Chapter 117
Clementine:
He then looked away. Sadly, none of the announcements explained what kind of creature we were going to see. They just told us to be careful. I guess their drones had captured some activity or a monster. But why they didn’t tell us what they were seeing was beyond me. I understand they wanted us to become better warriors, but they could have helped us too. It wasn’t a game where we had to maximize our strength. It was literally about our lives and the safety of our land. But I digress.
“The creature we are going to find is Medusa,” Ian said softly, almost like he heard me think it. I raised my head and turned to look at him. I noticed our squadmates were all looking at him. The doors were closed, so I was pretty sure the others couldn’t hear us.
“What? What is that?” Haiden asked, confused.
“I heard there had been a monster with a snake head roaming around. If that’s the case, then it is Medusa,” Ian added. He rested his elbow on the window corner, bending his arm so his thumb was under his chin as he looked outside.
“I had heard about her. I mean, some time ago there was a rumor that such a monster existed. I don’t know where it came from, but the name was mentioned many years ago. I don’t know much about it,” I told Ian directly, even while he stared out the window.
“Yeah, I guess it was when someone claimed they had accidentally boarded the train to the North, saw this monster, and then ran back home,” Haiden explained, helping me place where I had heard the name before.
“Then that means there is no real information on it. If it’s just one monster in the deep city and the report came from someone who accidentally boarded and immediately rushed back, then the person must have seen it near the train station. They probably don’t know what it’s capable of,” Troy added.
Now we all sat in silence again, just waiting for the North to arrive. North had become such a strange and terrifying part of our lives that every time we boarded this train, it felt like some of us wouldn’t make it back home safely.
As soon as the train stopped and we started to get out, I noticed the white team forming a circle again. They were like bad news. Just as we were headed along the same route we had taken last time, I heard some commotion behind us. I turned around and saw Jack bump into the green squad girl on purpose, almost stepping on her foot. She fell and I guessed she had broken her nose because she started screaming in pain.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” one of the other green squad members screamed, trying to push Jack back.
Jack grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him forward, but Joshua kicked him in the back of the knee, making him kneel. Then Jack reached down and grabbed his hair from the front, forcing him to look up.
“Don’t you fucking tell us what we can and cannot do. You don’t understand, huh? We are the leading team. We get to do whatever the fuck we want. You hear me?” Jack yelled in his face.
I looked at Suki. She was watching him with confidence and a happy smile on her lips. Now that I knew something was going on between them, their interaction seemed so awkward.
Oriana, like a tiny, timid princess, squeezed herself to the side to get past them. I noticed Suki eyeing her, then turning her head to look at Joshua, who was checking her out. She looked back at Jack, and I guessed that because Jack wasn’t paying attention to her, Suki must have convinced herself that cheating on Joshua was the right thing.
I felt a little nudge against my elbow from Haiden. “Let’s go. We shouldn’t get into other people’s troubles. We don’t know when they’ll turn around and accuse us of starting or escalating the fight,” Haiden said, pulling me along.
This time, Ian was just walking with us. He didn’t step ahead or try to leave us behind.
“Guys, remember those fleshmingos exist,” Yorick reminded us. “Even finishing the last mission doesn’t mean we got rid of them. They’re like tiny creatures that are everywhere p>
“Fleshmingos?” Troy asked, sounding lost.
“Oh yeah, their original name is weird, so Clementine and I came up with our own,” Yorick said. Troy turned to look at me, eyes slightly squeezed shut, like he was judging me.
We were on the open road. It reminded me of Sadie, and honestly, I felt suddenly drained. The ones behind had stopped fighting. The green squad girl seemed fine, like she had transitioned to heal. She was moving away from the white squad. Same with the blue and red squads. The Red squad only had three members. They weren’t even walking together, they were all separated, one far behind, another in the corner. Oriana had crossed ahead to walk in front of us. The white squad mates were still making a lot of noise, joking and playing with each other.
We reached the same village and started to move silently. Then something happened, and I realized how victory can really change someone. The same Jack who had been timid, silent, and decent at the start was now a troublemaker. I turned my head while sneaking around the village to see what the white squad was doing. I noticed Jack hand a stone to the crying girl, the one who always cries in the white squad. She attacks someone, they fight back, and she cries. She giggled as she held the stone, and I immediately knew what they were planning.
She tossed the stone, aiming it at the window of the same green squad girl they had been picking on. When it hit, it made a noise. I knew I was supposed to do something, but there was no way I could stop it. All I could do was shake Troy, who followed my gaze. We were pressed against the side of a house, arms spread, backs against the wall, slowly moving forward when it happened.
Right before our eyes, the green squad girl panicked, trying to get away from the window. The glass broke, and out came the fleshmingo’s beak, attacking the green squad girl. In the next moment, her neck snapped and her head was gone.