Tom watched as a blue light slowly grew behind the group. The troop stopped and waited, watching the light approach. Tom braced himself, his body was weak but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight.

A blazing woman rounded the corner, her arrival accompanied by a sharp inhale by Paris. The boy turned to the girl, her face bearing a look of shock and recognition. Tom noted the girls concern and fondled the injector in his pocket.

“Stop!” The approaching woman shouted out, her body glowing blue in flames.

Tom was startled at her ragged appearance. With her arrival came the heat, the flames slowly filling the corridor. Sweat quickly formed at his brow and he struggled to keep himself standing as he was hit by the heat wave. He swayed on his feet as the world spun.

Words were exchanged around him, and a push from Paris tried to shake Tom back into reality.

“Tom! We have to go find a car; Cee will hold her back!” The girl informed him, her face framed in blue light.

Tom stared at her in awe; he thought she looked like a star.

Paris grabbed his hand and tugged on his arm, leading him further down the hallway.

Each step threatened to be his last but with Paris forcing him forward Tom was able to keep moving.

They raced down the hallways, Paris stopping once or twice to read a sign. The words made little sense in Tom’s vision, especially now that they swirled together. The girl nodded her head at the sign and continued her jaunt.

The run slowly brought Tom back to his senses, his body kicking into overdrive to keep him awake and running. The world started to settle down, his sight repaired to allow a sort of intense tunnel vision.

Paris approached a set of doors and Tom helped her open them. His muscles strained and he pushed upon them.

“Come on Tom, you can do better than that!” Paris shot at him with a smile, her insult only serving to make Tom chuckle sadly.

Paris shoved the doors open the rest of the way, a large bay of vehicles and machinery laid out within the room.

Tom watched as Paris looked over the vehicles, trying to find a suitable one to steal.

“How about that one?” Ant shouted from the back of the group, his finger outstretched and pointing at a large lifted armored truck.

The demure boy was the youngest of the group, but had always liked his trucks. Tom remembered how the boy’s father was responsible for the town’s caravans. If anyone knew what car it would be him.

“Sounds good Ant!” Paris replied with a smile.

Tom looked at Paris in surprise. He didn’t know that she knew Ant, he barely knew his name before they ended up trapped together. Paris always knew that kind of thing though.

The group of children shuffled towards the truck.

A door to the far right of the bay swung open, a troop of soldiers pouring in. They were armored and armed, their weapons the same that had kept the children in line for so long.

The door almost swung shut after six men finished rushing in, but one final man came bursting through the door. He bore a face that Tom had never wished to see again, the man’s eyes lighting up in relief as he looked at the children.

“Children! Daddy is here to save you!” Doctor Illinois called out gleefully.

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Noah had felt cold ever since he was woken up by the robot man. The escape and the running just phasing by him, his mind never once locking in on any particular thing. He was distant and numb; Noah couldn’t understand why.

But when he saw that bastards face enter the room, his chest started to burn, his breathing turning rapid and angry. He may not have known why he had been so cold, but he knew why he was now so hot.

Noah pushed past Tom and Paris, leaving the rest of the kids behind him. They would only get in his way; he didn’t want to hurt anyone else.

Noah’s mind stood upon a thin rope, beneath him lay only rage and pain.

For now, the boy controlled himself, balanced on that thin rope.

The group of armored men fanned out towards the kids, their weapons low and slack, relaxed now that they had found the kids.

The Doctor rushed past the men and straight to the children.

The man dropped to his knees in front of Noah, taking the boy’s face in both of his wrinkled hands.

“My child! I thought I had lost you! Do not worry, your father is here now.” The man said, his eyes teary and red.

Noah’s face contorted and shifted down a hundred different paths of hate. The touch of the man making him lose balance on the rope in his mind.

Noah started his fall into the abyss.

“Why did you make me do it?” the boy muttered.

Noah lost sight of the rope.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Do what child?” The Doctor asked in concern, taken aback slightly.

Noah neared the bottom.

“Kill them.” Noah said to the devil, the boy’s eyes now filled with tears.

Noah braced for impact.

“Because you were better than them.” The Doctor replied in sincerity, attempting to comfort the boy, “They didn’t deserve to call you brother.”

Noah hit the bottom of the abyss, the tendrils of hate bursting through his soul.

“THEY WERE ME!” Noah roared out, his hands shooting into his pockets.

He grasped at the four injectors and slammed them into his thigh, releasing all four into his blood stream.

The boy spasmed as the drugs coursed through his system, his body full of molten flesh.

Each muscle was torn and rebuilt, each bone was shattered and regrown, each nerve exploded in a symphony of agony.

His body became pain incarnate.

The Doctor released his grip on the boy, falling back in shock.

The soldiers raised their weapons at the boy, his small form now frozen in place.

Noah’s mind raced through his life, short as it was.

He remembered the lone bed he shared with his brothers.

He remembered having fought them for their sole piece birthday cake.

He remembered working together with them to cheat a test.

He remembered going hungry with them in a cold glass cell.

He remembered the way their eyes were filled with sorrow and fear as his fists beat into them.

He remembered how their skulls fractured and broke under his fist.

He remembered their blood mixing with his.

He remembered his rage.

Noah’s head snapped hard to the side, his eye’s boring holes through Doctor Illinois skull.

Noah Moved.

The Doctor’s face disappeared from his head in two heartbeats.

Noah’s fists tore the man’s torso open in three beats.

Illinois’s heart was crushed in one.

