When Gods Cry

...how did it come to this…

Straining against the cuffs locked around my wrists, I pushed my thumb against the grain of the wooden table until it splintered into my flesh.

I hissed at the pointed pain… for just a moment…

I just… I just needed to feel a different pain... than the one eating away at my core…

“Professor Wright. I asked you a question.”

My nails dug into the wood again, scratching the polish as my teeth clenched with aggravation.

I was in my late 30s, yet these fucking assholes spoke to me like they were reprimanding a child.

“Professor Wri-

“I told you… I’m not answering anything until you let me see my boys…” I muttered.

“I’m afraid that’s not yet possible, Professor. We still have a few more questions for you.”

“You said that over an hour ago! I need to make sure they’re okay!”

“Not until we’re done.”

I had been here before. Many times.

Sitting at the end of a cold wooden table with neutralizing cuffs around my wrists, staring into the unforgiving eyes of a species that didn’t just see me as inferior…

…but a threat.

Dangerous. Mutants.

That’s what they called us behind our backs after smiling in our faces, pretending they accepted us as we were born when really it was just… tolerance.

A reluctant tolerance. Where they eagerly welcomed that which came with a bitter taste and held it in their mouths until they were gagging from the putrid stench.

Humans were so… predictable.

They prided themselves in individuality yet balked at heterogeneity because it created us vs. them. And what purpose did they have if not to mistreat those with whom they could not relate?

Yes, I had been here before.

As a woman. As a Black woman. As a fat Black woman.

As a MetaMorph.

Put on trial for having the audacity to look the way I did and be what I am. Forced to justify my right to live as if my existence was some great offense-

“Professor Wright.”

I looked up into the unfriendly eyes of the VFE agent still stained with the blood of my student, whom he savagely shot like a fucking dog. Yet, dared to tell me to calm down like I was the animal for reacting to his brutality against my Dyl-

“Professor Wright, I need you to answer me.”

Shaking my head, I tried to focus. But I was infuriated. Confused. Overwhelmed. My mind split in so many goddamn directions I felt like I was being torn apart.

“I’m sorry… What was the question?” I muttered.

He slid a piece of paper across the table until I realized it was the class picture we had taken at the beginning of their first year.

Dylan… Dreykov, and…

I tried to swallow… but my throat was dry and sore as I looked into his translucent blue eyes.

Eyes that, in the beginning, I was convinced harbored curiosity and a hunger to learn.

…not a hunger for blood…

…for death…

…for me…

The agent tapped his finger against his face. “These are your students, are they not?”

I was growing weary of their pointless questions and fighting every instinct to lash out.

“I already told you that they were.”

“Meaning they are your responsibility.”

“Yes.”

“It was your job to keep them under control.”

“My job is to educate and mentor my students. And to keep them safe. Not to ’keep them under control’- they’re not animals-”

I jumped, startled as his fists slammed the table. “That monster is responsible for the slaughter of over 100 people in one city alone in less than 30 fucking minutes!”

My nails dug into my palms as I tried to temper my emotions.

Out of pure shock…I had tried to block out what he had done because I still couldn’t believe it. As if my heart refused to accept it as truth.

“Let’s take it down a notch.”

Blinking the tears out of my eyes, I glared at the man I once called ‘friend’. He pulled out a chair and sat across from me.

Folding his hands together, Detective Rupert’s face stretched into a pathetic smile as strained as our relationship. “Listen, Nia... I need you to work with us. You can trust me. We’re friends, remember?”

With a raised brow, I snorted at his audacity.

“Oh yes, of course, Rupert… Friends always lock each other in handcuffs like criminals,” I said bitterly.

He twisted his mouth. “That’s protocol, Nia. You know that. We’re not going to hurt you-”

“Oh really?!” I laughed with disbelief. “Your agents shot one of my students! Fucking electrocuted the other! And now you won’t even let me see them! Everything you say means shit, Rupert! So fuck you!”

He slowly exhaled as if he were the one being held hostage. “Nia… I want to help you. I do. But I need you to cooperate. You’re one of our most trusted high officials at the university.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at this pathetic attempt to mend what had already been broken.

“Oh, am I?” I scoffed. “One of your agents called me a fat mutant ape before he manhandled me. Is that how you treat your ‘most trusted high officials’?”

He massaged his temples with his finger and thumb as if he were in distress, which was laughable. He was well aware of the slurs his agents threw around when referring to people like me.

And as much as he tried, I was already too familiar with this tactic. Feign kindness and empathy only to spew threats laced with soft smiles and gentle voices.

It was as if they had forgotten they had done this to me before.

“I’m sorry. That won’t happen again.”

