Dominion

Chapter Sixteen: Rage

Chapter Sixteen: Rage

I was alone.

My entire family, everyone I had ever loved...was gone. The Dominion had ripped them all away from me. My parents, my sister, Paxer...they were all gone.

And I was left to live with that.

"Gregor," Vera said, softly, sitting next to me on the mountainside. "I know what you're feeling right now, but we need to go." She asked of me, and I knew we needed to. I just couldn't bring myself to move. I knew Dominion troops would be searching the mountain. I knew they would find us if we stayed here. I think part of me wanted them too...for one reason or another.

I didn't say anything. Instead I just looked to my left, over the side of the mountain where she had fallen. No, where I had let her fall. I held up my hand, the one that I had been holding hers with. It was shaking, subtly. I took a deep breath and turned it into a fist.

"Your sister asked you to find the rest of the rebels," Vera said, her eyes staring at me even if mine refused to look at hers. "She wouldn't want to get caught before you even had the chance to try." She went on, but I still stared out of her the side of the mountain. I heard her words, they just had no effect. They were an echo in my mind, bouncing around but never stopping long enough to be processed. "She sacrificed herself for you." Vera explained, and that finally turned my head. "And I know you don't want to hear that, but she did. She gave up her life so you could give. Don't throw that away." She pleaded with me.

Live for what? I wanted to ask, but I didn't. I didn't say a word. But some distant part of me did force myself to stand up. Some part of me heard Vera's words and wanted to live. But as I did stand, my eyes took in my surroundings.

A devastated mountainside, dead rebels and Dominion soldiers alike scattered everywhere. I had come here to help, to save my sister. To go against everything I had been taught and do something good. And this was the outcome.

Death.

I heard footsteps through The Cloud. We had waited too long. They were here. I reached for my guns, but found them gone. Vera stood up at the sound of the footsteps, gripping my hand in her own. She knew as well as I did what our chances of survival had just become. Our eyes finally met, and in hers I saw more concern for me than for herself. But I couldn't return that concern. Not for her or for myself.

There was only one thing I could imagine she saw in my eyes in that moment.

My eyes drifted away from hers as Dominion soldiers surrounded us, our faces reflecting on their soulless bodies. There were three of them, a standard group dropped off by a scout ship. Maybe it was seeing them, maybe it was seeing my own reflection on them, but a certain desire creeped into my thoughts in that moment.

It went against everything I believed in, everything Paxer had taught me. But I didn't care. Because all I could see was Ash's hand slipping out of mine. All I could see was her falling. And upon seeing those Dominion soldiers, all that blue turned red. Everything turned red.

I reached forward, grabbing one of their guns from them and shoving it into the soldier's chest. I then turned around, keeping hold of his gun and using to shoot one of the other two soldiers. The third one of then took aim and I spun myself and the first soldier around, just in time for the third's attack to assault the first while he acted as a shield for me. And then I shoved his bloodied body into the third.

He fell to the ground and I kicked away his gun, finding myself on top of him. My fist went into my reflection in his helmet, breaking it open. Once at first, and then again. And again. And again.