Reunited: A Legend Novel | ✓ (#Wattys2014)

Chapter 40

hi :)

Haha the jumping off trains part is kind of inspired by the Dauntless faction in the Divergent trilogy. Why they jumped off trains is kind of so they don't really get detected but I don't know how to phrase it.. lol

Chapter 40

Day’s perspective

I hear June gasp beside me. I found out, a while after I started remembering her brother, that this was his graveyard. I remembered even visiting once, only being fully conscious that I was heading here after I got onto the train. I know the graveyard’s positioned kind of beyond the Republic’s boundaries, so apparently it too fell into the Combatant’s hands. And it was all plain therefore undetected, and nobody bothers to check such an unexpected place, not with other events going on.

“A graveyard? Not what I expected as Base,” Says Jenny.

“No ordinary graveyard,” I hear June muttering under her breath, only loud enough for me to hear. She turns to Nick. “You sure you never knew this is Base?”

Nick raises his hands in surrender. “I was never of a high enough position or right department to know this is Base.”

I couldn’t help smirking at this. “And you believed Parker really thought of you as a right-hand man.” Only after I said it, I realise how much that sounds like something Nikolai would say.

Nick glares at me.

“This train is slowing but not stopping!” Calls June, and I see Combatants get off from the front, even when the train continued moving.

“Rookies! Jump off!” Yells one of them as I exchange a look with June. Jump off? Training never prepared us for this before. Although the train slowed, it still is fast, as fast as a bullet train, and jumping off would be no ordinary stunt. Yet, the Combatants seem to have training for this, for they land with ease. But what other choice is there?

“Here goes nothing…” June positions herself at the side of the door. Looks like she intends to be the last to make sure everyone gets off. Trust her, I tell myself as I head over.

1, 2, 3. I jump off and crash into the plains, not landing on my feet like how I saw the other Combatants do. I stand up and brush the soil off my elbows and knees as Nick jumps off, followed by Jenny, and lastly, June. We all don’t land that nicely, but we have to continue forward.

“Oh my god. Where’s all the technology? The construction?” Jenny asks, brushing herself off. I look around.

“It’s not on land, it’s not in the sky, so it’s—“

“Underground,” June finishes, craning towards her earpiece. She’s right. An underground Base would be undetected. The gravestones remain untouched, and the pods just look like tall gravestones from far.

“This is Alpha 1, Alpha 2 come in, over.” She pauses. “Alpha 2, come in. We reached Base, over.” I can tell by her face that there’s no reply. Nick looks at her with wide eyes and she shakes her head sadly.

“This is Alpha 1, Bravo 1 come in, over.” I speak, but there’s no reply. I do the same for all the patrols involved, but there’s no reply from all. Frustrated, I end up ripping the damned thing off and slamming it into the dirt. I swore. “Goddamit, they earpieces all busted or they’re--“

“Dead.” Finished June, eyeing me carefully. “Come on. We have to carry on.” So we follow the Combatants from the train, so far away it’s hard to see without Jenny’s long-sightedness. It’s amazing how far she can see, and we break into a run. Just then, we see them vanish through something like a portal, those kinds of things I had always assumed were purely fictional.

“Wow. Fancy,” Breathes Jenny as we look around. We stand right in the middle of a circle of pods, positioned at angles, probably to cast a portal in the middle. June’s about to walk into one of the pods, that are like tiny lifts, but I grab her arm.

“They may be traps. The Combatants we saw didn’t go in there, so I advise we don’t too.”

June shakes her head, as if to snap out of her reverie, and turns back, smiling a little, but the smile fails to reach her eyes. “Oh. Of course. Thank you.”

“Urm… welcome. Are you okay?”

June faces me and I see that her eyes are filled with grief. “The bodies, Day. If it’s underground they had to dig them up.” She shakes and fold her arms over herself.

“All gone.”