The smell of burnt and rotting flesh and the lingering scent of ashes was the first thing that had hit Maia as soon as they stepped foot outside the Fronthouse. The five buildings are in ruins and the farm abandoned as the crops that were once there are now all dried up and dead. Much like the dead bodies scattered all around them.
"They didn't even bother to burn them"
Maki commented grimly. There were rotting corpses of both soldiers and mutants lingering in the grounds and it took him all his strength to reel in the urge to haul his guts out.
"They were nothing more than toys for the government"
"Some of them may have been victors from the games"
Makoto said, his feet careful not to step on the corpses. On their ride here he had told them about the path being offered to the victors of the games and it made both Maia and Damian angry. All of the contestants in the tournament were nothing more than teenagers, barely an adult and yet for them to be given a choice of mutation.
Maia wanted to scream and wreck havoc right then and there. The repressed part of her, the one who promises violence wanted to get out and wreck everything in its path. But she reeled it in as she stared at Damian who looked like an anxious pet glancing here and there.
"You alright?"
She asked him and with a wary eye he answered.
"Do you remember the captured children?"
He asked and all eyes were on him now but Maki stood frozen in place as he answered.
"Those that were in the prison. The ones who didn't want to run"
And in an instant both Maki and Damian sprinted for that prison, careful not to step on any bodies. The others ran right behind them, eyes full of questions as they followed the two male. All except for Maia. Who stood frozen in her place as the memory of how the children ended up in the prison flooded her senses, gnawing at her very core.
She had put those children in there. Put them on Leticia's orders for her to experiment on. Put them because their city was nothing more than ashes burnt to the ground. She was the reason those children might very well be dead now.
You have always been hard on yourself. Do you blame yourself for that?
A voice echoed and Maia had to think twice if she was hallucinating or not. She whirled around and searched for the owner of the voice.
"Marvyll?"
She spoke softly wondering if the voice could hear her, and she let out a sigh of relief as it answered back, her very voice covered in sass as it said.
That's Ate Marvyll for you.
Maia spun around once more to find the owner of the voice but it was only her in that area. Makoto had told them that Marvyll had the gift of invisibility so if she could hear her then she must be around the area.
"Where are you?"
She whispered and not a moment later, an answer came.
Lithuinia, by the river
And somehow Maia knew where that was, knew in her bones what river Marvyll had spoken of.
It was the very river she had died on.
Damian didn't know what to expect but when he and Maki had carefully treaded a safe path towards the ground prison cells, he half expected the children to still be in there. Only, they weren't.
The prison cells were empty, not even a trace of any children lingering in there. Either they were burnt to ashes or they escaped on their own.
Maki crouched down and stared at the empty prison cells.
"When we raided this place, these prison cells were full of children, we don't know the exact range of their ages because they were too frail, too thin and their eyes were lifeless."
He started and he knew by instinct that his siblings were listening to him. Knew that they were now gritting their teeth, anger flooding their senses.
"When all hell broke loose, we were too focused on surviving that we had only thought of them when we're finally safe. But even before that none of them moved or showed signs of wanting to be alive and free. It's like…"
Maki stopped and his words were continued by Damian who simply said.
"Like puppets, waiting for their string of life to be cut off. Waiting for their deaths"
He muttered and felt that despair in his heart once more as he remembered the lifeless eyes of the children. He raised his head to look at Magnus and the others only to stop dead when his eyes didn't see the now all familiar white head he loves.
"Where's Maia?"
He asked and in unison everyone spun around to see that Maia hadn't followed them. They rushed back outside and found that Maia wasn't where she was standing earlier. She was gone. Panic rose to their throats as they shouted in unison, calling for her.
"MAIA!"
But Maia had long been gone towards the river, towards Marvyll. She ran and even though the distance had been more than 10 kilometers, she had reached it, reached the clearing in just half an hour.
She wanted to be out of there. Searched for a good reason to get away from the front house before the all too familiar guilt gnawed on her. Before it ate her whole.
She panted as she screamed her sister's name. Her senses are in full alert as the ringing in her voice gets louder.
This is where you killed your classmates.
This is where you doomed everyone.
She wanted to shut out those voices. For months she tried, in secret, to shut those out. To feel normal, to not feel as if she was a monster in a human's skin.
But you're not human anymore aren't you?
Her breathing ran ragged as she stared at that river, the very river she had died on. In an instant she was back in that moment. Drowning down and down. And now as she stood in there, she could see the hundreds of hands reaching up to her from the depths of the river.
The hands of the people she had killed. Of her classmates, of the innocent ones, of those children, of those soldiers, of her mother.
Hands that wanted to pull her down with them. Hands that told her she should've been dead alongside them.
As a tear fell in her eye, a soft hand was on her back, caressing it and then the voice came. The very voice that brought her comfort and salvation all those years trapped inside her own body.
"Why are you crying my sweet little sister?"