Apocolyptica: New Beginnings

Part Two

Wyatt stared at him, his chest heaving with short, agonized gasps, and Jacob kept glancing between his friend and the man, who finally looked in his direction after a triumphant smirk at Wyatt. "And you? What are you? Tag-along? That's cute. No use for you."

Jacob's face grew ashen, and the man waved his men away without another word. Jamison and Harley pulled the two younger men away, dragging them outside into the humid air. The helicopter was kicking up sand and dirt, and the sun had just come up over the horizon, causing a blinding gleam against the cloud of dust. The two guards were unaffected thanks to their masks, but Wyatt and Jacob couldn't help but breathe the dust in, and it burned their eyes until they couldn't see any longer, forced to close their eyes and be led blindly to the helicopter. And Wyatt, who was having trouble breathing as it was, fell into a coughing spasm the moment the door closed on them, pain ripping through his chest.

"Sit up," Harley ordered with a growl, watching impatiently as Wyatt doubled over his knees.

Jacob instantly obeyed, pushing himself up onto one of the seats and perching there stiffly until Jamison—a six and a half foot tall black man with a scar through his lower lip—pushed him back to the floor.
"Sit there," he snapped. "Don't move."

"Exile! Enough! It's not that bad," Harley grumbled, pulling Wyatt up by the back of his shirt and rolling his eyes at the tears streaking paths through the dust coating the young man's face. "Breathe, kid. Just take a deep breath. God, you sound like you're dying."

"You people did break his ribs," Jacob muttered.

Harley looked over at him viciously, and Jacob immediately clamped his mouth shut, avoiding the bearded, sunburnt man's eyes, having no desire to get into an argument. Harley snorted, stroking his long beard as he glanced out the windows, wondering when the others would get back. After about five more minutes, the door of the helicopter was yanked open and slid to the side, and the dust whipped through the cabin, making Wyatt start gasping again. His breath froze in his throat as Hannah's body was tossed into the cabin on the floor right in front of him and Jacob, and while he stared frozen at her lifeless face, Jacob started gagging, his face contorting strangely.

"If you're gonna hurl, do it outside the copter!" Jamison yelled at him over the noise of the blades.

Jacob choked, and swallowed the bile in his throat with a grimace, glancing at Wyatt, who, despite being quite unable to breathe, hadn't moved, still staring at their friend's body in horror. Meanwhile, the rest of the men crammed themselves into the cabin, sitting nearly on top of each other, forcing Jacob and Wyatt to move closer to Hannah's body in order to avoid getting stepped on.

The man in charge made a swirling motion with his hand towards the pilot and yanked the door closed, cutting off the blast of dust, much to Wyatt's relief. The helicopter lifted off of the ground, and lurched forward, making Wyatt collapse against Hannah's cold body. He quickly scrambled upright again, his heart racing and his ribs lighting up with fire again. Jacob looked over at him, fear clearly visible in his dark brown eyes, and Wyatt shook his head only slightly, refusing to look down at Hannah's body again.

About an hour later, they began descending, signalled by the wave of nausea that welled up in Jacob's stomach. When they came to a standstill on the ground and the blades slowed enough, the man in charge yanked open the door, and his men started jumping out to the sand below. One of them reached in and grabbed Hannah's body, slinging her over his shoulder like it was nothing, and Wyatt and Jacob glanced at each other as Harley and Jamison grabbed them and pulled them out into the blinding sunshine.

They were much further than they expected, out past where the dry, rocky wilderness melded into miles upon miles of desert. When the two of them were finally able to pry their eyes open, they were stunned to see a concrete entryway in the side of a sand dune with hundred-foot tall sides. The actual entry was thirty feet into a musty, dimly-lit tunnel, which they were promptly dragged through by the guards around them.