Death Do Us Part

I’m happy it’s Aria with me, besides Roj she’s the strongest we have. I can’t even imagine what Roj and Phillip are going through right now. Since we’re in the forest, only the motorcycles can follow us, but they don’t have that luxury.

A bunch of static sounds come over the radio. I can hear fragments of words, but can’t make out anything concrete.

“What? I can’t hear you!” I yell over the radio, stupidly thinking that being loud will help get through it.

“That’s the others,” says Aria. “They’re just too far away now to hear. Ignore it and focus on what’s in front of you.” It feels like Aria’s the boss now.

“Yes ma’am.”

We weave through the trees at an incredible speed. I almost kiss my life goodbye ‘bout a dozen times, narrowly missing the trees. Still, despite our skills, it doesn’t take long before The Soulless start catching up. There are just too many of them, and we can’t be faster than every single one.

“Terr, I can hold them off while you run.”

“What do you mean?! I can’t leave you behind!”

“No, this is my job! You need to stay safe!” For the first time I get to hear raw emotion come from Aria, but she just sounds… annoyed.

“But… but I can’t do—”

“You know you don’t have a choice!” My eyes water under the weight of this decision. She’ll die if I let her go. I want to wipe my eyes, but I have to keep them focused on steering. Using sheer will, I hold back the tears. I know I need to respect her choice.

“Please protect me.”

“I will.” Just as she’s about to turn around I see something.

“Wait!”

“I already told you—”

“This is different! I think I see the edge of the forest!”

“I still need to protect you!”

“No, trust me. We can outpace them once we get out. We’re faster.”

“Ughhh.” She struggles to agree with me. “Okay! Fine! You better be right.”

“I know I am.”

The Soulless continue gaining on us, the edge of the forest growing closer and closer. Ten yards from them, twenty until we’re out. The sounds of crashing motorcycles follow us, but for each one that falls, there’s more to replace it. Five yards from them, ten until we’re out. I hear unintelligible shouting, but the light from outside the forest approaches faster. As we reach the edge we become slowly surrounded; literally driving side by side with the enemy.

As soon as we get out of the forest we accelerate to max speed as fast as possible. The Soulless do the same, but they can’t keep up. At 200 miles per hour we slowly peel away until we can no longer see them.

We don’t stop there, though. We keep going; on and on and on. I lose track of time, my focus solely on the ground in front of me, making sure not to crash. Everything around me is a blur of colors, but as long as we’re not caught, I couldn’t care less where we’re headed.

Eventually, our speed begins to slow, the amount of power being consumed causing the battery to drain much quicker.

“Let’s change directions while we still have some battery left. We need to throw them off our track a little,” Aria says.

We pick a random direction, about 45 degrees left, and head straight. After hours of driving, the bi-tanks become sluggish. The batteries have completely run out, and pedaling does practically nothing on its own. Moving at a measly four miles an hour, we realize it’s better to move on foot at this point.

“Let’s hide them in the trees over there.”

We find a spot between some trees that sinks into the ground a little. After camouflaging the bi-tanks with some dirt and as many sticks, branches, and leaves as we can find, we continue our journey on foot with nothing but our guns and the Supernovacide. Only the sounds of our footsteps and the wind can be heard.

Aria glances at the box on my back every couple of minutes, but the silence continues to stretch on. I’m sure she has questions—she needs to relax with her sense of duty.

“You wanna know, don’t you?” I ask.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I can see you looking at it.”

“Then tell me what it is.” She certainly gets to the point.

You’ve already heard it all, so I won’t tell you about it again. But I give her the rundown, and strangely enough she doesn’t have a visceral reaction like everyone else. The first thing she says is, “Have you ever thought of burying it?”

“Uhhh… no, I haven’t.” I hang my head a little, disappointed in myself for not thinking of that. “But what if someone stumbles across it one day and activates it without knowing any better?” 

“Yeah, I suppose somebody needs to keep an eye on it.”

I look up at her, my eyes gleaming. “Right?” Man, sometimes I’m so smart.

“Then why don’t we drop it in the ocean?” Okay, maybe she’s smarter.

“I think we should head back to the hospital first. Look at us, all we have right now is the Supernovacide and a pair of guns. I wouldn’t quite call us ‘resource rich.’”

Aria looks at me with her usual cold eyes—and then, for the first time, she smiles. Her eyes thaw a little.

Bewildered, I ask, “Woah, what’s up with you?”

This is the part where she’s supposed to brush off my question and say something like “Nothing,” or “It’s not important,” but she doesn’t. Instead, she laughs. It sounds so human and normal that it’s weird. At first I’m too surprised to react, but then I start to laugh with her. We just walk and laugh for a couple minutes, to the point of crying at some moments, until we get it all out.

“Seriously though,” sniffle, “what’s up with you?”

“I was just thinking how crazy this is,” she remarks while wiping her eyes. “I never thought I’d be doing something like this.”

I laugh again. “I guess not. I mean, I just delivered goods on my bike before this.”

“Well, this will probably be our final mission.” She stops and puts out a hand to shake mine. “This is an absurd time to be saying this, but until death do us part.”

“Certainly is dumb,” I respond, chuckling. I take her hand. “Till death do us part.”