After Fate Fell

35 • ELLA

1 year, 3 months, and 16 days after it all
•ELLA•

The truth is, I have no fucking idea where we're going.

Marina and I decided to go north, she said she heard there was a Lorialite stone in Angola, and since we have literally nothing else to go by, we'll just head toward the Lorialite. It makes some sense, I guess. Legacy exists everywhere where there's Lorialite, and even though it is (or was) everywhere beneath the surface of the Earth, there are stones above the Earth, some more notably known than others...example Niagara Falls. Some, less notable...example southern Angola. I don't even know how Marina heard about this stone, but like I said, it's our only lead, so I just go by it.

We decide not to tell the others that we weren't able to reach Legacy, because we don't want to stress them out, so I just put on my "everything's just fabulous!" face and act like everything is just fabulous.

Marina and Six switch cars so that we can be in the same one, which I really appreciate. I need her with me, I need her support. The pressure I'm feeling at this point is already too great to be doing this alone, and I know that it will only become greater.

The car is quiet as we leave Walvis Bay, all of us undoubtedly thinking of the people who lived here, wondering where they went, and hoping we don't meet the same fate they did. They may not have died, but even if they didn't, they were driven out of this town, and the last thing we need is to be driven out of the place where Legacy's fate lies, where all of our fates lie, one way or another. Make no mistake, escaping this desert would be no escape.

Five volunteered to drive this portion of the drive, and John is copilot. I hope Marina doesn't mind being in the same car as Five. I know she has never fully forgiven him for what he did, but I also know she also blames Nine for Eight's death. We all do. If not for him always running his mouth, Five wouldn't have lunged for him, and Eight wouldn't have teleported in front of him, ultimately to kill himself to save Nine's ass.

We all miss Eight. Nobody, not a single one of us, would ever wish for him to be gone. His death destroyed us all. I haven't spoken to Marina about it in...forever. His death shattered her. She became a completely different person after that. She wanted revenge. And now that the Mogadorian regime has ended, she surely got what she wanted. But none of that will ever bring Eight back. He was the kindest of us all, the most funny, caring yet careless guy. And now he's gone forever. It's been so long, but I still have nightmares where somehow his death is my fault.

Marina doesn't seem bothered by Five though, instead, she just sits next to me in the backseat, telling me stories about life back in the convent. I remember all of this, and honestly I like hearing it. It keeps me distracted from where we're going, what we're doing. That's probably her goal in telling me these stories, but I don't mind, I just listen and smile, thinking back to when times were simpler, to when my adventures as a Garde actually really began.

We're driving along the coast, because that's where Legacy told me we had to go. At least it gives us something to look at other than sand. On my side of the car, there's just sand for miles and miles. On Marina's, the ocean stretches out before us. Both are equally beautiful, just in different ways, but I never get tired of staring at the endlessness that is the ocean, the waves coming in and crashing on the shore. It's mesmerizing. So while I listen to Marina, I focus on the beauty behind her, the Atlantic Ocean.

We drive for hours and hours, with nothing noticably Loric in sight. I try not to think that there's a chance that we went the wrong way. We couldn't have. We can't afford to go all this way for fifty-plus miles and then turn around and go south. I mean we can physically do it, we just don't have time for it because who knows how long Legacy will last.