The Apostate Trials

Chapter 22

The dark-skinned man was among the first to leave, the bloodied knife remaining idle behind Noah, as well as a set of keys to which Rylan managed to grasp after painfully colliding with the cold, tiled floor, using his chin to drag himself to their position; he freed his hands after fumbling with each key for several seconds, then began to free Noah and Hugo as well.

A few of the other boys protested, begged Rylan to save them─he and Hugo only turned their heads, dragging Noah from the room and not looking back as the flames began to gradually eat away at the building, the boys' agonized screams soon following suite.

Rylan didn't have much time to conjure up some form of plan, nor did he really need too.

Elliot's homestead was now a warzone, the two opposing A-Classes at each other's throats. The three of them, alongside the remaining bits of his class, could use the chaos as a cover for escape. But the surer Rylan became of his idea, the surer he became about Noah; he was slowing them down. The boy had become a hollow husk─he didn't move or say a single thing, only allowed himself to be drug through the dirt as if he was just another lifeless corpse. It was beginning to irritate Rylan.

"We don't have time for this," He felt the anger begin to lace his words. "If the idiot wants to be a liability then I say we let him! He's only going to get us killed like this!"

Hugo let out a frustrated sigh. "We can't just leave him. He's one of us."

"One of us? You sure you know who's side you're on?" Rylan questioned him. "I've been saying the same thing since day one; the strong survive and the weak perish. For a while, Noah had managed to cloud my judgement just a bit, but now those days are over. If we want to survive, we've no choice but to become something worse than monsters we fear; the hunters they fear. The monster to monsters. It's either that or die." Rylan had turned his back long before Hugo could say another word.

The giant gave Noah one last look before muttering; "Sorry." Then he disappeared into the smoke alongside Rylan with a small, sad smile.

Noah had watched them leave, said nothing as they did so─felt nothing.

Images were still ripping his conscious to shreds, viciously eating away at his brain. And standing tall atop that pile of hazes was his undeniable love for North, one that even he himself couldn't explain or fathom.

The more memories he regained, the larger that puzzle became. It frightened him. Completely paralyzed him. He felt the person he was slowly begin to vanish; the Noah before him had begun to swiftly take over, ridding the boy of all his moralized self-control and reason. He had even started to hallucinate visons of him, heard the past Noah's voice faintly whisper into his ear, felt the cold hands gently caress his slender shoulders, soothing him, erasing him.

A tear streamed down Noah's cheek, and all that which remained of his present-self had been completely and utterly replaced by the lurking shadow of his past, viciously swallowed by the fragments of his hazy memories; Noah climbed onto his feet, eyes bitter and narrow, hands snugly resting at his sides, a profound rage clouding his judgement. He needed to find North─he wanted answers.

Noah blindly began to follow the distinctive outlines of the buildings through the lingering smoke, which seemed to take forever as he gradually searched each one. He trampled body after body along the way, only stopping once he registered one as Elliot's, delightfully stripping the corpse of its belongings, in particular the two Plasma-Blades it held within its pockets.

He gave a flick to each one, watched the scarlet fluid pour from the blade's hilt and roughly begin to take shape, the hum of the plasma a pleasure to the ears. He gave it a few test swings before flicking it once more, the glimmer of the plasma retreating back inside the hilt.

The more buildings Noah searched, the less lucky he had become. He was beginning to feel as if he were running a gauntlet. The smoke had cleared, the gunshots stopped, and no signs of life remained within Elliot's camp─only corpses. By the time he reached what he believed to be the final building, Noah was sure that North was nowhere within the complex. She had to have been taken out by someone. Rylan maybe. Hopefully.

He took his first few steps outside the complex and felt a sudden rush of chilled air strike him. His eyes patiently scanned the desolate outskirts but turned up nothing, hands clenched idly at his side; his ears quickly tuned in on the minor traces of gunfire echoing from within the distance─the sky darkened, the wind picked up, abandoned vehicles and corpses everywhere as the initial onslaught of snow began to reveal itself once more, earning it a nasty grimace.

Noah felt his heartbeat abruptly pick up in his throat. His gut wrenched and pulled, although he couldn't explain the reason behind it. He felt more like a spectator as he watched his legs frantically carry him in the direction of the gunshots, eyes narrow, lip bit.

The closer he got, the more corpses he discovered; the trail grew warmer with each baited breath and step he took.

He searched the realms of his mind for reason, an explanation to his otherwise irrational behavior─why he longed to see North so much, or why his thoughts raced with seemingly infinite possibilities to the gunshot, all of which revolved around her. Noah shook away those dark webs with a bitter grin; North was strong. He needed to have faith in her, a though that quickly diminished not soon after discovering the sight unfold before him.

He stood tall along the edges of a heightened terrain, watching from above as four classes battled it out two against two, their numbers seemingly in the hundreds. And at the heart of this excursion was Rylan, alongside Nikki, Rosary, and everyone else. Rylan's blade had been bloodied as he yanked it from his victim, watching on with a seasoned scowl as a barely clothed North collapsed dryly into the pavement, resting in a growing puddle of her own blood.