There is no author's note for this chapter.
Simply keep on reading.
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Chapter Ten: Devastation
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Geoff had been training us for the past four days. He taught us how to block, how to attack with melee and how to evade. Marlene had instructed him to not give me a firearm until the time was right (I still begged him to let me borrow his old one although with no success) but as compensation he showed me how to steal a firearm from an enemy once they've been stunned. Riley had already learned these techniques but would join in on the training whenever we would spar.
It was a fun and effective way of passing time, and sure enough both of our bonds with Geoff had strengthened like the one we had with Winston. He showed less emotion but deep inside had the same heart as his. The sun eventually settled in and our training had ended for the day, we were directed back to our rooms as the stars started to glisten.
x
It was late at night. And I dreamed.
It was a whimsical one, I guess. I imagined this giant spaceship that'd carried all these infected from around the world, about to be dispersed into space, cleansing the Earth of the scum.
Sadly the dream'd ended as soon as I saw it liftoff. It was weird, because my dreams would usually end in a fashionable manner, rather than leaving me in a cliffhanger.
When I'd awoke, the ceiling greeted me with an inanimate smile using its cracks.
Good afternoon, it might've said.
I smiled back.
As I turned to my right, there sat Riley on her own mattress. A flat pillow had been lain on her lap, she was staring at me intently.
Creepy intently.
I stared back.
And made a face.
"Nice." she said.
"Is it a habit for you to look at girls like that when they sleep?"
"You were drooling,"
Alarmed, my fingers felt for the corners of my lips. Sure enough, some saliva had managed to dry up like a drought.
"That's interesting." I said. "You watched me drool?"
"And snore." She was silent for a few more beats. "You woke me up."
"I don't even snore that loud."
"You do. It's weird. You do a lot of weird things when you're asleep."
"Like?"
"Like wearing a ponytail—when you're sleeping."
"Hey," I arched a brow. "You've got your bun."
"It's understandable, Ellie, you've seen me without it."
I attempted to remember the memory, it'd been a usual day in the school, and the elastic in her tie had broken. It caused her black locks to release and curl up, ending up frizzy and long and wild and rambunctious and pretty.
"It isn't as bad as you think, Riley."
"Thanks, but I prefer the bun." She moved her way to my mattress. "Actually, I don't think I remember the last time you had your hair down."
I knew what she was doing.
I tried giving out a reason. "It gets in the way,"
"Right."
"Don't even try to take it off."
"Or what?"
Or what?
"What are you, twelve?"
"Maybe."
She moved closer.
"What are you—"
And pulled off my ponytail.
My hair released and fell down on my shoulders, brushing past them and landing somewhere just below my collarbone. The bangs tickled my face, and I swept them off to the side with teenage, immature anger.
"You look nice," she said, ignoring my remark.
"Ass."
"No, seriously. You look nice."
"Really?"
"Yeah . . ."
...
" . . . for a horse."
That was it.
I tackled her.
There was a swarm of cuss words, a tangle of limbs, and suffocating laughter. We rolled about on the mattress, until it reached a point wherein my hand had positioned itself on Riley's tie for her bun.
She almost froze.
"Don't—"
But I did.
I pulled her tie off.
It was like a wave of black. Beautiful strands that she thought of as horrid. It really wasn't, it just didn't suit that tomboyish attitude she had.
"You look more like a girl."
"That's sexist," and she swiped the tie from me. "I'd have that back, asshole."
We laughed, talking until the night evolved into its later stages. Our eyes grew weary, our voices transforming into hushed breaths.
At one point during our conversations, Riley had grown solemn and dour, a peculiar strangeness growing on her. She hadn't been like this before.
She spoke up.
"You think it's worth it?"
For a moment, I would have asked what she meant, until realizing that she'd been referring to our soon-to-be meetup with the Fireflies at the Capitol.
I looked at her, a different expression plastered on my face.
"Yeah,"
"Really?" She pursed her lips. "I don't feel like it is."
