C0NV3RG3 (Sequel to M3RG3)

Chapter 14

"No," I shook my head. "I'm Arista, but Natasha's... In there. It's a long story."

"I need a minute," He muttered, rushing away.

"Oliver, wait!" I yelled, about to follow him, but hands, my mother and Karen's, held me back.

Karen sighed. "I thought that it was a coincidence you looked like Natasha, but apparently not."

"Can someone please tell me what's going on?" I demanded. "I come back here to visit my friends and one of them decides to run away from me. What kind of friendship is this?"

"It's not my place to tell, and I don't know much about it either. Oliver's really private about it," Karen shrugged. "All I know is that he and Natasha were friends until she left."

"Arista, the meeting's starting, are you going or not?" My mother asked. "If you don't," She nudged me in the direction where Oliver went. "I can give you a brief summary later. Just keep that Tabloid of yours safe."

"I-" The meeting was on my left and the corridor on my right. "I'll catch up later," I murmured, jogging towards the corridor.

The corridor was pitch black, so I used my Tabloid to cast a beam of light to see properly. After a few minutes of endless meandering, I angled my Tabloid towards the very end of the hallway, and there Oliver was, each ragged breathing a painful contract in my heart.

"Oliver? You okay?" I raised a hand. "Look, I can explain-"

"Don't," He interrupted sharply, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I know what happened."

"Were you and Natasha friends?" I pressed, leaning against the wall opposite to him.

"Well, yeah." He replied quietly, his feet shuffling against the wall.

"Well, Natasha was a really good friend, before this happened," I started, the silent hum of the air-conditioners almost intruding. "She was really nice, kind and-"

"Bright," Oliver sighed. "She was so different, so special."

"Do you know why she was invited to the Merging Process?" I asked, absentmindedly tracing the back of my palm. "They always picked people aged 15-16. Natasha was well out of that age limit."

"No, I don't." He muttered, shifting his feet again. "I would have wanted to know, since that was why she left."

"So, the two of you were friends, then suddenly not because of Natasha? That's just so not her."

"Stop," He said, a slight tremor in his voice. "Just stop."

I released a stream of air I had been holding back in my chest. "I sound like her, don't I?"

He stared at my Tabloid, then at me. "I thought that I could break Natasha out during the genocide, but fate decided not to."

"She's still in there, so I guess you kinda broke her out." A tiny chuckle slipped from my mouth. "She was screaming in terror when she found smudges all over her left hand. Then, she was in wonder 10 seconds later when she realized that she could write with her left hand."

"Typical Natasha." Even in the dark, I could picture Oliver rolling his eyes. "Did she scream about being-"

"Ambidextrous?" I coughed, covering up my laughter. "Pretty much."

"She does that all the time," He added quietly. "Overreact. It sometimes makes me want to roll my eyes so badly, she's the only one who can actually make me do that."

There was a brief period of silence. "Where was she, during the genocide?" He then questioned.

"What an excellent idea it is to ask the person who was busy trying to shut down the program and was definitely not with Natasha," I remarked wryly. "Ask someone else apart from me."

So, this was how we spent our next few minutes, leaning against the wall, letting darkness surround us in its black shroud. Oliver took in a raspy breath and began speaking.

"Three years ago, Natasha moved into my neighbourhood," He paused, his gaze flickering upwards. "Her parents were Affluents. At that time, she was failing in Sciences and Mathematics. I was excelling in these two subjects, so her parents decided to let me teach her, and in exchange, they would ensure a secure job for me in the Republic when I turned 18. I only joined the Revolution after I turned 17, so I agreed."

His breathing was turning shallow, but it was still even. "She wasn't the best student, but we had a fun time. Afterwards, we became friends and then she left. That's about it."

"That's it?" I almost screeched. "You decided to teach her, so you became friends, and then she left for the Republic? That's the most simplistic story I've ever heard of. You're missing a lot of details here."

"I mean, we were more of friends than mentor and mentee since I was only two years older than her." Oliver shrugged. "What happened with you and Natasha?"

"You're not answering my question," I retorted. "What's so bad about it?"

"There was nothing bad about it," He answered, not quite looking at me. "Until she left."

"What do you mean she left?" I continued. "Natasha isn't the type to just leave."

"She just did," He sighed, his entire body rigid apart from the slight twitching in his fingers. "The Merging Process needed a completely new test subject, so she volunteered."

"But the Merging Process happened for 5 years, why now?"

"The Republic was looking for a person who differed in age and was particularly good at Languages and Humanities. Natasha was a perfect candidate, so she signed up."

"Why would she though? Everyone knows that the Merging Process is a fancy term for 'death sentence'." I asked.

"Because I'm an idiot, a moron, and a self-egotistical-"

"You care about her, don't you?" I said softly. "And now that I look and sound like her, it's even more-"

"Stop! Just stop!" The sudden iciness in his usual warm tone was so paradoxical, so un-Oliver, that I never thought I would hear it. Yet here I was, my tongue lodged to my throat, rendered speechless.

"She was hurt, about the Revolution and that I was a part of it." He murmured quietly, his voice as bleak as winter midnight. "That was why she joined the Merging Process. Heck, I was so mad at her." He sighed, slumping against the wall in defeat. "By the time I came to my senses, she-"

"Already left," I finished. "She looked so happy during that one month of training. Did she know about the genocide?"

"My secret tore her apart. She didn't want anything to do with the Revolution." Oliver shook his head. "I understood her choices, but sometimes I wonder if I could have done anything differently."

Lyla wasn't the only one who was mentally scarred. Natasha carried a broken heart into the Merging Institute, searching for a clean break. There were probably many more, signing up for the Merging Process to forget everything and start anew.

"But it doesn't matter now, does it?" Oliver's voice had lost its usual liveliness, replaced with a hollowness that only a broken heart could have. "She's gone, and all I have left now is this." He gestured at me, a tiny spark of anger igniting in him before it was extinguished by exhaustion.

"It's funny," I laughed dryly. "That both of us made the same mistake and ended up here."

"You and another boy?" His tone had switched back to its usual playfulness. "Who was it?"

"Kyle," I swallowed down the acerbic taste. "He caught me while Anthony and I were trying to shut the genocide down."

"Well, at least both of them don't remember a thing about us now." He raised his hand to clink an imaginary glass cup with me. "Cheers, Arista."

"Just to clarify," I crossed my ankles together, a heaving weight rising from me. "I go by Astrid now, although Arista is still fine."

Next update: 12th April