The Purge
Chapter 20: Bri-Act 2

“Everything you think you know about the world is a lie…—we don’t fight for the fate of the world. We fight to be selected. To be the favorite pet of the gods.”

Endgame; James Frey & Nils Johnson-Shelton

I was never the kind of person who wanted to get away. But right now, it seems like the best time to walk away.

The alarmmade it pretty obvious that I must remain where I was. I glared up the unpleasant red light.

Calling all Sentinel Pilots. Proceed to your stations now.

The robotic voice instructed and I found myself rushing out of the hallway.

Sentinel Pilots gathered at the bivouac. Some had already mounted their Sentinels while others waited for instructions. Logic settled in. The aliens must have advanced and have taken advantage of the Inception Trials to distract the Sentry.

Something is happening to the Gates. Whatever it is, the Legislators are keeping it from the Addonexus.

I felt my body drown. My head swam between consciousness and unconsciousness. My knees buckled from the force that was slowly being pulled out of me.

“Bri,” I felt his hand before I felt his presence. I turned to Fygun and he caught me in his arms before I fell on my weakening knees.

I clung unto him as I tried to regain my strength. The Trials might have exhausted me.

“It’s okay.” He said as a whisper of a smile trickled his lips. My earlobe felt it and I leaned into his touch. “You did great in the Trials.”

“Hm.” I looked up at him. “What’s happening?”

His face was devoid of emotion. “The Gates.” I saw the muscles in his jaw tensed. “They want to send us back.” He glanced up. I followed his gaze to a huge digital clock.

The clock told me nothing but shortage of time. The Aliens are coming.

“They kept on changing.” Fygun said. “They’ve become unpredictable.”

“Something’s changing.” I prompted.

Fygun kept his eyes locked on the clock. His face was hard. I let my hands fall on his chest. He looked at me. He reachedfor my hand and he laid a gentle kiss on my palm. His eyes closed as he breathed into them.

“I don’t want to be scared, Bri.” He said as he opened his eyes and met mine. They were hollowed and haunted. “But I am.”

I cupped his face and I leaned in so that our foreheads would touch. “Don’t be.”

He shifted and our lips touched for the briefest moment before he pulled away. He composed himself. He dried those unshed tears.

I felt my heart contrast. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I still care for him. I love him. I don’t want him to go.I don’t ever want to lose him again. It scared me. Then, I’d close my eyes and I’d see Conleth at the back of my head.

No. It shouldn’t be Con. It should be Fygun. It’s Fygun I love. It’s Fygun I care about. It’s Fygun I’m scared of losing.

All Sentinel Pilots are requested to ascend their Sentinels now.

Fygun turned back to me. He gripped my hands tightly. “Bri, I might not—”

I pressed two fingers on his lips. “Promise me one thing,” my voice started to crack. His eyes told me the question in his head. “Come back to me.”

I pulled him in my arms and hugged him tightly. I let my tears fall down like rain for the first time since Conleth…

“Come back to me.” I closed my eyes and forced the doubt away.

He pulled away and kissed me.

“I promise. I will.”

“Hawke!” his marshal called for him. “Mount your Sentinel now!”

He dipped his head down and captured my lips with his final kiss before leaving. And I was left standing—confused whether it was really him I want to come back.

I watched Fygun leave. I woke up to the sudden call of my name. I turned towards the sound. A soldier probably from Colonel Black’s battalion ordered me to come forth. When I didn’t make a move to step forward, he raised his voice. People started to turn their heads at my direction.

Bored, I approached the soldier. How dare he raise his voice at an Addonexus.

“Report to Colonel Black immediately.”

“What for?”

“There’s no need for questions here. Just follow instructions, girl.”

I sneered at him and he stared me down. I hardened my gaze at him not long before he knelt on the ground gasping for air.

“You’re rude.” I declined my head towards his writhing form. “Perhaps I could use some courteousness next time.” I walked pass him, ignoring his repulsive glare.

The walk to the Colonel’s office was endurable. It was a lowly death march. I don’t like to be in his presence. His megalomaniac attitude has sent a malodorous wave of nausea in my gut.

When I arrived in Battle Camp, he was the one who fetched me out of the amphibian. His touch was no comfort for me. It was like a blanket of spoiling human skin. I knew I never wanted to be around him, neither with those people who wore white garbs and huge gas masks. They took pleasure on experimenting on me. I was like a frog being dissected and sewn back. And now, it’s happening again.