"Riley, I would've died, but I didn't. Words can't even express how grateful I am, and if whatever happened to me's the answer to stopping this damn infection from spreading, then yes. It's worth it."
She wasn't convinced. The aspiring, Firefly-washed spirit that I always saw inside of her had been replaced.
"Right. Saving this shitty world is worth it." she scoffed. "Do you even know where they're taking us? What if they'll do something to you? Run horrible tests on you, use you as their own lab rat?"
"Marlene wouldn't do tha—"
"She probably wouldn't," she said, "but she'll probably separate us. Again. I—"
"You're being delirious."
"I'm being practical."
I held her hands.
"Riley. We'll be fine, you need to stop worrying." I told her. "I'm sure Marlene knows what she's doing."
Her demeanor didn't change, she was still uneasy about the whole thing. I did my best as I tried to encourage her by slipping my fingers into her hands. She was still looking down, but as she lifted her head to meet my eyes, hers were filled with fear and concern.
Riley, the girl whom I would think of as courageous with her dazzling bravado and energetic attitude had fear in her eyes, something that was so rare and uncommon that it made me fret in my own shoes.
"I'm afraid . . . " Riley spoke up, her voice shaking.
...
"I'm afraid of losing you."
I said nothing.
I let my actions do its part.
A rush of adrenaline filled me as I felt my mind shut down, and allowed my heart to do what it wanted to assure her. The inches between us were closed and we kissed with a passion that burned brighter than the sun.
Riley hugged the lower part of our bodies closer and I stifled a moan from the contact. Shudders raced down my spine from the intensity of our kiss. Every worry seemed to fade away and were replaced with nothing but love.
Eventually we had stumbled on Riley's mattress and subconsciously sat together with our lips still in between. I caressed her cheeks in a corny way, escaping a giggle every now and then as Riley played with the strands of hair covering my face.
There were heavy breaths and soon I was out of breath. We broke away from each other, our hands were entwined as I gazed into her eyes, they were no longer with fear, but with happiness and hope.
I leaned into her, felt her body, her warmth.
Our warmth.
I smiled, kissed her cheek, and whispered into her ear.
Four words.
...
Four words that made everything seem alright.
"You won't lose me."
"So. Where are we going exactly?" I asked, it was late in the afternoon and we were welcomed with warm winds and orange skies. Geoff had taken us outside of the hideout so we could tour around the city, there were no soldiers in sight, something that seemed to be so rare in Boston.
"Just walkin' around. It's nice to take a stroll without the military sniffing your ass most of the time." He chuckled, stroking his short gray beard with one hand.
Riley had caught up with Geoff's fashion and wore her own beanie. Unlike Geoff's faded gray one, hers were dark blue and matched the black hoodie she had fitted. I on the other hand had wore a red shirt with a black thermal underneath. It wasn't too hot for any of us to complain and we were just outside the gates of the QZ after using a tunnel that we had previously gone through in the past.
"Now you two stay close, I can't afford getting you girls into trouble." He said sternly.
"Yeah, I think we can handle ourselves, old timer." Riley smirked confidently at him, Geoff shook his head as he sighed and trudged forward, casually enjoying the quiet environment around us.
We had come across an old record store. Riley hurried over to the entrance and we were greeted with toppled tables and chairs with rows of records at the sides. The dust that had filled our eyes quickly subsided and we split up in the store to look around.
"Well, this takes me to a trip down ol' memory lane." Geoff muttered as he flipped through some of the vinyls.
I walked over to him and watched him take a record out, he blew the dirt off the front and stared at the strange album cover, it was an aged photograph of four men crossing a road, the background had cars that were way different than the ones lined up in the roads today.
There was no text to indicate the band name, I looked up at Geoff expecting him to be in confusion but instead a broad smile was plastered across his face.
"Do you know the band?" I asked, his eyes darted to me, full of nostalgia and wonder.
"Oh, do I know the band. My mother was always a huge fan of them, I guess her obsession passed on in the family."
Geoff handed the vinyl to me and I examined the cover better, he chuckled at my curiosity.
