The stakes were higher than ever. Everyone was counting on me.

  "Ayla, you have to try. Look, I'm going to throw all of these down there, but the only way this will work is if all the gas stays down. After that, I'll go down and blow the hole where they're coming from to smithereens," said Cayde. He was right; this was the only way we would ever be able to clear the thousands of zeds below us; there was no other choice. I thought about how I'd be able to control wind; it didn't really seem that hard if I just thought of wind as billions of tiny particles, and I could move particles. If that logic worked, then maybe I'd also be able to control liquids.

  "Ok, go for it, Cayde!" I said. I didn't know if I could even do it, but I wasn't really speaking then; it was more just the booster making me feel high on life. I had to know what was in this thing.

  Cayde quickly began pulling the pins from all of the grenades and tossing them into the crowd. In less than a minute, the whole square was filled with a green mist that engulfed everything. But I noticed how it was beginning to disperse upwards. I focused and imagined all the air over the square as a bunch of little grains of weightless sand, and I imagined them staying in place all while still holding the force field around the hospital. As soon as I did, the smoke stopped rising. I was doing it!

  The cure gas was doing its job, and with disgusting screeches, all the zeds began dying. It wasn't a pleasant sight. The cure gas made them writhe and spazz out on the floor, sometimes coughing blood. I could finally let go of the field, and I saw Cayde pull a rag over his mouth and jump down to the ground, but instead of going out to look for the hole, he sprinted inside the hospital. I couldn't see from there, but the doors were open. That meant I had failed at my job; it was too late! Everyone inside could be dead!

  I began to panic, but surely they were all fine, right? I mean, they still had the Titans protecting them all. But what if they had failed!? No, it can't be; they couldn't have!

  I heard gunshots from inside the hospital. I looked around and saw a fire exit that led from the roof to the inside. I dashed there, running like the wind. The door opened, and I found a flight of stairs. I ran down, almost falling a couple times, but I couldn't stop. My destination was the ground floor; I had to know what happened. I arrived at the last landing and slammed the emergency door open, finding myself in the main reception area. There were bodies of zeds all around me, some split in half and others dismembered. I ran to where all the civilians had been stationed at, and I found Cayde wielding a Glock.

  "Cayde! What happened!?" I shouted. My chest was rising and lowering quickly, and I was on the brink of tears.

  "They breached from the inside, but the titans were able to stop them in time. Nobody was hurt."

  I've never felt more relieved in my life. It was like I had been born anew. Just then, Mary came running through the corridors and threw herself in my arms. She was crying heavily and buried her face in my neck.

  "Ayla! I thought I'd lost you!" Her voice was raw and shaky, and I also lost it. I had been so terrified; I wanted to die of worry!

  "Mary, I thought you were dead!" I hugged her tighter; I wanted to merge with her.

  We stayed like that for a bit, just crying into each other's embrace. It's really hard to put into words just how scared I had been.

  Mary finally shifted, and she pushed herself away from me. She wiped her eyes with her hands, and I saw her face was red and puffy.

  Before I could say anything or do anything, Cayde's phone started ringing. That was probably the oddest thing that had happened. I say odd because since the outbreak, communication with anything beyond our island was impossible. I and my brother had tried time and time again to contact anyone outside, but to no avail. No radios, no satellite phones, no normal phones, and no nothing worked. But Cayde's did; his phone worked.

  "Hello? Oh, Erika." He spoke into the device. "Yeah, everything is fine. I'll be home in about a day, maybe more." He continued talking all while Mary and I stared at him weirdly. When Cayde hung up and he noticed our faces, he interpreted it the wrong way. "The wife." He said. We weren't weirded out by who was calling, but by the fact that a call had gone through.

  "Cayde, where is your wife?" I asked.

  "Another realm, why?" he answered.

  "Is there any chance you can call someone off of the island?" I asked. I was getting hopeful.

  "Yeah, do you want to call someone?" he asked.

