The Mutation Breakdown Page 5

  Ensuring she had everything with her, Zahyra slipped her legs over the edge of the ledge she was on and twisted her body around so she was facing the mountain. She found her footing easily and as quickly as she dared but as quietly as she could, shimmied back down the rock face and landed safely on the ground below. She immediately dropped into a crouch, once again making herself as small as possible and shot a darting gaze around her. The three mutants were all still asleep, so gathering her wits about her Zahyra made off in the opposite direction to how she’d entered the camp last night. Snaking around the back of the three huts first, carefully checking in each direction as she went to make sure she hadn’t been noticed.

  When she reached the end of the third hut, Zahyra’s heart fell as she saw a stretch of open road ahead of her. It seemed to go on for at least a mile before it curved around a corner meaning she couldn’t see what lay ahead. Two SUVs were parked up on the other side of the track, which Zahyra assumed must belong to the sleeping smokers behind her. Although realising that each SUV seated six mutants, she worried that there were several more inside the huts she was now unnervingly close to. However checking her peripheral vision she knew there was no other route that she could take. It was either ahead into the unknown, or back to the sleeping mutants and she had no idea how long they’d remain unconscious for. Clinging to the side of the mountain face as if for dear life, Zahyra began to make her way out into the open.

  As she ran she thought of her brother, continuously repeating the mantra to herself that she was coming for him, that she was going to save him. As fast as she could Zahyra closed down the mile between her and the bend in the road, slowing to a jog as she reached it. With her eyes closed she took the step that she knew would enable her to see around the corner and then holding her breath she opened them, not a clue in her mind about what she would find.

  Chapter 5

  Deflated, Zahyra’s heart seemed to sink down to her knees when she witnessed the sight in front of her. All she could see was miles and miles of the sandy track she’d been following. It seemed to go on forever, with no other buildings or any visual milestones in sight. Bewildered, Zahyra wondered if she’d taken a wrong turn, but knew she hadn’t, as there had clearly been nowhere else to go. With just half a bottle of water left and not having eaten anything since the few berries she’d scavenged the night before last, Zahyra was exhausted, tired and without hope.

  Letting the bleakness of her situation wash over her like a cold shower, Zahyra gritted her teeth and continued soldiering onwards into the unknown. She remained as close to the mountain wall as she could, using it for shade against the hot sun that was now blinding her. She had an hour to endure until the midday dusk fell, but with every step she took she became weaker and more desperate. Just save Asher, she kept repeating to herself, just save Asher.

  After about an hour of walking in the middle of the desert, Zahyra had all but finished her few remaining drops of water. The sun was beating down on her with a vengeance and with nothing to see but the glow of the orange sun against the orange sand, Zahyra began to sway from side to side, heatstroke starting to take an effect.

  Her mind focused on a mental picture of her little brother; carefully going over how his face had looked the last time she’d seen him. He had been so peaceful, sleeping against her on the bus. Everything had seemed so easy then compared to now. They had been safe and on the way to be reunited with their mother at the safe haven. Now Zahyra didn’t have a clue where she was, she didn’t know where Asher or her mother were and worst of all she didn’t know if she’d ever get to see either of them again. As sadness seeped through her body, thinking her situation could undoubtedly not get any worse, the obvious happened and an SUV appeared in the distance, heading straight for her.

  With absolutely nowhere to hide, Zahyra was stranded. Alone in the middle of the wasteland with who knew how many mutants driving towards her. Her mind drifted back to the Gen 5 she had witnessed the night before with the ability to make fire and she froze with fear at the thought of someone like that finding her. Zahyra knew she only had a minute at most before the SUV reached her and that was no way near enough time to run or hide or manage to escape.

  She looked up at the mountain wall behind her but couldn’t see anywhere that was easy enough to climb up, or even if she could climb there were no crevices like there had been by the huts that she could hide within. The mutants had surely seen her now, as she started to hear cries and woops in the distance, their voices resonating off the rock face and echoing back to her.

