Of Monsters and Humanity: The Genesis

Chapter 68 - Terra

One day after....

The hospital was absolutely mental.

After finding a parking spot, Xander and I grabbed our backpacks and my toiletry bag and headed into the building. We were rushing, and the fast pace of our walk and the uncertainty of Xander being recognized only made me more anxious. My thigh ached--it needed stitches. And I feared the ash and dirt sitting right on top of the wound; I didn't want it to get infected. We didn't have a lot of time before it would, either. I had to use Xander's shoulder to help me walk.

At first, I feared what the doctors and hospital staff would think when they saw Xander and I. We looked like complete wrecks. He smelled like cheap liquor, his suit dirty and glistening with a liquid that I tried to pass off as water (though it was thicker, and I ignored the very real idea that it could be blood). Faint black streaks of his blood ran from his eyes down his cheeks, as if he had been crying.

I.... Well, I looked like I was just in the middle of a war. My hair was a mess, my makeup was smearing down my face, my dress was ripped and caked in blood, and every part of my body was full of ash from the building. I smelled like the building: burnt rubber, metal, and drywall. I was lucky to escape the mansion when I did. It collapsed right after me, and I was completely covered in a plume of ash. When the cloud from the explosion dissipated, I was standing in a warzone. The building that stood so true and strong was completely demolished, parts of it still on fire. When I was there, staring at the leveled earth and crumbled building, I felt like I was in an alternate universe. A different place where war had ravaged the land and the places that I knew. Where a future version of myself would tell me what I had done wrong in the past, and where I went wrong enough to cause a building to level and catastrophe to alter the world I thought I knew so well.

I had felt sick, but I ran until my legs almost gave out under me. I ran to my house and flew into my car. And then I drove. And I drove, and cried, and screamed. I got lost in an unknown place, and somehow found Xander at a gas station. And now we were at a hospital.

When we entered the main lobby, we saw just how much we fit in with the rest of the patients.

To my amazement, nearly two hundred people dressed just like us were in the waiting area and standing around and being pushed in wheelchairs and sitting in hospital beds being pushed off to other rooms. Many were crying, surrounded by people who were most likely their families and friends. Some were injured more severely than others, but they were all breathing and alive.

All of them were from the ball, and all of them were unmasked.

These people, these undeniably human people, were comforting one another and helping the on-duty doctors and nurses. They were working together, describing their ailments and aiding in helping others.

These people escaped Project X just like Xander and I. They weren't out to hurt people like Balcom--they just wanted to help people like I did. They joined the Project in hopes of helping humanity, just like I did. And they escaped, realizing what they had truly joined and how inhuman their director was.

"Ma'am, can I help you?" a small, sweet voice asked next to me.

I turned and saw a nurse in light blue scrubs and curly mahogany hair looking up at me, clutching a clipboard to her chest. She was so clean and pretty, a huge difference to Xander and I. We looked like corpses.

She stared up at me, frowning. Her eyes full of care and empathy were darkened as she looked us up and down. She looked slightly alarmed but mostly worried.

"I...." I didn't quite know what to say, but Xander held me tighter around the waist with his one arm, making me remember that he was with me. "I--My leg. I scraped it."