Demitria Lunetta - In the End

“What’s going on?” I ask Jacks, but he looks just as confused as I am.

“I don’t—”

A woman runs at us, her hands scraped and bloodied. “It’s here!” she screams. “It’s inside!”

Jacks catches her and holds her arms. “What is it? What’s inside?”

“A Florae!” She wriggles from his grasp. “Run!” she screeches before disappearing into a sea of panic.

I immediately reach for my gun with one hand and pull on my hood with the other, then push Jacks against the wall. My Guardian training kicks in, and I scan the yard for any signs of nearby Floraes, but all I can see are frightened people, some running around without direction, a few too terrified to even move. One man sits on the ground, sobbing into his hands. A woman is knocked to the hard concrete but manages to regain her footing before she’s trampled.

“Do you have a weapon?” I ask Jacks.

He shakes his head. “I’ve never needed one.”

I grab the knife I keep on my left thigh and hand it to him. “If there’s a Florae, you’ll need this.”

I’m surprised when I look at him—his eyes have gone glassy with fear. “Don’t think about it. Just go for the neck or try to stab the brain through the eye.” I take a step away from the wall.

“Where are you going?” he asks, desperation in his voice.

“I’m going to find the Florae and kill it.”

“Are you crazy? You’re going to die.”

“I’ll be fine,” I call over my shoulder. “I’ve done it before. Trust me. Go back inside the wall.”

When he doesn’t respond, I stop and look back at him. He holds the knife limply at his side, his face slack. I can’t just leave him there. He’s petrified, and I have no idea if he’ll be able to defend himself. But I can find the Florae and kill it before an outbreak occurs. I could save hundreds of lives.

I go to him and pull up my hood just far enough for him to see my eyes. “Jacks. Go back inside the wall. Circle around to the cellblock and close the door. I’ll meet you at our cell. You’ll be okay in there.”

He focuses on me, shaking his head. “But it’s a Florae .”

“That doesn’t matter. If you see one, don’t think about what it is. Think about what you need to do to survive.”

Jacks nods, steeling his face. “Will you be okay?”

“I’m trained for this.” I put my hood back down. “You may know Fort Black, but I know Floraes.”

“Good luck,” he tells me, starting to sound like his old self. “I’ll meet you at home.”

Home. The word sounds so foreign to me, but I nod. He turns and disappears inside the wall.

I wade into the chaos of the crowd, searching for a flash of green, listening for the creature’s distinctive snarl. It’s next to impossible to move through the mass of people struggling to escape without the slightest idea where to go.

“There!” someone shouts off to my left. “He’s changing!”

I fight through the tide of people fleeing the area and find a group of men beating another man. He’s unconscious and bloodied, but doesn’t look like he has begun to change, or even like he’s been bitten. I try to step in to stop them, but I’m knocked to the ground and someone steps on my arm.

I roll to the side and up to my feet and again try to stop them, but there’s no reasoning with the mob. Then another man is accused—one of the men who’d been beating the man on the ground. “His hand! His hand!” someone is screaming. I see only knuckles bloody from beating the first man, but the crowd sees a Florae bite, and they’re immediately upon him.

I leave the fighting men behind, trying to focus on finding the Florae. There could be dozens of them by now, but I can’t find a single one. I make my way across the exercise yard, the tents and cardboard homes mostly trampled under the feet of the panicked masses.

Through the chaos, I still can’t find a Florae. Did one really get inside? Someone must have seen it to sound the alarm, but then where is it? Feeding somewhere? It could still be consuming its first victim. I scan the exercise yard to see if there is a particular area that people are running away from, but everyone is fleeing without direction.

I hear a whimper to my left and turn to find a child peeking out of a tent—he’s hardly more than a toddler, tears smearing his face. I dive for him and pull him out just before a man crashes through the tent, dragging it behind him as he runs.

The child clings to me and my heart leaps into my chest. He can’t be any older than Baby was when I first found her. I search for a parent or anyone who can protect him, but everyone is concerned with their own safety, with fleeing or finding and killing the Florae. I carry the child to the wall, weaving around debris and bodies. Smaller fights are breaking out all over the yard as neighbors accuse one another of being infected.

I climb the steps to the top of the wall and find several others who’ve come up to escape the violence below. A woman clutching two children eyes me, her face wild with terror. I half-expect her to bolt when I approach her, but she just squeezes her children to her more tightly.

“Are these your children?” I ask.

“Yes, we were caught outside the cellblock. They wouldn’t let us back in. My husband’s a guard; I thought to come up here—”

“That’s fine. Can you look after him?” I place the little boy down onto his feet and move him toward her.

“What?” she asks, taking him despite the hesitation in her voice. “Is . . . Is he yours?” She sounds like she’s in shock, but she cradles the boy’s head against her breast.

“No. I don’t know who he belongs to. But he needs you.”

I look around the top of the wall and wonder why more people haven’t come up here. Out of the corner of my eye I see a man running toward us. I step out of the way and realize too late what he means to do. He takes a flying leap off the wall, landing on the ground outside with a sickening thud.

I turn back to the woman and see that she has crouched down and drawn the little boy and her two children tightly into her arms. “Now,” she says, “we’re going to play a little game and see who can keep their eyes shut the longest. No peeking or you lose.”

I back off and run along the wall for a better view of the exercise Yard. Looking down at the erupting violence, the absolute disorder, I realize that it’s a kind of madness. A Florae-fueled riot, without the Florae. I scan every inch of Fort Black within my vision and can’t find a single creature.

I go back down the stairs and make my way along the wall of the exercise yard, keeping my eyes peeled for the phantom Florae and avoiding the many fights that are still breaking out throughout the Yard. I’m halfway to Cellblock B when an announcement comes over the loudspeaker.

“Fort Black. This is the Warden. There is no longer a Florae threat. Please, stand down. The Florae has been dealt with.”

The announcement does nothing to lessen anyone’s aggression, and the riot continues to rage on. I’m even more convinced now that there was never a Florae, that it was all a mistake—or a calculated lie.

When I arrive at the cellblock, it’s a different place. People have locked themselves in their cells and wait patiently for the commotion to end. When I reach my cell, though, it’s empty. I should have stayed with Jacks. I’m debating whether to go find him, when he arrives at the cell door, breathless.

“Amy!”

I pull off my hood. “Jacks, I’m sorry I left you. . . . I thought I could help, but it was a false alarm.”

He stares at me for a second, then rushes to me and folds me in his arms. I’m startled, but as confusing as it feels, it also feels good.