Freedom

~°°~

Gravity returned.

Professor Fasbur Jhlor stumbled on their knees, alone in a haze of smoke and dust. The arched machinery lurched on its shaky hinges, trembling, trembling.

Broken pieces of concrete stretched forth to the ground, blighted and wrecked. The Light Tower crumbled, the bright ores glinting, still connected to the archway. They saw silhouettes, some moving and some not.

"Did—did it work?" They heard a voice from behind, rasping. A shaky body under the debris. Fasbur enlarged his body and pushed down the rocks in a hurry.

A nurse from the First Sector. Young. Her neck and spine had slanted an unnerving curve, the half of her face like a crushed pomegranate, glasses screwed over her face. Her murky hair was soaked in blood. Jhlor does not know how she could still speak. "Eugene!" they called, voice hoarse, as they cupped the lady's broken face. The feel of skin against theirs burned and they hastily took back their hand. "Hey, you'll be fine. Just look at me and ease your—"

"D—Did. It. Work." She grabbed their sleeve, her glazed eye fierce, as she coughed out blood.

They halted and looked in the light on her remaining eye that was nothing more than a dying fire's last spark. "Yes. Yes it did."

Her lips seemed to slant. Then her eye looked no more.

Jhlor saw Noirin sitting nearby, watching with his wrecked glasses, drawing on the dirt with his fingers. His suit coated in blood, face smeared in blue and hair damp in sweat. They glared.

"What do you want, Fasbur?" Noirin said without looking, drawing a stickman. "She was dead already."

"Excuses."

Noirin rolled his eyes. "Let's say I miraculously saved her, angel. Then what? They'll come." He looked serenely to the Walls, to the edge of their tiny world. "It's all over. It didn't work. There's nothing we could do."

The archway shook. It didn't work. Rycella was pushed back. By fate themselves, it seemed. Version 190 was right. The sun in their head would return soon. They would come then, rushing through the Walls.

Adrenaline wore off and pain pinpricked their legs and ribs. Jhlor fell down to the ground, sighing out a shaky breath.

The ground shook. They felt their body floating—rocks and dust rising. It held; everything static in the air, then fell. Noirin yelped somewhere behind. Jhlor's back lurched in pain but they ignored it, standing so quick that their vision was hazy.

The portal stood even still, fizzling with energy despite the little Eris' obvious want to detransform. The Principal had slowly crawled to the controller, nose still bleeding as she muttered something under her breath. Her hand neared the button. This wasn't part of the plan.

"It isn't working!" Jhlor screamed. They knew the explosion of 2867, the failure of Experimentation Stargate.

She held herself up, her silhouette cascaded in shadows. She pressed it. Gravity ended and the world rose. Energy buzzed and the air itself felt frazzled, electrocuted by pure energy, more uncontrollable than the last.

The Principal laughed. "It just needed more power. Kill them all. All of them and, and.." She gasped out, "You'll see." She's too far gone. Fucking crazy bitch.

"Crazy? I'm doing these kids a favor. I'd be crazy if I let those bastards have their fill." She glared scornfully at the terrified kids, stumbling in the air. "I'm saving them."

Noirin looked unperturbed as if he had expected this group homicide-suicide. To be fair, Jhlor should have expected that too. In a strange way, they never expected to fail. Jhlor was certain the portal would work.

Because if it didn't, what on earth had they been doing for twenty eight years?

They bit the inner of their cheeks, felt their heart pulsing in its ribcage. Somewhere in the periphery of their vision, there were kids floating in the sky, running down the hills, poring over schoolwork and asking about freedom.

Fasbur enlarged their legs and jumped towards the portal. The metal was both cold and hot against skin. The screws and bolts on its hinges were faltering. They hugged it tightly, body enormous enough to keep it shut.

What is freedom, Fasbur? Especially in a world like ours? Fasbur jumped upwards, the portal still enclosed by their hands. Heat pulsed and energy burned through their blood.

Freedom is doing this one good thing. Fasbur thought, reaching the cemented sky. The world turned white.

~°°~

Everything seemed to stop. The silence before it happened was almost deafening. A blinding light tore through the air and a booming sound that thundered the earth followed right after.

Shockwaves pushed his body backwards, hurling Boreas to a sharp edge of a fallen debris. Pain shot through his back. A splatter of bright blue blood tainted his skin.

His ears rang, thrumming incessantly and barely he could see or hear Krowan running towards him, screaming. He limply tried to stand up, his head trained upwards.

A small crack in the Wall. He felt it so.

The Dome began to shake. He froze. The Being had awakened, its thousands of eyes boring through everything. The circling wheels of it screamed silently. His head seemed to splinter and the ringing in his ears echoing. Boreas' eyes flashed and he could trace an image of a brunette.

Then it disappeared. Boreas felt a startling pain like a stab of a needle in his forehead. In the peripheral of his vision, he could see Krowan grabbing his forehead that flashed the sun with eyes as the hidden words in their skins withered away.

The Being didn't die, I want to clarify. It would never. It's promise was broken—it had been forsaken and it fled. The large, gray bricks began to fall.

Chaos erupted.

"Protect the kids!" Thalia cried out in the distance, glyphs in hand as she made an enormous barrier of rocks.

Boreas saw the falling form of Eris Heindell, unconscious, side bleeding as their left arm flew off alone and severed to the bone. Boreas stood limply in the midst of the raining stones and began to move, swapping to and fro from running and teleporting.