They lied as they breathed.

“Can I get you some water?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, adjusting the glasses on my face just to give my fingers something to do.

His eyes lingered on me for an uncomfortably long minute, like he was waiting for some leniency in my anger. But that bitch wasn’t getting shit from me.

He pointed to the class picture again.

“Did Noah Valentine show any homicidal tendencies while enrolled at MetaMorph University?”

“No,” I answered before I could honestly think about it.

Wait… did he?

I was answering impulsively out of my innate habit to protect him, but… were the signs there, and I just… missed it?

“Are you sure?” Rupert persisted. “A few of the students noted that he seemed quite obsessed with you.”

“You are not permitted to interrogate any MetaMorph students without faculty or a guardian present,” I reminded him.

“...Nia…” Rupert’s gaze cut right through me, and I felt myself deflate.

…obsessed?

Yes, I suppose Noah was quite… obsessed with me…

But I assumed what he felt for me was merely a crush. Not the harbinger of a genocidal lunatic…

“He had a crush,” I said finally. “But a crush doesn’t make him a bad person.”

Rupert chewed his bottom lip as he stared at me like he was trying to dissect me.

“Nia… I know…”

I felt my chest cave in, and my stomach collapse. I knew what he was talking about, and yet…

“Know what?” I asked breathlessly.

He frowned. “...I know that you’ve been intimate with your students. Dylan... Dreykov… Noah…”

It sounded even more awful hearing it said out loud. The guilt ate away at me like a parasite, and every moral ground I stood on crumbled like decay.

It didn’t matter that they pursued me…

…I still acquiesced to their advances…

“...that’s…” I tried to respond, but my tongue was heavy and dry. Like it took up too much space in my mouth.

“You don’t think Noah’s obsession with you has anything to do with what he’s done?” Rupert asked.

I looked at him, offended. “Excuse me?!”

“We’ve done an analysis of all his victims. Well… the ones we’re aware of at least,” Rupert sighed. “They all have some connection to you, Nia.”

My entire body flushed with heat. Were they really trying to pin this all on me? Claim that I was the mastermind pulling the strings, telling him who to kill?

“What the hell are you trying to say? That I told him to-”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, Nia,” Rupert shook his head. “But I believe you were the motive.”

What the absolute fuck?

“I have only ever taught my students how to be good!” Tears burned my eyes, trying to comprehend how my life’s work was being reduced to the motive of a killer. “To be heroes. To prioritize morality, and charity, and philanthropy-”

“You also taught them about your world, your experiences,” Rupert interrupted. “You exposed them to what it was to live a life where you’re constantly mistreated.”

“All MetaMorphs are mistreated, Rupert! They didn’t have to learn that!”

“I’m not talking about MetaMorphs, Nia.”

Then what the fuck was he talking abou-

…oh…

No.

No, that’s not-

“When we were still friends, and you didn’t hate my guts, you used to rant to me all the time about how difficult it was for a woman to be hired into a leadership role at that university,” he reminded me.

“I mean, it was. Shit, it still is.”

“And remember when you told me on your first day on campus, they assumed you were housekeeping?” he added.

I sucked my teeth. “They were doing that to be petty, Rupert. So what? That’s nothing new. That’s just my life.”

“You don’t think someone who is obsessed with you wouldn’t take that more seriously?”

This man was out of his mind.

“Rupert, you’re not going to convince me that my student went on a homicidal rampage as some social justice vigilante,” I snapped.

“That’s not what I’m saying, Nia. He didn’t kill on behalf of an entire group. He killed on behalf of you…”

I couldn’t take this any longer. Whatever guilt tactics he was trying to use on me wasn’t going to work. I was not going to be gaslit and manipulated, by the fucking Feds, nonetheless.

Besides, nothing he was saying was indicative that Noah’s crush led to him becoming a homicidal killer.

My students always sympathized with my plight as a Black woman in a world that glorified everything I wasn’t. I didn’t have to rant to them about it because they witnessed it for themselves.

And rather than harbor bitterness, I did what I did best: I taught.

I turned every discouraging situation into a hopeful lesson. Because that’s what it meant to be a hero. To take the high road and do the right thing.

I didn’t have the luxury of acting out on my anger like my male peers. Or expressing my rage. The world had issues with me the moment I was born. I had to put on a fucking facade, change my tone, my clothes, my voice just to make myself palatable.

And god, it was exhausting!

“You look so tired… I wanna take you away from all of this…”

Noah’s words abruptly infiltrated my mind.

He may have been a bit intimidating to other students, even faculty. But I always considered him to be a sweet soul.

He was just… lost. So many MetaMorphs his age got lost trying to find themselves.

