Noctura

seventy four

seungyoon

THE TRAIN slows to a stop, miles away from where Mariela's body lies.

I climb down to the pavement. The bleeding in my chest has stopped, clotted up. But my shirt is ripped and bloody.

Minho and Seunghoon both jump off the train and race toward Jinwoo, who has jumped off the train and is trying to get away from the Noctura girl.

I follow Minho and Seunghoon.

Minho jumps on top of the girl. Seunghoon wheels around her to her head, gripping her wrists above her. Jinwoo moves over to help Minho keep her down.

"Don't kill her!" Jinwoo screams. "Don't kill her, Minho."

"She tried to kill us, Jinwoo. She tried to kill you."

"I know," he says, out of breath. "But... she's the only other person like me. I can feel it. We can't kill her."

Her eyes are moving around wildly as she struggles to get out of the grips of the three people holding her down.

"Mariela is dead now," Minho tells her. "You're free. Why would you still want to kill us?"

She glances around nervously.

"I didn't want to be this way," she starts with a shaky voice. "I... I don't want to kill people. But I have to. Mariela told me if I don't fight for the Malums, we won't be able to eat. We'll be killed by the humans. I don't want to be killed by the humans and I don't want to starve."

"You won't have to," I tell her.

She looks at me then.

"You won't have to kill people to eat anymore," I inform her. "The humans won't need to kill Nocturas anymore, because Nocturas won't be killing humans. My lab figured it out. They figured out how to extract life essence from plants and change its molecular structure so Nocturas can ingest it. They're already mass producing it, and soon, Nocturas will be eating just that. They won't need to eat human life essence anymore. You won't need to kill people anymore."

Her eyes change from black and violet to a clear blue.

"Kaila," Jinwoo whispers quietly. "Please."

"If this is true," she says, "I really won't have to eat human life essence anymore? I can live normally?"

"Not right away, but yes," Yoon says.

The girl, Kaila, takes a deep breath. "Okay."

Minho reluctantly lets her go and Seunghoon and Jinwoo do the same.

She stands up, facing the rest of us.

Seunghoon turns to me. "Are you... is this real?"

"Yes," I tell him. "We've done it. We've figured it out. We can tell everyone in Kraephis. We can try to put a stop to this war."

"The war won't stop immediately, though," Seunghoon says. "The Noctura gangs will still want us dead. We still have to stop them."

"That's true, but if we tell everyone of what we've discovered, maybe some of them will want to stop fighting," I respond. "And now, we have Jinwoo and Kaila to help us, if they want to. We have more Nocturas fighting with us, across the entire city. We can win this war. We can still have peace."

Seunghoon doesn't respond for a long moment.

"We have to try," Minho turns to him. "Please."

He nods. "Okay. I can tell the Director. We can get the word out and—"

"Actually, you don't need to," I tell him. "I already told Teagan. I believe she's getting the word out right now, as we speak."

Seunghoon stares at me for the longest time, before suddenly laughing.

He starts laughing, holding his stomach and laughing out loud.

Minho joins in with him.

And eventually, Jinwoo does too.

And then I can feel myself laughing as Kaila starts to.

We're all standing there, laughing.

Once the laughter passes, Seunghoon turns to me.

"I can't believe it," he says. "You've figured it out. You've figured out what the AAN should have years ago, instead of resorting to killing."

I nod. "But that doesn't matter now. All that matters is we go in there and do everything we can to win this war against the Noctura gangs. I know we can restore peace between humans and Nocturas."

"I'm in," Seunghoon says, determined. "Anyone else?"

"I'm in," Minho and I both say.

"I want to fight," Jinwoo says. "I want to bring peace."

We all turn our eyes to Kaila.

She gives us a shy smile. "Well, I mean, since we all started laughing manically together, that means we have to fight together now, right?"

We all run off toward the battlefield, ready to win this war.

There will be war, there will be death, there will be suffering.

But hopefully it will cease and peace will fall upon us.

All we can do is hope.