  In desperation Zahyra pulled the knife she’d taken from Grayson’s body from her back pocket and shook off the leaves she had wrapped around the blade to keep it from tearing through her cargo pants. Even though she was now armed, Zahyra felt no more prepared for whatever she was going to face when the SUV reached her, a fate that was mere seconds away from coming to fruition.

  “Well, well, well…” One of the mutants jumped from the passenger seat of the SUV as it drove in a little semi circle in front of Zahyra, pushing her back up against the mountain so she had nowhere to run. “What have we here?”

  The mutant had the clear branding of a number four on his right arm, a dark circle tattooed around it in an attempt to make it stand out. While lower ranked mutants favoured a cluster of tattoos around their branding in order to disguise the number as best they could, some more developed mutants opted for tattoos which would highlight their ranking, using it to try and belittle the lower ranked mutants around them. He also had a full head of hair cascading down below his shoulders, even longer than Zahyra’s, which as he walked towards her he grabbed hold of and tied into a ponytail.

  Zahyra’s mouth dropped open in terror involuntarily, frozen to the spot as another mutant put the SUV into park and jumped out of the driving seat. Luckily it was just the two of them, but Zahyra still knew she had little hope of fending the pair of them off.

  The driver of the SUV was a Gen 3, but his body was bulging with muscles bigger than Zahyra had ever seen so she knew he was strong. “Looks like we’ve caught a runner,” he smirked, slamming the door behind him, “what…” he paused, a menacing look in his eye, “…are we going to do with her?”

  The Gen 3 dragged out the words in his question, the look on his face confirming what Zahyra already knew – whatever they were going to do with her wouldn’t be good. Breathing in and sticking out her chest Zahyra swallowed before beginning to address the mutants. She wanted to sound strong but knew the voice that escaped her was that of a scared little girl.

  “I want to be taken to your camp,” she squeaked, causing the two mutants in front of her to look at one another then double over with laughter. The Gen 4 slapped his knees whilst the Gen 3 propped himself up against the bonnet of the SUV, deep throaty reels of laughter bubbling out of his mouth.

  “Holy shit we have got a live one here, Xav,” the Gen 3 spluttered, doing his best to cease his amusement.

  The Gen 4, Xav, suddenly snapped into complete silence and began to walk towards Zahyra. She shrunk into the rocky wall behind her, clutching the knife behind her back so it was out of view. Xav leaned in so he was inches away from her face, she could smell his rotten breath and see the hairs curling out from his nostrils. Forcing herself to be strong however, Zahyra slowly raised her eyes so she was staring right into his.

  “I said,” she coughed, “I want to be taken to your camp.”

  “You’ll speak when you’re spoken to,” Xav suddenly shouted at her, grabbing her by her right arm and throwing her to the floor. Zahyra squealed in pain, the cut on her shoulder starting to sting from the instant the mutant touched her. The knife slipped from her grasp and slid a few feet away from where she now laid, her face dirty with sand.

  “Thought you were going to put up a fight did you?” Xav questioned her, reaching down and picking up the knife from where it lay, “That was not a wise decision.” Holding the knife in front of him Xav took a step forward, towering ove
r Zahyra as she lay dejected on the ground.

  “Hey, hold up Xav,” the Gen 3 interrupted, putting a hand on his friends shoulder, “why don’t we have a bit of fun with her first?”

  Xav turned to smile at his companion, “I knew I kept you around for a reason, T,” he grinned, handing over the knife to the Gen 3 who promptly threw it through the open window of the SUV. “Let’s have a bit of fun then, on your feet girl!”

  Zahyra paused uncertain of what to do, but realising she had little choice in the matter slowly rose to her feet, supporting herself against the mountain as she did. Resolving that she had to appear as strong as possible Zahyra refrained from checking the cut on her right shoulder, even though she could feel it had started to bleed again from being thrown to the ground. With a stiff upper lip she stood facing the two mutants, daring them with her eyes to go ahead and do whatever they were going to do with her, but to just get it over with.