I did…

Rupert interrupted my thoughts by sliding an open folder across the table.

“What is this?” I asked, reaching for it.

“...His victims.”

I quickly retracted my hands.

I didn’t want to touch it. To look at it.

I wanted to burn it.

I shook my head in protest. “I-I d-don’t-”

But Rupert was already leafing through the pages, and I swore I’d never hated his man more.

“Stop!” I snapped just as the folder fell open to a random page.

The lump in my throat hardened. I felt dizzy.

Adjusting the glasses on my face, I leaned forward just to see if I was seeing what I was really seeing.

The person on that page… confirmed my fear.

That I…I was Noah’s motive…

Noah… was a monster of my making.

I knew he was protective of me, but so were Dylan and Dreykov; yet, neither had resorted to… this…

“I don’t… I don’t understand… I can’t-” I tried to speak, but my emotions were erratic, and I stumbled over my words.

“Love can drive any man insane, Nia,” Rupert said as if it were his intent to drive this sharp-edged knife deeper into my heart. “And yet, Noah is not just any man. He’s the type who would do anything for you… isn’t he?”

…and suddenly… it clicked.

Noah was the type of man who would do anything for me… including…

My eyes widened in horror at the realization.

“You have to let me go!” I blurted before I could finish processing my thoughts. I shot up from the table, nearly stumbling to the ground. “You have to get me away from here!”

“What?” Rupert said, confused. “No, Nia. We told you. We can’t release you until you answer all of our-”

“You don’t understand!” I shouted. “He’s coming! He’s coming here! For me! You have to get me away from here!”

“We have every VFE squad on high alert in every corner of the city-”

“That won’t be enough, Rupert! Don’t you fucking get it?! You can’t control him! Not Noah! Not like this! Please-”

Even within my cuffs, my fingers began to tremble. I felt him before he had even shown his face. His energy was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. Immaculate… but terrifying.

The high-pitched tone of his laser cutting through the cement lasted but a few seconds before the stone exploded the walls of the building.

Blood was splattering my face before I had a chance to lay eyes on my mentee gone astray.

“All units to HQ! All units to HQ!” Rupert shouted into his mic. But I was convinced there weren’t enough units in the world to stop a man like Noah.

My body trembled with shallow breathing as I stood up and watched as the walls crumbled around me, revealing a vision that both terrified me and broke my heart.

“Noah…”

His name was a whisper on my lips, and yet he still heard me as his eyes landed on me.

“P-please… Noah, please don’t do this!” I begged, praying he’d hear the desperation in my voice.

“Nia, get down!” Rupert shouted as he grabbed my arm.

Rupert had only touched my arm for less than 2 seconds before a red laser beam as hot as the sun sliced through his arm, severing it in half.

Rupert released a bloodcurdling scream as I stared in shock at his severed hand still attached to my shoulder before it fell.

Rupert’s terrified eyes met mine and in that moment I feared for my old friend… as the laser returned.

It started from the top of his head and slowly made its way down his skull, splitting his face in half, then his neck, his torso, his waist. His skin peeling from the bone.

His body separated like mucus detaching from the membrane. The hit was so precise that his blood trickled rather than poured, and the skeleton embedded in each half of his severed body buckled into a pile of flesh on the ground.

My heart tightened and my stomach flipped as my memories of our time together were brutally desecrated by the haunting visual of his body splitting in two.

I may not have been fond of Rupert in the end… but I didn’t want him to die… not like this.

I tried to find the air in my lungs as I stared at the lump of blood that was his corpse before I saw Noah’s laser swing around me, cutting diagonally through the body of another VFE agent.

And then another… and another.

Until the floor beneath my feet had turned into a pool of blood and flesh, and I could barely hear my thoughts among the terrified haunting screams silenced by his violence.

Stumbling back against the wall, I looked up at him, his body barely visible through the tears that blurred my eyes.

“NOAH!” I screamed until my voice cracked. “STOP! PLEASE! STOP!”

Yet, the man who seemed to hang on my every word now ignored it as he focused on slaughtering the whole building.

Turning around, I ran through the destroyed door of the interrogation room until I was in the wide corridor. The ceiling was partly missing, and body parts scattered the decimated ground.

Lifting my cuffed hands, I ran over the dismembered body parts, looking for the room where they had placed Dreykov and Dylan.

Panic gripped my heart at the ominous sound of Noah looming above as the walls crumbled around me. His violence was random and abrupt, and I had no idea what he intended to do next.

As I ran down the corridor, I realized I was no longer the focus of the VFE agents. Their eyes and their weapons were trained on my Noah, and I was torn between trying to protect him and running for my life.

