Final Truth

Chapter 39: My Fault

Cade's point of view:

I'm suffocating.

My body is as stiff and solid as marble, my power's last attempts at keeping me from being crushed under this unyielding weight, but I can't breathe.

My lungs are absolutely screaming for oxygen, doing their best with my adapting anatomy to separate dust from air and force the dust back up for me to cough out, but there's nothing breathable left in this crawlspace.

I begin to feel the effects of the debris on top of me now, each second of trying to keep myself alive more agonizing than the last.

My body begins to relax without my permission, and I want to yell for help.

Words would do me no good by this point, however. Not with my tongue communicating about as eloquently as sandpaper and all sounds coming to me in the form of garbled nothingness.

Shame sets in as I begin to wonder if the people I even have the right to call friends are trapped as well.

It's all my fault, this entire ordeal.

If I had just stayed away from Cassia and everyone else in that bunker, they never would have been found. If I hadn't gone after Evelyn and her family, they wouldn't be in this mess.

If only I had been better, smarter, I could've perhaps turned on Will sooner, overpowering him myself and locking him away before he had the chance to do something like this.

But here we all are, crushed under the remains of a building. Perhaps a few will make it out alright, but I know some won't.

There's nothing left to breathe now, my body finished trying to protect itself.

I begin to feel what it's like to truly be crushed, experiencing this torture as anyone else would now.

My eyes are fighting to roll back into my head, my conscience telling me that it's okay to stop, that there's nothing left I can do, that I need to just relax and give in.

I listen to it.

An inky blackness steals my vision, and I leave myself with one kindly departing thought:

It's all my fault.