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All I can do is run and hope for the best. The darkness surrounding me made it difficult to navigate in the woods, but as long as I keep running away from the sounds the dogs are making behind me, I'll probably make it out okay.

This was all my aunt's doing. My father's death a month ago, Apocalypse, and now her attempt to get rid of me and claim the throne for herself. There's no sense in it at all; everyone knew that mass chaos would occur with Apocalypse, and there was no way to stop or prevent it. The distress call had already gone out. Even if this is a Safe Zone, people would be running to stores in fear of starvation and indoors in case of any lingering threats. People are probably wondering about now if Safe Zones are any safer than an average city, and only those on top are positive that there is no way any direct nuclear strike would cause damage to the interior.

I wish thing wouldn't be this confusing; that things were still as simple as they were when I was little. I want to go around playing games with friends like I used to. I want to travel back in time and enjoy End Games again. Those had been fun, although once in a while they went terribly wrong with kids getting hurt and hospitalized. But we kept playing them until my dad outlawed them four years ago. I had been there, after all, and I understood that it was a terrible thing, but really, nothing like that had ever happened before! It was just one freak incident, it wasn't going to happen again. Or was it? Was that what he was worried about? Maybe he was afraid of losing me.

It had been my fault. My friend and I wanted to get the new girl at our school to do something. We were only in junior high, and End Games like Capture the Flag and Freeze Tag had been outgrown. We started doing sword fights with branches or races more often, and some of the braver competitors tried wrestling. Since she was a girl and we were boys, we decided on a sword fight, my friend and I. We dragged her down to the bigger lot, and some other kids gathered an audience to watch the Games. She looked so terrified and confused, and a third friend joined in, hitting her right off in the head with a badminton racket. She fell over, arms and legs bloodied by the concrete she had fallen onto. I decided to strike next, but my racket hit concrete and she was nowhere to be seen until I heard a scream from behind. That was all I could remember. My two friends died: one got his head bashed in, the other's chest wound left him with punctured lungs and a ruptured heart. We couldn't comprehend how such a weak looking girl had managed to do something that insanely strong, but she had. When I came back to school a week later, people were calling her a demon, a monster. Social media had called her the Ender. It didn't matter to me. I had been part of creating a monster, and my friends had died that day at the hands of that monster. It was almost as if I had killed them myself.

Before I knew it, I was facing a river and listening to the nearing sounds of guard dogs. I needed to get away as soon as possible. I wade into the water and drift with the water, alternating between swimming and relaxing. The river was going rather quickly for this time of spring, but we had gotten a lot of rain lately, as well as a late snowfall, and there was a lot of water to spare. I put my money on it taking me down all the way to the southern Outskirts, the least safe area of the Safe Zone, and that by the time they got that far by foot I would be long gone and there would be no leads as to where I was headed.

There were rumors going around lately on the web. Some kid had been wandering around in the Broken District of the largest city in the Outskirts and was attacked by a group of hermits, but the next thing they knew, the hermits were either slaughtered or mortally wounded. The kid had no idea what happened, but remembered seeing a flashing blade and flaming orange go around the corner. People started warning each other to avoid going into the Broken District in fear of more people being killed by this mysterious force. Others said they should find it and deem it a hero. A few more incidents like this happened over a period of several months where the bad were slaughtered whilst attacking the innocent by an invisible being, and people became sure that this was a force of good, not evil. Then somebody came up with a theory: the Ender was rising again. People became afraid again, worrying that the Ender was here to exact her revenge on the world, and that was when I became sure that I had to find her. To apologize to her was the only thing I could think of, even if I lost my head in the process. I have to stop her myself or else she won't stop.

I watched night turn to day and after a few more hours I crawled out of the water and onto land. I started running again, following the river part of the time, but when I came near the city I just ran towards the sound of the Passway and then towards the ruined buildings in the distance. Everything seemed to be in chaos already, people zooming too quickly on the Passway and others causing a raucous in the Broken District. But once I got in the midst of all the crumbling skyscrapers, there seemed to be nobody there. Either way, I kept running. There was no knowing what could happen to me out here in the open. Maybe there were people ready to take me out just around every corner, but I had to take my chances with that.