Images of the Sanguinarians found its way to my head. I remembered the blood on the walls and the dead on the ground. It was all too familiar to me. Not a new visiting site inside my head. The Predator’s claws digging deep into Conleth’s chest. The Gates opening…

I felt my body weaken.

I braced myself on the wall. My energy was suddenly draining and my vision swam in the surface. Images again started to haunt my head. The Barriers had lost its power to protect us. The Gates were lifeless. Smoke filled the unbeknownst other side. I could make out the scales crawling beneath.

I opened my eyes from the blinding pain and I pushed myself on my feet. My hands felt for the door and I stepped in without expecting what was waiting for me.

I fell on the ground as the pain and the images started to fade inside my head. My vision swirled but I managed to sit up. I was not in the Colonel’s office.

The room was big and gloomy. There were no windows except for a line of huge tubes in front of me. I tried to put my mind at ease so my vision would clear. And when it did, I wish I never felt for the door.

The room was a cemetery. Inside the glowing green tubes was my kind. Addonexus. My stomach turned. But I suppressed the urge to puke. I noticed one immediately as Rawoneth Ra. She was in my batch and she died earlier today in the Inception Trials. A Sanguinarian had slit her throat open but that wound was sawn up. Her naked body floated inside the tube like a fetus. But I don’t remember her having a gaping hole in her chest when she died. I moved closer and it alarmed me to replace out that they have butchered her out. It was no ordinary gaping hole made by a Sanguinarian. It was a man-made hole. Cut out deep in order to get something out of her.

Terrified, I was tempted to run towards the door. But cold hands held me tightly where I stood.

Colonel Black stared down at me with Predator eyes.

I am embarrassed to say that I passed out. I opened my eyes to the feel of sharp things inserted in my body. I looked at the monitor beside me to replace that I was again placed in an experimental ordeal.

“You’ve skipped your session.” A male Zenith scientist said. He has a syringe weighing in his hand. My heart hammered inside my chest. The monitor beside me had told me the same thing. I was afraid.

“What are you going to do to me?” I said through gritted teeth. My hand balled into fists. I hated the thought that I was pinned down on a stretcher with stupid, experiment needles. “Where’s Colonel Black?” I demanded.

The scientist ignored me and he tightened his grip on my arm. The blue syringe looked unbecoming to me. I tried to get off the needles but they hurt me and they only make things worse. The lights began to flicker as I struggled to get free. Upon the hesitation of the scientist to inject me, I took it as an opening and I forced my energy to surge in the room. The medical facilities started to rattle. One by one they broke. The syringe broke in the scientist’s hand. He took a step back away from me but it was too late. I was off my leash. In one swift move, I drained him of his blood. He bled from his eyes to his mouth. His blood tainted the cold metal floor. The alarm started come to life and I braced myself at the door.

I never felt so mad in my life. I’ve never been so blood thirsty. My hands writhed in agony to kill.

The doors opened and bunch of soldiers flew in. Their black uniforms matched a murder of crows. They aimed and shot at me. But the bullets never came. It flew right at their foreheads before it could even touch my skin. All soldiers fell on the ground in unison like marionettes off of their strings. At the end of the dead bodies, like the curtains closing in after a play, Colonel Black stood. Applause filled my ears.

“Aren’t I the proudest man on earth to raise such a child.” He said as he made his way to me. His feet tasted the iron coating of blood on the floor. “I’ve raised you well.” An evil smile cursed on his face.

I glowered at him from where I stood. “What are you planning to do to me?”

“My dear child,” he raised his hand to touch me but I moved away. His touch is pure poison. “Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not going to hurt you.” The lightness in his voice made me want to puke at his face.

I spit on his shoe. He looked down at it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

“You’ve become exactly what I want you to be.”

“I am not a killing machine.” I said. “And I don’t intend to be.”

“Oh, but you already are.” He chuckled. The way his Adam’s apple wobble in his throat I want him to choke on it.

I reached in front of me and I force his knees to crack. He knelt down on one knee but his writhing sounded like he liked the torture. He laughed mischievously at me.

“That’s my girl.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I belong to nobody.” I said through clenched teeth and I straightened his bones. He stood up in pleasurable relief.

