Chapter 40

Day: 1230

Days Left: 4250

Lives Saved: 6

"Put them with the others," Annika ordered, distracting herself to ignore the doubt that Junior had placed in her mind.

Dex and Calanthe were hauled onto their feet, restrained by the stronger monsters.

Talon winced, cowering as they caught the eyes of Dex and Calanthe, and then looked away as the seven children continued to cry and scream. There was much hesitation as the followers glanced at one another, reluctant to rough handle Dex and Calanthe in front of them.

Bruno and Bam stood at the sidelines, their faces paling with each second of hoarse child screams.

"What's going to happen to the kids?" Bruno called out, asking Annika, his voice breaking. "Their... group may have started a war with ours and hurt Talon and Jules, but I'm sure the kids had nothing to do with it."

Annika paused for a moment as her followers waited for an answer. Then, finally, she replied, "we'll have to look after them; it seems that they were surrounded by bad influences. We can't let them starve, of course."

This seemed to please Bruno and Bam, as well as the others, or perhaps made them feel less guilty.

"Destroy their masks whilst you're at it," said Annika, but her order was drowned out by the cries of the seven children as Dex and Calanthe were split apart. "I said destroy their masks!" she repeated even louder. "They won't be a danger to us nor the children-"

"Stop!" shouted a distant voice. "Stop all of this!"

Everyone turned to the entrance gates of the camp as a group of eight rushed in and leading the charge was the one person Annika wished to be here: Jules, who knew the truth about everything. Following behind was Bert, Tall Rachel, and Rita, who, from Annika's perspective, resembled Junior, though a more handsome and clean-shaven version... even Rita had betrayed Annika, it seemed. And then there were four others, one man and three women; Sumit, Rin, Lili, and their leader, Corinna Warren.

"I said stop!" Jules repeated, snatching the minotaur and headless horseman masks into his possession.

"Kai?" Dex mumbled, looking confused, glancing at the Kai tied to a tree alongside. "Why are there multiple of you?"

Jules paused, about to answer, when he regained his focus, horrified to see that the children were restrained in a net. "What have you done!" he screamed at Annika. "I told you that none of them was a threat! They didn't want anything to do with us! They had children with them! What the fuck have you done!"

Annika's face grew pale white in an instant, hidden underneath her green-scaled mask. She stiffened, her breath catching in her throat as the worst-case scenario she had feared presented itself. She glanced to Junior behind her as if to ask for help, but he remained quiet, his stare dazed and vacant.

"Is that... Jules?" Bruno asked.

Jules took off the red woollen hat, a signature of Kai, and threw it to the ground in anger, revealing his hair starting to bald and slowly turning into his own human form. "You all know I've been infiltrating their group for over a month now; all those reports I sent Annika she has ignored!" He looked around at the confused stares of the crowd. "They never hurt me nor Talon!" Jules' eyes finally found Talon, who was attempting to sink into the background. "Talon!" Jules let out a long sigh of relief to discover that it was not the last time they saw each other, that Talon had not run away. "Talon, tell everyone! You've told them right!"

Everyone's gaze turned to Talon.

Shrinking away, Talon swallowed, their body trembling, the metal bracelet rattling around their thin wrist.

"Talon?" Jules mumbled as his friend remained silent. "Come on, tell them who really hurt you!"

Talon opened their mouth, their lip wobbling, searching for an answer, and then their eyes met with Annika and then to the gun holstered at her hip. Talon clamped their mouth shut, staring even further lower at the ground.

"It was Annika!" Jules pointed at their so-called leader accusingly. "She beat Talon up and lied to everyone! Lied that it was these lot who did it! Because she was scared of them! She was scared that when you guys learned what they were capable of, we would abandon her! They can make us houses and pottery, and tools and-"

"Talon has already confessed who it was who hurt them!" Annika shouted, her voice shrill as she failed to contain her anger, her fear. "They admitted it was them-"

"Because you threatened them!" Jules screamed back, tears in his eyes as I caught a glimpse of Talon shuddering when Annika raised her voice. "You think just because you wave that gun around, that it means you call all the shots, but-"

In one swift motion, Annika drew her gun from its holster, aiming it at Jules, silencing the whole camp.

Annika let that deathly silence simmer for a moment as she saw the expression on Jules' face, his brain finally recognising that with one pull of the trigger, all that he was would be gone, waking up as a husk with no memory nor identity in such a cruel world as the Eternal Abyss; the only death in this realm and Annika had the power to deal it so easily, with little effort on her part.

"Now," she began, finger edging to the trigger, tapping it slightly. "You will stop this nonsense, spouting all these lies. You've been with them for too long, Jules."