"Been a while since I've heard music like this, the things I'd do to turn back time..." he sighed.
"The picture's a little... grainy." I stated, flipping the cover to showcase the back part.
"Album's been released for a while now, you'd expect it to be like that."
I pouted, flipping the record to the other side "Man. Really wish we could play it."
"Mhm." He sighed.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any tapes or cassettes for my Walkman in the store, the three of us left and began walking on the pavement again.
For today, it was fortunately windy. The newly-added layers to my usual outfit was really sweat-intensifying on my body, I grabbed a spare canteen from my bag and drank eagerly, Geoff looked over at Riley and started a conversation to pass the dull time.
"So, how'd you two end up here?"
She placed her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, biting her lip as she thought. "It's a long story. Basically, I took, uh... Ellie to this place. She got bitten. She panicked, I panicked, we were a pretty emotional mess. I insisted on waiting it out, but... she never turned. Once we realized it, we decided to head off on our own — Which, by the way, was pretty short-lived when you fuckers'd decided to ambush us." Riley exclaimed, sarcasm present.
Geoff's knit cap lowered as he lifted a brow, "Marlene mentioned that you were supposed to go with another group of Fireflies outside the city, but you ended up leavin'. I guess it's got somethin' to do with her." He nodded at me.
Riley faced me as she walked and I gave her a faint smile, she smirked back at me with affection in her eyes.
"Yeah. It does." she replied softly.
Geoff understood and spoke no more.
..
After walking for about an hour, we were a couple meters away from an old steel bridge full of cars and buses that had a two hundred meter drop before reaching the waters below. Geoff hesitated as we walked further and called to us as soon as we were about to enter.
"Yeah, this is where we drop the line, like I said, I ain't riskin' on gettin' you two into trouble."
Riley scoffed and ran ahead. "Relax, there's nothing in that bridge. C'mon, Ellie." She beckoned for me, and like a small puppy, I tagged along. Geoff grumbled something about juvenile teenagers and unwillingly followed us.
God, Riley, we were so naive.
"Wow, look at all these cars." Riley said as she clambered to the top of a minivan.
Geoff shook his head. "Yeah, beginnin' of the outbreak, thousands of people tried to leave the city, it only resulted in gettin' more Infected. The poor bastards."
"Were you from the city?" I asked.
"Nah, was raised in the rural areas, back in Arizona."
"Damn, that's pretty far."
"Yeah, well, I am pretty nomadic."
Riley was ahead of us and started to climb on the sides, she balanced herself on the rusted poles that supported the bridge and looked out over the river with a hand roofing her eyes.
"Nice view!" she yelled from above.
Her stance was highly unsettling. I mean, what kind of fuckwit would think that scaling bridge supports were a good idea?
Yeah, she was one of those fuckwits.
My loud voice wavered. "Riley, I-...I don't think that's a smart idea."
"Quit foolin' around and get down from there, girl!" Geoff ordered, being just as worried as I was. Something was strangely unusual about this bridge, and I wasn't the only one who sensed it.
She sighed, her intuition seeming to fail her, thinking that the both of us were ultimate killjoys.
She attempted to descend from the supports while clinging on with caution. "Alright, calm down, I'm heading dow—"
But something stopped her.
Something loud.
A large boom rang out, our heads swiveled to the direction, and instinct took over.
"Shi— Get down!"
Geoff's large arm towered over my small frame, and he pushed me down to the ground with such force that I swore I could've broken a bone if I didn't stop myself from reaching contact with the cement.
"Jesus,"
"Fuckin' hunters. We shoulda turned around." he cursed.
We lifted our heads a centimeter tall when we peeked over the car, just enough to acquire vision. There was only a half-second of seeing some sort of twang of light from a scope's mirror several yards away from us, whoever was holding the gun had hidden himself behind an overturned car as soon as the shot went out.
I checked for any injuries, if I was shot or not, and I asked for Geoff's well-being in the meantime. I was about to examine Riley, but the pieces had started to terrifyingly fit together.
Oh, shit.
