Tyrant

(𝟿) 𝚆𝚒𝚗 𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎, 𝙻𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎

Someone is shaking me.

My eyes fly open, mind abandoning the world of dreams and nightmares. Jerking upright, I behold my roommates standing in front of me—immediately, I know something is wrong. 

Their alert and panicked faces send a rushed feeling whirling past my chest.

The yellow lamp in the corner of the room casts eerie shadows over Zehra and Arcane's eyelids. "What's wrong?" I whisper, standing, the contrast in temperature from my warm blanket to the cold air shocking my senses.

Arcane hands me my black satchel, the one containing all my remaining possessions. Her bloodless lips part—a silver gun gleams in her hand. "Take your gun. Someone's inside the Base."

The words blow past me, not registering.

"Who? Who's in the Base?" I ask dumbly, my mind struggling to catch up. My hands grip the satchel tightly.

Zehra, her dark chocolate skin milkier than usual, grips an inky pistol. Hers. "We don't know."

Like a sandstorm, my mind whirls around the dangerous words, and I find my hand reaching into my bag, brushing aside my small pocketknife and wrapping around a chilled pistol—the pistol Raeyan had picked off the dead man that day in the dump, the day I'd joined her group.

How Arcane knew I possessed a weapon in my satchel was beyond me. 

I register a faint alarm whirring outside the bedroom. An alarm that had failed to awaken me from my unusually-deep slumber.

"It's okay." Arcane assures. "This isn't the first time we've been infiltrated, nor will it be the last. The important thing is to protect your—" 

Loud, startling gunshots echo out in the hall, and all three of us flinch—a heavy weight thumps against the floor, as though someone had dropped a sack of potatoes. 

The silence is deafening.

My heart races like a falcon under attack. Zehra, her feet nimble, runs to the door and presses her ear against it, listening closely. Both my roommates are swift in their movements, and my lack of training hits me like a brick.

The three of us remain still as death, weapons in hand. Waiting.

For what, I don't know. 

The shock of danger after a long week of security and comfort leaves every one of my nerves alerted and pulsing. 

How is it possible that someone had infiltrated this place? Yes, Raeyan reminded me of a fox with daggers for eyes, but I trust her. She knows what she's doing—the Base proved that again and again.

My eyes connect with Arcane's, then Zehra's. Hints of dread speckle through them. 

Maybe there is a traitor among us.

That alarming possibility sends a different kind of fear coursing through me—just as another gunshot rings right through the dark silence.

Outside the door, an anguished howl screeches down the long hallway of the Sleep Sector.

No. No, no, no.

Silence echoes.

The deafening kind. 

Then a different sort of alarm penetrates through the door; a steady, consistent trilling. 

The two girls lower their weapons, the tension from their shoulders easing but the terror shaping their features into something far older. Zehra's dry swallow is audible. "Coast is clear."