Free Web NovelChapter 30: Concealing Emotions
Near the exit of the Polluted Zone, countless clouds drifted. They were as white as dollops of fluffy whipped cream. In world outside the zone, clouds were green and purple; no one in that world had ever seen white clouds. The warm, orange-yellow sunshine painted these clouds, making them seem like snowy peaks bathed in golden syrup. The rectangular portal exit quietly stood open amongst these golden-touched clouds.
This felt straight out of a fantasy tale, except for the scary and long battle the alphas and betas had just gone through.
The monsters were left behind, with only a few random ones dropping off in the distance. Now and then, the giant body of an orca swam above, its whale song providing a comforting feeling.
"Can I bum a cigarette?" Nicole heard someone ask. It was the first female alpha to climb on the blimp. The alpha was lounging against a wall, her arms drooping. The white bandage wrapped around half her body was now blood-stained. She pulled out a squashed pack of cigarettes and put one in her mouth. Her only working wrist shook so much she couldn’t even strike a match.
Serge, who had used up his mental energy, was knocked out by her side, shielded between her body and the wall’s corner.
Nicole made an effort to move closer and took the match from the alpha.
The "cigarettes" that alphas smoked were not ordinary tobacco. They were a sort of spiritual pacifier made by soaking hay in diluted synthetic beta pheromones. This could calm the anxiety triggered by mental exhaustion. Even though the effect was kinda weak, it was handy and hard to overdo. It was very popular among the lower-ranking alphas.
Nicole had to strike the match a few times before it lit, and the alpha moved closer to light her cigarette from it.
"Thanks." The female alpha said, taking a drag of her cigarette and looking up at Nicole.
"Do...do you have another cigarette?" A frail voice echoed from a corner.
It was the alpha who’d lost his legs. He was sitting in the corner’s shadow, his legs gone from the knees down, covered with tons of wounds, asking for a cigarette. The female alpha calmly lit another cigarette from hers and passed it to Nicole to give to him.
Nicole handed the cigarette to the badly injured man and sat next to him against the wall. His injuries were so bad, his face as pale as a ghost, he couldn’t even lift his hand to take it. He just sat there, head hanging low, with the cigarette in his mouth.
The whole blimp was packed with severely injured people. Nicole wasn’t sure how many of them would still be alive when they finally escaped. Her mental energy was totally depleted, and she couldn’t do anything at the moment, not even strike a match without trembling. She could only sit here, keeping her wounded friends’ company, making small talk.
"Do you guys like smoking these?" Nicole asked them.
"You wouldn’t get it," the female alpha replied, cigarette in her mouth, leaning against the wall, staring at the sky above. "For us, it’s a lifesaver."
"When we get back, look for me at the Empire’s grooming place," Nicole said, "I’m there two and a half days every week. I can do psychic grooming for all of you."
These alphas were all young, but their minds were full of bad feelings. Nicole had gone into several alphas’ minds during the battle, finding each one filled with unmanaged negative feelings and useless stuff, eating away at their minds like stubborn rocks.
"Thanks. My family is poor, we’ve never been to a grooming room before," said the alpha without legs next to Nicole softly, "This is my first time meeting a real beta. I never knew betas were so nice."
Nicole sat next to him, looking up at the sky through the busted roof, at the pretty clouds and Kestrel, who was still watching the back of the blimp. Her slim figure stood at the top of the stairs, facing the wind with the moving clouds behind her, watching for incoming mutants. She was still fighting, non-stop, alongside that tough alpha.
"From this point of view, betas don’t seem so vulnerable after all," Nicole thought.
She still remembered when she became a beta, how her family’s feelings changed. No matter how hard she tried, they still treated her like a useless kitten or puppy, even if her psychic incarnation was bigger than her brothers’.
"Do you have brothers or sisters?" the alpha next to her asked.
"I have two bothersome brothers."
"That’s cool. I have five younger siblings, and I’m the oldest," the alpha answered, his voice getting weaker, "The youngest is only two years old and can barely walk. If I’m not around, I don’t know if she’ll starve to death."
"Don’t talk like that. Stay strong, we’re almost there," Nicole encouraged him, "The portal is just ahead." freewebnoveℓ.com
The alpha said something else, but Nicole didn’t hear him well. The blimp was getting closer to the big rectangular portal. In front of everyone’s hopeful eyes, the statue of a metal goddess on the top of the blimp disappeared into the black gate.
In the next moment, the world was full of light. The red skies and the strange backdrop were gone. The world was bright and clear. The huge green fields, the clear blue sky, the hot sun were all just as they left them - pretty and safe.
They were back. They had come back to their world, barely making it. Only now did they realize how wonderful life is. On the blimp, everyone who was still alive and could speak cheered loudly, crying happy tears. They hugged their buddies next to them, celebrating their close escape.
"We made it, we made it!" Nicole almost jumped up, joyfully shouting to the alpha next to her. But, the young man stayed quiet, just sitting there with his head down.
Nicole’s voice got quieter. "Hey," she softly called out again.
The young alpha’s face was covered in shadows, his features unclear. All you could see was the faint glow of a cigarette in his mouth.