Eyes-wide, I checked the car that we were hiding behind, my head moving dizzily left to right as I noticed that the girl with dark hair wasn't crouching down with us.
I remembered her last position, and my heart almost went in cardiac arrest.
The bridge supports.
I whipped my head to the left, where Riley was supposed to be at, still clinging to the supports like an ape.
The only difference was, was that she was wobbling backward towards the rapid waters below her, a large gunshot wound present on her shoulder.
Time froze.
Slowly, like she was being careful, Riley craned her neck toward her injured shoulder, a hand touching the cold blood. She stared at it, nonplussed by the sight. After two solid seconds, her head turned to me, and our eyes met.
Mine were aghast and frozen,
Hers were dying.
She stared at me for a while longer, and fluttered her eyes to a rest, allowing sleep to welcome and engulf her as she started to fall off of the bridge and into the unforgiving river below.
She was like a piece of falling paper, crumbling slowly down to a whopping two-hundred meter drop that would soon lead her to her demise.
Later, I heard the faint crash of liquid thrashing and settling.
No.
No, no no, no.
No!
"RILEY!"
I got out of crouching position, somehow releasing Geoff's iron grip on me as he tried to restrain me from sprinting over the bridge's railing edge to look at the waters below.
My frantic eyes were screaming her name, my throat scratching and itching my insides.
I'm not sure on the amount of times that I had managed to shriek her name, but no matter how much I called for her, she didn't emerge out of the water.
Nothing cared.
In complete disbelief, I attempted to jump down and find Riley myself, but thankfully — Geoff was fast enough to stop me. During that time, I cursed and spewed at him, my arms flailing wildly in his grasp as he carried me away from the railing.
"Don't fucking leave her there!" I barked at him.
"Ellie—"
"RILEY!"
More shouts joined in. From the other side. I gave away our position, but what fucks were there for me to give?
Geoff cursed again, with me trying to push his immutable body as I screamed again for the girl's name. There was another shot that cut the air, its reverb hitting off the bridge's sides like a pinball arcade.
"We have'ta move!" he reasoned with me, still trying desperately to keep me still as he held my berserk frame.
"I'M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT HER!"
It was useless. I was stubborn, Geoff's strength and size wasn't going to lose against my own. We were semi-wrestling each other, with me bent on staying to rescue Riley and him trying to move me and flee back to the Firefly base.
The hunters were closing in on us. More shouts, more soon-to-come gunshots. I kept yelling her name, hoping to whatever higher omniscient force there was that she was still alive.
Geoff paused, as if thinking of something. He turned to me with sullen eyes as I keep thrashing in his grip.
"I'm sorry."
Before I could rudely ask him to elaborate, a heavy blow greeted itself onto my head by the butt of a pistol, and blackness started swallowing me whole.
-TWO HOURS LATER-
...
...
"...can't go back..."
...
"...Ri..ley..."
...
My eyes shot up, the system in my body regaining its senses. There was a mattress below me, my head suddenly throbbing before I started to put it to good use.
I looked around, disorganized and pallid, I was in the same room that Riley and I had stayed in, her backpack still at the side of the room.
Riley.
The thought flew out of my mouth. "Riley,"
I sprawled on all fours, eyes racing the room, clinging onto a desperate hope that what happened earlier was just a fucked up little dream.
It had to be, right?
Right? Right?
"The girl's dozin' off in the room, had to knock her out if she wouldn't comply."
"Shit, and the damage?"
My ears perked up, the sound came from outside the door. I walked cautiously to it, pressing my ear to the metallic slab.
"She's fine. But we got fucked by the damn bandits, west of Boston, in the bridge." Geoff replied.
"What in Sam Hill were you doing there?" the man whom I assumed was Trevor scoffed indignantly. "You know that the military's not there sinc—"
"Since those fuckers lynched their team back in Pittsburgh, I know. The zone's been weak and the riots've started to get worse. They couldn't have scattered to Boston if they already established territory after the military left. That'll be another shittin' problem for us when we escort the kid to the Capitol—"
"But you got the goddamned Firefly-kid killed. Marlene specifically said that she was going to join the moving group en route to the Capitol. She's not going to like this."