Jules swallowed. "You've been with that gun for too long," he stuttered. "It has made you go paranoid."

"I am not paranoid!" Annika hissed. Whilst continuing to point the gun at Jules, Annika addressed the camp. "You saw what they were all capable of!" She motioned to Princess Alfreda. "Talon has told you too. How can you all possibly question any of it when Jules, here, has been brainwashed, no, perhaps it is some form of Stockholm syndrome? Who knows what they did to him in that month! Who knows what masks they have!"

As she spoke, Annika studied each of her followers' calculating who was still prominently on her side and who was swayed to Jules, and then she paused as she noticed Lili, the woman with the tiger mask. She was smirking. Why? Why did she appear so calm right now when everyone else was conflicted or stricken with fear and terror? And then Lili turned and whispered something in the ear of the woman next to her;

Her... their leader, Corinna Warren, a silver-tongue with no voice, an architect with no arms. Really? They chose her as their leader? How ridiculous!

Corinna retrieved the whiteboard hanging around her neck with her wooden prosthetic hands, then grabbed a marker pen.

"Stop it!" Annika pointed the gun at her. "Stop moving!"

"She's just writing," said Lili flatly. "She's mute; this is how she communicates."

"I said stop it!" Annika threatened with the gun, but the woman continued to write.

Corinna looked to Lili and smiled softly, showing her writing.

Lili nodded. "We wish to discuss a peace treaty," she read aloud.

"It is too late for any of that!" snapped Annika.

"We want to apologise for any wrongs we have committed," Lili continued to read as Corinna hurriedly scribbled on the whiteboard.

"Apologises will do nothing-"

"And we want to resolve any misunderstandings."

"We-"

"We would love to remain in this sector, but if this conflict cannot be fixed or you do not wish us to be neighbours, we can leave."

Annika paused. 

What? What did she just say? They were going to leave? 

A smile crept on Annika's face. Really? Everything will be resolved if they just left. She'd remain in control again with no one else to threaten her. She stared at Corinna, wondering what her game was.

"Please, let us talk first," Lili read. "And if we cannot compromise, then we will all leave. You will return our friends to us unharmed."

Ah, of course. Annika sighed. They knew they could not win, and begging for mercy was the only way to guarantee her friends' safety. Annika had wanted to learn more of their secret knowledge of building houses and tools, but it was better for them to leave and never know. At the very least, she had what Jules had learned from them, though Jules was likely to go with them instead of remaining after all of this.

"If we have a peace treaty, if we work together, however," read Lili. "We can accomplish so much. We want all of you to come to our village and see for yourselves what we can do to help you, what we can build!"

The relief and sense of victory in Annika were short-lived.

"And if you still decide it would be best if we leave, then we will."

"But come on guys," Jules scoffed. "After seeing everything they've made, you won't want them to. They build houses! Actual houses! I have never slept so peacefully as far as I can remember! No howling winds almost blowing up our tents!"

"They did look like nice houses," said Bruno, nodding.

"Oh! And you all have to try Oscar's cooking!" added Jules. "I can't imagine how delicious he could make any of the packet stuff we get!"

"Corinna and I have been working on building carts," said Dex. The monsters in charge of restraining him had long ago let him free, barely holding onto him as they had become so confused and distracted. "We can easily set up a trade route, maybe make roads..."

"I would love to style all of your hair!" squealed Calanthe before shrinking away in embarrassment. "You all have lovely hair... some just need a bit of a comb..."

"We have set up numerous defences and traps to ensure our safety," said Lili. "We can do the same for your camp. You'd do far better during blood moons instead of these fences of yours..." Lili's nose scrunched up in disapproval at the damaged state of the perimeter.

"There's also a book club that is open to new members," said Rin. "But not too many new members; that would be horrible."

"Rounders!" Sumit chimed in. "We also have rounders games! We can set up a new tournament!"

"Oh, that sounds like fun!" gasped Betty.

No... no...

Annika froze, her gun still pointed at Corinna, and yet everyone seemed to have forgotten. Instead, they all continued to chatter, mostly Jules telling everyone how great the village was, what they had built, the possibilities of working together, and the potential they could achieve.

"We could fish out that broken piano we found!" he continued. "Calixte can play, and we'll have concerts and dances.."

Annika looked to Corinna. Whilst everyone else was focused on Jules, she remained fixed on Annika, staring at her with a soft smile. Annika almost believed it was genuine, one of friendliness, of peace, if it weren't for her vacant eyes, the darkness that lay in them.

She knew that this would happen. She barely had to lift a finger, and everything came crumbling down.

