I can’t die by any means, which is a good thing because, if something like this happens again, and I am already strong enough.
Nobody would live in fear again.
They would be safe, inside the wall.
Beth sighed, rubbing her temple.
"I don’t know what’s going on, Amber. But you smiling in this kind of situation, makes you look like you have lost your mind"
My eyes widened.
"Huh..?!"
I didn’t even notice...
I was smiling.
"Ha sorry, I just thought of something"
You can’t blame me for smiling...
Even the sweet thought of living in peace is enough to make anyone smile.
"Well Whatever... Just didn’t expect you to be smiling in this situation"
Beth exhaled, tilting her head back against the cold metal wall of the truck.
Her eyes flickered with something distant, something I knew all to well.
She was reliving it.
She was there again.
I didn’t interrupt.
Finally, she spoke.
"After all... I don’t remember much at first. Just pain. My whole body felt like it was shutting down, like I was hanging onto consciousness by a thread." She paused, rubbing the back of her neck. "Then, I was lifted."
I frowned.
"Lifted?"
"Yeah." Her lips pressed together. "An orc picked me up. Not the Orc Lord, just a regular one. Well, as regular as those things get. I couldn’t fight back. Hell, I could barely move... But though, it felt good being carried. And yeah, I saw them carrying you and Edward, too."
I stiffened.
"Edward?"
Beth nodded, shifting slightly.
"He looked worse than us. Bloodied, barely breathing. But he was still alive. I think the orc lord specifically focused on Edward"
Relief coursed through me like a sudden breath of air after being underwater for too long.
Edward was alive.
That meant there was still a chance, still hope.
But my mind couldn’t ignore the rest of what she said.
An orc carried me?
I touched my arm absentmindedly, as if I’d somehow feel the phantom grip of the creature that had taken me.
The thought made my skin crawl.
"What happened after that?" I asked, my voice quiet.
Beth shook her head.
"I don’t know. I must’ve blacked out again, i don’t really know where or which truck Edward is, because the next thing I remember... we were here. "
Here.
Locked in this pitch-black, metal cube of a truck.
Taken somewhere we had no knowledge of, by creatures that should have killed us.
I clenched my fists.
I felt my body tense slightly remembering Beth’s words.
I processed what she was saying.
Hundreds of trucks?
That wasn’t just a raid.
That was something else entirely.
Beth exhaled through her nose, stretching her legs out in front of her as if trying to get comfortable in the space.
"Then, the trucks came," she continued, her voice carrying an edge of annoyance, like she was irritated just remembering it.
"Hundreds of them. You should’ve heard it, Amber. The noise was insane. Metal groaning, engines coughing like they were on their last breath... Hell, I was surprised those rust buckets even moved."
I swallowed, picturing the scene.
A long convoy of ancient, battered trucks rolling in under the weight of whatever horrific purpose they were built for.
The thought made my stomach turn.
Beth scoffed, shaking her head.
"Seriously, I kept wondering how they didn’t just fall apart on the spot. But nope, they kept moving, loud as hell. And then..." Her eyes darkened. "They started loading us inside."
I glanced around at the suffocating darkness of our current prison.
The realization sank in like a stone in my chest.
That’s how we ended up here.
Beth let out a dry chuckle.
"And there you have it. End of the bedtime story."
Her words were light, but I could hear the weight behind them.
The frustration.
The exhaustion.
I stared at the ceiling of the truck, feeling the occasional jolt as it rattled over uneven terrain.
The faint murmur of voices around us was a reminder, we weren’t the only ones.
We had been taken.
And wherever we were going...
It wouldn’t be anywhere good.
A heavy silence followed.
The weight of Beth’s words sat like a stone in my chest, pressing down on my thoughts, suffocating any sense of understanding.
The low murmur of voices around us faded into the background as I tried to piece everything together.
The Orc Lord had been winning.
No, he had won.
We were nothing but playthings to him, obstacles he could crush again with a flick of his wrist.
So why... why were we still alive?
I swallowed, my fingers absentmindedly tracing the dried blood on my arms.
My body had been shattered, broken beyond what should have been repairable.
And yet, here I was, whole.
Not a single bone out of place because of my ability.
But Beth...
I turned my gaze to her, studying the way she sat there, arms crossed, that same prideful look she always had, even in the worst of situations.
She was covered in blood, her face tense from exhaustion, but she wasn’t broken.
She wasn’t crushed.
"How?" The word slipped out before I could stop it.
Beth glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. "How what?"
"No, no, nothing" I quickly denied.
I clenched my jaw, my mind racing.
If Beth had nullified the attack, did that mean she had some kind of hidden ability she wasn’t even aware of?
Or is she denying it purposely?
Or is it something else?
And then there was the bigger question.
Why are we still alive currently now.
I closed my eyes, trying to think past the pounding in my head.
The Orc Lord wasn’t the type to spare his enemies.
Especially when he attacked the city the first time.
He killed many awakened and soldiers on the spot.
He had played with us, humored us, and when he had grown tired, he crushed us.
That should have been the end of it.
So why weren’t we dead?
Why had they taken us instead?
Nothing about this made sense.
And that terrified me more than anything else.