OGENUS EARTH 🌎 🌊 {Dystopian Sci-Fi Adventure}

Behind Blue Eyes

Olivia trembled as she took the plasma gun. She'd never held one of these things, and was well aware of the power one shot packed. 

It was also much heavier than she'd imagined, which threw off her center of gravity.

"You're giving one of them a gun?!" Lauren squeaked.

"Relax." Gayle laughed with her eyes but saved her smile for her captives. "She's one of us."

Gayle stepped forward, clasping Olivia's hand and tugging her gently until their foreheads touched.

"You've done well," Gayle whispered.

"What. The. Actual. Fuck." Harrison's jaw unhinged at the sight.

"Is this true?" Arturo asked, much more reasonable than Harrison's response.

"I'm afraid it is," Olivia answered, tossing her head of frazzled chestnut curls. "Ugh, can you take this thing? It's too heavy."

Olivia tried to hand the plasma gun back to Gayle, but she refused the offering.

"I wasn't kidding," Gayle said enjoying the cruel irony of the moment. "It's your turn."

"But, I brought you, Arturo." Olivia stammered, her sea-blue eyes opening wide. "I've done my part. I'm not fit to do this sort of thing."

"None of us were." Bethany chimed in from where she flanked Gayle. "But this is what's necessary."

"We can't be afraid of death, because it is the only truth." Gayle reminded Olivia. "We knew that this was what was required of us."

"But-" Olivia bent under the weight of the gun as did her devotion in their cause.

Midge, who had been watching all of this felt the unwelcome patch of warmth blossoming on her leg before the other's saw it. The smell of fresh urine mixed with the two days of sweat and food that still clung to her clothes.

"Now then," Gayle announced with a happy bounce in her step, "it seems this one has had a little accident. Are you afraid?"

Midge did not answer for fear of evoking Gayle's rage.

She dipped her chin in embarrassment, hiding her eyes from the others. She'd wanted so much to be bold, to prove to herself that she'd always had the making of a hero buried under her soft layers. It would appear that she had been wrong.

Big Joe was quaking with fury as the bands of muscle, padded with too many helpings of pickled herring, flexed around his arms at the ready. He could probably take that little Legionnaire's head off before she could fire the gun in his estimation.

"I said," Gayle repeated, louder this time, "are you afraid?"

"Yes." Midge choked through a sob that escaped her lungs.

"You want to go home don't you?" Gayle mocked Midge's tears, walking around her like a predator sizing up its kill.

"No," Midge squeaked, wiping away the errant tears that had squeezed through onto her cheeks.

"I'm doing you a kindness, you know," Gayle told her, reaching a hand out to cup her chin and guide Midge's eyes to her own. "What's going to happen to your friends and families on the other Arcs? That's going to be a slow, painful death. We should know; we tested it here. They writhed around and screamed for help, choking on their own self-reverential smut. This will be quick."

"No, please," Arturo cried. "You can stop this. I'm sure that you-"

"You know nothing!" Gayle roared over him, the spittle flying off of her lips like acid. "You are the epitome of everything that is wrong with our race! You think you've saved humanity?! You've doomed us all to a slow masticating death if we continue down your path."