“How many are there?” Nichelle calls out from the crowd below, stepping up to the front.
I glance at Sylas for help, wondering if we should lie—if it would be better if they didn’t know how little of a chance they stand against the army. “What should I tell them,” I hiss.
He moves forward and his voice booms out over the crowd, “A lot.” I cringe against his truth and he shrugs. “They need to know, Kayla, otherwise they won’t prepare themselves for the worst.”
“We’re all going to be killed!” a person to the left of me says, dropping his spear onto the ground. It hits one of the metal cars below us and then suddenly everyone starts to panic.
“We should flee while we can!” a man from below shouts, looking around at the others as he hurries to the back of the crowd, ready to bail. “We should go! Go to the caves or the hills like the others did earlier.”
“Even if you did flee, they’ll chase you down; the Highers don’t just give up,” Sylas informs them in a bored tone. “There’s too many of them and they are too fast. Run and you’ll be killed.”
“I’d rather run than sit here and wait for them,” someone says and then suddenly everyone is agreeing, nodding their heads and turning to run away.
“Wait,” I call out, not knowing what to do. They need something to keep them here. Something to give them motivation. “You have to stay and fight… if not for yourselves then for Mathew… and the cure.”
They pause, some turning around. One man, a gangly one with curly brown hair and long limbs, strides forward. “There’s a cure?” he asks, pushing his way to the front of the mob.
A woman with jet-black hair says, “Impossible. She’s lying.”
“I never lie,” I say, which is a lie, but it’s called for at the moment. “And if you leave, then it’ll be gone. So please. Stay. We must protect Mathew and the cure. It could save humanity. Change it back to what it was.”
“But what was it?” a lanky man asks, glancing around at the crowd who are all intently listening to him, ready to believe the next thing out of his mouth. “Was it this? Or was it something else? How do we know it’ll be better than this?”
I glance over my shoulder at the abominations and Highers getting closer, the cloud of dirt on the outskirts thickening. “Because it has to be.”
They chatter amongst each other and then the sounds slowly fade away. When I return my attention to them, most of them are watching me except for a few who are running towards the street, bailing out on the fight.
“For the cure!” one of them shouts out, raising his hand in the air.
The rest shout out the same thing and then people start to climb up the walls with knives and swords in their hands, lining the top of the wall with their bodies. Some have sticks, some have spears like Sylas is carrying. Others just have their hands as their weapon, but it’s all we have.
I let out a breath of relief. “God, that was hard. It’s like they wanted to listen to whatever anyone was saying at the time”
“That would be human nature.” Sylas pats my back. “But you did good convincing them with a cure.”
I look up at him. “Yeah, I guess… now I just have to figure out a way to give them a cure if they make it through this.”
“I think you already know that will happen,” he says sadly.
“You have a lot of confidence in me.”
“Because I know you well enough to know you’ll do what you believe in, and saving the world is what you believe in.”
I wish I had his confidence because he seems so sure and I seem so uncertain.
“Stop worrying,” he commands, eyes darken as a slow smile spreads across his face. “How about one last kiss before we die?”
I roll my eyes again, yet then, knowing he’s right, knowing that we might not make it through this—that none of us might—I stand up on my tiptoes and kiss him passionately, letting my emotions temporarily take me over as I thread my fingers through his hair. In response, his tongue slips into my mouth and twines with mine. We might have gone for a hell of a lot longer, but then someone screams and we pull away, knowing it’s time.
I give Sylas a look that I hope conveys good-bye and he nods his head in a silent understanding. Then, at the same time, we spring to the edge of a wall. He hands me the long, sharpened stick that he’s been carrying around and I take it, knowing it’s not going to help me that much against the forces before us.
Knowing all this, we still step forward and join the line.
The enormous army of abominations is now less than a hundred feet from the wall and closing in on us fast. The sounds of their footsteps shockwave around us as their feet pound against the ground. Pointing my spear out, I prepare for whatever is to come next while reminding myself what this is for. It’s for them, the people standing around me, ready to die, so that maybe, just maybe, the world can change.
I watch them get closer, hearing the rapid acceleration of hearts around me. Thump… thump. Thump, thump, thump.
I hold my breath and wait.
Thump… thump…
The footsteps get closer.
The people around me breathe fiercer.
The footsteps grow louder.
Suddenly, I swear there’s a pause where everything in the world freezes.
Then, all at once, the abominations strike into the wall like a raging earthquake. I brace myself for the impact as the entire wall wobbles and shifts with the weight of their enormous bodies. They howl out at the night as several people stumble backwards, screaming as they fall to the ground below, hitting it with a thud. One man falls forward and gets ripped to pieces in seconds by the beasts. Someone starts to cry while the others with spears aim and throw them at the beasts. Several abominations stagger back as the sharp end of the spears pierces into their chest, but it barely puts a dent in the numbers of beasts down below. Seconds later, they start to climb up the wall, bending and ripping the metal to pieces.
People take their knives and swords to stab at the abominations’ chests, faces—anything they can reach—screaming and crying out, scared out of their minds. The abominations bite back, fangs snarling, tearing off limps, howling at the knives and peeling off flesh as they shed their own. Humans and abominations start falling to the ground and piling up in numbers, their blood staining the ground below them and creating a river.
One abomination manages to make it onto the wall, right beside me and I whirl around with my leg out and slam my boot into its chest. It growls, staggering with its crooked, warped legs, but doesn’t fall. Instead, it dives towards me with its fangs out, clamping its jaw. I swing the spear around as it opens its mouth to devour me and the pointy end spears straight into its mouth and exits out the other side of its jaw. I jerk it out and blood spills over the ground as its knees give out. I kick it to the ground, adding it to the growing pile of bodies.