He had to catch them—he must. He ignored the burning sear in his leg and the sharp stabbing pain in his back.

Teleport.

Teleport.

Blood in the nose.

A small body unmoving under a mountain of cement. Blood in the ground. Dust in the air. Papers. Books. A ripped pen. A boy struggling to push off a rock even though his companion would never ever move again. The hail of cement.

Eris falling. Brown hair on the ground

Still so far away. His blood raced.

Teleport.

Teleport. You can reach it. Orange pies and bright eyes.

He outstretched his hands, teleporting until blood poured into his nose. A warm body dropped to his arms and the two of them tumbled to the ground.

Eris laid unmoving. Bright blue blood was everywhere. Flowing to the dusted grass, to his hands to his clothes. Boreas shuddered, relief had turned to dread quickly.

"Eris, buddy—hey, hey," Boreas scooped their body, hands coated in blood, trembling as they lightly touched the large wound in the side of her body where their left arm should have been. "Look at me, please. Eris, wake up. Please, pleaseplease." His voice cracked. He tore up his clothes trying to mend the wound, to scoop up the blood and return it as if it would do anything.

"SOMEBODY HELP US!" He looked around, screaming wildly, sobbing. "Krowan! Please, please, gods—"

He failed. He failed again. He—

"—oreas." A scarred hand lightly touched his shoulder. Boreas tightly held Eris, bracing, making sure to protect and to not let go.

"It's just me." Krowan. He had his other hand up in the air and a ginormous brick floated stagnant in the air, protecting them all. "I-I can help. I'll clot the blood more quickly."

Boreas reluctantly let go, chest still heaving and face panicked. "Their arm, Krowan, their arm—can you?"

"No, it fell off the bone. I can make a fake arm for like two minutes but that's literally it. I'm not above the reality, Boreas." Krowan's face was furrowed in deep concentration. Blood stopped flowing significantly atleast.

But there was still so much. Boreas' uniform had tinges of blue all over it. He could feel it sticking to his skin, warm yet cold too.

"Hey, buddy." Krowan turned to face him. "They're gonna be okay." But Boreas was still quivering and there's still that determined thud, thud in his chest.

"Boreas." Krowan fiercely grabbed his cheek, pinching the skin near the mole. "They're okay. Look, Eris is breathing. Eris will be fine. Okay?"

Blue eyes gazed at the rise and fall of the chest, the scrunch of eyebrows. Pained, yes but alive. Boreas nodded, now more firm. A hand, slick in sweat and blood, grabbed Boreas in the elbow. Dark eyes shot open, burning. "Eris!"

"The tree near the Walls." Eris said, weak but stern. "There are bones there and rations. I want you to get the bags and, and—"

"It's on the other side of the Dome. Are you crazy?" gasped out Krowan.

But Boreas nodded, standing and running in a blink.

"You.." Dark eyes fall coolly to the scarred boy. But they never get to finish. Eris laid back down in the grass, passing out once again but breathing evenly still.

"Lunatics," grumbled the scarred boy, looking above. Good news, the Wall is gone. Bad news, the Wall is gone. Krowan cursed. What now? Dark shadows from the outside crept in. The Shroud descended to them. For the second time, another being that Krowan couldn't control.

Boreas still hadn't returned.

Footsteps thudded softly towards them. Rycella Gullerva stood behind, the GPS tracker for every student in hand. "Here." She whacked the light ore to Krowan's head. It floated in the air. "It'll help. I gave everyone alive a piece of it. Get out of here before they come."

Krowan grabbed it, warily. "You sure this will help?"

The redhead nodded. She crouched to Eris' sleeping form. Green light glittered. The arm remained severed, the penance, the payment. Her jaw hardened. The bleeding stopped, atleast.

"I don't feel you having one."

"Does it matter? I'm immortal." She crushed the GPS tracker, smiling without any humor. "Take care of them, Krowan. Survive."

"Hey, wait—"

The Shroud came with incorrigible screams, eager and vicious. Krowan braced, protecting the unconscious Eris, ready to be torn to pieces as he shakily held the shining ore up. The dark swarm passed through them, gnawing everything untouched by light.

Rycella took the brunt of the dim, disappearing in the mouth of the shadows. The shrill screeches skewered the core of his eardrums. Unending and continuously high pitched.

Krowan felt a tap on his back. Boreas Poitraz had bags slung on his shoulders, his hand gripping the ore of light while the other was pressed on his ears. Strands of coal black hair soaked in sweat stuck to his head. His symmetrical moles looked more prominent due to the light. He smiled.

Behind them, dots of lights followed.

Krowan slung Eris on his back and trudged forward, the light guiding all of them to their way out.

~°°~

The demon looking flesh being with four eyes became visible when struck. The Principal stuck her arm inside. She tore out a bloodied camera and laid it to the ground. The audience must be at their wits end.

A bow would be a fitting end.

Once you die, a voice beckoned, tinged in laughter, my oath ends. I wonder what you'd look like, realizing everything you've planned is for naught. Will you still smile? Will you be entertained?

The Principal never finished her bow nor could even respond, face ashen and hard as the book took its due. The dark sprung and devoured. Nothing remained. Somewhere, a stick man would still be drawn in the dust. With a middle finger out.

~°°~