Written In The Scars

Chapter 13

The white light stabbed my eyes, I've had never seen something brighter than that. I slowly opened my eye trying to see where was I, I wondered if I was dead but I felt alive at that moment as I laid on a comforting bed. I felt itchy on my right hand and when I looked at it I saw a tube bringing drops of liquid from the container which hung above, transmitting it into my veins. I've never had seen such a thing before, I got scared and tried to bite off the cannula on my hand but stopped as it hurt.

I could see a needle through my vein, I had to be gentle with it so I slowly pulled off the cannula and it struck the floor, colorless liquid dripping on the floor through the needle. It looked dangerous as I had no clue about what sort of liquid was being inserted. I looked around and everything seemed white, white ceiling, white tiles on the floor, walls painted white and the bedsheet on which I was lying was white and so was the door to my front. 

"Congratulations, Alex" a voice filled the room, I've never heard such stable metallic rasp. I couldn't see him. I looked around but no one. No one inside the room. No one underneath my bed. Nor anyone besides it. I thought to communicate. But didn't know what to say. And then the door opened, slowly creating a creaking sound indicating it wasn't opened for a very long time, I watched as the person finally revealed himself and stood there on the door, his hazel eyes looked at me, he wore a white tracksuit and white training shoes, the light reflected his black shiny hairs and his white skin.

"Hello there, young man, no need to worry you are in a stable condition now," he said before making his way towards my bed and picking up the needle and examining it.

"Where am I?" I asked, "Well, not in heaven, I can tell you that," he said and gently inserted back the needle in my vein, "don't worry, it's just glucose, won't harm you" he added. 

"Why am I here and who are you?" I asked to which he sighed, watched me and continued, "You are here because you are the winner, Alex, the lone survivor on earth, the only human capable enough to make it till the last. And sorry for not introducing myself, I am Groove." he answered.

"Wait, the only human?" I asked. 

"Yes, Alex, you are special, you were able to make it, I didn't expect someone like you would be the winner, congrats once again," he said, his expression hadn't changed since he came. "And as for us, we aren't humans, we are something different" he added.

"Different?, How?"

"Ever heard of A.I? (Artificial intelligence) if not then let me tell you one thing about us, we may look like humans but in truth, we don't have feelings, we don't have feelings like humans do but our intelligence surpasses that of an ordinary human, a human body was used as a vessel to conceal our identity during the great world war III, made to eliminate nations. They created us and we destroyed them. Our existence was only due to hatred which dwelled so deep in their veins that they didn't care about consequences anymore. Countless humans lost their lives in the battle, the water remained but consumers did not and immortals exceeded mortals in numbers" Grove explained.

"What happened to other survivors?"

"Some escaped , some stayed and remained reluctant and we had to use Dragons as a catalyst to get what we wanted, of course, we fooled people into thinking that resources are limited and the water's no more but in truth, we deprived humans of everything and only provided some to dragons as a reward for killing humans," he stated.

"You bastard, do you know how much you made us suffer?" I shouted.

" It was inevitable, Alex, the end was near, we just made it happen more quickly, the resources would have vanished anyway and so would have humanity. Didn't you got to see the true nature of a human, Alex? Tell me how you made it this far, didn't you cheat on your friends, didn't you backstab people, didn't you disappoint people, didn't you keep clinging on your life, didn't you want peace so that you could stay alive along with your few friends. To surpass sacrifices need to be made" Grove said without any expressions, "I've been watching you Alex, all you wanted was revenge, that led to your destruction" he added.

"What do you want from me?" I lowered my voice.

"Join us, Alex, get your revenge, eradicate the last of the pests for us, help us bring peace," Grove said as our eyes met.

"That doesn't make sense to me, help you erasing who? Everyone is dead, you guys killed each one of us and now you want the help of a mere human whom you consider inferior"

"That's not true, not every human is dead, life was found on Mars, a planet nearest to earth, in the year 2125, a century before the world war III, they were able to built settlements there and took refuge there when the war was near, only 500,000 humans were able to survive and we want them dead too." 

"What? Why do you want to kill them?"

"Tell me, Alex, don't you hate humans? They covet, they can't simply see anyone happy, they call themselves human but don't have any humanity in them, when you look at the synonyms of humanity a list of words like sympathy, kindness, love reflect your eyes but tell me Alex, was there any human who had a bit of humanity left in him? There are no humans left in this world, there weren't any, to begin with"

"Luke, my mom Susan, Emma, they were humans, they had humanity left in them, what did they do to suffer so much?" I enraged.

"To be honest I wasn't expecting you to make it till the very last, you couldn't see through their facade, the people you considered your friends were your true enemies" I couldn't bring myself to believe him, they cannot be that cruel, they were nice with me and Luke sacrificed himself for me.

"No, you are wrong, I don't believe you" I shouted, my head was spinning and I felt dizzy, I pulled my hairs in disappointment.

"Calm down," said Grove as he handed me a glass of fresh cold water, I drank it all in one go and let out a sigh. For the first time, I had never tasted something so pure and refreshing. 

"Don't worry about your left hand either, you'll have a mechanical arm intact in no time" Grove added. I examined my missing limb, it had healed and I had no idea about how are they going to intact a new arm, but I he sounded quite sure when he said it.

I just wanted to know the truth, I was curious, "what makes you say that my comrades were evil?" 

"I watched from here, closely and I knew what each one of you was up to, Luke only wanted the throne, he left the dragons so he could plot against them and he knew you were the heir to the throne so he waited for the time to come, used you to get closer to your father and of course altered your plan. He wanted you to kill King Steve and would have killed you when you'd have taken over the throne and of course marry Emma, even she wasn't a friend of yours, they made you despise the dragons and help them in their plans they made against them, taking you down would have been an easy task unlike taking down a monster like Steve but you failed in executing the plan, your feelings played their part and saved you. Everyday both of them planned on how to use you and get successful" Grove said as he sat beside me on a chair.

"Impossible! Luke sacrificed himself for me" I argued.

"You don't know what happened when you closed your eyes, Alex, Luke found a blind spot and charged towards Arima but he was quick to react and shoved his sword inside Luke and the fact that his back was to you made you think he sacrificed himself for you, he knew you wouldn't let him die, Alex."

I looked down. Disappointed. I know he wasn't lying, it all just felt so true, my eyes widened.

"And what about my mother," I asked looking him straight in his eyes.