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Chapter 71 - Unbound
🕑 Added 2023-10-03 21:02:43 +0000 UTCChapter 71
Unbound
It was dark and scary.
Like a leaf in the wind, all she could do was tremble. It would stop. It always stopped. Sometimes, it stopped quickly. Other times… it lasted a while. This time, it was the latter. It was loud. Piercing. Shrikes of a belt roused like bellied beasts. Once. And twice. And thrice.
It hurt.
She tucked her head tightly into her chest, wrapping it with her arms. It was dark and scary. Always. Always. Forever. Time and again. For thirteen years. For all her life. Sometimes loud and sometimes quiet.
Then, those men came. Men in military uniforms, tall and strong and burly. But also… gentle.
A woman came to her. Beautiful, she was. Tender. With a kind smile. And she hugged her. Those arms… those strong arms wrapped around her tightly and held her. They felt like pillars that would keep the sky from falling. They told her that it was not over. That the world was brighter than its darkest corners.
And from what she learned, it was all because of the man in front of her. He told them to come. To find her. To save her. She did not know him–she’d only met him a few hours ago. How did he know she needed saving? She wanted to ask but couldn’t speak. If she spoke, she would be punished. Her voice was ugly. Grating. Unwanted.
A girl younger than her stared over the man’s shoulder; she was adorable. Gold-haired, like the sun, with a pair of curious eyes. Layla, they called her. She seemed safe. There was no purple on her face. No darkness around her eyes. No pain in them.
“Should we rest?” the man stopped suddenly and turned toward her. He was rather handsome–at least she thought as much. Tall, too. And broad. “Here,” he took out a bottle of water from his Inventory and handed it over to her. She accepted, even though she had some water in her Inventory too.
“What’s our next move?” a young man asked. His name was Ronald, she recalled. He, too, was handsome. They all were. They were all beautiful to her.
“Michael said it will take a few days to secure a jet,” Ethan was his name, she heard. “Until then, we’ll rest. He’ll also secure us with enough supplies.”
“Where are we going first?” the last boy in the group, the youngest, asked. Elijah, she remembered.
“I’m not sure,” Ethan said. “Maybe China? It’d probably be best to cross it off the list.”
“How do you even plan on doing it?” Ronald asked.
“Brute forcing,” Ethan suddenly glanced at her and smiled gently. “What do you think, Delilah?”
“E-eh?” put on the spot, she tightened her grip on the water bottle. “I… don’t know…” she mumbled softly, still uncertain. Her voice was ugly. Grating. Deplorable. She shouldn’t speak. They would hate her.
“In the end, we only have two months,” Ronald said. “Would it be better if we split? You take one Tunnel, and the rest of us take another?”
“... it could work,” Ethan mumbled, stroking his chin. “But it’ll be the last resort. No changes withstanding, there shouldn’t be anyone capable of clearing those Tunnels just yet. Well, maybe the one in NK…”
Delilah wasn’t quite certain what they were talking about–but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need to understand them. She just needed to obey. If she did, perhaps, they wouldn’t beat her. That little girl, she realised, looked healthy. Loved. Cared for. Maybe, they might care for her too. No, it won’t happen. The world wasn’t that nice.
“Don’t be afraid,” the only woman in the group that had come along, Sarah, said gently, patting her head. “They’re a bit nuts, but they are nice people.”
“Did you just call us nuts?” Ethan protested.
“You’re right. Sorry. Only you are nuts.”
“Man, you’re meaner than you look.”
“How long until your home?” she asked.
“About half an hour?”
There were a thousand thoughts racing through Ethan’s mind–the last two days truly went by like lightning. ‘Michael’ prepared Delilah and handed her over as soon as they returned alongside Elijah. In the meantime, Ethan also needed a contingency, so he took Sarah. ‘Michael’, naturally, agreed and promised that he’d take care of the travelling and supply logistics for their upcoming journey.
'James', alongside Zack and a few other decorated soldiers 'quietly' disappeared in the Tunnel, the news of their heroic deaths dispersing through the nation. Ethan didn't know how the thing did it, but it somehow managed to convince quite a few soldiers who were in the Tunnel to act as witnesses. While there were still some doubts, especially within the military camp, it was unlikely that much would come of it in the future.
The lodge was just as they left it, though a bit dustier. By now, it truly was extremely crowded–Ethan, Layla, Ronald, Elijah, Delilah, and Sarah, six people altogether. Even if the two were young kids, it was too crowded.
However, Ronald had made barely any progress on the additional room. For now, the easiest way would probably be to dig underground, similar to how they did in Savanna, but with a more permanent structure in mind. In the end, it would just be sleeping quarters as they wouldn’t be spending a lot of time at the lodge.
