The Purge
Chapter 8: Conleth

“The world is made of countless threads that connect all things. These threads give the world both its color and its life… Right now, in some small way, you’re connected to everything in here. The mirror, the walls, the air. Everything. Even the gods.”

Marie Lu; The Young Elites

I followed Bri out of the canteen.

Panting, I found myself useless. A girl saved me from the verge of death. It seemed now it’s the other way around. Looking at her from a distance felt like she’s too far away and I was too far behind.

“You’re welcome.” She suddenly said and it got me startled. She turned abruptly to face me.

I swallowed hard. She looked at me from head to toe, regarding me with eyes like burning coals. It sent my body on fire. But her placid expression didn’t give much away.

“Next time, keep yourself away from trouble. It’s wasting my time and strength to defend you.” She said sternly.

I nodded. “I didn’t ask for you to defend me.” she raised an eyebrow at me. I cleared my throat. “I was just defending Halley.”

A sour smile tightened her lips. “Halley. How heroic of you. She didn’t ask to be saved either.”

I shrugged. “She looked like she needed some help.”

“That neophyte. She’s quite dangerous you know.”

My eyebrows creased. I’ve never thought of Halley that way. She’s too small to be called dangerous.

Noticing my discomfort, Bri tried to lighten the mood. “Just try to… restrain her. Her recklessness could put you in danger.”

I smirked at her. “Are you worried about me?”

She cocked an eyebrow at me again. “I worry about my soldiers. The Dark Hour is imminent. People need us, Con. We shouldn’t be slacking around wasting our powers to some stupid brawl fight. It’s child’s play.”

“But we are children.” I prompted.

“Yeah.” She replied sadly. “But our childhood has been stripped away.” Her eyes focused on the ground as if she saw something beneath the metal surface. It’s a far off place I couldn’t reach her. She looked up at me and met my eyes. The expression on her face changed and she was back to the Bri I know. Strong and confident. “Tell the others to meet me at the Training Room.”

She started to walk away but I found myself holding her back.

“Bri,” at the mention of her name she looked back at me.

“I…” heat started to fly up my face. I wonder if she could feel the heat on my hand holding her wrist. I started to lean into her and the doors to the canteen opened harshly. Soldiers started to fill the corridors. I pulled away, embarrassed.

“Keep yourself out of trouble.” She finally said after seconds of awkward silence. “That’s an order, soldier.”

My lips remained sealed and I watched her go again stretching the distance between us longer.

I should stop feeling for Bri. I need to focus on the bigger picture. The world is in catastrophe. We are at war with the aliens. The Gates will soon be broken. The Barriers will be breeched. They will come again.

But every time I close my eyes, I can only see her. Puberty has its way of distracting my hormones. I should be growing up and not falling in love.

Our childhood has been stripped away.

Bri was right. Years of childhood has been stolen away from us in exchange for years in the military for battle. We didn’t even know who we are against. We kept on being ignorant about the fact that we are strong enough to defeat them. Every day I lived by the deaths of people around me, reminding me of what I must do to keep this earth breathing. But in exchange is the burden that I must take heavily on my shoulders.

But I realized that I could not do this alone. I learned to put my trust on people. I learned to trust my comrades. I learned to trust Bri. That’s why when she put a bullet into Sigourney’s heart I knew immediately that she didn’t do that to scare us. She did that to provoke us into giving more of what we could do. She wanted us to defend ourselves and to live.

Halley might have misunderstood her. But then her innocence would always make me want to protect her.

“You okay?” I nudged her shoulder on the way out of the Training Room. Athren was carrying Sigourney in his arms. Bri had asked him to take her back in her room so that the girl could get some rest. Pushing yourself way out of deaths path could exhaust you more than carrying sacks of rice.

“Is that question supposed to make me feel better?” Halley threw back the question at me sarcastically. Her face hardened as she looked away. “No.” she brushed the remaining tears on her face. “Your girlfriend really put up a crazy show. Some girl.” She glared at the space ahead of us.

“She’s actually not my girlfriend.” I prompted.

She sneered at me. “Well, not yet.”

“It’s a part of her tests.”

Halley whirled like a whip at me. “Test? What if she killed Sigourney in the process? Is she even human at all?”

I flinched. “Hal, Bri knows what she’s doing.”

She gaped at me as if I’m insane. Of course she thinks that I’m up to defend my “girlfriend”. I could not blame her for that.

“You got it bad, Con.” She taunted. I wanted to wipe out that sneer on her face.

I scowled at her. “I may feel a deep regard for Bri but that doesn’t mean I am bias.”

Halley scoffed. “Yes, you are.” Her shoulders sagged. “What if Bri had shot me instead of Sig. Would you have come to my defense?”

Her question caught me off guard and I found myself stuttering for no words at all. When the silence stretched on, Halley pulled out a tight smile.

“It’s okay. I know.” She said with a sigh. “Just watch yourself, Con. Girls like the commander can still break hearts.”

“I’ve been told.” I snickered.

“You don’t say.” She raised an amused eyebrow at me. But then the light went out just as her smile came in. “Thanks for defending me earlier at the canteen.” She shook her head as if thanking me was a mistake. “No one has actually stood up for me.”

“You’re welcome.” I said. “It wasn’t really a big deal.”

“It was for me.” she licked her lips and she bit down the bottom.

“Everyone needs to be protected.” I said. “Even people like us. We are still human by some light and basic rocket science.”