  "Yes! We haven't been able to get through to anyone! Not by radio or cellular or anything!" I practically shouted at him. It was then when the people who had stayed in the hospital during the battle began coming out. "Please let me use it!" I begged. Cayde shrugged and handed me the phone. It looked like any other smartphone and worked the same way as one on the surface. I opened the dial, and then I realized something. I had been so focused on the fact that I could call someone that I didn't know who to call. I thought quickly and dialed in the first name that popped into my head.

  The phone connected, and after a few seconds, someone picked up.

  "Hello? Who is this?" came a soft feminine voice.

  "Hello? Amy?" I asked.

  The voice on the other side gasped in shock.

  "Oh my god! Ayla!? Is that you!?" It was my brother's ex-girlfriend. We used to be good friends before everyone went down.

  "Yes! It's me! Amy, how are you!? What's going on there!?" I wanted to know if the infection had spread to the rest of the world.

  "We're fine, but what about you? What happened there?" She asked.

  "What do you mean? Has the rest of the world been spared from the infection?" I asked. I was getting the feeling that there was hope for us! We could all board a boat and sail to safety!

  "What infection? Is that why your country has gone dark? Ayla, what's going on?" She was getting worried, judging by the tone of her voice.

  I guessed that I would simply have to explain everything because she was making it obvious that she didn't know anything.

  "Ok, but before anything, Donn and I are safe. So about two months ago there was an outbreak of a disease that turns everyone into monsters, and the man responsible has probably done a very good job of keeping it hidden from the rest of the world. We found a society, and we've survived this long. Please, Amy, you have to help us!" I knew her father was important; I didn't know the specifics, but I did know that he was the owner of a large shipping company.

  "Oh god, but what can I do? All attempts to send troops there have failed; it's basically an exclusion zone. Nobody knows what happens to them." She answered.

  "Wait, troops?" I didn't know about that.

  "Yes, troops. Governments from all over the world have sent platoons to try and figure out what happened, but it's always the same. They lose communications with them before they even arrive on land, and then it's up to anyone's guess what happens to them. It's something in the water."

  That didn't make sense. If there was something in the water, I'm sure somebody could have taken care of it. I mean submarines exist, right? Or depth charges, or anything that went boom could have worked.

  "Amy, just what do you know?" I asked her.

  "Not much really. It's mostly just rumors. However, when it all started, there were a couple of hours when we did know what was happening, but then the news just shut down, and nobody has been able to call or radio or anything. "It's weird." She said. Then it hit me like a brainwave. Of course. Slone had some means of jamming equipment and defenses. Whatever he had planned, it definitely involved isolating the whole country from the rest of the world. But we could escape; it was possible!

  "Ok, Amy, didn't your father work for your government?" I asked her.

  "Yes, he was a diplomat in your country; now he's head of foreign affairs." Oh, perfect! It was like the stars were aligning! Her father had influence over her country; he could help us!

  "Amy, please let me talk to him; I'm begging you!" I pleaded. I had to tell Plague; I had to tell everyone!

  I told Cayde I was going to find Plague and hurried off, leaving Mary alone, but she decided to follow me. I was running so fast down the corridors that I almost ran straight into a fire extinguisher. I made it out the front door and looked around me. The city was a great big bloodbath. The streets were coated in corpses, and there were streams of brown blood everywhere I looked; it was a scene out of a nightmare. But I didn't have time to think it all over; I had to move. "Ayla, ok. Just give me a minute." I heard Amy's voice through the phone. I knew Poague had to be somewhere around the capitol. I began running across the central square, learning along the way just how slippery blood is. I passed along the park, and I saw the hole where all the zeds had come out of; it was now covered in rubble. It was sad to think all this blood and gore was going to poison the cherry trees that decorated the park, but it couldn't be helped. I was about ten meters away from the staircase that led up to the town hall when Plague appeared from the door.

  "Ayla! "You're okay!" He said. He seemed excited and relieved.

