Free Web NovelChapter 137: Eleanor.
"Do you mind if we hold hands?" Eleanor asked as we walked toward the large building.
I extended my right hand. She slid hers into it without breaking stride, fingers threading between mine, palm pressing warm and dry, thumb settling along the edge of my knuckle with quiet certainty.
"This is what women want," she said, voice low and steady as our arms swung gently between us. "Connection. The simple kind."
Her head reached just to the height of my shoulder. She moved with unhurried precision, bare feet pressing into the white sand with each deliberate step, linen pants brushing softly against her thighs. The world seemed to slow around her rhythm, sun glaring off the pale ground and casting sharp shadows beneath every tent flap.
"Eleanor!" Children shouted, small hands waving wildly as we passed. Further off, men paused their work and bowed their heads in silent reverence. She acknowledged none of it, no nod, no glance, just continued forward with the calm ease of someone who had long outgrown the need for such gestures.
"How did you survive the plain for twenty years, Abram?" she asked, her grip tightening faintly around my fingers.
"Running," I answered.
We reached the building. Its shadow fell across us in a sudden cool slash. Numerous tall windows ran along its sun-bleached wall. Eleanor turned toward one without slowing. I followed, boots sinking deeper into the sand.
The glass was perfectly clear. Inside stretched a vast chamber packed with infected, thousands upon thousands, young bodies, old bodies, men and women of every shape, all staggering in endless, aimless loops.
Shoulders rolled forward. Bare feet dragged. Jaws hung slack. Their collective shuffling created a constant, low scrape of skin and bone against the floor.
She turned her head and looked up at me, dark eyes catching the white glare.
"They keep moving," she said. "And their movement powers the entire camp."
I leaned closer to the glass, breath fogging slightly against it. The floor beneath them was a dense grid of thick copper wires and metal plates. Every dragging step, every weary press of weight, triggered tiny sparks and vibrations that fed into the system below.
"I almost missed that," I muttered, eyes tracing the wires.
She smiled, small dimples forming above the corners of her lips.
"What do you see here, Abram?"
The question landed heavy. I stared harder, jaw tightening.
"Zombies," I said. "In a prison."
"You’re right." She nodded once, slow and deliberate. "Should I tell you what I see?" ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
"Please."
"I see people," she said, voice soft but cutting. "People behind walls, being used to power a system."
I looked again, forcing the new angle. The staggering limbs. The wired floor. The endless harnessed motion.
"Do you know why they can be used this way?" she asked.
"Because they don’t know they’re people anymore," I answered.
"Exactly."
She let the words hang between us, offering nothing more. Then she turned smoothly on her bare heel, releasing my hand as she started walking back toward the camp. The white sand swallowed her footprints almost instantly.
I caught up in three quick strides and offered my hand again. She took it. Her fingers wove back between mine, warmer now, as the white sand stretched out before us and the sounds of the living camp rose to meet us once more.
"That’s not a prison," Eleanor said as we walked. "That’s hope. They’re healing."
I turned my head sharply, boots grinding deeper into the white sand. "Are you certain?"
"Yes." She said it flat, no weight, no drama. Just bare fact slipping from her lips like the truth had already been decided long ago. "It’s part of why the system chose you."
We kept walking, her bare feet leaving faint prints beside my heavier tracks, the camp’s canvas flaps snapping softly in the breeze around us. The sun glared off the sand, forcing sharp shadows under every tent pole.
"The only thing standing between the healing and completion," she continued, "are the three primordial families."
I didn’t know what that meant. She read it instantly on my face, the slight tightening at the corner of my eye, the micro-shift in my jaw.
"The walls aren’t protecting people from the infected," she said, simplifying without being asked. Her fingers flexed once around mine. "They’re keeping what’s inside from getting out."
I processed that, boots kicking up small sprays of sand with each step. "The ability users?"
"There are families inside those walls who will never allow them to open," she said. "They have held that power for centuries and they intend to keep it." She paused, black hair swaying across her shoulder. "The only way to overcome them is to mark them. And that’s where you come in."
"How?" I asked, voice low. freёweɓnovel.com
She looked up at me with that same patient stillness, dark eyes catching the brutal white light.
"Make time tonight," she said. "Before you return to the walls, I’m going to give you what the system has been building you toward."
I looked at her, the small waist, the composed line of her neck, the way her linen shirt clung lightly to her skin with sweat.
[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]
[Eleanor. Immortal. Not a target. She is a source.]
Not a target, I thought. A source.
"Tonight," I said.
"Tonight," she confirmed.
She released my hand smoothly, fingers sliding away with one last brush of skin, and walked into her tent. The white fabric swallowed her completely, the flap falling shut behind her with a soft rustle.
I stood alone in the white sand, heat rising off the ground in shimmering waves, staring at the closed tent. The camp moved around me, children running, canvas flapping, distant voices laughing, but everything felt suddenly sharper, heavier.
The walls aren’t protecting people from the infected, I thought, jaw tight. They’re keeping what’s inside from getting out.
I needed more answers.
My fists opened and closed once at my sides, charge flickering faintly across my knuckles before I forced it down. The sun beat harder against the back of my neck as I turned and walked back into the rows of tents.
****
A/N: You’ve waited long enough.
No more fragments. No more guesses. No more mysteries.
It’s time to learn what this world really is.