I fell to the ground when somebody ran into me. When I tried to sit up, I found a knife pressed to my neck and a dark-haired girl glaring down at me with steel-blue eyes, whispering, "Don't move. Put these on." She held up a bundle of clothing, which I took nervously and put on over my clothes. They were ragged-looking, full of safety pins and holes. At one time I could imagine the shirt being a band shirt, but the jeans were too torn up to even know if they were made like this or slowly were abused to this point. I looked up once I finished and found her shaking a little can. "Hair dye," she explained. "Just give me a minute with this and then I'll bust up your face a little."

"What are you doing this for?" I asked in a hushed tone seeing as she was whispering as well.

She smirked. "You've got a bounty on your head. A fugitive like you must be worth something to have on my side, so I gotta take measures to protect you, eh?" The spray seemed to have a blue-ish color to it. "Okay, don't flinch." She put down the spray and punched me right in the eye.

"Dammit!" I glare at her. "Are you gonna save me or break me to pieces?"

She kissed me, eyes playfully watching me the entire time. "Oh, c'mon~ I can't miss a single detail." She kissed me again and pushed me against the ground, taking my hands and putting them around her waist.

I noticed how her dark locks curtained both of our faces and realized what she was doing. This was all part of the disguise. I kissed her back, trying to be as ferocious as possible, and that got a similar reaction out of her. Footsteps approached quickly, and I heard a few snickers and somebody say that this was no time to have sex and another person say that the end of the world was the perfect time to have passionate sex, and even after the footsteps and comments faded in the distance it went on for a few minutes longer before she finally released my face and got off of me.

"Passionate sex, huh?" She laughed a little. "Over your dead body. Literally."

I scooted away from her, a little scared. "Um...Thanks? For saving me."

She stood up and held a hand out for me. "Your Highness, welcome to Hell. I'll be your host for eternity."

"Can I get a name at least?" I ask as I stand out without her assistance. "You know who I am, but I have no idea who you are."

"The name's Rei," she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. "Now if you'd follow me I'd like to take you somewhere safe, alright?"

--------------------

It was a tiny little apartment just above a little private hospital where I came to understand the situation.

"This place has been pretty chaotic before, but everyone's going completely nuts. They need a leader," Rei explained. "I plan on making an army out of them and reigning everyone in again. So I'll be the evil mastermind on kicking your aunt out, and you'll be the leader of our nation rising."

The other girl, a shy blonde named Emiko, spoke up, saying, "Rei, you gotta remember that people might not like this idea..."

Rei grinned. "Which is exactly why we should say that the Ender is on our side. Then they'll all come to us for protection."

I jumped a little when she mention the Ender. "You've made contact with her?"

Emiko's face paled. "Her? It's a her?"

Rei shook her head. "No, but we need a mascot. And people have this sort of blind faith in her being a good person, so why not? Maybe we can draw her out or something.

"But...But what if she tries to kill us?" Emiko was practically shaking in her seat.

I sigh. "I'll help you guys out, but only because you want to get rid of my aunt like I do. I won't do anything else. Got it? I won't kill anyone. I won't hurt anyone. I've already got a soiled conscience, I don't need any more blood on my hands."

Rei raised an eyebrow. "If you say so. Anyways, you can go wherever you want in this place, just about every room is empty. You know where to find us if you need us."

I nod and walk out of the apartment, going up the stairs to the roof. The sun was setting on the horizon, and the sky was full of shades of gold and orange and lilac. All around me buildings stood like silent guards in the night, watching over the people in the streets trying to survive something that didn't even exist.

It takes me a while to notice, but a few buildings away there was a person watching the street from the roof. A breeze moved through the air around us, and her hair like fire took off, flashing like flames in the dim light. My eyes widened in fear and shock, not sure whether or not to call out to her. "Akuma..." She looked over her shoulder at me as if she had heard me and ran right off the building, jumping to the next roof as if it took no effort at all.

