The Oddities of Grand Marquis - Book 3: Elegant Armageddon 🪼✔️

Fifth

MAX

I followed Dawaen as we walked down the pathway from whence he had come. Everything is a bit fuzzy and slightly familiar. Oh yeah, that's because this happened to me before but not really. And what's funny is that I hurt my arm again, only this time, I actually hurt it. Thinking about my arm just made me look at them and then my anger started boiling up inside me again. I clenched my fists, which just made things hurt even worse. Dawaen turned to me and I almost ran into him.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Walking..."

"That's not what I meant. Why are you so tense? You look angry."

"Because I am. What's it to you?"

Dawaen rolled his eyes. "Touchy..."

Of course he would think I was overreacting, but he hasn't had to go through half the shit that I have. He wasn't fooled into thinking he was home for almost a year when really he had been in an alien ship far away. He didn't think he was safe and happy and home...

A couple minutes later, Dawaen started to slow down and I realized it was because Mars was on the ground in front of us. For some reason he had his eyes closed but he turned in our direction nonetheless.

"Dawaen? Is that you? Did you find them?"

"Yeah, I found them both. Kole is completely unconscious but Max is okay, despite his arm bleeding."

"Bleeding? How bad is it?" he said, trying to locate with his eyes shut.

"Why don't you open your eyes, dummy." I growled.

"Because if I do then the splitting headache that is already here will get worse."

"I need you to get up." I said.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Mars sighed and stood up, making a motion with his arms.

"Well?"

I gathered all the strength I could and ran as fast as I could into him, making us both fall to the ground.

"What the fuck?!" Mars yelled, opening his eyes (finally), so that he could dodge the punches I was trying to throw at him.

"This is all your fault!" I screamed.

"How the hell is it my fault?! What is my fault?! STOP IT!" he yelled.

"You should have known better! Of all the people who should have known, it should have been you!" I screamed, trying not to cry.

My arm was also screaming in agony but I didn't care. This was his fault...

"What are you talking about? Just talk to me!" Mars said, grabbing my hands and glaring at me. "Max, what's going on?"

"You were the only one who knew about them and you should have known!"

"Should have known what? Max, I'm really confused. What are you talking about?"

"My scars... You... you were..."

I couldn't help myself and I started bawling. Mars held me up by my wrists as I hung my head, crying my eyes out.

"I don't know how I figured it out, but it hit me while we were on the shuttle. Obviously, it wasn't me who came back to Earth, so what could it be? How is that possible?" I looked at Mars, who was staring at me calmly. "It was a clone... They cloned me and somehow my consciousness was able to transfer from it to me. So many times... so many times there were signs that I thought were just dreams but it was really me waking back up in the ship...