CHAPTER 20: Promises Made to Be Broken

CRANKING IT UP TO TWENTY!

I woke up, and I decided to take a walk. Jumping out of my bed in the infirmary, I saw a few zombies loitering around. Not letting them get to the base, I shot a few peas at them. I roamed around the dark streets of downtown while thinking about yesterday. It was anything but a bad dream; it was real. I had nobody to care about me.

"Elyssia!"

I could hear a voice call out to me.

When I looked behind me, I saw Temi and Martin, the two Chompers that were either on the good side or the bad side. I blinked twice at them, for they had knives in their leaves.

"What do you want to do? Make me into a salad?" I asked in frustration.

"Well . . . we were . . . supposed to kill you . . . the boss almost killed us yesterday . . ." Martin mumbled.

I sighed and closed my eyes.

"Do you think that this is the right thing to do?" I asked, eyes still closed.

"Uh . . . well . . . what is the right thing?" Temi asked.

"The right thing to do would be to overthrow all evil forces." I answered.

"But wouldn't we get killed if we betrayed Zomboss?" Martin asked.

"Well, didn't you almost get killed when you betrayed our side?" I replied.

"Uhh, yeah." Temi answered.

"But bear in mind that there's a good kind of betrayal and a bad kind. The bad kind is when you're disloyal to a perfectly innocent person, while the good kind is being disloyal to all things evil." I whispered.

"Your choice."

The two Chompers appeared to be wracking their brains for what seemed like decades, when they finally made a decision.

"We'll be on your side, Elyssia." Temi murmured.

"Hear, hear!" Martin echoed.

I smiled as we shook leaves, indicating that we were friends.

"Elyssia!" Ash was running towards me.

"How did you know I was out here?" I asked.

"I have my ways." he answered simply.

"Anyways, about what happened yesterday . . ."

I bit my lip at those words. I was being sucked right into that moment in the attic of the Flatiron building. Ash had tried to escape, and then he had killed me.

"What do you want?" I asked in a voice that didn't sound like my own.

"I'm sorry." Ash answered simply.

"I don't know if you mean it, Ash. You can't say that you didn't mean it, because that was no accident. Picking me up and ripping my stem open . . . "Sorry" doesn't cut it. " I murmured.

And with that, I turned around and headed inside the base with Martin and Temi.

"Hold on! Why are you following her?" Ash sputtered.

"That's because they've come clean. They aren't on the bad side anymore. They want us plants to win." I replied.

"Elyssia! Elyssia!" Peater called out to me as I came to the breakfast table, hungry and famished.

"What?" I asked as I grabbed a plateful of bacon and eggs.

"I'm sorry. For everything." Peater whispered.

"Sure . . ." I mocked before I went off to find Annika and Roosevelta.

"Elyssia! Are you okay? Why are you like this?" Peater asked as he came up to me. I couldn't answer.

"Is everything fine over here?" Roosevelta asked.

"We don't want no war!" Annika echoed.

"Yeah . . ." I mumbled, before turning back to face Peater.

"Look at what you've done! You've destroyed "us!" You probably won't gain my trust ever again!" I exclaimed loudly.

"Maybe if you weren't such an evil soul, you wouldn't be saying these things!" Peater retorted angrily. "You're just a skinfaced jerk! You're so damn uncaring! I don't care if you're supposed to be the country's saviour, the Coponeva Insuperabilis or whatever the hell it is! And you . . . you're just the worst girl I've ever met! Always doing this and that, getting herself into scrapes . . . You don't deserve anything! Just die. I made the right choice in not defending you didn't I? I made the right choice with that pact with Ash, didn't I?"

I gasped in shock. Those words had brought back way too many memories, none all that good.

"I . . . I . . ." I couldn't bring myself to speak.

Tears welling up in my eyes, I dropped my plate to the floor with a crash. Plants stared ― even the birds perched on the windowsills stopped their chirping just to stare at me. At that moment, I just wanted to die. I didn't care if the whole TEC was going to mourn my death. I wish that I hadn't left Adria and Alana. I wish that I didn't run right through the veil at the cost of a bunch of pain. Not bothering to think about how much I was humiliating myself, I ran right out of the room, and outside. I remembered the lab, filled to the brim with poison. Perfect for me. I kicked aside the trash bin, and I crawled inside the passageway. I didn't care about the rats gnashing their teeth wanting to eat me as a meal. After half an hour of fight ing the darkness, and whatever dirty life forms were waiting to eat me, I found the light of the lab. I walked around, taking in every detail. The eternally clean laboratory was as amazing as it could ever be, with beakers filled to the top with fluids in all colours of the rainbow. Then, I heard shuffling footsteps behind me. Turning around, whatever it was had disappeared behind a shelf. Paying no mind, I found a syringe labelled 'Isopropyl'. Wracking my brain, I tried to recall the last science class where we experimented on rats and turtles with syringes just like the one I held in my leaf. Blinking twice, I inserted the needle into my stem, and I was overcome by a wave of dizziness. My body started to hurt like hell, and I was putting most of my energy into keeping myself from screaming. I just stood there, being silently tortured. I could feel the blood in my face drain away, and I was recalling horrid memories from my past. Once again, I could hear those pitter-pattering steps behind me. I whimpered at the pain as I closed my eyes and tried to shut out all of these bad feelings. But to no avail. The pitter-pattering noise came back, and this time it was louder.

"Elyssia!" I heard the steps coming closer and closer, until I felt a leaf on my stem.

"Elyssia, are you . . . okay?" Annika asked.

"I was sent here by Peater to find you . . ."

I was struggling to breathe, and soon I had collapsed onto the floor, coughing like mad.

"Elyssia, it's okay, just calm down." Peater whispered as he tried to hold my leaves.

"Get away!" I screamed as the pain increased.

I used almost all of the strength left in my body to push him away.

"Elyssia, relax!" Annika exclaimed.

I could see Peater with his leaves over his face, tears falling down in streams.

Then I had blacked out.

Heyyy, something new! What ― or who ― is the Coponeva Insuperabilis? Food for thought! ;)