This was it. The pain swelled in my chest, and I wanted to go after her, but she was already far enough away. I need to find her. I need to make this right. I need to end this once and for all.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

All I can do is run and hope for the best. The darkness surrounding me made it difficult to navigate in the woods, but as long as I keep running away from the sounds the dogs are making behind me, I'll probably make it out okay.

This was all my aunt's doing. My father's death a month ago, Apocalypse, and now her attempt to get rid of me and claim the throne for herself. There's no sense in it at all; everyone knew that mass chaos would occur with Apocalypse, and there was no way to stop or prevent it. The distress call had already gone out. Even if this is a Safe Zone, people would be running to stores in fear of starvation and indoors in case of any lingering threats. People are probably wondering about now if Safe Zones are any safer than an average city, and only those on top are positive that there is no way any direct nuclear strike would cause damage to the interior.

I wish thing wouldn't be this confusing; that things were still as simple as they were when I was little. I want to go around playing games with friends like I used to. I want to travel back in time and enjoy End Games again. Those had been fun, although once in a while they went terribly wrong with kids getting hurt and hospitalized. But we kept playing them until my dad outlawed them four years ago. I had been there, after all, and I understood that it was a terrible thing, but really, nothing like that had ever happened before! It was just one freak incident, it wasn't going to happen again. Or was it? Was that what he was worried about? Maybe he was afraid of losing me.

It had been my fault. My friend and I wanted to get the new girl at our school to do something. We were only in junior high, and End Games like Capture the Flag and Freeze Tag had been outgrown. We started doing sword fights with branches or races more often, and some of the braver competitors tried wrestling. Since she was a girl and we were boys, we decided on a sword fight, my friend and I. We dragged her down to the bigger lot, and some other kids gathered an audience to watch the Games. She looked so terrified and confused, and a third friend joined in, hitting her right off in the head with a badminton racket. She fell over, arms and legs bloodied by the concrete she had fallen onto. I decided to strike next, but my racket hit concrete and she was nowhere to be seen until I heard a scream from behind. That was all I could remember. My two friends died: one got his head bashed in, the other's chest wound left him with punctured lungs and a ruptured heart. We couldn't comprehend how such a weak looking girl had managed to do something that insanely strong, but she had. When I came back to school a week later, people were calling her a demon, a monster. Social media had called her the Ender. It didn't matter to me. I had been part of creating a monster, and my friends had died that day at the hands of that monster. It was almost as if I had killed them myself.

Before I knew it, I was facing a river and listening to the nearing sounds of guard dogs. I needed to get away as soon as possible. I wade into the water and drift with the water, alternating between swimming and relaxing. The river was going rather quickly for this time of spring, but we had gotten a lot of rain lately, as well as a late snowfall, and there was a lot of water to spare. I put my money on it taking me down all the way to the southern Outskirts, the least safe area of the Safe Zone, and that by the time they got that far by foot I would be long gone and there would be no leads as to where I was headed.

There were rumors going around lately on the web. Some kid had been wandering around in the Broken District of the largest city in the Outskirts and was attacked by a group of hermits, but the next thing they knew, the hermits were either slaughtered or mortally wounded. The kid had no idea what happened, but remembered seeing a flashing blade and flaming orange go around the corner. People started warning each other to avoid going into the Broken District in fear of more people being killed by this mysterious force. Others said they should find it and deem it a hero. A few more incidents like this happened over a period of several months where the bad were slaughtered whilst attacking the innocent by an invisible being, and people became sure that this was a force of good, not evil. Then somebody came up with a theory: the Ender was rising again. People became afraid again, worrying that the Ender was here to exact her revenge on the world, and that was when I became sure that I had to find her. To apologize to her was the only thing I could think of, even if I lost my head in the process. I have to stop her myself or else she won't stop.

I watched night turn to day and after a few more hours I crawled out of the water and onto land. I started running again, following the river part of the time, but when I came near the city I just ran towards the sound of the Passway and then towards the ruined buildings in the distance. Everything seemed to be in chaos already, people zooming too quickly on the Passway and others causing a raucous in the Broken District. But once I got in the midst of all the crumbling skyscrapers, there seemed to be nobody there. Either way, I kept running. There was no knowing what could happen to me out here in the open. Maybe there were people ready to take me out just around every corner, but I had to take my chances with that.