There was a slight pause.
Geoff attempted to retaliate. "We don't know that she's gone, she could've—"
"Don't give me that damn euphemism, Sutherland. The girl's dead. If she isn't, then she will be."
His words batted me off, making me back away from the door incredulously. The room suddenly fell dark, and my heart dampened in spirit when I heard Geoff reluctantly reply back in confirmation. "Ellie... the poor kid."
...
...
No, she can't be dead. I thought. She can't fucking do this to me.
This isn't a dream, it's a goddamn nightmare.
With eyes watered, I slowly made my way back to the door, where the previous voices had suddenly disappeared. I opened it carefully, peering on both sides to find that both Trevor and Geoff had gone off to someplace else.
The sounds of pelting raindrops clouded the air, a mist-filled night present up high. I sneaked my way out of the room, the tunnel that led out of the base was just a two-minute run away from me.
With my backpack and flashlight, I was determined to find her.
She couldn't be dead.
With the majority of the Fireflies indoors, hidden from the public, I snaked my way towards the tunnel with ease, my hair wet from the bothersome rain. When reaching the tunnel, I remembered Geoff's routes inside the twisting place, taking only a couple of minutes to head out on the other side.
"I'm getting you out of there, Riley."
The words that left Trevor's mouth made everything that was surrounding me inconsequential, she had to be alive. This was Riley, for God's sake. You couldn't just snuff out a flame as wild as hers.
It's ironic, really, now that I think about it, when I said that you couldn't take out a fire even though it had been raining seven hells that night.
My plan was far from logical, but I was unconvinced, stubborn a flame as Riley's. The rain kept pricking my shoulders, begging me to get back indoors. But I kept moving, to where the bridge was.
The night made all the buildings appear as silent silhouettes. Watching me. They pointed their signs and pickets to the direction of the bridge and I thanked them as I walked.
Each step gave me a memory of her, the girl. And each step was faster than the previous until I had been sprinting maniacally on the slippery floor just near the bridge. My heart raced, the buildings started to clap rhythmically, they even started to yell my name.
Ellie! Ellie! Ellie!
Ellie!
"Ellie!" This voice was fleshier than the ones before.
I whipped my head around, and there was another silhouette. But this one was in the figure of a woman's, her figure stern and alarmed.
"Ellie!" she called out again.
Marlene.
Two more figures emerged from her back, one of them being Geoff. And my face started to grow hard and stubborn.
I sprinted again. They pursued with flashlights and shouts.
The rain pressed on harder, like a roaring audience watching a marathon. I was the star runner, heading off to a non-existential finish line beyond the borders of Boston.
The bridge was close, too close for comfort, and as if fate had been waiting, the slippery floor halted my running.
There was a slick slip, a brief moment of hanging in the air, and the taste of a rough texture when my face kissed the wet cement ground.
The three silhouettes caught up with me, hoisting me up with care.
"Let go!" I yelled, squirming and dazed from the fall.
There were abundant voices coming from all of my sides, they were everywhere, they were intrusive, immaterial, inconsequential.
"God, you're drenched all over—"
"Geoff, help me lift her up—"
"Ellie, the hell were you thinking—"
"The military could come here—"
"It's too late—"
Too late.
The squirming transformed to punching and kicking and crying and shouting. But the ones carrying me hadn't wavered.
Among all of those voices that were attempting to restrain me, mine had been the loudest of them all.
"RILEY!" I shrieked her name infinitely as they carried me back, like a newborn baby, crying and wailing, over and over again.
Those cries were piercing itself into every dream, forcing my fantasies to wake up to a harsh and incomprehensible reality. And I howled one final time before passing out from exhaustion.
...
...
The exhaustion wasn't from my actions, but the realization of Riley's well-being had finally turned everything around me into an actual inconsequential void. I gave up on the world, and both our flames had been snuffed out.
She was dead.
please don't kill me
i love you all