Contradicting Worlds 26 The Marks

I jump back when I felt a feather touch my skin. I am still relieving the fact that I am back to reality. The feather that touched my skin was not a feather but Leo's fur. "I'm guessing the tree of knowledge of good and evil didn't help you much huh? It raises more questions didn't it?"

"Y-yes," I stutter. "But you can answer them, right? My questions, I mean. You have answers for them right?" I ask, sounding hopeful.

"Yes, I have answers for them but no I can't answer them." He's not looking at me though all I can see is his fur, I can tell by the way his neck cranes.

"Why?" I exclaimed.

"Because I am in no position to answer some of your questions. Some of them I could. But some of them you have to find out for yourself." He said that matter-of-factly.

"Okay?" That came more of a question than an answer. "So you can answer some?"

"Yes," I can hear the hesitancy in his voice.

"Are Cade and Allianah my parents?

"Yes." He answered curtly. I release a breath I didn't know I've been holding till now. It's like a huge rock in my chest had been removed. But I feel the sting in my eyes when I remember what happened to them.

"And Sarah is the head right?" I ask because I just want rea.s.surance that I am going after the right person.

"Yes." We are walking to I don't know where but after all of that, it feels good to exercise my lower limbs.

"What's my real name?"

"Rebecca. Rebecca Johanson." Rebecca. But my parents called me Recca. I stop in my tracks as a memory came to my mind.

"Nathan," the name came out of my lips as a whisper. I peer at Leo and he nods at me.

"Raven is Nathan. Nathaniel Hudgens. What the tree lets you see was the past not your memory but the moment you wake up from this, you will regain your memories. As well as your friends. And before you awake, I will give you a piece of information. The operation has been running for almost two decades now. Don't hate Sarah, kid, and don't hate yourself after all of this is done. She's just a follower. She's just doing what she has to do." That was his last words before I woke up, chained in my prison.

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*VIOLA'S POV*

It's hard to think that Mica's dead. I still have the image of her imprinted in my mind and I have no intention of deleting it. I still remember her sweet smile. Her cunning retorts every time we argue. Her bell-like laugh that does something in me. I still remember everything about her vividly. So vividly it hurts. It hurts to know that I'm going to wake up the next day without having her by my side. It hurts to know that she left me. It hurts so much. My heart clenches and I am struggling to find the right rhythm of breathing. I hate this feeling. The feeling of vulnerability. The feeling of losing someone so important. The feeling that you can't do anything about it. It makes me feel weak. And I hate her. I hate the head for tricking us into her trap and I hate myself for falling into it. Right now, there's nothing I want to do but to strangle her.

My blood boils and I can feel my body heat rising. My heart is beating so fast and I can tell that my face's flush. A burning sensation is happening on the nape of my neck. I don't know what it is but I can feel the power it gives. It runs in my veins, circulating my body like oxygenated blood that I need to live. I let out a cry when I felt the burning sensation turning more intense each second. Just when I am about to combust from the heat of it, it stops. It vanishes like a bubble. Seconds later, the second wave started. Wrecking me more than ever. Leaving me in pieces as it continues to flow inside my body. Memories flash behind my heavy eyelids. And I writhe under my bindings. I tug at the chains keeping me in place and I can feel them loosening up as I resume my tugging. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't have any idea. I just know that I need a release of this power. And I just know that right now, I'm regaining a lost part of me.

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*MICA'S POV*

I can hear someone talking to me but I can't open my eyes even though I want to. I can't even move. I am stuck in my darkness and I have no power here. I am empty and numb and lifeless. There's no light, only voices. One voice booms out of them all. I recognize it. I know that I know that voice. Because it's the same voice that haunts me in my dreams. It's Sarah's, the person I once thought I could rely on. The person who taught me all of the things I need to know to survive in this cruel world. She took me in when I have no home to return for. She saved me when I've got no hero. She became my one and only family when I've got no one. She once was my role model. I wanted to be just like her. People are afraid of her, even I am afraid of her. She always looks regal and intimidating and nerve-cracking. Because of her, people started treating me as their equal. I was no longer "the exiled child", that's why I always do what she says. I always wanted to be like her. But all of that changes the moment I've learned what she's doing. That's why I did what I have to do to protect Ellie--or should I say Rebecc-from her but still, she had her way of catching Rebecca.