  “So why d’ya wanna get to our camp so bad girl?” The Gen 3, who Xav had called T asked her, “You know it’s not a nice place for little girls like yourself ey?”

  “Maybe she wants to give the lads a treat,” Xav laughed, eying Zahyra up and down, “although she’s not giving much away with her outfit. Won’t even show us your brand will ya?”

  At this comment Zahyra flinched and glanced down at her right shoulder, the blood from her reopened wound was starting to seep through the makeshift bandage she’d tied around it that morning. Underneath was the fake branding her mother had burnt into her arm over six years ago, on the day after what was supposed to be her Turning Age Ceremony. At that moment in time Zahyra knew she was going to have to reveal her branding to them, as if she didn’t do it herself they’d definitely make her. Then just as she was about to speak, Xav piped up again.

  “Hey… you’re not a Zero are you?” he asked aggressively, anger starting to rise up in his eyes as if the person he blamed most for all his mishaps was standing right in front of him.

  “I’m Gen 1,” Zahyra said, trying to sound confident as she pulled her sweater off and tied it around her waist next to her jacket, wincing from the pain caused from moving her shoulder. She hated having her branding on show, not only because she knew it was fake – although there was no way anyone else would be able to tell from looking at it – but also because even with it she was still a low level mutant. She knew being a Gen 1 was nothing to boast about.

  “Ugh, pathetic!” Xav spat on the floor, turning away from Zahyra in disgust.

  “Aw man, would’ve been so much more fun if she was a Zero,” T whined next to him, “whadd’ya wanna do with her now Xav?”

  Zahyra looked up at Xav, the Gen 4 clearly being the one in charge out of the two of them, and clearly being the one who would make the decision regarding what to do with her. In despair, she began to plead with him.

  “Please mister,” Zahyra started, slowly moving her gaze to lock eye contact with Xav, “I just wanna go to the camp. It’s scary out here, and I’ll work hard there and do whatever you want. Please just take me to the camp.”

  Xav turned away from her after this comment and started to walk back to the SUV, clearly disappointed in what he was seeing and hearing from her. The second mutant, T, looked from Zahyra to Xav twice, then turned and walked off after him. The two of them stood by the vehicle in quiet discussion. Zahyra couldn’t hear what they were saying, but knew they must be talking about what to do with her. Petrified, she stood and waited.

  Then to her surprise, Xav climbed into the SUV and drove away, leaving her stranded with the Gen 3 mutant in the middle of the desert wastelands. The sun had finally reached its peak in the sky and was beginning to hide behind the clouds so midday dusk was upon them. This was Zahyra’s only silver lining in her bleak situation, as she leant against the mountain breathing in the cooler air that was already beginning to circulate through the winds and tried to figure out what was going to happen to her next.

  “You’re useless,” T finally spoke up locking eyes with Zahyra and shooting her a smirk. “So Xav said I could have ya.”

  This comment instilled more fear in Zahyra than she’d felt since her camp had been attacked over two days ago – and she’d been through a hell of a lot since then. As soon as she heard these words her fight or flight instinct kicked in: there was no chance she was just going to stand there and let this mutant ‘have her’. She still didn’t know what his mutation was, but he was a Gen 3 so Zahyra believed she at least had a chance – she was going to try and escape. Fighting T wasn’t an option; he was built bigger than a tree and Zahyra was hoping that because of this, he wouldn’t be able to run very fast. She just had to get the timing right and therefore made the bold decision to engage the mutant in conversation.

  “Oh nice,” she said, deciding to make a play for his ego and pray this would be the correct route. He didn’t seem very smart so Zahyra hoped he was at least full of himself, “I much prefer you to that other guy, I’m glad.”

  “Ha!” T laughed, “You certainly won’t be glad by the time we’re finished.”

