Adapted

Red Ivy

Prologue

Freedom is the broken gate inches from my feet that I'm so close to crossing. The broken gate my companions crossed seconds ago, and are now long gone from. Hidden by the forest just outside.

I thought freedom would be blinding, that it would consume me, that I was willing to die for it. But now the world looks like the after effect of a meteorite hitting the earth, it sounds like crackling thunder, it smells like burning flesh, burning vehicles, burning everything! It feels like choking, like the air is toxic.

The apocalypse has come early. Or maybe, right on time.

The apocalypse is a good metaphor for this situation because this is literally the end of our world, maybe not Earth entirely but definitely our world. A world of jail cells, armed soldiers and creepy, experimental doctors. I remind myself that this is a good thing. This needed to happen.

Next to me a gunshot doesn't crackle, it whips like lightning and it strikes something near and at the same time someone releases a gurgling sound and for the first time since this started, something soft hits the ground next to me instead of something quick and deadly.

This needed to happen.

I move nothing but my eyes, afraid that if any part of my body moves the burnt out jeep I'm pressed against won't be able to protect me.

My eyes meet hers, there's no light there, the glowing gold is gone and is now just a cold, faded green. The colour they must've been before she Adapted.

Is that what happens to us when we die?

All humans may not be equal, but in death we truly are...

I think her name was Isla. I never knew her much because she was a few years younger than me and we were in different categories. I can't remember much about her other than that her power couldn't have protected her from this.

Freedom isn't consuming me like I'd thought, like I'd hoped. Something else is, something far more powerful.

Fear.

And something else, something far less powerful is budding at the very back of my mind because I'm not the only one pressing their body into some form of cover, trying to meld with it to assure safety.

Culpability is slowly catching up to freedom in the race of which emotion will dictate my next move. It's presence intensifies my fear. I pull my eyes away from the dead girl, trying to find anyone else.

A pair of glowing, gold irises bore into my own. Silas Jackson's, full of uncertainty and determination. He's pressed against a building a few feet behind me and he isn't looking at me to relate, he's surprised I'm still here. Why I didn't make a run for it with Jack, Milo and Nora?

Because I could, but he can't.

I can't communicate back to tell him culpability has won out before. That after Jack disabled the weapons guarding the gates and I pulled them down I stayed behind to make sure everyone got out.

Because I'm powerful enough to.

Because I'm the only one who can stop the bullets without risking anyone's life.

But just as everyone made it out, a storm burst from every dormitory in Pandora's box. The plan was supposed to be that only us four would escape, that we'd come back for the others and take Pandora's box down. The others didn't like that plan clearly and once we'd cleared a path the others stormed it.

But they raised the guards attention and a war broke out in a space the size of a parking lot.

Now people are dead and the chance I had is gone. If I want to get out of here I have to make a new one.