  "Hey, look. Cayde's phone works, and I've called an old friend of mine; her father is a foreign affairs minister. He can help us!"

  His face went from shock to ecstasy in a flash. "Is he on the phone now?"

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "He'll be on shortly." And just like a script, a male voice sounded through the device.

  "Hello? Who is this?" he asked.

  "It's me, Ayla! I was a friend of your daughter's," I said.

  "Oh yeah, you had a brother, right? I remember he was dating my daughter."

  "Yes! That's me! Look, sir. We need your help. I'm in Erith, more specifically in White Wall. Our country is under control by an epidemic, and we know it's artificial. The reason nobody has been able to contact before was because there are signal jammers surrounding the entire island. Please, sir, we need your help!" I pleaded. I knew he was a good man; he would surely agree.

  "Sorry, but we've already tried everything. There's no way of approaching the island, be it by air or sea; it's impossible. But how? What happened there?" He asked.

  "I can't explain it correctly; I'll pass you on to our leader; he'll explain it all to you." I gave the phone to Plague; my heart was racing a million miles a minute. I was finally going to escape from this shithole!

  Plague introduced himself and began explaining, but I didn't stay to listen. I wanted to find my brother to tell him. I then wondered what he would think. I mean, after all, it was his ex's father that was going to save us, and I know it's a bit preposterous to assume this early on, but I had hope. I turned the corner of the street, and I saw him.

  "Donn!" I shouted. Mary was also with him; I must not have noticed when she left me. He turned to me and smiled. He was intact!

  "Ayla! You're ok!" He came running to me. He was clearly relieved.

  We hugged, and I told him the news.

  "Donn, I just called your ex. Her father might help us all get off this forsaken rock!" I shouted.

  He didn't really react at first. I guess the way I said it must have left him a bit confused. But slowly he began understanding. His face lit up and quickly darkened again. "Ayla, is she... Is she still mad at me?" He asked me softly. So he did feel something for her after all.

  "I don't think so, but you better apologize properly when we see her." When they were together, we always did everything together, just us three. Amy, Donn, and me. She was a fun person, and I liked her as a friend. My brother, on the other hand, didn't really show it. Their story was weird, to say the least. They were classmates, and they had never really talked for almost all of their lives. So it was around the end of their first year of middle school, and there was a prom festival. So my brother couldn't have given less of a shit, and the problem with that was that he was required to have a partner for the occasion. But thankfully, Amy asked him out. I had also gone to the festival because my brother was my legal guardian at the time, and we were inseparable. Everyone in my brother's class knew me almost like a classmate, basically. So then came PR night, and we were all driven there by Amy's father in his fancy Merc. From there on, they just started dating.

  But I always thought my brother didn't love her. He didn't hate her per se; he was just really indifferent. But I was wrong, apparently.

  "Yeah, I will. Thanks for everything." Then his expression turned thoughtful.

  "Have you guys seen Emily?"

  Now that he mentioned it, I hadn't seen her at all.

  "I'll go look in the apartment; you guys should help clean up the corpses," I said. I wanted to know whether any Zeds had entered the buildings, but I had little intention of actually finding her there.

  So I made my way through the sea of body parts and corpses. They were going to pose a really big problem. We couldn't burn them and risk burning down the entire city just like what happened in London in the past. The door was basically blocked by a couple dozen Zed cadavers, but nothing I couldn't just lift out of the way. I was still riding the high I felt from the booster, but it was wearing down. I did feel stronger, like permanently stronger, though maybe I was.

  I opened the door to our block and went up the stairs; I was expecting it to be empty and quiet, but to my surprise, I could hear a voice from inside my brother's flat.

  "Come in, come in! It didn't work. The operation did not work!" It was a female voice. I slowly opened the door and found Emily there with a radio pressed to her ear. She looked horrified that I had surprised her there. I didn't have time to react, or better said, I didn't know how to react. What was she doing there? Who was she talking to? What was she talking about? But before I could think straight, she appeared right beside me and injected something into my neck, and then I fell unconscious.