His hand opened, showing two ashcredits. Just enough to buy an apple.
On a normal day, Nicole, a girl like her, would never bend down to pick up two ashcredits from the ground. But right now, she bit her lip, bending over to carefully pick up the two still-warm coins. She held them tightly in her hand, stopping her tears from falling on them.
Only then did she remember the last words of the alpha, who in his last moments had used his remaining strength to tell his last wish. "They might not send my stuff back to my family. Could you please take this little money to my sister?"
The blimp landed roughly in the green wild. After a long wait, the rescue team sent by the Tower finally came.
The hurt were taken away on stretchers, and there were too many dead alphas; they had to be put onto trucks. Many of the betas, wrapped in blankets and standing by the road, couldn’t help but cry.
Betas were naturally sensitive beings. Honestly, no one could go through such a sad event without feeling grief.
Of all the surviving betas, Kestrel was probably the only one without any clear feelings. She was as cool as always, even finding time to take a towel from a medic and carefully clean her hands.
"She’s so heartless. She’s still that weird person who stays unfazed at times like this. Does she not have a heart?" some couldn’t help but think.
Kestrel wiped her hands clean, quietly walking over to a dead alpha. She bent down and took something from him. It was a lifeless alpha who had lost both his legs.
"What did you take?" Nicole asked her as she got closer.
Kestrel showed her hand, showing the back of the identity badge to Nicole. It had the alpha’s name and personal info.
Orion Reed, blood type B, home address: 25 Black Street, District 19. Emergency contact: Mother, Aurora Reed.
"Give it to me." Nicole’s voice broke, taking the small identity badge from Kestrel and putting it with the two ashcredits she had been holding tightly in her hand. "I’ll handle it."
As she took it, she touched the skin of Kestrel’s palm.
"Her hand is so warm," Nicole thought. "She heard our talk and helped me. She knew where the soldier’s identity info was kept, something I didn’t know. Everyone says Kestrel is a cold and hard person. But she seems different from what everyone says."
The officer in charge of the rescue team and the blimp captain stood at a distance, talking. As they counted heads, they found that only a few betas had died. Most of the dead were alphas, which seemed to relax them a lot. Jax also hung out with them, and the three shared a round of cigarettes. These weren’t the cheap ones that low-ranking alphas usually smoked, but the expensive kind, spiced with high-end flavors.
Their conversation started to lighten up. They complimented each other, blaming the incident on bad luck instead of anyone’s fault. Some even praised Jax for his quick detection and sending of alphas for rescue. They ended up saying that, considering there were no major losses among betas, the losses weren’t too bad.
In short, it wasn’t a big deal. They even laughed lightly as they talked about certain topics. It was like the bloodied alpha bodies being loaded onto the trucks were just expendable things of little value.
From afar, Ren watched it all with a cold stare. The scene was all too familiar. He had seen it too many times. The young lives cut short, unfulfilled last wishes, and left behind attachments and families didn’t seem to matter to anyone. Such images had stabbed his heart too many times, stirring up a rage inside him that made him want to do something, yet left him helpless.
Then he saw Kestrel in the crowd, the girl who had just left the battlefield, after cleaning her hands and bending down to pick up an identity badge from a fallen alpha. She was huddled with her friend, looking at the information on the back of the badge.
Ren understood what this act meant. To retrieve the identification badges was to fulfill the last wishes of the fallen.
The actions of the two beta girls seemed to be the only warmth in this cold aftermath of battle.
Ren wanted to go up to them. He wished for a chance to talk to the girl, to thank her for her help, to ask about her injuries, or maybe even to tell her to avoid using those tendrils the next time they meet... but he decided to skip that topic for now.
Now he understood why the alphas were so attracted to the betas. If they missed this chance, he didn’t know when they’d get another chance to meet.
However, he soon figured it was probably best for the beta girl like Kestrel not to get mixed up with someone like him.
He saw a girl with curly hair next to Kestrel, crying with her head down. Kestrel stayed still without moving, except for one tendril that came out of the ground, gently patting her sobbing friend’s shoulder.
"She’s so gentle," Ren thought.
He squeezed his hand and turned away. A sad low sound that belonged to an orca echoed quietly from somewhere. It was quickly silenced as if someone didn’t want it to be heard.
Ren turned his back and walked away, without looking back. He headed towards where Jax was, stepping into the heartless circle of men.
Upon seeing Ren, Jax greeted him with a smirk, offering him a cigarette and praising him for his good work. Ren took the offered cigarette and inhaled. The artificial beta pheromone’s strong flavor mixed with the rich tobacco taste in his mouth, creating a sensory overload. It was a taste and sensation that many found addictive.
"It’s quite unpleasant," Ren thought, not wanting to take another puff. "Real betas don’t feel like this... real betas..."
His long fingers paused as they twirled the cigarette. The back of his hand seemed to hold onto a strange sensation, as if something moist was still clinging there, ready to send a sudden, intense jolt that could numb half of his body. It was an incredibly vivid and unforgettable feeling, invisible yet indelible.
He pushed these feelings into the farthest corners of his mind, hoping they would stay hidden there forever.
