Chapter 33
Everything was dark. Everything was numb.
Was this dying? Or was Eden already dead? It didn't feel like she was dead, but then again would that feel like?
Then there was heat. And the sound of something crackling like something familiar...was it a fire? Like the ones she'd make with Grace on those overnight hunting trips?
The crackling got closer and so did the heat. Something dripped out of her mouth, blood. So she wasn't dead.
Slowly, Eden opened her eyes and saw the floor of the truck and her feet. Her whole body ached and felt tingly as she lifted her pounding head and saw a burning tree on the hood. So that was where the sound and the heat came from.
Eden twisted her head to her right and saw Whitehorse had flown through the windshield. She limply reached for him and grabbed his ankle, shaking him and trying to call his name but it died in her throat. In the backseat Hudson's body was laying against her blown out window, there was blood all over her face from the broken glass. And Pratt...oh god Pratt. He was laying down in the backseat, his hand still gripping the cross he wore around his neck on a chain.
Eden tried to call out for them but between the blood and the obvious concussion she couldn't get it out. Smoke tickled Eden's lungs and made her cough, every cough made her head pound painfully inside her skull.
Everything inside her body was exhausted and in pain. As Eden looked around she realized she was trapped. She looked over at her friend's bodies and felt a tear roll down her cheek as she clutched her abdomen.
"I...I'm sorry...I couldn't...save you." She muttered out, it was pitiful compared to all the things she wanted to say to them but she was so exhausted she couldn't speak. Eden shifted in her seat, laying her head back against the headrest of her seat and felt her eyes close from the weight on them.
It was dark again.
Eden's body was beyond exhausted, part of it was even thankful for the rest, but she knew it wasn't right. It felt so wrong, laying there letting herself die.
She should be forcing herself to get up, get out of the truck, and find Joseph Seed and put a bullet in him for all the pain and suffering he had caused. But she couldn't. All of the fire inside her was useless without a body to act on it.
She was far too weak to even open the door of the truck and get out. Is this what everyone told her would happen? When she was finally too weak and broken to get up? Could this be it? She was finished?
Her breaths were getting weaker in her chest. The less she breathed the foggier her mind got. But even though she couldn't think very well she was still filled with regrets.
Why didn't she let her friends help her? Why did she push everyone away from her? Why didn't she just kill the Seeds when she had her chance and end all of this?
As she was trying to answer her own questions Eden heard something getting closer.
It was melodic, slow, familiar? It was a song being whistled, but Eden couldn't tell where it was coming from.
Amazing Grace.
That was the song.
The door to the truck opened and hands grabbed Eden. She would have cried out in pain but her voice was gone. The whistling didn't stop as the hands pulled Eden out of the truck, she tried to stand but her legs didn't respond. Fortunately the hands lifted Eden up and started walking somewhere.
What didn't make sense was the whistling. It wasn't attached to the hands and arms that were carrying her, but it was coming from someone else. But who? Her mind couldn't comprehend it but honestly? She didn't care. She knew she was going to die, she didn't give a damn who it was with.
The movement of being carried made Eden's head spin but she was powerless to try and make it stop. Using all the power she could muster, Eden opened her eyes and saw the world passing her by. Everything was engulfed in bright red flames, she saw a burning building go by. Was that the research station?
Eden's eyelids felt like they weighed 20 pounds, no matter what she did she couldn't hold them up. Before they closed again, Eden saw something. A flash of fabric. It was quick but it seared itself in her head.
It said J. Seed.
"Take shelter immediately. Take shelter immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill."
Eden had heard that voice before. It was the same detached voice that she heard in John's bunker when she busted Hudson out months ago. An emergency alarm.
Had she gotten out of the truck and made it to Dutch's bunker? Maybe he came out looking for her and saved her like he did the first night Eden came to Hope County?
Her head wasn't helping her think. Everything after leaving Joseph's compound was fuzzy. She faintly remembered driving the truck. And she barely remembered the crash. Whatever happened after they hit that tree was a mystery to Eden though.
The emergency alarm got louder and Eden realized it was also accompanied by a loud blaring siren. Eden's whole body throbbed and ached, making her sit up a bit to try and ease the pain.
She was sitting up against a wall with her legs stretched out in front of her, her hands were resting in her lap. She picked up her hand to rub her forehead but both hands came up. They had been zip-tied together.
Eden weakly opened her eyes and groaned. What-or rather who-she saw made her heart drop.
Joseph Seed was standing with his back to Eden. Eden saw something on the floor and tilted her head to look at it.
It was Dutch. Blood had pooled around his head as he laid motionless.
"D-Dutch?" Eden stammered out desperately. She tried to be loud but her voice was barely audible.
"You know what this means?" Joseph turned around, taking a step towards Eden. "It means the politicians have been silenced. It means the corporations have been erased. It means the world has been cleansed by God's righteous fire." He held his arms up like he was preaching to a silent crowd.
Then he slowly lowered his arms again and looked at Eden with a plain expression. "But most of all." He knelt down in front of Eden, getting so close to Eden's face that she could smell the ash on him. "It means I was right." He whispered.