  So it was her. She was the mole after all. She was the one who had coordinated the attack on the city. She was the one who had raided the research lab at Dongle Town. That bitch... she had played us all. And I was too blind to see it! Oh my god, it was so obvious! I would have seen it if I wanted to, but of course I didn't. How could I? I mean, how could I doubt someone who had treated me like a friend? Anyways, I didn't know how long I was in a coma for, or what happened, or really anything at all. The only thing I knew was that I woke up in the back of a van with my hands tied behind my back and my legs bound together. It was one of those average vans used for transporting things, not people. The inside was dimly lit, or so I thought. I was extremely dazed and disoriented. It's not a hyperbole when I say my head was spinning.

  Emily was driving; she seemed nervous. At the time I was too confused to be angry at her; I hadn't even reached the conclusion that she was the mole yet. I just sat there, getting thrashed around as the van sped through somewhere.

  "Emily? "What's going on?" I muttered. I was really tired; I was sleepy and felt like shit. I spoke as loud as my feeble throat would let me, which ended up as more of a whisper than anything. But it was loud enough for Emily to hear me. She turned her head and saw I was awake.

  "Finally. You sleep like a fucking log." She spat at me. My head was beginning to clear up, and then I remembered what I had seen at the apartment. It didn't take long for me to put two and two together.

  "You! You're the mole!" I shouted.

  She only smirked. "Took you long enough to figure out. But then again, I'm not surprised."

  "You skank bitch! We trusted you! We shared food with you! Why did you do it!?" I screamed at her. The rage coursing through me blinded my judgment. Instead of trying to figure out a way to escape or do anything, I could only think of shouting and swearing at her.

  "Oh, I don't know. Why did I do it...?" She brought her hand up to her chin, mocking me with her antics. "Maybe it's because I hate you all!"

  "But we helped you; why would you hate us!? You're working with Slone! He's a madman who killed hundreds of thousands of people! How can he be any better than us!?" I was beginning to think she too was crazy.

  "Those people deserved it! Every single one of them! The world is dying ever faster, and we're all going to go extinct. Slone is merely setting the stage for the next step in human evolution, a new race of humans free from greed and envy. And I know just how much those two things hurt, better than anyone!" Ok, but what the hell was she talking about?

  "What are you even on about!? Are you hearing yourself? So your solution is to turn everyone into rotten beasts?"

  "Is that any different from what humans are? Tell me, how many times did you look at the news and see the powerful oppress the poor? How many times has a helpless town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere been destroyed by a hurricane or flood because they didn't have enough money to build better housing, all while some people spend twice what that town needed on a fucking wristwatch!? Face it, Ayla. The world is so fucked it can't even close its own legs, so someone has to do it."

  "And you think that an extermination is the answer? You think that killing the population is better? Just think about it. What is the proportion of rich to normal people? Like one for every hundred thousand? So you're going to kill one hundred thousand and one people just because that one extra is a rich guy?" I said.

  "You don't get it, but how would you? You're just Plague's little dog. It's not about killing; it's about starting anew. The society we live in is like a hydra; if you cut one head off, another two will take its place," she answered. I was now in full thought, so I got to formulating a plan. I couldn't just yank the steering wheel with telekinesis; I didn't know where we were or how fast we were going, but by the sound of the engine, it definitely wasn't slow, so that would probably kill me. I also couldn't slam the brakes in case the wheels locked up and we slammed into something, which would also kill me. I couldn't lift the van because I was inside, and I couldn't lift myself; I could open the door, though. I focused, and nothing happened. Maybe I could make the blue ball and carve the door out? I focused even harder, and nothing happened. Had I lost my powers?

  "What? Feeling weak? Impotent You really thought I'd be carrying someone as dangerous and irrational as you without safeties? I inhibited your strand. It should wear out in a few days. "Yeah, I guess it figures. I shifted, and I felt a little pen in my pocket. It was the booster! But I had already used it. Maybe there was a little juice left? It was better than nothing.

