Chapter 29

Sunlight scorches my face, making me writhe uncomfortably in the thick jacket. Sweat trickles down my forehead. The baking temperature makes my eyes fly open, and I'm instantly aware of how they sting from the lack of sleep. I sit up, surprised at how much effort I need for something simple. Jax lays fast asleep. His skin has already started taking on a slightly red shade.

My injury doesn't ache anymore, but the bandage is already soaked. Every time I move, a black and grainy substance spills from it. I rub the liquid between my grubby fingertips, grimacing at the sticky texture.

Soon, Jax stirs awake too. He looks worse than yesterday, his chapped lips curving into a half-smile as he yawns and stretches. He's running a fever. I turn him to face me as I press my hands to his face. For now, I can only relieve the symptoms as I did with myself, but the radiation sickness won't go away.

"You need to save your energy." Jax quickly realizes what I'm doing and stops me. Forcing himself up, he wipes away a smear of crimson from the corner of his mouth, motioning instead to the other shelters around us.

We head to the nearest one first. Bodies lie across the floor; all of them are false immunes in their experiment camp pajamas. They seem to be sleeping, bundled in ponchos, thin blankets, and spare pieces of clothing. Slowly, I lean over and press my fingers against the clammy skin of their necks. The beating of a pulse doesn't come. Blood keeps trickling from their noses and ears, seeping into their clothes and crawling onto their makeshift beds in a warm, gathering pool. A faint, crimson boot print is stamped on the floor next to them, its soles holding the unmistakable insignia of an eagle. I reign in the gasp that threatens to escape.

I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly feeling dry.

Looking up, I spot a few more bodies at the other shelters, so we head over there with a dreadful, sinking suspicion. From the gnarly mess, a rogue animal must've attacked this group. Their skin is mostly pale, and they don't show any other signs of radiation poisoning. Bending down, Jax frowns as he inspects the corpses. He starts with the girl next to us.

As soon as he touches her, blue-black patches start to form from her neck, spreading down her collarbone. It's causing severe internal bleeding, and he takes his hand away.

There's a tattoo on her arm. Rolling up her sleeve, I see a code burned into her arms in the same way as ours was. But hers looks different. It has a mixture of numbers, symbols, and letters in much shorter sequences. She even has a barcode printed beneath the unique combination. Working through the pile of bodies, I check the rest of their arms, and they all have similar tattoos.

We work quickly until I get to the last one. The boy buried under everyone else has blue-black blotches all over his face, neck, and arms. My hand brushes against the barcode, and it uncloaks their outfits to reveal the unmistakable brown jumpsuit. They belonged to the local jail, which means that this could be Proxy's death sentence for them.

Jax tugs on my arm, placing a finger to his mouth as he surveys the area behind us. I don't see anything, but I've never seen him so nervous. Crouching down, he leads the way, always looking back until we're safely behind one of the shelters. That's when I see it.

From afar, it looks like a beast. The way it lumbers is almost unmistakable, except that it's slimmer and moves like a drunkard. It stands on both feet sometimes, but it mostly crawls and sniffs the ground. Maybe it was the one who killed these false immunes. Jax keeps a tight grip on my hand, and we move from shelter to shelter. Soon, the creature disappears behind some bushes in the distance.

I know it's watching us. I can almost feel it. The temptation to make a break for it surges to my feet, but instinct tells me that it's suicide. Jax keeps a lookout on the right while I take the other side. The beast couldn't have just gone off, and it might've come back to finish its prey. Jax quickly turns around to me and whispers, "Don't move."

A low rumbling noise echoes in my ears. The thunderous cackle scratches my eardrums, sending a chill down my spine. A hot, putrid breath engulfs my entire body, and goosebumps flare to life. My skin is burning. I don't know if it's the adrenaline or the sheer intensity of its scorching breath. Maybe both. I can hear my pulse quickening as panic throbs in my ears. I want to move, but my legs won't budge. I curse silently. They're always useless in situations like these.

The metal roof screeches as it claws up the shelter. There's no point in hiding anymore. We wouldn't have the strength to run even if we tried.

Her grotesque, scrunched-up features are vaguely human, and I recognize the blue-black paths of her veins snaking beneath her thin skin. Red blotches mar her body. The radiation must've affected her brain from how she's acting. Her fierce red eyes burn bright as she lowers herself onto the ground, claws extended and teeth ripping through her lips. She launches herself at us. I roll out of the way.

Jax drags me towards him. He challenges her directly, leaving her back vulnerable to attack as she leaps at him with a throaty shriek. He can't hold up for long. I move in at his signal, thrusting my knife several times into her back. Purple blood gushes at me, spurting my face and staining my suit. It leaves behind a metallic aftertaste on my lips. She lunges at me, jamming me into the concrete walls of the shelter behind us. I hear a splintering crack.

Then, she suddenly falls back, wincing. Jax stands behind her, wielding his knife. But she gets back up at lightning speed with her gaze locked onto him. I slide up to her, digging my blade deep into her chest. The rogue mutant stumbles back, letting out a low growl as she glares at me. She takes out the knife, wobbling a little on her side. She throws it back at me with a cry, and I'm barely able to duck in time before it cuts deep into my cheeks.

Shoving me against the wall, her claws trace my stomach. Drool drips from her lips. The odor is out of this world. Jax keeps stabbing her, but she doesn't seem to feel anything. No matter how he tries to distract her, she ignores him. Savoring me with her glinting eyes, she scratches at the thin fabric of the suit, teasing me with certain death scuttling across my skin.