They all seemed to have forgotten the whole fiasco of who hurt Talon. No, all they cared about was joining a stupid chess tournament.

"That is enough!" shouted Annika. "Quiet! We will discuss the likelihood of this peace treaty in private..." But, despite her yelling, the endless chattering easily drowned out Annika's voice. She could barely hear her own voice in the sea of others.

"I said we will continue this in private!" she repeated, but no one could hear her again. Annika continued to shout and yell until her voice grew hoarse, yet no one paid the slightest attention to her, not even when she was holding a gun. No, instead, everyone was too focused on asking questions about how the houses were made, the showers they were planning on constructing, and the river they made from the Raining Marshes to bring an endless water supply. Jules answered all of them with increasing excitement and eagerness, telling everyone how much their quality of life would improve, how they could live like civilised people again, how they would soon work out hot baths and central heating with how brilliant their Corinna Warren was, how their Ms Ivette essentially colonised the Eternal Abyss as she worked out farming and producing better quality of Abyss Fruit produce, how their Chef Oscar can make their food go further and tastier so they will never go hungry with still plenty of stock leftover.

"We can discuss this all later!" Annika had to scream. She could have sworn a few people almost turned away, but it was like they were ignoring her on purpose. No matter how much she raised her voice, her words could not cut through, with Jules becoming louder and louder as if to counter her.

Jules...

Who would have thought that wet rag would be so defiant? He had gotten so arrogant in his absence from the group, too brainwashed, that he had forgotten himself. No one would have listened to him so intently before. What changed? What did he do? What did they do?

Annika glanced at the other group. Despite this debate being on the deciding if they would stay in this sector and decide if their friends would be released, they were all letting Jules be the one to lead the persuading. Was this on purpose? Annika noticed the smile on Corinna Warren's lips, one of victory, as she watched Jules explain how they were beginning to make their own plates.

No, you haven't won yet.

I won't let you take everything from me.

I got here first.

I am the one in control.

No one else.

I am in control.

Annika screamed again for everyone to go silent. But, again, no one obeyed, though Annika knew they all heard her.

Fine. I know what will get all of your attention.

You brought this all on yourselves for trusting them.

This is all your fault.

Her eyes drew to Jules, still babbling on.

She stormed over to him, pushing through the crowd and knocked him over to the ground, aiming the gun at his head.

"Don't fucking get closer!" she hissed as a few people instinctively lunged forwards, about to tackle her. "Or I'll shoot!" She tapped the gun with a finger, teasing it along the trigger.

"Jules..." Talon warbled, clutching their metal bracelet.

"You will listen to me!" Annika shouted, her voice breaking as it had become so sore. "It seems that you have forgotten all about what happened before!"

Jules trembled on the ground, though he attempted to keep his mouth clenched shut not to show his fear; his lips wobbled, his body shivering and panting. All of the arrogance and defiance from before had disappeared, and he became obedient in the face of death.

"Do not listen to this traitor!" Annika pressed the gun closer to Jules' forehead. "Have you all forgotten what Talon said? These people attacked them! Without reason! How many of our people are now dead because of the fire demon? You think they want peace! They are only desperate to make this treaty because they know they cannot win against us! Because we are strong! They are trying to tear us apart! Weaken us! We were unchallenged for years because we did not let another group tear us apart! Are we going to let all of that go?"

Annika looked around at her followers, unable to discern their thoughts. They glanced at each other, at Jules, Talon and Princess Alfreda, and Kai.

"You think all they want is just a peace treaty!" Annika continued. "This is just the beginning! They will soon want to take everything! They'll take the Land of the Lost! They'll take over the food drop-off! They will take everything until we have nothing left! Keep listening to their lies, and you will give them everything you own! Don't listen to them!" Annika glared at Corinna Warren, only to find that the woman appeared unfazed.

Why?

Why do you have such a blank expression on your stupid face?

I have a gun to Jules' head, yet you don't seem concerned.

Does he not matter to you?

I see...

He was just a tool to get what you wanted-

Or...

Or you know that...

"We won't lose anything by joining them!" Jules said through gritted teeth and quivering breaths. He stared up directly at Annika. "We have everything to gain."

"Don't listen to this traitor!" yelled Annika.

"It's only you who will lose anything!"

"Shut up!"

"Just you-"

"I said shut up!" Annika grabbed Jules by the collar, her finger on the trigger of the gun and-

Something shoved her to the ground, seizing the gun from her hands and-

And then there was the sound of a click of the trigger...

Followed by a long silence. 


Once again, apologies for the late update.

The Christmas period has been busy.

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