  ***((Ok i just looked it up and it turns out about eighty percent of the dose is left in an EpiPen after use, im legit not making it up. That's crazy; like, legit, most of the medicine is just left there. Dammm.))***

  I had to give it a shot (get it?); it was worth the risk. But it was in my leg pocket, and my hands were tied behind my back; I couldn't reach it. I had to think. Emily didn't know I had it; she hadn't searched me. She did, however, seize my saw shield... Well, I knew what I was going to try now. The saw was across the van from me. Luckily, Emily was a shit driver. The van thrashed from side to side, and I wasn't strapped down. I readied myself on my knees, and when I felt the van jerk to the side, I used the momentum to throw myself to the other side of the van. I hit my head on the floor but luckily, Emily was too focused on the road to have heard me. I began carefully cutting away at the knot that held my hands together, and after I felt it loosen, I reached into my pocket and stabbed myself again with the pen. The auto-injector was already spent, but there was enough residue on the needle to wake my strand up slightly. It wasn't much, but it was enough to use my telekinesis to push the plunger the rest of the way. It felt good, but it wasn't enough yet. I still didnt know how strong emily was, or what she could do. I couldn't just act now; I was still too weak. Matter of fact, just pushing that plunger in all the way tired me just the same way that my full powers did before I trained with Plague.

  I had time to think my plan out. I couldn't let Emily know that I had injected the booster, so I needed a distraction. So far I knew that she worked for Slone, and knowing that, it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume she was going to bring me there. If that was the case, then I could kill him when I got there! Ok, I had my game plan. I hid the EpiPen under some cloth that was lying around the van, and I shouted and lunged at Emily. I wasn't actually trying to hurt her or actually reach her; I just needed her to think I hadn't done anything else.

  "Bitch!" I shouted as I leapt as well as my bound legs would let me. Before I could even hit the floor, in literally the blink of an eye, I was tied up again and had a bruise on my face. So she was the one who could stop time; good to know. For the rest of the journey, I remained quiet and well-behaved. The bruise hurt, but it was strange that I hadn't actually felt the blow.

  I wondered then what my brother and Mary were doing. I hoped they were fine.

  I didn't have anything better to do, so I just dozed off.

  I didn't know how long I slept for, or where we were for that matter. But I woke up in a white padded room with a glass viewwall. Inside there was also a bed, which was hard as shit, and a white table that had been baby-proofed by design with a round top and no sharp edges. I wasn't bound anymore, and I looked around. I got up from the bed, and I immediately began thinking of plans and actions. I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I failed to notice the dude standing on the other side of the glass wall looking at me until he spoke. He had a very thick accent, but it wasn't Slone.

  "You're finally awake. So you're the little runt that ruined our little plan. I never would have guessed someone as pathetic-looking as you could have been the one responsible for that."

  "I dare you to say that again." I warned him. Then I felt an invisible force push me and hover me. Before I knew it, I was flying towards the glass. I closed my eyes, clenched my hands, and prepared to smash against the wall. But before I broke myself against it, I stopped in the air. I was now floating right in front of this guy. He was like me.

  "You're in no position to make threats against me," he said. I noticed something interesting. I wasn't floating straight in the air; I was bobbing up and down. That meant he wasn't in full control, or at least he was weaker than me. I predicted his power to be about as much as mine three days before we stormed the Comms facility, or in other words, about a third as strong as me. That was good, really good.

  "You're weak," I said. That seemed to do the trick. He got angry and pressed me against the glass. I was debating whether to act then or not, but I was interrupted by Emily the whore.

  "Vic, calm down. Don't let her get to you." She seemingly appeared out of nowhere, probably walking while stopping time.

  The guy grunted and gave Emily a resentful look before letting me go.

  Ok, that was as good a time as ever to make my move. I just had to think about what it was going to be.