I twist and writhe beneath her grip, kicking her legs and pushing her away from me. She flashes me a sickly smile before stabbing me with her massive claws, licking the fresh crimson dripping down her mutated hand. A barely audible cry escapes my throat as she lowers me down. She turns her attention to Jax, snarling while she stalks towards him.

A burning sensation starts at my stomach, traveling like wildfire to my chest. My throat swells and constricts on itself. I lie on my side, heaving as a distant scuffle breaks through my fading consciousness. My vision is a blur, and my ears ring with a shrill cry.

The mutant's claws left behind a black substance that coagulates in a mass. Gritting my teeth, I reach in and pull it out. It's a snake crawling out of my body with its dark body winding around my arm.

With every breath, it coils even tighter around me, slithering up my body and reaching for my neck. It leaves slime over every inch of my skin. The tip of the creature opens up like a mouth. A horrid vapor spreads over my face in a smothering plume of smoke. Fighting against its grip, I reach for a knife, straining and writhing against its muscled hold. I jerk my hand back and stab its mouth, angling the weapon upwards. The blade impales cleanly through its thick head.

Little by little, it loosens its grip on me as it lands in the dirt.

My healing mutation comes back stronger than the last time I felt it. My skin starts to heal slowly, and I stay put while the ticklish sensation of flesh and muscle joins together. It's a horrifying metamorphosis, like someone breaking my bones and putting them back again. The pain slowly fades away, and I glimpse the creature's shriveled body inches away from me before getting up to find Jax.

He's lying face down in the dirt, breathing shallowly and groaning. I flip him over and start healing him. His lips part slightly, and he murmurs gibberish in his stupor. I feel the ebb and flow of a humming current starting in my heart, surging through my veins, and bursting through my fingers in golden strands. The ribbons of light keep coming from my fingers.

A magnetic pull tugs at my consciousness when I press my hand to his forehead. For a few short moments, I see myself engulfed in warm shimmering lights, my eyes bright silver, and my holographic hair fluttering in the wind. Then, the vision is gone.

What just happened?

"Are we in heaven?" Jax drawls. He sits up and grins like a lovesick fool, taking my hand in his. "You look like an angel when you glow like that, and it's the best dream ever."

Maybe it's the creature's poison making him delirious, or my new mutation causes him to see things, but I don't care. A warm feeling radiates through me, and I find my lips curving into a smile. I can't remember when I last smiled. It seemed like ages ago when life was every day before we were all dragged into this mess.

Jax helps me up, and I ignore the growing ache in my muscles while following Eorius's light. A thunderous whirring descends above, and a gust of wind kicks the leaves. "We'll need to find something that reduces the radiation effects." I point to the vents above, trying to keep up with his strides, "and I think we should go with what we know. We should follow the particles first. Then, we'll see where that takes us."

As we draw nearer to the thick blanket of luminescent radiation, the blue specks take on a life of their own and drift towards us. Jax cuts a clear path through the forest, and I follow closely, watching as more of them cover the freshly chopped plants. He keeps a firm grip on me as I struggle to get over the uneven areas. With each step, I feel the strain in my muscle like a wound opening again.

We're finally here.

I recognize the Oak where we sat yesterday. Like we did before, we scale the tree until I get a decent view of the vents. Jax supports my waist and helps me up. There are several more that I haven't noticed before. They seem to spread across the whole length of the sky, popping up in random places.

"There has to be a massive network connecting these." He squints at the sky. I look up to see a set of pulsing connections above, like fluorescent lights glimmering against a twilight backdrop. All the glowing links point straight ahead, and we keep moving in its direction, with Eorius leading the way. "It would be somewhere nearby. The connections drop down just after the last line of trees." Jax climbs down, and I follow suit.

His skin grows slightly ruddy, and his hand is warm with fever. We keep going further and deeper until we reach another area. It looks like a regular forest, except that there aren't any animals passing through the bushes. It's so quiet that I'm sure we've just stepped into a trap. As I take another step forward, there's a crack beneath my feet like I've stepped on someone. It's a false immune.

Jax's eyes widen as he looks ahead and scans the area around us. Hundreds of bodies are sprawled throughout, with some piled on top of the other. They all have red skin and black nails, precisely like the ones we saw at camp.

The radiation levels here are even higher than we thought. Within the next few minutes, my skin begins to redden and flake. Jax's fever has also worsened, which always happens before he gets another mutation. We must be close to the source. I lead the way this time, aware that my legs are weakening with each step. Now, the forest is almost entirely dark except for the occasional slivers of light. We keep going until my boots hit a solid surface like glass. We've reached the end of the dome.

"Is this how it ends for everyone?" I press my hand against its surface.

Jax tilts my face to meet his, his hand resting firmly on my shoulder. "No, I know it won't."

There's a sudden, desperate need to find the truth. I turn away from him, walk around the corner, and keep searching for anything—a random area in the trees or a cloaked section somewhere. But there's nothing. Jax's voice pierces the silence. "At least some of them tried for freedom, but those who were recycled never had the chance."

I bite my lip and gaze at the piles of bodies everywhere, a grim thought worming its way into my mind. "Maybe they tried and were recycled sooner because of that."

Jax twins his fingers with mine. We continue cutting deep into the undergrowth, following Eorius's rays as it bathes the grass in an auburn hue. Slicing my way through the thick plants, I step into an artificial clearing concealed by a thick layer of wild, spindly weeds. Jax follows me, and we squeeze through the entangled mess until we reach a small tunnel. Luminescent wires line both sides of the walls, the particles now coaxing us deeper until we arrive at a small cave.

A blue crystal sits in its center. Several tubes transport their radioactive dust through the ceiling and into the artificial sky.