I fell to the ground when somebody ran into me. When I tried to sit up, I found a knife pressed to my neck and a dark-haired girl glaring down at me with steel-blue eyes, whispering, "Don't move. Put these on." She held up a bundle of clothing, which I took nervously and put on over my clothes. They were ragged-looking, full of safety pins and holes. At one time I could imagine the shirt being a band shirt, but the jeans were too torn up to even know if they were made like this or slowly were abused to this point. I looked up once I finished and found her shaking a little can. "Hair dye," she explained. "Just give me a minute with this and then I'll bust up your face a little."

"What are you doing this for?" I asked in a hushed tone seeing as she was whispering as well.

She smirked. "You've got a bounty on your head. A fugitive like you must be worth something to have on my side, so I gotta take measures to protect you, eh?" The spray seemed to have a blue-ish color to it. "Okay, don't flinch." She put down the spray and punched me right in the eye.

"Dammit!" I glare at her. "Are you gonna save me or break me to pieces?"

She kissed me, eyes playfully watching me the entire time. "Oh, c'mon~ I can't miss a single detail." She kissed me again and pushed me against the ground, taking my hands and putting them around her waist.

I noticed how her dark locks curtained both of our faces and realized what she was doing. This was all part of the disguise. I kissed her back, trying to be as ferocious as possible, and that got a similar reaction out of her. Footsteps approached quickly, and I heard a few snickers and somebody say that this was no time to have sex and another person say that the end of the world was the perfect time to have passionate sex, and even after the footsteps and comments faded in the distance it went on for a few minutes longer before she finally released my face and got off of me.

"Passionate sex, huh?" She laughed a little. "Over your dead body. Literally."

I scooted away from her, a little scared. "Um...Thanks? For saving me."

She stood up and held a hand out for me. "Your Highness, welcome to Hell. I'll be your host for eternity."

"Can I get a name at least?" I ask as I stand out without her assistance. "You know who I am, but I have no idea who you are."

"The name's Rei," she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. "Now if you'd follow me I'd like to take you somewhere safe, alright?"

--------------------

It was a tiny little apartment just above a little private hospital where I came to understand the situation.

"This place has been pretty chaotic before, but everyone's going completely nuts. They need a leader," Rei explained. "I plan on making an army out of them and reigning everyone in again. So I'll be the evil mastermind on kicking your aunt out, and you'll be the leader of our nation rising."

The other girl, a shy blonde named Emiko, spoke up, saying, "Rei, you gotta remember that people might not like this idea..."

Rei grinned. "Which is exactly why we should say that the Ender is on our side. Then they'll all come to us for protection."

I jumped a little when she mention the Ender. "You've made contact with her?"

Emiko's face paled. "Her? It's a her?"

Rei shook her head. "No, but we need a mascot. And people have this sort of blind faith in her being a good person, so why not? Maybe we can draw her out or something.

"But...But what if she tries to kill us?" Emiko was practically shaking in her seat.

I sigh. "I'll help you guys out, but only because you want to get rid of my aunt like I do. I won't do anything else. Got it? I won't kill anyone. I won't hurt anyone. I've already got a soiled conscience, I don't need any more blood on my hands."

Rei raised an eyebrow. "If you say so. Anyways, you can go wherever you want in this place, just about every room is empty. You know where to find us if you need us."

I nod and walk out of the apartment, going up the stairs to the roof. The sun was setting on the horizon, and the sky was full of shades of gold and orange and lilac. All around me buildings stood like silent guards in the night, watching over the people in the streets trying to survive something that didn't even exist.

It takes me a while to notice, but a few buildings away there was a person watching the street from the roof. A breeze moved through the air around us, and her hair like fire took off, flashing like flames in the dim light. My eyes widened in fear and shock, not sure whether or not to call out to her. "Akuma..." She looked over her shoulder at me as if she had heard me and ran right off the building, jumping to the next roof as if it took no effort at all.

This was it. The pain swelled in my chest, and I wanted to go after her, but she was already far enough away. I need to find her. I need to make this right. I need to end this once and for all.