  Zahyra’s face fell. Clearly encouraging him with flattery hadn’t been the right decision, and if anything T looked more ready to ‘have her’ than he had before she’d spoken.

  “Let’s get to it then,” T slurred, taking a step towards her. Zahyra knew it was now or never, so waited until T was about to learn in and grab her and then ducked out of his reach at the last minute.

  “Wha…”

  Zahyra didn’t hang around to hear what T was about to say, righting herself with the help of the mountain she then began to sprint into the distance – the same way she’d been heading before the two mutants intercepted her. She can’t have had more than a two second head start before she heard a cry from behind her and the sound of heavy footsteps on her tail.

  “Get back here you piece of shit! You’re mine!” T boomed behind her, but Zahyra closed her eyes and sprinted as fast as she could. Panting and sweating she continued to make ground on the Gen 3 behind her, his footsteps becoming shallower in her ears with every step that she took. Then she heard him stop completely, and a smile broke out over her face. He’d given up. She’d got away. Zahyra glanced back and saw T standing close to where she’d started running from, he really had stopped chasing her. She slowed a little but still kept running, determined to put as much distance between the two of them as possible, then out of nowhere she stopped, hitting something head on and crumbling to the ground.

  Knocked unconscious for a couple of seconds, when Zahyra came to the first thing she heard were T’s footsteps jogging towards her. She didn’t have a clue what had just happened, whether she’d tripped or ran into something – even though there was absolutely nothing around her.

  “You seriously didn’t think you could escape me, runt?” Zahyra heard T call out, as he got ever closer to where she lay. Knowing she couldn’t waste a second Zahyra jumped to her feet, doing her best to ignore the ringing she now heard in her ears and the throbbing pain in her head, and started running again. But no sooner than she had reached her stride and was starting to pick up pace she smashed into something again and found herself in a heap on the floor. Thankfully she retained her consciousness this time and looked around to see what she had fallen into but again could see nothing. She took off for a third time, but had barely taken a step when she was smashed in the face and sent falling to the ground once more.

  “You not figured it out yet?” T shouted at her, still slowly walking in her direction, “Force fields,” he grinned in a singsong voice. Then, to demonstrate the mutation he was clearly very proud of, raised his hands and pushed them out towards Zahyra. There was a whoosh through the air and then Zahyra noticed a shimmering wall just to her left. He had been building force fields in front of her – that had been what she kept running into!

  “You’re stuck girl, you’ve got no where to go.” T had now almost reached her, but Zahyra knew she had to keep running. She waited until he was within arms
length and then grabbed a handful of sand and threw it into his eyes. The Gen 3 mutant cried out in anger when the fistful of sand stung him and he doubled over into a crouch. Zahyra took this as the perfect opportunity and swung her legs round behind her, knocking T’s out from underneath him so he too ended up on the ground. She then jumped up and started running again, zig-zagging as she went to try and dodge any more force fields that T would throw at her.

  However once more she made it no more than about a hundred yards before she hit a wall and fell backwards onto the sand beneath her. She quickly got up and tried to move off to her right, but another force field blocked her path. She turned left and the same thing happened.

  “You’re finished now girl!” T yelled from behind her, jogging to catch up to where she now stood trapped by his force fields. There was a burning anger in his eyes, stirred in with the bloodshot red the sand had caused. His breathing was heavy through gritted teeth and Zahyra could see she had made matters a thousand times worse by running so many times. T kept his right hand raised, his palm pointing in Zahyra’s direction so she gathered this was how he controlled the force fields. Why couldn’t he have had a mutation like sonar or something useless, force fields were about the last thing she wanted to be dealing with right now.

  “I am going to destroy you,” T hissed breathily, enunciating every word carefully as he started slowly walking towards her, his right arm still reaching out in front of him. With all hope lost Zahyra flinched as he grabbed hold of her right shoulder pressing down with all his strength on the wound. He then dropped his right arm so the force fields fell, but instead grabbed her other shoulder with it as well so he was holding her steady in place.