I should get used to calling her Rebecca instead of Ellie since that is her real name and Ellie is not. I've known that she's Rebecca since I accepted my position as royalty. Yes, I am a royalty too just like Ellie--I mean, Rebecc-but she doesn't know that there's two of us. I started having the dreams a little earlier than she was. I'll tell you this. There are two royalties, always, because there are two trees. The first royalty a.s.sociates with time, past present future, something like that while the second royalty a.s.sociates with life. I fall with the first one. I was granted the power to see through or past time. So basically I know everything before it even happened. I admit it is hard to be the first royalty because it's like being the bodyguard. Why? Knowledge Royalties should protect Life Royalties because the life of earth lies in the hands of the Life Royalties. You would think that Life Royalties got it bad but honestly the knowledge royalties got it bad too. All Life Royalties have to do is to prevent the earth from running out of life while Knowledge Royalties have to protect the Life Royalties, they have to be the loyal follower of nature too. Which means they have to do what nature or jungle told them to do. Though they will not tell us exactly what to do, they will show us the future and tell us indirectly what to do. Life Royalties often didn't know that they have their little guardian angels behind their backs until they see the inscription saying that they are royalty. As for Rebecca, she doesn't know and she doesn't need to know. I love the girl too much to hurt her. And I know that this information will kill her.

When I first saw Rebecca steps in the defiance, I immediately knew that I failed my mission. (If you thought that being the Knowledge Royalty means having to know what the future holds then you are wrong because being the Knowledge Royalty means you can only have a glimpse of future which means it is up to you to figure out what the future holds.) Right then, all I wanted to do was to throttle the life out of Sarah. Yeah, I know now that her name is Sarah because to accept being royalty means you have to accept the past. Let me rephrase that, I have to view what happens in the past before being a full-time royalty. Yeah, it is like a full-time job that I have.

A splash of blaze sends me reeling. It hurts so much that I want to cry out of pain but couldn't. I can feel it burning my skin and denting itself on my nape. As much as it hurts, it also sends jolts of pleasure in me. I can feel it running in my veins, in my blood, and throughout my systems. It is invading me in every way possible. Seconds later, it stops, only to come back up again, stronger and tougher than ever. It is the same occurrence that happened to me when I first accepted that I was a royalty except that it wasn't on my wrist but it is on my nape.

I threatened to grin if it wasn't for the fact that I am in a d*mn comma. Because I knew what this means. I knew what the images flashing in my mind means. It means that Rebecca finally made it.

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*AIKAH'S POV*

When Shekainah died, a part of me died too. Everyone knows her as Aiksha but that's not her real name. We faked our names because our real names were included in the government's blacklist. Meaning we are one of their most wanted criminals but we are not like the black hunter. No. We save exiles but we don't kill warriors. That's why the black hunter was the most wanted and dangerous criminal out there.

We were out running and hunting for food to eat when The Head came to us, offering food and shelter that we need. We were hesitant at first but we finally concluded that we need her help so we agreed. And we were fools to believe her honey-coated words.

Our first days in the defiance was good. The people were good, they treated us with care. Our second month begins and they begin sending us out to aid for the other exiles. Then soon we were beginning to operate with them. We were training with them and we were going into their missions where thousands and thousands of people die. I thought we were saving exiles in those missions until Ellie revealed that we were just being tricked by The Head.

The defiance is just for show, it is to lure all the powerful exiles into their den and then slowly killing them by a.s.signing them into a mission that was never meant to save but to kill instead. I hate them for killing the only family I've got. The closest thing I have for a sister. I hate them for taking her away from me. I will kill them. I swear it on my life, I will kill her.

I jostle in surprise when I felt a hot flare on my nape. The chains binding my wrist clatters as I twist under them. My chains are raised higher than me so my legs are bent on my knees but only my toes touch the cold asphalt ground, just like the many others. Though I don't have broken legs or wounds to count on, I am still exhausted as f*ck because they aren't giving us enough food or water. But I can barely feel the exhaustion right now as the burning sensation happening on my sin take over my senses.

It is driving me insane. I can practically feel it everywhere. It's in my brain, in my blood, in my veins, on my skin, it is everywhere. And I can feel it's power giving me the energy that I need to live. I can get addicted to this easily like morphine and nicotine. There's no smoke but I can feel it marking itself on my skin. As it continues to do something in my body that I can't decipher, images flash in my head like a camera taking pictures consecutively. I don't know what are they until I saw myself in it, that's when I realize that they are memories. Memories that I don't remember making, memories that are tearing me into pieces even more but transforming my interior and exterior tougher and stronger at the same time.

I cry out when the flare flares out even more. I can feel it piercing through my skin over and over, again and again. I am breathless though I barely move in my position. I am heaving and wheezing as the pain decrease bit by bit. But I can feel that the damage is done. I can feel that somehow it turns me and my body into something new. Something more powerful and more ferocious. Suddenly, I can tell you that I am ready. I am ready to be released from these chains and to finally wreak actual havoc.

