E-4

Chapter 18

I wake up to not a single figure standing over me, but two looming a shadow on me.
"Hey..." Says an unknown one. I look at him, assessing him. White hair, but with a familiar air to him. Is that..? "Brian?!?!" I stand up suddenly. He's grinning.
"Who, what, when, where, why??" I say a lot faster than I expected.
"Brian, one of you as F-4, about half an hour ago, at the lab, to preserve me." I gape at him. He's back? What?! C-4 gives me a smile as I look at him to Brian and back to him over and over. Brian stops my head suddenly and I look up at him.
"I'm still at your service, master" he says sweetly.
I can feel my cheeks going red.
"I told you not to call me master..." I say quietly as he laughs, lowering his hands.
"Why are you here?"
"They created me as F-4, for I'm still apart of your generation. D.E.W told me to assist you with your job and keep the generation together."
I stay silent for a moment.
"Stay together for what?"
"To defeat what is marked as the enemy."
The enemy. A thousand people go through my mind from history. Now that Brian is back, the enemy could be anyone.
C-4 is giving the same look to Brian as I imagine what is on my own face.
"Could these enemies..end us?" I question.
"I have no idea."
"Wouldn't we just come back?" C-4 asks.
"Not as a generation. I was not one of you when I was brought back. It doesn't work that way."
We mull over all of this.
"We must get back to A-4 B-4 and D-4" he says with finality.
"Well, we don't have anything else to do." I say and shrug.
So we leave.
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Eventually we come upon a small town. Upon walking into it, we realise that it's deserted. An unnatural walking sound echoes off the buildings. Glass is shattered in every house and dust is piled up in random spots around the place.
Brian surveys it. "They should be over in that direction." He points diagonally left, at a road leading to the towns centre.
"They are, I can hear them." I say. We all fall silent and in the distance we can hear D-4 yelling and A-4 telling him to shut up.
We set off at a jog, our feet pounding at the same time. A-4 shouts for them to listen as we get closer. The adrenaline is finally running through me as I get closer to my goal.
C-4's face is determined yet Brian's is smiling. He knows something and he will not care to explain it.
A-4 exclaims loudly as we turn the corner and slow down. D-4 hits him in the arm.
"We thought you disliked us?" B-4 questions
"The need is greater." I answer and go on to explain about who Brian is and what he told us.
"Alrighty, F-4, what the hell does that mean?" Says D-4.
"Basically, there are four holes in the ground in this town. Each is unnoticeable. At 6:00pm every night a monster comes out of each hole. I do not know what these look like. Once under attack, four more come through the hole, then that continues until they have defeated the attacker. Often, blood evidence is left to support their existence. This is why you, and now I, where created. They did not put up much of a fight so you escaped, then came and defeated these monsters. The previous generations have died trying."
I stare at him as he continues.
"Your very existence is put upon defeating this monster."
A-4 pipes up "why do we have to defeat them? Why can't we leave them alone?"
Brian looks at him seriously. "We are the last beings in the world. In order to continue our life and create a town to flourish in this population. We will continue names, we will have peace, but in order to do that, this problem must be solved."
We all go silent.
"We're going to die, because of a new town?" I ask quietly.
He stays silent.
Yet again, I find myself in a situation that I can't change.
And I don't want to die.
Why can't it just go back to the enhancing? With Alice? With the stupid fake lemonade?
Why am I made to get killed by some monster?
All Brian says to me is "this is your purpose. This is how your made."