by Bryan Young
Tye was in shock. Unlike with Ashley, Carmelita, or Dallas, he knew for a fact this time that Kato was dead. The cold reality of the loss hit him like a brick wall and he stood there, unable to break eye contact with the corpse that lay before him. The Warden stood with the wound gone, with a strange substance hardening over it. He laughed at Kato’s death, mocking it. “And you said I was annoying? He deserved to have his lung blasted out of his chest the moment he was born.” Dropping his hand to his side, he jumped from the hill, landing a few meters from Tye. “You know? You’ve given me the best fight of all your friends. Maybe I should hunt down the rest so we can finish our epic battle in peace, killing them would be as easy as lifting a finger.”
Tye didn’t respond—he was still focused on Kato’s corpse. The Warden noticed this and said, “Don’t tell me you’re crying over your friend? This is war, boy. Bloodshed is a natural part of it. Either you understand that or you become a victim yourself.”
This time, Tye slowly turned his head to look at the alien through watery eyes. He opened his mouth to talk but a deep-seated rage, beyond any emotion he had ever experienced, made speech impossible. All he could think about was that his friend was dead and that the creature responsible was trying to explain it with a nonsense line about war.
“You ruthless... heartless... bastard,” he seethed, feeling every muscle in his body tense up as his fists clenched so tightly they could turn coal to diamond.
The Warden began to laugh at what he deemed to be futile anger but then noticed something peculiar. The ground began to shake, and he could see rocks beginning to float in the air. He immediately jumped back as what appeared to be lightning struck the spot he had been standing in. To his dismay, a powerful energy similar to the one that surrounded Ashley began to swirl around Tye, but far more violent. For brief moments, the boy’s eyes would roll into the back of his head, and the bruises and cuts on his body seemed to be healing instantly.
“I won’t let you get away... with this,” Tye said callously. The floating rocks were now bursting in the air. The ground began to shake almost as violently as the sea of emotions billowing deep within Tye’s soul. Though to this point The Warden had been able to withstand most of what the teens had thrown at him, deep down, he felt that this was different. This power was much rawer and more vibrant, so much so that he felt a hint of legitimate fear for what he saw Tye becoming.
Not keen on finding out what monstrous force awaited him, he fired two beams right at Tye, but they had absolutely no effect. This only served to strike more fear in him, knowing that this was a completely different level of power than he was used to. With a mighty roar, a bolt of lightning struck behind Tye and his radiating power burst around him, destroying everything in the vicinity.
The Warden had shielded himself from the initial burst, and when the dust cleared, Tye stood with a translucent bluish aura radiating around him and a nasty scowl on his face. On the opposite side, The Warden was in awe, admiring Tye’s new form. “So, the most powerful version of you has finally come to fight me?” he challenged confidently.
The scowl on Tye’s face perfectly communicated his hatred. “Fight you? No. I want to kill you.”
Accepting his challenge, The Warden got into a defensive stance. “Fine. Let this be our final battle then. Come!”
Tye stood up straight and instantaneously, he disappeared and materialized before The Warden, delivering a punch so powerful he could feel it crack through the armor.
He staggered back as fluid spewed from his mouth, unable to bear the pain. Tye made his way to Kato’s body, picking it up and disappeared. He materialized where Ashley, Carmelita, and Dallas were hiding and dropped off Kato’s corpse.
Without a word, Tye vanished again and reappeared before The Warden, following up his initial attack with a second punch straight to the abdomen that again managed to break straight through the armor.
Doing his best to ignore the pain, The Warden took a swing at Tye, hitting him in the face with the strongest punch he could muster. Curiously, Tye didn’t attempt to dodge or block the punch. The Warden recognized this immediately and his heart dropped when he saw that his punch had no impact whatsoever. Tye simply turned his head back and said, “Is that seriously all you’ve got?”
Putting his hand out, he fired a violent blast that sent the Warden flying. He then appeared instantly over him as he was sailing through the air and delivered a kick to his face that cracked his helmet down the middle, revealing a strange, semi-reptilian face. Before he hit the ground, Tye shot a powerful ball of energy that threw him over the side of the cave.
