X-Marks: Rising Shadows

Welcome

I looked into Gen's piercing blue eyes as the breath in my lungs plugged up and down my chest unable to keep itself in one place.

"Mat, I'm sorry," I said with a shaky voice, "You need to be with your mother, and Evee needs to be with her family and Nate. I'm staying."

"No," Mat said with tears streaming down his red cheeks, "Let me stay. I'll find a way back, don't worry. Just let me do this."

"Valen," Evee said with a hand on her mouth, "Don't."

"The time is ticking, my young lovebirds," Gen said and tapped a finger on her wrist, "Or are you planning to stay for the main event?"

"What did you do now," Mat said and tightened his fists.

"Why I can't begin to think about those outside our walls if I don't start to fix here first," Gen said and looked back to the starlit city through the long window, "I've altered the lower cities ventilation system to cut off its oxygen supply shortly after a bombing in the lower city center.

"If you choose to leave safely with your families, the lower city will be exterminated, and Valen will be taken as our prisoner. If Valen chooses not to stay, you along with everyone in the lower city will perish, and Valen will be imprisoned for the destruction."

"The choice is yours," Gen said and extended her hand out to me, "But either way, welcome to your new home Valen."

"I'll stay," I whispered and looked into the teary faces of my friends.

It was all I could say. I wanted to melt into the ground. Disappear for a while and start all over again. All I wanted and all I had been running for was right in front me. I just wished I had known that sooner when I had more time with.

"You've made a wise decision Valen," Gen said and pressed her hands together, "The Union thanks you for your sacrifice."

All my life I had been waiting for my purpose. A chance to change this world for everyone I loved. To give them a chance to be free. I just didn't know the way to do so would be this.