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*SAMANTHA'S POV*

The Hunter's Camp is my life, they are my family, the only thing I have aside from being an exile. The Black Panthers are my second responsibility. Before Ellie came, saving exiles have always been the first on my priority list but now my friend needs me. She needs the only help she can count on. Ever since I heard about the bombing in the city, I instantly knew that something had gone wrong. I always have a bad feeling towards that a.s.sociation (the defiance) but I never said it to Ellie because I know that she's an observer, she knows what she's doing. Turns out I'm wrong. She became one of them, her team had been pa.s.sed down to me but we continue to stay in contact. Then she stopped responding to me. After a few days, she sent me another message saying we should cut off our contacts with each other because she doesn't want us to be in trouble if anything happens. Right then, I knew that she found out something, and yet she still went with their mission. In a matter of days, I soon heard about the bombing and the trap laid out for them.

I've had three volunteers from her team to rescue her. Yes, we still haven't parted the members of her group in the hope of her return. Our leaders knew the moment Ellie steps in the hunters camp that she is our saving grace. We all felt it, the power she possesses. When she finally decided that maybe the defiance is the step she needed to have her revenge for Elisa's and Chelssey's death, she said goodbye to us. We didn't know Chelssey, we just knew that she played an important role in changing the course in Ellie's life.

Elisa was the youngest in her team and they had this connection to each other. We saw it, the way they interact with each other, although Elisa always contradicts with Ellie's decision with their strategies, they always share the bond. And Ellie had always been careful with her. But one of their mission had gone in the wrong way and Elisa had been held captive by the government. She became one of the exiles to be executed in the red square during The Grand Ball. Ellie had been frantic about saving her. She had a plan and she spent weeks in perfecting it, making sure that nothing would go wrong but the day of the execution, they are not the only group who are there to save the exiles. Another group had bomb the city and Ellie had to watch Elisa die in front of her. We've had to drag her out of the city and into the pa.s.sageways to the camp because she is close from snapping the city into the fire. We never learn the name of the group who bombards the city but that certain event killed a part of Ellie that we can never bring to life again. She had been broken for days, she didn't eat anything, she stares absently in s.p.a.ce. It took her months before she can finally operate properly again but even so, her moves had been robotic, almost as if she's forcing herself to do anything at all.

I love Ellie, she is the closest thing I have to a family aside from the hunters' camp. When I found her, she already made her name in the city and on the blacklist of the government. She has been the most wanted and dangerous criminal, the black hunter. I was second to her but I didn't start killing warriors until I became part of the hunters.

I used to always wonder around the woods, with nothing but a spear made of the tree trunk. I always sleep in the trees, as almost all of the exiles do. I thought I was doing good in hiding until some warriors decided to hunt one night. I was careless that night, I was hunting food (which by the way, was being a major issue in my survival because animals have been extinct so all one can do is to hunt for fruit or some veggies in the wild) and there came these fearsome warriors (I do not fear them now), that night had been my first kill and the first time I found out about my ability. The second day, the hunters came to me, offering me a place to stay and to live and food to eat and shelter from the warriors that I need at that certain moment. From that moment on, I worked hard to be able to fight well because since that day it had been my sole purpose to save exiles and to save lives of those helpless people. Now that Ellie needs me, I just can't forsake her. So I am doing everything I can just to bring her back to safety.

Sharp pain on the back of my neck brought me back to reality. I hiss as it gets sharper by the second. I brought my hand to touch it but regret it the next because it burns my finger. My knees buckle under me and I was forced to kneel on one knee while the sensation gets hotter and hotter. "Are you alright?" I tilt my head slightly to find Salmirah looking at me.

"Yeah," I said through gritted teeth but I immediately back up when a pang of pain sent in my veins. I shout in pain and I completely lie on my side on the floor. My knees curling into me, turning me into a small ball.

"Hey, get the paramedics!" I hear someone yell though I can't tell who was it this time. I was focused on the pain happening in me. I gasp in a sharp breath and my feet shot out and I lie back, my body twisting and writhing in pain that's coursing through me.

I heave when it stops as I have been in the long run. I thought it ended but then I sit up the instant it shots through again. Sweat breaks through, and suddenly it so hot here. My blood is running furiously in my body and I can feel that my face is flush right now. I can't see clearly, everything is so foggy and my body is shaking uncontrollably. I felt weak and strangely powerful at the same time. Whatever this that's happening to me, it's doing something in my body and in my brain, something I can't decipher. It feels both good and odd. The pain is sending pleasure in my veins.