Getting up to fight again, The Warden screamed with rage and fired another version of the attack that had take Tye out earlier but this time blowing it up to the size of a basketball. Tye simply waited for the attack to come as it hit him with such ferocity that it sublimated the rock under his feet. Yet, when the dust cleared, Tye stood completely unscathed. He floated forward and vanished, only to reappear in front of The Warden to deliver a left hook that sent him flying once again.
While soaring through the air, Tye materialized under him and kicked him upwards. He then fired multiple energy bolts that each hit him with the force of a hydrogen bomb, causing explosions that could be seen from anywhere in the dome. As he began his descent back to the ground, Tye appeared in front of him and began to unleash a storm of punches while shooting his eye beams directly into his chest, slamming him into the earth with monstrous force.
Almost as soon as he crashed into the ground, Tye was back in the air. He raised his hand above his head and summoned a small orb of energy. With a mere breath, it instantly grew to the size of a truck. Looking down at the barely moving figure below him, he felt no remorse as he brought his hands down and unleashed hell on the alien.
The orb detonated on contact with the ground, completely wiping out the hill, cave, and waterfall, leaving nothing but a massive crater with The Warden’s unmoving body in the middle. Tye flew down to inspect the damage and saw that his armor had completely been ripped away and the only thing remaining seemed to be some kind of a skin-tight thermal jumpsuit, a lot of which was burnt. His skin was a grayish color that now had multiple bruises and cuts on it, a green fluid leaking from the many areas that were burnt and covered in debris.
Tye stood over him, still full of rage. He looked in disgust as the alien lay there. He brought his foot up and stepped down hard on his chest with enough force to drive him even deeper into the ground. “I don’t buy for a second that you’re really dead,” Tye said sternly. “I know you can take a lot of damage so wake up.”
A coughing fit left the alien’s maw as his eyes slowly opened to see the young boy standing over him. He tried to move his arms and legs, but his body betrayed him, keeping him anchored to the ground. “So,” he said weakly. “Do it then. Kill me. Be free.”
Tye summoned his energy blade to his hand and held it to The Warden’s neck. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Let us go home and you can live. We can both live.”
A weak laugh escaped the broken and beaten warden. “No, it can’t. Your freedom must come with my death. They won’t accept my failure.” He turned his head ever so slightly to make eye contact with Tye. “But there’s still so much fear in you. It’s not that you can’t kill me, it’s that you won’t. In self-defense or in anger, maybe. But that’s only in the fleeting heat of the moment. But now... now that I am weak and you can choose to end my life, an intelligent conscious life, knowing that I cannot hurt you, you won’t do it. Even after I killed your friend.” He turned his head back to look up at the sky as his eyes began to glaze over and then gave a shrill chuckle. “Fascinating.”
Tye let out a deep sigh and retracted his blade. “You’re right,” he conceded. “At this point, there’s no reason for me to kill you other than to give in to my own hatred. And if I did that, you still would’ve won. You tried to turn us into weapons. That’s what this has all been about. The fighting, playing on
our insecurities... You made us desperate. You wanted us at our most vulnerable so that we would lash out and show you our strength at our weakest and unfortunately, you got that. But I refuse to let you control me like that anymore. I’m not going to change for you. I won’t become a murderer despite every fiber of my being telling me to end your miserable existence. Let us go and you can go home. Or you can stay here and succumb to your injuries, I don’t care. Either way, we’re leaving tonight and that’s a goddamn promise.”
The bluish aura surrounding Tye’s body disappeared and with that, he took off into the sky. The alien watched as Tye flew away and oddly enough, something resembling a smile formed on his face. He looked to his side to see that part of his chest armor remained intact. Using all his strength, he reached for it and brought it to his eye, inspecting it as a weak red light flickered on it. He whispered some words into it and then set it aside, waiting.
Tye stopped mid-flight when he heard a loud bang. He looked back to see that a massive explosion had taken place where The Warden had lain formerly. A sense of solace immediately came over him and he let himself take a mighty exhale, feeling all the stress and pressure leave his body with it. When he strained his ears to listen, he could no longer hear The Warden’s breathing or his heartbeat. In his mind he knew that The Warden was dead. The last challenge and the last thing keeping them in the awful place had been conquered. It was now time to return home.
