The Apostate Trials

Chapter 6

A violent crash of thunder rendered everyone else's responses moot─but from their gazes, Noah was certain they all agreed. At least, those who didn't refused to voice out their opinions.

       Noah took a few small steps forward, turning his attention onto the weapon's crate at the room's heart. A majority soon followed his lead with baited breaths, their hands coaxing each fully-loaded magazine to the rifles, going through the motions that their memories so vaguely recalled. Flicking off the safety, finger never on the trigger, their sights and breathing steady, body positioned just close enough to brace for recoil. They could each remember these things right down to the narrowest detail; from that understanding arose uncertainty. Why was it so familiar for each and every one of them? It struck a cord within Noah─how every coincidence didn't truly feel coincidental at all─like all their actions were proceeding in accordance with some grand scheme. It just didn't sit right with him.

It's all for the sake of my survival. And with that thought in mind, his pushed out all unnecessary inklings of self-doubt.

       The crate contained only a limited supply of knives and mask─they looked like mask, according to Miles─to which they were distributed only to those participating in the ambush; Noah, without question, Miles, Nikki, Hugo, and Poet. They each struggled getting their masks to work, fiddled with the strange piece of technology that looked more like a useless, full-faced motorbike helmet than actual gear. Noah found himself quite surprised to see the thing actually click to life, a varying assortment of unfamiliar HUD's taking a hold of his peripheral vision, one of which he discovered to be night vision, the other a thermal detector.

The entire situation was beginning to tilt more and more in their favor, unusually so, doubt easing its way back into Noah's brain like a poison, tainting his mind scarlet. He and the others silently began making their way towards the door, stopping only after Lilly's voice called after them.

"Something's not right," She voiced Noah's thoughts perfectly. "This all seems too easy. The landscape. The proximity. All of it."

For a moment, Noah debated on disclosing the private text he got but decided against it. "Everything will go according to plan." ─Whose plan?

"But," Lilly continued. "How can you all just accept this so lightly? Animals and people are two entirely different things! What you're doing is no different than murder!"

"Is that what it looks like to you," Noah's voice came out colder than he anticipated; his eyes narrowed onto the fidgeting girl. "I haven't accepted anything. My one and only goal now is survival─if that just so happens to mean I'm playing right into the hands of another then so be it."

"An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind! We can't just...kill people on some twisted whim! All because we were ordered to do so! It's so many shades of terrible and wrong and messed up!"

Miles, who had been standing firm beside Noah, suddenly became fidgety. "Maybe she's right."

"You can't be serious," Noah replied, doing very little to mask his disappointment. "Our lives are at stake here."

He eyed Noah wearily in response, his grip over his rifle shaky; he choked back the fear with a small smile. "We'd be endangering our lives even more by going out there. If even one of us dies, we're all toast." His smile began to fade. "I suggest we all lay low for the next twenty-four hours. No where in the orders did it say we must kill to survive. We can win this without spilling a single drop of blood."

"And yet, how did you─or any of us for that matter...make it to where we currently stand today," Noah returned Miles' small grin. "But I won't force your hand. Stay here. Rest." He soon disappeared into the rain beyond the doors, his pace quick, a few others fast on his trail, none of which were Miles.