glitched | ✔️

f o r t y f i v e

Chelsie POV

I had gone outside to get a breath air when the earth started shaking.

I was thrown to the ground, and the grass in the meadow began to rustle violently, wind catching my curly hair and whipping it around my face.

The sound of alarms blaring reached my ears.

I staggered to my feet, a hand resting on my stomach as the ground began to give way, as if it was being eaten by some great monster.

I turned and ran, too afraid to look over my shoulder.
My legs worked until they collapsed; simply unable to carry me any longer.

And only than did I look behind me.
And what I saw brought my heart to a stop.

Where the meadow had once been there was only crumbled walls, smoking chemical fires, and scattered bodies.
Yulia had been in there...
She had been working....

My hands flew to my mouth as a sob escaped.
Headquarters had been completely destroyed.

Peter POV

I felt nothing but dizziness and pain.
My eyes fluttered open.

I was laying in ruins of stone.

I managed to get to my hands and knees, and than to my feet.
All around me was ultimate destruction.

The entire labyrinth of stone was nothing but a skeleton, revealing the surrounding town.

Houses reduced to nothing but smoking piles of debris.
What had once been skyscrapers were now structures of twisted metal and shards of glass.

People walked around as if zombies, their clothes hanging tattered and dust on their faces.

I staggered through the ruins of stone, and drew closer to what had been a house, moving aside a pile of wood.

A man lay there in what must have been his bathroom, eyes open and lifeless.
I jumped away, breathing hard.

"What happened?"

A man with tired brown eyes turned towards me, a haunted look on his face.

"Nobody knows. The earth began to shake and everything began to flicker. Many of us fled from our homes and onto the streets... but some stayed in their homes. It all happened so quickly...."

The Machine.
The Machine had done this.

I ran back to the ruins of what had once been the Supreme Tower, sprinting all the way towards the very center.

Bodies of guards littered the ground, some crushed, others charred.

I moved past the twisted body of Anastasia and Heinrich's still form.

Where was she?

I stumbled over a piece of metal, and turned to pick it up.
It was barely bigger than my palm, and seemed to be constructed of gold.
It was a piece of the Machine.

More pieces of the atrocity lay scattered all around, some mere powder.
She had destroyed it.

I brought my hands to my mouth, falling onto my knees as my stomach wound began to trickle with fresh blood.
"Amara!"
My voice echoed around the ruins.
Yet no response came.

I tried again.
And again.
I kept calling her name until my throat was hoarse.
There was no reply.

Amara POV

Light rain fell on my cheeks.

I tried to summon the power to my fingers, but there was nothing.
It was gone.

My whole body ached, as if I had been kicked repeatedly... oh.
I had.

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my dusty palms and looked around.
I was laying in the middle of a forest, the branches around me broken and the ground torn up from where I had hit it.

How fast had I been coming in?
How was I still alive?

I staggered to my feet, leaning up against a tree for support- breathing heavily.

In the distance I saw a light.
Must be the city.

I began to move through the forest to the light, using trees as my support.
I was getting so close.

I could smell smoke in the air, more putrid than usual.
The air seemed to have a slight crackle to it.
How odd.

I emerged from the forest at last, and into the.... city?

Where were all the buildings?
All the homes?

Everything was completely destroyed.

I moved through the streets, tripping over the cracked asphalt.

A woman with dust-filled red hair gripped my arm desperately, her eyes wild.
"Where is my son?"

"I- I don't know."

She looked at me hollowly before stumbling away, on to another person, a man who sat with his head in his hands.

Someone pushed past me.

A white-haired lady was bent over the still body of an elderly man who's cane lay, cracked in two.

A girl ran past me and I reached out, grasping her wrist. "What has happened? Why is this city destroyed?"

She yanked her wrist away from me. "Everywhere is destroyed."

Everywhere?

I spotted the body of a little girl and rushed towards her, dropping onto my hands and knees and feeling for a pulse.
Nothing.

I gently closed her beautiful blue eyes and pressed my lips to her bloodied forehead, rocking back and forth.

I had failed.
So utterly and completely failed.

The Machine had been destroyed... but the cost... the cost was more than I could cope with.

"What have I done?"