“Kindness is a treacherous form of evil. It is something you shouldn’t give to anyone.” He said as he straightened himself. “For the kindest of people, when hurt, can be the cruelest of all.”

“Strange wisdom, sir.” I sneered at him. “But I’d choose my words wisely if I were you.” I looked directly in his eyes and I forced his heart to race. Faster, faster, faster. He started to breath unsteadily and he fell back on the ground. “The bodies in the room… what are they for?”

He laughed through his struggling lungs.

“The Gates, the Barriers, the Inception Trials… you’ve put them all for decoys.” I bit hard on my teeth that I thought they would break from the force I was extracting. The bodies on the tubes were haunting my head like wraiths. The hole on Rawoneth’s chest.They want something from us.

He smirked at me. “Clever girl.”

I felt the earth tremble. The lights blinked and some bulbs exploded.

“You’re selling us out.”

He scoffed. “Life is a game, Bri. It’s a matter of what you can give and what you can take.”

“Why? We’re the only ones who can save you—”

“I want to live.” He feigned sympathy for me. “Sacrifices had to be made.”

I forced him on the ground and his head smacked the metal floor. That was pure music to my ears. Blood oozed out of his right eyebrow. But he smiled up at me like a mad man. He is a mad man.

“You selfish monster.” Hot tears threatened to fall from my eyes but I forced them back. I was too stubborn to cry in front of a man who doesn’t deserve to see them.

“Oh, my dearest Bri,” he leered at me. “So are you.”

I glowered at him. “I’m gonna tell everybody. The Republic will stop you!”

He laughed animatedly. “Just as you have appealed to me, you disappoint me.”

My jaw clenched as the answer flew right in front of me. I knew it before he opened his filthy mouth.

“After all the deaths that passed by your eyes, after all the blood that ran in your hands…” he chuckled. “The Republic was the one who imposed the Program.”

They wanted us dead. My blood boiled with revulsion. My head hurt. I wanted to kill. I wanted to destroy something.

But why? To survive? Then why waste money on us?

“Humanity isn’t going to die because of you miscreants. You think you’re so special? You’re nothing but pests. An anomaly that needs to end. Your kind has started this war. You shouldn’t have been born in the first place.”

You shouldn’t have been born.

My brother’s words echoed inside my head as I stood weakly in front of Colonel Black. I couldn’t feel my legs.

“We are just giving them what they want.”

Us.

After all these years… we were played like a fool to fight something that wanted us neither dead nor alive. We thought humans needed us. They betrayed us. We thought we were important. They betrayed us. We thought we have a role to play. They want us dead. We thought we’re going to save them. They want us dead. We thought we’re one of them.

But we’re not. Not anymore.

We were like pigs raised for slaughter.

I narrowed my eyes at Colonel Black. “You think you can tear us apart? You think you can beat us? The moment the Addonexus hear about this, we’ll fight against you!”

He snorted. “And you think it’d be that easy, child?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and I tasted blood.

“Do you hear those explosions outside?” he sneered down at me. A smile that told me he’s winning this conversation. “Well, I’m not the one who I cared about is fighting out there. Let us put it this way: what will it be like to know that all the Sentinels had fallen.” He feigned hurt and surprise. “It will all be the aliens fault.” He grinned and I wanted to break his face. My hands balled into fists but I couldn’t put a hand on him. Once the action is done, those in the field will be gone. That was the riddle.

He saw the resignation on my stance and he knew I surrendered. I don’t want to but I have to.

“Do we have an understanding here, commander?” he asked me mockingly.

I stared daggers at him as I seethed inside. I was a caged beast.

“You see Bri; the world is filled with unnecessary things. Sometimes you need to eliminate what you think burdens you in order to continue on winning.”

“You’re all cowards.” I let the poison out with my words.

He grazed his fingers on my cheek. He leaned in and kissed my temple like a loving father. I withdrew from his repulsive touch. “You’ll soon realize that this is the right thing to do.”

He started to the door. “Play with us and no harm will come upon those you love.”

“You want a fight?” I said as I stared knives at the door. “Fine. I will bring a war.”

I hated myself for being too weak. I thought I was strong enough. But I wasn’t. After all, I’m still a child. But still, that wasn’t an excuse.

A tear found its way down my eye. At least it has found a way to escape.