Soon enough, everyone dispersed; Elijah and Sarah conked out on the couches, Layla and Tian left the lodge for their daily playdate, and Ronald, recognising that Ethan likely wanted to talk to Delilah, made himself scarce as well.
“Would you like some juice?” Ethan asked the shy and scared girl whose eyes kept darting about nervously.
“O-okay…” she mumbled, uncertain. He walked over to the fridge and took out a beer for himself and some strawberry juice for her.
“In all the chaos,” he said. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk, have we?”
“...”
“When I was young,” Ethan said. “There was this kid in my neighbourhood, Andrew. We used to call him And-ewwww because he always stank.”
“Pfft…”
“But… no matter how many times we called him that, he just laughed. He never got angry, never called us out, never told on us. He just laughed alongside us.”
“...”
“One day, a couple of my buddies and I wanted to play some basketball, but we needed one more person. So, we figured we’d get Andrew. We went over to his house and, before even going into his yard, heard somebody screaming.”
“...” Delilah tensed up, her gaze drifting downward.
“We got scared… and we ran away.”
“...”
“Tomorrow morning,” Ethan continued. “The big news that was on every radio station and every local TV channel: father beats son into a coma.”
“...”
“He woke up, eventually. Was never quite the same. Drifting. Wandering. His father got locked up for 60 days and then disappeared.”
“...”
“Nobody listened to him,” Ethan said. “It’s the scariest thing, I’ve learned. When the ears of the adults close to the pleas of the children. You’re safe now. You don’t know us, you’re scared, you’re worried… but I promise you, with all my heart, you are safe here.”
“... w-why?” Delilah mumbled weakly.
“Your Class,” Ethan’s words shocked her, prompting her to look up. He was smiling faintly. “Is it reassuring?”
“... yes.” She nodded. She was useful–that’s all that mattered. She had a place… because she could contribute with something.
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s… it’s called Voyagebinder,” she said. “I’m… I’m Level 7 now.”
“Oh? That’s quite good.”
“Thank you,” she smiled spiritedly, her cheeks growing rosy. “I… I have 3 Abilities. Dimensional Voyage, Void Asymmetry, and Binding Tunnel.”
“...” Ethan listened in silence. He’d never heard of the names of the abilities before, though he could vaguely discern what they did even without her continuing.
“Dimensional Voyage allows me and one more person to teleport anywhere I can vividly imagine… but it consumes a lot of Mana if distances are large. Void Asymmetry can lock down a large area and make it impossible for anyone but those I select to use movement abilities. And Binding Tunnel… creates a tunnel between any two places that anyone I allow can travel through.”
“... amazing.” Ethan said. “Aren’t you curious how I knew about your Class?”
“How?” she asked, glancing up at him stealthily.
“... I knew you,” he said. “In the past.”
“H-huh?”
“You lived a rather tragic life,” he continued. “One bound by duty beyond reason. Remember this, Delilah–I needed you for your Class…” he said, standing up and gently ruffling her hair. “But I wanted you for a completely different reason. Your life is your own. Neither I nor anyone else in the world can claim it. If there ever comes a time that you want to leave… the doors will never be locked.”
Ethan walked away, leaving the lodge. There were varying kinds of loyalties that could be inspired in people–those chiselled by fear, awe, love, order, by chaos… by all manner of construction and deconstruction of human nature. What he wanted wasn't absolute loyalty–pawns that hung on every word he uttered, never disobeying him. And if he let it be, Delilah would become precisely that. Her inner instability was the conflux of a broken and fragmented childhood and a story that dwelled in all lonely children, but was also the precedent for who she would become in the future.
This time, at least, he’d gotten to her a couple of years before deep adolescence. She was still rather young and evidently naive, and not entirely disillusioned with reality. Perhaps, one day yet, she might have a mind of her own. For now, though, she wouldn’t. After all, she’d already shown it–disclosing her entire Class to someone she met just a couple of days prior without so much as a ‘Why?’. It was dangerous, but it was manageable. Besides, even if she was even worse, Ethan still would have taken her. She was too essential for his future plans. So much so, in fact, that he was willing to put up with virtually anything she would toss at him.
Some people, inadvertently, fell into that pool. Whether they were just sadly broken, like Delilah, or monstrously so, like Ethan himself. Their value was so high that the world forgave them all their sins. It was depressingly real, now more so than ever before. That was why people like Logan existed in the world, despite their evils. No, that was why people like Logan thrived, and why people like Ethan either adapted… or died.
Comments
Amelgar
yeah, that had me thinking too
James Faulkner
Just a continuity note that I realized: when the general is first speculating about Ethan after the supermarket there’s a sentence something like “little did he know how much an affect this man would have on his life for years to come” or something. That doesn’t really work if the General gets offed by the Doppelgänger first thing, just thought I’d point it out :)