I throw my head back, my eyes roll at the back of my head when the pain escalates and the need for release intensifies even more. Soon, I am up to my feet, ignoring the yells and calls everyone is throwing at everyone but me. I also ignore the two paramedics coming to me. I want to tell them to stay away because I don't know this power or what it can do.

I suck in a deep breath as it rocks my body and I don't know anything anymore. But one thing is clear, papers are flying everywhere, and memories replays their part in my head though I don't even remember playing them. I just know that they are memories and I am remembering them. The part of me that's been missing is getting it's filled by these memories. Their powerful and colorful but at the same time they are dark and dull.

The second I was wreaking havoc the next I was a complete mess and everything is as messy as me. Paper is everywhere in the training room and the people around me are all huddled on the wall, their mouths gaping at me and that's when I take notice of the punching bags which are now looking worse than I am. They have cuts on them and they are sputtering their insides through those cuts and I am sure that I am the one responsible for that.

Then a thing clicks in my mind. Right now, I only have one job, and that is, to save my friend.

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*KLEYTON'S POV*

After the sudden disappearance of Raven, everyone went in a frenzy. Some say his body was found in the woods, some say he went down South, some say he was abducted by the government because he committed a very severe crime. I don't know what to believe, all I know is that my best friend has gone missing. In any case, I am determined to find him and to get him back. But where am I going to start searching for him? He left us no clue when we found the apartment he was staying in, abandoned. All of his clothes were gone, including his guns. Maybe one of those gossips was true, maybe my best friend went to the South. But why? I don't know.

n.o.body knows what was down there since no one dares to cross the borders. No one dares after the first group of warriors attempted to discover what was behind those barb wires. None of them came back and then after a few weeks, their bodies were found in the woods of our very own. After that attempt, no one speaks of the South. But why would Raven go there? A couple of months had pa.s.sed since his disappearance and just now, suddenly, our commander-general told us that we have a war to prepare for. He didn't even bother telling us who we are fighting to. I mean, there hasn't been any reported case of rallying, and the crime rates are moving down the slopes. But one thing is bothering me, our population is going at the brink of extinction and the government is doing nothing to aid this very bothering situation. Or if they are doing something, they are doing very well in making their movements discreet to a warrior's eyes.

They say you cannot escape a warrior's eyes. We became warriors for a reason. And our eyesight is one of them. We were born as a warrior but very little of us made it to the top. Or even have recommendations to the generals. We also have no idea who runs the North. We thought it was our Commander-in-Call but he insisted that there is someone even more powerful than him. Who is it? As I said, I have no idea and I don't care about that f*ck*r, all I wanted was to survive in this mother fudging world.

A bristle not far away from my side caught my attention and I am finally brought back to reality. I stop dead in my tracks, my senses instantly sharpen. I close my eyes to focus. Yeah, I focus by closing my eyes but so what? I reel in everything I hear and pay attention not just to my breathing but to the person who's also in this forest. I am in a hunt for exiles right now because I am the one on duty so I doubt it that I am not the only warrior in here. My job sucks, but as much as I hate this, I can't change it. I sometimes wish that I am just a normal clerk guy instead of doing this sh*tty job because I have to kill and watch them die. Although sometimes I get the pleasure by doing so the moment after I always feel sick because there's no humanity in killing your fellow human let allow watch them sputter blood from their mouths and have them beg for you to help them and all you could do was to look down at them and then leave their body for the earth to feed to.

My hand grasps the hilt of my dagger that is strapped tightly on my waist when I heard another snap of twigs. A swoosh of wind caught my ear and my eyes snap open as my hand that is holding my dagger shot out to prevent the bullet from invading my skull. The bullet clashes with my dagger with a clang and I know I sent it to the other side of the woods. He has a nasty gun with a silencer. Whoever he is, I want to praise him long enough before killing him or maybe handing him to the government because of his good aim. I walk around to find the bullet but before I even got my foot back on the ground another bullet pierces through the air and I duck down, barely missing it. I look around the trees, getting frustrated whenever my eyes land on an empty tree. A tree caught my attention, it has a broken twig so I guess that's where the noise came from earlier.

Before I even get the chance to take a step forward, my body halts, and an echo echoes in my ears. I kneel on the dirt, clamping down my ears to stop the siren in my ears. I feel a sensation building up inside me and it makes my body feel hot and sticky. My clothing feels a little bit too much for me now. I let out a howl of pain as an intense migraine shot right through my head. I will remember this feeling for the entire years that I am alive. This sick feeling like being breaking down in two, like your head is splitting in half like your body is burning in fire and then the sensation stop. Only to come right back up again with more power than the last time. The next thing I know, I am lying on my back, panting like a wild animal, and… My life is about to get messier.