Chapter 21: In the End
Tye flew through the air at great speed, looking for his friends. He searched high and low but couldn’t find them. Eventually, he went back to the cave but couldn’t find any sign of them there either. He grabbed his backpack and as he turned to leave, something stopped him. He looked back and leaned on the wall near the entrance, remembering the talks, arguments, and laughs that he and his newfound friends had shared in that space. Things were going to be different. Things were going to be normal. Finally. Normal.
He smiled and flew back out. After a few minutes of flying, he looked down and spotted a fire and four figures around it. His heart skipped a beat and he made his way down with a massive smile on his face. He yelled out to them and three of the figures waved for him to come down, shouting out his name.
He landed softly next to them. Though he was excited to rejoin his friends, he saw the collective looks of sadness on their face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Ashley, who was using her hoodie as a makeshift sling motioned to Kato. Tye turned and looked in horror as Kato’s still body lay there. For a brief moment, the loss of his friend didn’t register in his mind. He wanted to believe that Kato was just hurt but as he looked at his body, he knew the truth.
He punched the ground in frustration and despair. “I couldn’t save him,” he said quietly. “I should’ve... Damn it.” Tears started to flow down his face. Carmelita walked over and put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but Tye was inconsolable.
Just as he was about to ask how they could track down his parents and let them know about the sacrifice he made, Kato’s body began acting strangely. It started vibrating quickly as if it was trying to phase through the ground. His eyes growing wide and Tye told everyone to stand back.
They watched in awe as the massive hole in his chest began to close up completely, with his lungs, heart, and other tissue and bone began reforming as though they were new. Once his organs had completely reformed, his chest closed up. Miraculously, it didn’t even leave scar tissue in the wake of its healing. The other teens stood in shock at what they had witnessed and before they knew it, Kato began to cough and opened his eyes. Sitting up, he rubbed his head, nonchalantly asking what had happened.
The teens immediately dogpiled onto him as jubilation took over their bodies. Not only was the nightmare over, but they were all alive and, for the most part, healthy.
Standing up, Ashley asked Tye what had happened with The Warden. He simply shrugged and said, “I kicked a little ass.”
“So that’s it then?” Carmelita asked. “It’s over?”
“Guess so,” Tye said. “There’s always the possibility that he was lying, because he seems like but I think... I think this is it.” He looked at the conduit producing the energy field and like clockwork, it released a massive energy wave that reverberated throughout the dome. Almost immediately, the energy it was shooting into the air ceased, and the black object that had been the bane of their existence for the past few days simply dropped, crushing itself as it hit the ground. And with that, the dome began to melt away. Their alien prison was dying, just as it had been born. The surrounding environment began to rot away as well, giving way to the original forest that it had replaced.
They watched in awe as everything they had worked for was coming to fruition. They smiled as the rays from their sun and their sky with their air hit them. They were finally back home.
“So, what now?” Dallas asked. “There’s no doubt everybody on the outside is going to want to know what happened here, right?”
“He’s right,” Ashley concurred. “This isn’t over. We still have big decisions to make. Should we let the world know what we are and what happened here? Or do we keep it a secret and move on with our lives? Each path is going to lead to vastly different lives.”
“Will our powers even work outside this thing?” Carmelita asked.
“Tye?” Ashley followed.
Tye thought for a moment and looked at the four faces that seemed desperate for an answer. Normally, he would’ve shrugged and tried to redirect the question to the group. But this was different. He felt different. He looked ahead and could see the military choppers approaching in the distance. A wide smile came to his face when he could hear the various cars and people dying to explore the mysteries of this unbelievable place. He then turned to his friends and nodded. “We’re going to give them the truth,” he said. “I think it’s only fair that world not only knows what happened here but that it sees how amazing we all truly are.”
With that, he turned to the oncoming people, the first they would interact with in far too long. With a single bound, he flew towards them, ready to start a new story.
The End.
