Free Minds

Chapter 111.

   In every hero's life, there are several slow-mo moments portrayed in movies and comics, a key one being a major tragedy that defines who he or she is throughout the rest of his life.

   I'd never understood the dramatics of making that moment in slow-mo till now. The reason I believe that situation is slowed down is because through the hero's perspective, the process of it those kinds of traumas that don't hit you until after you're fucked up in your entirety.

   So when Camila raised the Neuroskel above her head and let go, I experienced the next few seconds of life through the eyes of a sloth, until the device hit the ground with a loud crash and shattered into pieces.

   Just like my spirit. Like my hope.

   Like her face was going to be when I was through with her.

   I lunged at Camila Mendez for the second time today.

   Yet again, I didn't make it very far. Rav's steel-locked grip around my waist, however, was starting to waver. I was so fixated on Camila that I didn't even notice when Dorian joined us till his hand rested on and warmed on my shoulder.

"What have you done?" Since yelling was the only thing I could make possible at this point. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

   It was like talking to an immobile object. Camila's head was sloped so low toward the destruction she created that her hair had fallen over her face, making her expression unreadable and appear every bit psychotic as she was.

   What do you call a person who destroyed the one thing that will trigger the deaths of hundreds in the next thirty minutes?

   Oh, that's right... a serial killer!

   Who would soon be responsible for the Talise, my best friend, Viola, her best friend, Minji, my friend and her family, Landon and many others with loving families and friends as well.

   But before I could drum that into her manipulated skull, all it took was one more glance at the disintegrated Neuroskel for the emotional weight I didn't know I was carrying to become too heavy to bear. And in that moment, I stopped struggling in Rav's arms and instead immersed myself in them, wetting the chest area of his suit with my tears. Soon, I felt Dorian becoming one with Rav and me.

   The series of muffled cries and subsequent sniffs that followed for God knows how long did not all come from me.

   Eventually, we broke away from our shared hug of sorrow.

   I gazed at the Neuroskel at the end of the stairs, still broken, still in pieces instead of whole. The person I expected to see behind the Neuroskel, however, was no longer there. My eyes shifted toward the stage to see a trail of blood– rather than Mr. Speck– at his previous that travelled all the way to one of the now ajar assembly pod doors. Clearly, our depression was just what they needed to run away like the cowards they were.

   I shook my head, glad that I didn't even feel disappointed in Camila. She made it clear that there was only one life she cared about and it didn't matter how many other lives had to be sacrificed for it.

   I can already imagine her and Speck working on finishing the other Neuroskels he mentioned and executing a newer, more widespread version of his plan, not giving a damn about the many who died from their selfish actions.

"Guys," Rav rasped. "What are we going to do?"

   The only thing I wanted to do was go to Ridgeton, crawl into my bed and not come out until this nightmare of a situation ended.

"Nobody's going to die." Dorian's words lifted me from that depressing fantasy.

"What?" I blinked.

   He repeated himself with such certainty that I began wondering whether he was now going through his denial stage of grief.