Noah’s vision was a singular pinprick, a single dot of light, and all he saw was red.

Each fist he threw slammed into the remaining colors, leaving only dark shades.

Noah found his vengeance.

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Paris watched as the man in the grey lab coat was turned into a splatter of bloody pulp.

Noah had been standing in one place, then was beating into the man the next. Each blow further reducing the man across the room.

The soldiers turned and fired round after round into the boy, his body repairing the holes as they appeared.

Paris watched as blood sprayed across her face, the metallic tang filing her mouth.

Everything was just so fast.

The little girl reached her hand out for her best friend, her hand meeting empty air.

She turned in shock as another spray of blood erupted from an armored man, his head flying across the room and smashing against a far wall.

The bloody trail leading to the cause.

Tom stood at the crimson corpse, his breathing ragged and muscles spasming.

Paris watched as her best friend Tom wiped his hand over his eyes, clearing blood from them and trying to breathe in.

She wanted to help him.

Paris tried to move, to raise her pistol and fight back too, but her body was frozen. Her mind unwilling to act as the horrific sight played out before her. She had no choice but to sit and watch the massacre.

A bullet grazed Tom’s torso, a searing line burnt across his chest. The boy shifted low to the left, his movement blurring in Paris’s vision.

“Tom! No!” She managed to cry out past her clenched teeth.

Tom dashed towards the man who had shot at him, slamming into the armored foe. The little boy staggering the grown adult to the floor.

Tom threw his hand up and brought it straight down, slamming it against the top of the man's head. The man was shoved to the floor as his helmet caved into his skull. Blood leaking out from the edges of the armor.

Paris blinked.

Tom was gone.

She forced herself to turn, to try and find him.

Noah entered her view first, his destruction of the grey man complete, the boy stood to his feet.

Paris had a hard time making out what happened next as three men surrounding Noah broke into several dozen parts, all of which scattered across the room.

The girl watched captivated as red liquid dripped from the ceiling, pooling along the floor.

Everything stilled as drop after drop rained down.

Paris was frozen, her face pale.

An arm grabbed her from behind, a gun barrel pressed hard against her skull.

“Stay back or your friend is dead!” A woman’s panicked voice shouted out from behind the girl.

Tom and Noah froze in place, their assault stopping itself a few yards in front Paris.

Noah’s hand twitched and the little girl felt the air next to warp as an item was thrown through the air, impacting the woman behind her.

Warm crimson exploded overtop Paris, the woman’s grip slackening as the woman’s body crumpled behind her.

Tom ran before her, “Paris, are you okay?” he asked rapidly.

Paris only nodded her head, her face pale beneath the red paint.

“Good..., We... got them all... but we really... have to-” Tom’s voice was cut off as he collapsed to the ground.

Paris instinctively lunged forward and caught him, finally broken from her drawn out daze.

“Tom? Tom! What's the matter!?” She yelled out, her friend laying lifeless in her arms.

“The drug wore him out, he should be fine.” A girl said to Paris. Paris looked to the voice; a younger girl named Zia the source.

Noah appeared next to her, his body shaking and teeth chattering. He outstretched his arms to Paris, helping her to hold Tom’s limp body. The boy walked the pair over to their target vehicle and swung open the back door of the armored truck with ease.

The triplet took Tom completely from Paris, despite her protest, and tossed him up into the back seat. Noah looked to the other kids, silent in his offer and helped the other children up inside.

Entering the vehicle Paris shifted to hold onto Tom, taking him up into her lap. She vainly wiped his face with her crimson stained dress, her friend’s face coated in blood and grime. A tear drop fell onto the boy’s face, a small spot of skin exposed where it fell.

Paris held Tom close to her chest, she had almost lost him all over again.

I might still lose him, Paris thought, her mind filling with anxiety and sorrow.

The girl thought back to the day this whole horror show started. She had tried to take Tom to an old structure past the outskirts of town.

Kids were banned from leaving the town perimeter, but that was only if they got caught. Paris had explored outwards quite often actually, one particular trip she had found a rusted hatch buried in the sand. She had been looking for scorpions or spider, but found something cooler instead.

It took some effort and a stolen crowbar, but Paris managed to pry the hatch open. Climbing down into the structure she found a little home, long ago abandoned and left to decay. The perfect place for a secret hideout.

Paris spent the better part of two months cleaning and decorating the small fort, she had finally finished the day of the attack. She planned to take Tom to the hatch that day.

If she had they may have still been together, they never would have been separated and Tom wouldn’t be lying in her arms dying.

Paris realized that her plan probably would have ended the same though, the pair dying of starvation or dehydration in a sandy hole. But at least they would have gone out together, now Tom was trying to leave her alone.

Paris sat and wept for some short time, the other children sitting besides her in silence, the only noise beside Paris being the constant tap of Noah’s leg, and his heavy breathing.

As she sat she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, a man with a metallic sheen.

Cee had finally arrived.

Paris rolled the truck’s window down and stuck her arm outside of it, waving to the distant machine.

Paris thought about her plan to hide in that hole and realized its major flaw. If she hadn’t been in the town, if she hadn’t had Cee bury her parents, if she hadn’t trusted him when she had no one left to trust.

She wouldn’t have made it this far; she wouldn't have made a friend.

The machine ran up to the window and looked at Paris in concern, the little girl having learned long ago to read his inexpressive face.

“Paris, what happened? Is everyone alright?” The machine asked her, his voice more human than ever in her ears.