She started to laugh. “Even Bri?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah. Even Bri.”

She took a challenging step towards me. “You really need to prepare me for her. If you say that what happened earlier was a part of her test, I need to be prepared.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “You can’t beat her.”

Her eyebrows met. “You are such a pessimist. At least help me to defend myself. I can’t just fly over the roof and hit the ground with a cosmic epic fail bang!”

My shoulders sagged along with the thought that I still wanted to protect her. But the fire in her eyes told me differently. This was the girl Bri was talking about. The dangerous one.

“Next time, teach me how to fight.”

Halley said she wanted to be in an army.She said she wanted to be placed in the Corps d’ elite of the Rear Guard to defend the after earth from the aliens. I guess all of us have that goal. We have grown tired of hiding in the walls that trapped us from our own world. And yet, people are still counting on us. They believe on mere children who left their childhood to protect those who can’t.

And as the Dark Hour approaches, we children have to be ready to die for them. We have to prepare ourselves to be selfless for them. We need to be ready for the people who need to be protected from those beasts who wanted our land.

But what can we children do to stop them? All we can do is fight until we win back what is ours.

There are three gigantic Gates that protect Argos. The Barriers attached to these Gates were supported with electric fields that incapacitate anyone who would try to breech it. Every fifteen years before the Dark Hour, the Gates are fully guarded by the elites of the Militia.

Until then, as Addonexus, we take the full responsibility of the task when the Gates start to weaken and fall.

The Militia is divided into three units. The Sentry, the Middle Guard, and the Rear Guard. The Sentry served as the vanguard alongside the Sentinels—pharaonic sized robots that guard the First Gate. The Second Gate is guarded by the Middle Guard with the veteran soldiers and the Third Gate is protected by the Rear Guard and the Corps d’ elite—the strongest soldiers of humanity. If the Gates should fall, the lives of the civilians are in their hands.

“So Bri could wield any stigma?” Halley turned her curiosity towards beating Bri. Probably what happened to Sigourney had triggered something in her that hated Bri so much. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to get beaten into a pulp without ever fighting back. Bri acted like the speed of light. Her actions zoomed in the way her actions does.

What I fear about my trainee here is that she acts on impulse. She acts without thinking first. This will seriously get her in trouble. She lunges at me with her weight and I easily stooped her down with my own strength. She falls on the ground with a thud.

Halley’s talented in her own way. She taught me that trick that I did on Tyron Vitalis. She called it “Stigma Teleport”. It’s a way of extracting stigma into another through aura threads.

I never thought I could do it until I was able to hurt Tyron Vitalis. I felt the threads of energy just like Halley had taught me. I imagined myself pulling it and sending flames through the threads towards Tyron’s body. I imagined fire engulfing him in the inside. It tortured him the way I saw it in my head.

It was the kind of flame transmitted through mind. A kind of power that makes Halley dangerous. Her innocence itself is mere power. She doesn’t know what else she’s capable of. That was the kind of darkness Bri was avoiding. But still the sense of power in my veins, the way I felt it, it made me want for more.

“Bri could master anything.” I told her. I offered her my hand and I pulled her up to her feet. “Try to defend yourself with your stigma.”

I produced fire on my skin and hands. It had flickered red and orange at first before becoming white. I motioned her forward. She struck first with her fist and I blocked her with my burning arm. She cringed at the contact. Her skin burned with smoke.

She knelt on her side.

“Stand up. We’re not done yet.” I told her. She gasped from the sheer pain. “You should avoid pausing. A mere distraction could cause you your life.”

I struck first this time and she moved away.

“You call this mere distraction?” she glowered at me. “It’s painful!” she waved at her burnt arm.

“Stop whining and just defend yourself!” I snapped.

She made a noise that sounded like a whimper. She squeezed her eyes shut and slowly her burnt skin healed. Before she could regain her composure I covered myself in flames. I lunged for her and she blocked me with her arms. Her skin burned upon contact and she screamed. I pushed my weight into her making her bend a little.

I was about to finish our little mock fight when she kicked my knee. Distracted, I flinched at the pain. It took her the time to heal and she struck me on the sternum. Pain immediately shot me like a gash of lightning. I ordered myself to heal before she could strike again. And when she did I grabbed her wrist and I twisted her back. She kicked from behind and I moved away.

I started throwing flames at her. She blocked it with her hands. Every strike, it peeled away pieces of her skin but she knew how to regenerate just as she blocked my attacks. I made my way to her. My attacks were more aggressive than my first counter attacks. That was why when I reached her she didn’t expect I’d let go of the flames protecting me and I held her wrist.

She gasped as if the touch would kill her.

“Relax.” I told her. Still, she held her breath. I smirked at her. “I will allow the flames to seethe through your skin. Protect yourself from my attack.”

She swallowed hard before nodding. Taking a deep breath, I let the flames through. She flinched at the heat but as her skin slowly burned they regenerated back countering my attack.

I smiled down at her. “Good.”

“Officer on deck!”

Halley and I pulled away from each other and we both turned to Bri by the door. We saluted her as she approached us.

“I can see you’re learning well.” She told Halley without acknowledging me.

“I had to defend myself.” Halley prompted.

Bri raised an eyebrow at her. “From who?”

Halley narrowed her eyes at her. “You.”

“At ease.” Bri said quietly.

There were no signs of irritation on Bri’s face if ever Halley had offended her. That’s why we didn’t expect the force that brought Halley off her feet and into a waiting wall.

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