Chapter 13
Huge amounts of lactic acid give you very painful cramps - trust me.
I kept fighting on but I knew that any moment I would be overthrown. The hunters kept punching me and scratching me which caused me to bleed a lot. The thought of Hazel being hurt again had driven me crazy whenever the hunters were close to overthrowing me. I got one of them and used them against each other. Surprisingly, it worked. I could feel my claustrophobia beating in. My vision began to blur and everything started to disappear. I tried to concentrate but it was too much for me. Just when I was going to be thrown, Hazel rushed in.
"HEY, LOSERS TRY THIS!" She yelled.
All the hunters stopped hurting me and turned all their direction to her. A bomb was in her hand, the ones we found earlier. I quickly hid behind a broken table hoping that I wasn't going to blow off as well. After a couple of seconds, the bomb went off and all the bodies nearby were blown into pieces. Chunks of skin were scattered all over the floor. Eyeballs, hair and lots of facial features. Some of the survivors were racing around screaming as the pain intensified significantly.
I ran to Hazel and we embraced each other. We truly survived the hunters! I was so jubilant at the moment that I didn't notice the two girls Aanisah and Layla step in. It only took me a few seconds to stop clinging to Hazel and march towards them with a face of rage.
"What are you two doing here? Are you not meant to be escaping with your pathetic leader?" I declared.
They both stared at me with a sincere look on their faces. I was just about to speak when-
"Jamie, they're on our side. I told them everything and they are willing to help us get to Aliron headquarters" She explained.
"Are you going to help us?" I asked them.
"Yes, we are. I know that you might not trust us right now but we did everything because some of us were forced to. Aliron took things from us to prove we were loyal to them" Aanisah mentioned.
"We knocked Tatia out but she won't be very comfortable when she wakes up. She's one wiry woman" Layla added.
Could I trust them? I turned to Hazel who gave me a nod as if she was trying to tell me that it's all true.
"Good to have you on the team. I'm Jamie Madden and well this is Hazel Angello," I answered. They both smiled at me.
"Great to be on the team and nice to meet you, Jamie!" Aanisah replied.
"Just asking for curiosity, is it true that you have abilities?" Layla asked.
"Well, I can see visions of the future. I haven't done anything else for now," I responded.
I gazed outside that it was getting dark outside which meant we had to sleep in the building for tonight. Everyone was getting ready to rest. We brought Tatia inside and tied her on a pole in the centre of the room. We had to use extra ropes because Aanisah and Layla said that two strips weren't going to hold her. Inside my mind, I was thinking What the hell is this woman made out of to need a whole bunch of ropes to hold her? The girls also brought four bikes inside that used to belong to the hunters but were now, unfortunately, all lifeless in the corner of the room. While everyone was closing the doors and checking everything, I crouched in the corner and wrote in my journal. Everything that was happening and all the things I could feel were going to happen.
Later, when most everyone was sound asleep Aanisah came to me and sat down near me. She wrapped a blanket around me and gave me a grin.
"Hey, how are you doing?" She asked.
"I'm fine just trying to find things out. I don't understand why everything is happening right now and every time I'm close to figuring it out it disappears" I replied.
She noticed the amount of pressure I was feeling and gave me a sympathetic look.
"Sounds like you have a lot on your mind and that's completely normal. But you know what helps me when I feel pressured? - Hot cocoa and some cookies so wait right there," she demanded. I waited for what felt like minutes but could have been more. Aanisah came back and was now holding a thermos and a small box that was labelled CHUNKY COOKIES WITH EXTRA CHOCO CHIPS. Hunger intensified within me. It had been around two days since I ate something I loved. We both sat down with blankets around us, drinking one of the best hot chocolate I had ever tasted and munching down chocolate chip cookies. I took a sip of the hot chocolate and I felt like everything around me was calm and I had no troubles. We talked a lot about the life we used to have before everything was crashing down. Aanisah began talking about her life before they experimented on her and oh boy it was intense…
"My life was very different before I was taken by ALIRON. I used to live in New Zealand among my mom and little brothers. We had a peaceful life but after dad died from a heart attack everything started going wrong. Mom was having panic attacks often. I had to take care of my brothers. It was too much some days so I used to go places and skip school. Then something happened. I was walking by one of the lakes when I saw a group of people fighting an old woman. She was fragile so I decided to help her. I beat them up but after the old woman escaped, one of them threw me in the lake and I started to drown," she explained.
The news made me feel so considerate towards her. She had a life where she was always filled with issues and problems with no way out of them.
"Aanisah what happened next?" I mentioned.
"While I was drowning Tatia appeared and saved my life. She brought me to America where she used me for ALIRON. I never saw my family for six years. Then after creating the serum, they injected me with it. Whenever I attempted to leave, they told me that I was their property and if I escaped, they would kill me and my family." She revealed.
I felt so ashamed of the way I treated her and Layla. People go through so many things and they don't even tell you about it and you just expect them to be okay but they're not.
"Aanisah I'm so sorry for the way I treated you I should've never judged you without getting to know you" I responded.
A grin appeared on her face. I could tell that she was thrilled but she acted like it was cool.
"Well anyway, we should get to bed because we have to deal with Tatia in the morning. Good night Jamie" She responded.
"Good night Aanisah see you in the morning" I replied.
After that, she retreated to bed and after half an hour of trying, so did I. But of course, a vision occurred. When I drifted to sleep, I expected to have a vision/dream free sleep but my subconscious thought otherwise.