An hour earlier...

Engin let his lungs suck in the polluted air of ash and smoke as he wandered about in the outskirts of Wheatland, the deserted wasteland where most battles between the Sections took place. When they first heard of a bomb exploding in the area, he got so bent on going there and exploring it for survivors, or victims, whichever it was that was more prominent, and Mark insisted on accompanying him on the journey, justifying his stubbornness by explaining just how dangerous this zone had become, and Engin could see now how the guy couldn’t be any wrong.

The wrecked asphalt was soaked with blood to the extent that it slid way down between the cracks and the ground looked like a thick glistening pool of scarlet, where upon a closer look, dead bodies or what remained of them, lay in a motionless sickening posture. The air smelt of burnt flesh and blistered skin, it was so overwhelming that he couldn’t help but feel nauseated.

Mark spoke first.

“Good heavens, that’s...”

“Massive?” Engin finished for him, but the guy shook his head.

“Massive, yes, but rather unprecedented. I haven’t seen anything like it before, that can’t be the working of an ordinary bomb created by angry commoners trying to wage a war, it’s something more advanced.”

His eyebrows knitted in thought, “Are you saying that some other entity is involved?”

He shook his head again, “No, I’m saying that this other entity is the only thing behind this, no one else.”

Engin was even more confused now. He looked around at the view before him again, surely that much ruin couldn’t have been fueled by DIY bombs in a haste of anger, it looked rather professional, but who else could’ve done it?

Mark seemed so lost in his tangled thoughts that Engin felt the need to call him out of his head, “Mark?” he said, and the guy turned to him in a startled whip of his neck, making him flinch in a temporary sting of pain.

“Yes?” came his reply.

“You okay there?” he asked in concern.

“Engin,” Mark started, ignoring his question, “Could the Separators be behind this massacre?”

“But how so?”

Engin couldn’t think of a reason or a motive that the Separators would be so driven by to do something as horrifying as this.

“I don’t know,” Mark said with a shrug, “to wipe us off, maybe? I mean, think about it, killing our guards on the borders would immediately lead us to think it’s the neighbour’s fault which in turn fuels us enough to wage an actual war where the only stakes are either to win or lose, and hence leave the earth free and wide for the Pallids who are living their lives to the highest standards as you explained to us earlier in the camp. Let’s be honest here, doesn’t it strike you as odd that only that one section has survived the unstoppable deaths and chaos all the other sections are drowning in?”

“Huh,”  he uttered instinctively, and found himself considering his friend’s words without any barrier of doubt. It did strike him as odd, quite a multiple number of times in fact, it just didn’t seem to be the doing of the system, more like an exceptional power of luck, but having heard this other supposition, it seemed to him as the most reasonable conclusion.

An explosion sounded off a couple of miles away and broke him off of the grasp of his thoughts.

Panicked, he exchanged a frightful glance with his friend and they both took off running back in the the direction of the camp, their feet stomping on the sticky blood. An anxious part of him imagined himself slipping midway through the escape and be slowed down enough for the damage to reach him. He shuddered at the thought, his sister needed him after all, and so he bolted even faster.

He sensed a flurry of movement a few feet away at his side, and tensed, his nerves shaking with anxiety. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his veins, in his bones.

At first his ears caught the sounds, the scraping of leather against metal, the reloading of a gun, and then, came the expected pulling of the trigger that wrecked the atmosphere of fear into painful panic.

He whipped around just as the earsplitting sound broke of, and in that instant, his heart sank. Ahead of him in the direct line of the bullet was Mark, pounding off like a lightening bolt.

It was too late to call out his name, that much he knew.

What happened next went by in a blur, too fast for him to realise what was going on as he found himself jumping to his right in the space between his friend and the bullet, remembering in those milliseconds his years of volleyball practice when he’d throw himself an almost a foot into the air to bounce back that ball before it was too late. But then it hit him. The sharp agonizing pain was what struck him first as he let out a yelp and fell on the sticky cracked asphalt in an echoing crash. His bones went numb, and his chest burnt with heat, the blood spurting out in a thickening pool at his side.

He was beginning to feel lightheaded just as the ground shook with approaching footsteps Engin could only guess was Mark’s, and even though he was gradually losing his focus, he could see the figure of their attacker fleeing away in the distance.

He let himself relax, lie back and gaze at the dawn light, the colours red and orange, a multitude of colours so peaceful that he almost, almost forgot his flaring pain. His chest constricted, the air seemed to get knocked out of his lungs, and suddenly he was coughing so hard that blood gurgled out of his mouth. In no time, Mark was kneeling over him, yelling something he couldn’t make out from the loud thumping in his ears. Even though his vision was foggy, he could see the shadow of his friend’s concerned eyes and found himself smiling slyly to assure him that it was okay, everything would be okay, but then-

Asli

Her face glowed in his head, her golden locks and those captivating green eyes, and suddenly it wasn’t okay, not even close. His heart ached for her, if only he could stay with her as promised, if he could compensate for the family she lost. She was his little sister, his blood and the only soul after himself that he wanted to protect more than anything in that cruel dark world. She was his pure little angel, and he failed her already. He was leaving her alone to bear a burden he couldn’t even lift on his own shoulders. She’d already lost Evran, and now she was losing him too.

He clutched his friend’s palm and gripped it hard, “Mark,” he managed to utter out in a low murmur, “Asli, please take care of Asli, for the love of God,”

The air spun and went still as his breath caught and he whispered, Ashhadu anna la ilah illa Allah, wa ashhadu anna muhammadun abdohu wa rasuluhu. (I bear witness that there’s no God but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger)

And as the darkness began to swallow him up, the world, he thought, was so beautiful when it was blurred out, as if the mixed colours could somehow hide the filth beneath.