All Eden could do was shake her head gently, her mouth hanging open in pure shock.
"It means the Collapse has come." Joseph backed up and sat in a chair, leaning forward on his elbows. "It means the world as we know it, is over."
Eden let out shaky breath and shook her head again. A single hot tear rolled down her cheek. Joseph just closed his eyes as if he were relieved. "I waited so long...I waited so long for the prophecy that God whispered in my ear to be fulfilled."
Joseph held his hands out in front of him. "I prepared my family for this moment. And you took away my family, my flock, my brothers and sisters." Joseph's tone became stern and angry and he grit his teeth as he got closer to Eden.
She held her breath, trying to hold back more tears as she listened to the Father talk.
"I should kill you for what you've done." He spat. But then his anger somehow faded away. "But you are my family now. And when the world is ready to be born anew we will step into the light."
Eden couldn't believe what Joseph was saying. Why wouldn't he kill her? He should kill her. He should at least want to.
The lights in the bunker flickered and outside Eden could hear the sound of something collapsing and crashing.
"I am your Father."
"No-"
"And you are my child."
"No!"
"And together we will march to Eden's Gate." Joseph nearly cracked a smile.
Eden shook her head and forced herself to look away from Joseph. "Dutch, get up." She said and used her foot to shake his shoulder. "Come on, get up!" She shook him again but nothing happened.
Joseph just sat and watched.
Eden reached her arms out to grab Dutch by his shirt and nearly fell over, but pulled him over to her and onto her lap. His eyes were closed, he looked so...peaceful, so tired.
All Eden could do was sob.
She didn't even care that Joseph was sitting right there, getting exactly what he wanted, she was grieving over the death of one of the greatest people she knew.
From the very first day she came to Hope county, Dutch had been there to help guide her. He always checked on her when no one had seen her for a couple days or when things with the Project were tense; sometimes offering for her to come back to the bunker for a few days to lay low.
They drank beers and whiskey together and talked about their lives. Eden was one of the only people Dutch would talk about his son with. He told her about everything, about how his son's wife didn't think Dutch was a good influence on his grandkid, about his court case, about his time in Vietnam. He trusted her, and Eden trusted him with her whole heart.
And now he was dead because of her. Because she couldn't do one simple thing, kill Joseph Seed. She would never get to apologize to Dutch, never get to have one last beer with him or listen to some of his favourite old rock songs while he tells her stories about the good old days. Never again.
Everything that died with Dutch made Eden's sobs that much louder, until they weren't even sobs; they were screams. Joseph just watched as Eden clutched Dutch close to her and shook with the effort of crying into his shoulder.
Eden didn't even notice Joseph leave, but eventually she looked up to try and cuss him out and all she found was the empty chair with the Book of Joseph sitting next to it. Eden reached over and grabbed the book, then she threw it at the door and screamed more.
"Come back and watch what you did you sick fuck!" She shouted, but honestly she didn't even know if Joseph could hear her. Maybe he wasn't even there, maybe she had hallucinated the part where he pulled her out of the truck and she was the one that killed Dutch. Maybe all of this was a fucked up hallucination from the Bliss, Eden didn't know. But the pain she was feeling was real, there was no denying that.
Joseph Seed killed the only man that had ever resembled a father figure to her, and now she didn't know what to do.
The faint sound of screaming shook the atmosphere of the bunker, making the air tense with fear and hate. John and Faith sat at a small table in a room with a large bulletin board and a radio system, both as uncomfortable as they could physically be. Joseph was standing by the bulletin board, carefully pulling down the pieces of paper with notes and descriptions of how psychotic the Seeds were and arranging them in beat stack in a box.
Faith glanced over at John, who was leaning back in his chair with his chin resting in one hand. They exchanged a look and heard Eden scream something incoherent in the room she was locked in.
"Maybe I could use some Bliss to cool her off?" Faith asked quietly, her voice was barely higher than a whisper as she swallowed and looked at Joseph.
"She needs to feel this, she will eventually realize that every problem cannot be solved with a bullet, and this is her first lesson towards acceptance." Joseph spoke calmly and continued to take down the scribbled drawings of him and his siblings.
John and Faith stayed quiet for a while, neither of them wanting to disrupt the silence. But eventually John couldn't take it anymore. "Where is Jacob?" He asked and looked around.
"He is outside Eden's door." Joseph replied calmly.
John looked surprised. "What could he possibly be doing? Waiting for something?"
"There is a lot that we don't understand about our brother, even I have no idea what's going on inside his head. All I know is that when I left her alone to grieve he wouldn't move an inch." Joseph explained and John quieted down.
Everything had gone according to Joseph's plan. The Collapse, the sinner that almost ruined everything, all of them being together in the dark times, it was scary and yet relieving that Joseph had been right. The world they had known was gone, all of the hate and the noise was finally silenced, now they had to let the world cleanse and then they could step out into the warm light of a new world with endless possibilities.
And they could create their garden, and they would live there with their brothers and sisters in harmony and peace.
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