
Everything was shut down... everyone was free...
I did it... I saved everyone.
Heroes do exist.
Just some don't live... to tell there side. And hope I'll be forgiven.
-
The End