An old bicycle sat leaning against the wall. Sure it would a bit loud and rickety, but it worked good enough. So with her wound... better, her clothes fresh and her stomach fed, she set out to find out where she is.
Then, to get back to the compound and rescue Gabriel.
After a few hours of extremely slow and careful cycling incase she opens her wound, Noelle arrived in the town of Aswan, about forty miles from where she fell into the Nile.
After some heavy deliberation, some map work and a break to eat her pocket food, she realised that it would take her a week to cycle back to the compound, probably even longer as she would have to go slower as to not ruin her stitches.
But it would be too late by then, and with no other option, she does what she has to...
Sneaking into a car park on the very edge of Aswan, she quietly broke a car window with a rock, if that can be done quietly, and got in, quickly hot-wiring it and stepping on the gas, getting out of there before anyone arrived.
Noelle quickly left the town in favour of smaller roads so no one would see her driving with a broken window. Hours passed and thankfully nothing bad has happened on the journey... except for the fact that she ran out of fuel.
But she recognised her surroundings and remembered this is the way her an Gabriel ran away that night. She got out of the car she stole and started jogging towards the compound.
As she continued to jog, the sun set and the moon rose, it would probably be easier to sneak in while it's dark but she doesn't know for sure.
Finally, the lights of the compound appeared in the distance. She's close, she just needed to sneak in, find Gabriel, get out and maybe kill Rashik along the way...
...sounds easy.
Arriving at the side of the wall with with a hole in the fence, it was only her and Gabriel that knew about this place, they always came out here when they wanted some... alone time.
Once inside the compound, she snuck towards the cells, which is probably where Gabriel is
...only he wasn't.
So he must be in the interrogation room, which wasn't a good thing as it's mainly torture that happens in there.
Just as she was about to peek in the window to see if Gabriel was in there, two of her unc- Rashik's goons brought a bag out of the room, chuckling to themselves and talking about something Noelle was too far away to hear.
She peekes into the interrogation room and saw that it's empty now, so she followed the two men. They dumped the bag out in the rubbish area of the compound. Once the men leave, Noelle crept up to the bag and opened it... and her heart drops.
The first thing she saw when she opened the bag was Gabriel's lifeless eyes, followed by his toothless mouth, followed by the bloody flesh where his fingernails should be... followed by a missing leg.
Noelle had seen many messed up things in her time in the compound. Torture, beheadings, rape... But none of it bothered her much beside the raping, it was kind of creepy how apathetic she was.
But this... seeing this, she couldn't hold back her tears. They flowed freely down her face as she reached out and tenderly touched his face.
Every single bit of emotion she had stored inside her in the last eleven years was set free in one, agonising wail.
The boy who loved her for who she really was, died for who she now is.
Noelle could never go back to a normal life, not after she realised the truth of her parents death. She would either have to stay with the group for the rest of her days, run away and be hunted down by the group for the rest of her days... or die.
But it wasn't the same for Gabriel, he could've got out, he wasn't in the group for long before meeting Noelle. But he stayed for her... and now he's dead.
Noelle froze when she heard voices getting closer to her, she quickly closed up the body bag and hid behind some other bags a few metres away. The two men who brought the bag are back with... a bloody, amputated leg.
"Did you hear him squeal the whole time?" One of the men chuckled.
"I know, Noelle... oh Noelle, you bastards, I'll kill you!" The other man mocked as he waved around the leg, as if it was a trophy. "Tough guy sure lived up to his words."
The first man clutched his stomach in laughter, but then asked:
"But seriously though, what kind of woman would have a man crying over her while he's the one being tortured"
"Do you not know?" The second man responded. "It was the old bosses niece, apparently she used to be all cute and cuddly, but when she was fifteen, Mr Ganim paid to have her for a night, a lot of money I heard, but she bit off a chunk of his ear and permanently blinded him, that's why he walks around with his glasses on all day"
"Damn, so how did a scrawny idiot like him get her?"
"I don't know, but I know she was quite the nice thing to look at, developing in all the right places too. I just wish Rashik let us have some fun with her before he killed her" The man talking turned to face his buddy, but was met with the image of an olive-skinned woman covered in blood, holding a rock in her hand while his buddy was lying on the floor, blood pouring out of a wound on the back of his head.
Inside the depths of Noelle's blue eyes was unbridled rage and hatred. Who cared is she was going to die? Not her anyway. She lunged at the man and bashed his head in with the rock, but not before he let out a cry for help.
As he fell to the ground, Noelle straddled his waist, it could have been an intimate sight if not for the fact she was bashing his head in with a rock.
She seemed to enter a trance like state while bashing the man's head in. By the time she snapped out of it, the man's face was completely deformed and unrecognisable, he deserved worse for what he did to Gabriel though. The downside of the trance like state was she didn't notice the footsteps.
A group of armed men show up all around her, pointing their guns at her. The group was led by him...
"Rashik" Noelle spat, her voice ominously clear of emotion as if she was not crying her eyes out a few moments ago, followed by all her rage let out of those two bastards.
"Shouldn't you be dead right now?" Rashik said with a slight smirk, hiding his shock well. "Last I remember you had a bullet in your stomach, face down in rapid currents and... oh yeah, knocked out. So how exactly are you here now?
"For you" Noelle answered, her words clear and concise but convey the hidden meaning behind them without even needing to say it, but she does anyway. "I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do, I'd sell my soul to the devil if I have to."
"Well thats a real shame, because it seems you won't get to, and I'm sure a devil would just love your fucked up soul" Rashiks grin grew wider, his eyes filled with malice and disgust. Changing topic, Rashik said: "I would let my men have some fun, but I would rather not have another eye-gouging incident on my hands. So men, do me a favour and shoot-"
Before Rashik could finish his sentence, the whole sky lit up in a bright, white light...
********
I want to die...
Noelle continued to lie on the padded floor of the white room, she had a rough idea of how long it's been but she wasn't sure.
She had tried to kill herself multiple times by now. Choking herself, smothering herself on the padded floor, she even tried to see what happened if she just constantly cried.
None of it worked. Bruises around her neck from the failed strangling, scars on her wrist from scratching at them. Noelle had given up completely.
Lying on the floor, looking up at the illuminated roof of her prison, Noelle remembered the moments she shared with Gabriel. His magical smile, the conversations they had in the watchtower, the first night they slept together. The memories were too much and tears welles up in her eyes umpteenth time since she got here.
Lifting her arm to cover her eyes, the light from the roof disappeared and was replaced by darkness. But where she saw Gabriel in the light... she saw Rashik in the darkness.
That damn smirk, his shitty personality, how he was watching with glee the night she was sold to the old geezer.
So Noelle came up with an idea, if she can't kill herself, she just had to kill someone else. Pushing herself off the floor, she got to work.
Using the same workout routine, she got the body she had two years ago back. Her toned muscles, chiseled abs, muscular thighs. Right now, she was the most fit that she had ever been in her life.
Eventually, she heard a voice in her head saying Optimal body weight reached.
Twenty-four hours later, the room she had grown to love was gone. It was a much nicer than the cell she spent two years in, and she got more food in here than the cell. But it changed into an even nicer room, the only problem being the person there with her... a male.
Glaring at the red headed boy in front of her, she quickly looked him up and down. Red hair, decent body, looks way too excited to see a bed and shower... He's an idiot
Then, she got the status screen, the idiot seemed way to excited about this, but Noelle was equally curious.
And she was right to be.
Bloodline: 90% Human. 10% Spawn of El Naddaha.
"El Naddaha..." Noelle murmured to herself in shock, she threw a glance over to idiot and saw him with his jaw still open, she shook her head and looks at the rest of her status.
After a few hours, she gained her first XP point. She didn't share it as she didn't trust idiot yet.
That was how the days progressed. He would train while she slept, and she would train while he slept. It was optimal... until Noelle hit a block.
You can't exactly fight someone by yourself, so she made him her sparring partner. She let out some pent up stress by beating him up whenever he looked at her too much, but he eventually grew on her. Idiot wasn't a shady idiot, he was just an idiot. She knew his name was Kai at this point, but she preferred Idiot.
Then, they had their final fight before level ten, and it humbled Noelle a small bit. It showed her that even idiots can be dangerous in the right situations... but that doesn't mean she can't do the same.
She picked her class and they arrived into the dark forest, all was fine the first while until the fight against the wolves, it could've gone worse though, and the wolf Idiot tamed was kind of cute...
Then the two shady idiots showed up, the mind attack then really affected her. It showed her the memories of her and Gabriel, but then it showed his corpse coming back to life and cursing her, it was... a lot. Then Idiot went missing, Noelle assumed that he abandoned her, but that was up until his wolf burst though the cloud of dark smoke, mauling the beefy guy he was fighting and giving her enough time to finish him off for good.
And for the next day and a half, it was only the Noelle and the wolf. As Gabriel knew, she secretly loved dogs, so while Idiot wasn't there she showered the wolf in rubs and head pats.
But randomly, the wolf started whining and jumping, then it sprinted in a random direction, so she followed. After a minute of running she saw...
Kaiser... with a woman around his shoulder? Running away from something?
Then, she realised she recognises the woman, she was there in the meeting where they decided to use Gabriel as a scapegoat. Just as she was about to shout at him, someone else burst out of the bushes behind him, followed by two others.
"Oh.... hello Noelle, fancy seeing you here" Rashik says with the same goddamn grin on his face.
So what did Noelle do?
She pulled out her scimitar and charged right at him.
*Notes*
El Naddaha= A creature from Egyptian mythology. A Siren who would lure men into the river Nile.