“Stop right there!” a VFE agent commanded me before his body exploded into chunks of flesh that flew against me. Panting breathlessly, I stared with a mixture of disgust and shock as I once again struggled to breathe.

As if my feet had their own survival instincts, they moved on their own, slipping on the blood-soaked hardwood floors, trying to avoid the massacre.

Another VFE agent bumped into me before their head exploded, and their brain matter splattered against my face.

I instinctively gagged, growing sick of the carnage that coated my body.

I wanted to vomit. To cry. To scream.

But I felt so numb. Moving on automatic just for the sake of survival. I needed to find Dylan and Dreykov.

Something grabbed my ankle, sending me careening to the ground before I turned around and spotted a VFE agent missing his entire bottom half.

“H-help…m-me…p-”

More blood splattered me as the rest of his body was mutilated into a puddle of gore that soaked my clothes and covered my glasses.

Slipping on the blood-soaked floor, I struggled to sit up. My body trembled uncontrollably as I felt his presence looming over me.

I knew I had to look up. But I didn’t want to.

I feared it. Admittedly… I feared him…

But I had to.

Because he was my… monster…

As I lifted my eyes, my entire body tensed with anxiety as I stared at a man who I thought I knew… yet… could no longer recognize.

His wild snow-white hair, which I loved to run my fingers through, was stained red with the blood of his victims. Those bright translucent blue eyes that often looked at me with what I thought was love… were completely empty.

Tears burned my eyes as my lips trembled. I wanted to say something to comfort him… to stop him… but I felt like a black hole was forming in my chest and swallowing me whole.

“Noah…” I exhaled, hoping he would push away the noise and hear me. “P-please-”

An uncomfortable silence lingered between us.

In seconds, he was kneeling in front of me. His sharp blue eyes were hypnotizing, and I felt my body go numb. And without saying a word, he picked me up in his arms before shooting into the sky.

~

Noah was well aware that I was sensitive to flight. If his altitude was too high, I immediately passed out.

But he knew that… and I assumed that was his intent.

By the time I finally woke up, I didn’t recognize where I was.

Sitting on a large bed in the middle of a very empty room, with a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall window that looked out into…

…nothing.

Just a sea of blue.

“Where the hell am I?”

I reached around until I felt my glasses on a small table by the bed and put them on my face.

While touching my face, I realized that I was no longer covered in blood or gore. I wasn’t even wearing the same clothes. Just a thin black negligee that barely covered my thighs.

I could still feel the lingering sensation of Noah’s touch against my thighs… my breasts… my face. I could smell him on me.

Noah had done this before.

Bathed me and dressed me while I was unconscious.

Initially, I thought it was kind and romantic, considering the circumstances.

…but now…

Crawling out of the bed, I approached the window, hoping I’d recognize where I was.

But… nothing.

When I found the door, I wasted no time leaving.

But I was even more confused as I stared down a large empty corridor.

“Noah?”

My voice echoed down the hallway, but I received no response.

The metal floor was cold beneath my feet as I tiptoed until I reached an open door to a room that looked almost exactly like the one I had left.

And there he was…

Standing in front of the large window with his hands behind his back. Still covered in the carnage of his victims…

I saw his ear twitch, and he immediately turned around before I had a chance to enter the room.

His translucent blue pupils expanded, and his cheeks flushed as he looked at me like he did the first time he told me…he was in love with me…

“...you’re awake…

His deep voice sounded soft and devoid of anger… which confused me.

I anxiously took a step back before he was in front of me, grabbing my face between his bloodstained hands and pressing his lips against mine with such aggression and fervor it started to hurt.

I nearly stumbled backward from the speed of his force before his hands were wrapping around my hips and grabbing my ass to lift me onto his waist.

“N-Noah. Noah,” I panicked, with my hands against his chest, pushing him back just so I could breathe.

Pulling back, he looked at me with an expression that made my blood run cold. It felt so… malevolent…

God, what the fuck happened to my sweet Noah?

“Y-you’re… you’re covered in blood,” I managed to get out, ensuring I didn’t say something that would set him off again.

Without hesitation, he set me back down on my feet before peeling his bloodied shirt over his head.

Staring at his toned muscular chest, I couldn’t believe that only days ago, I was enraptured by his touch.

Now… I recoiled at it…

“You know you don’t have to be afraid of me, right?”

His deep husky voice caught me off guard as I looked up at him.

He tilted his head, a curious look in his eyes as if he were assessing me, as he always did...

“I would never hurt you, baby… You know that, right, Nia?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but my words were stuck.

How did I miss the signs of this mental illness?

Grabbing my waist, he abruptly pulled me towards him until I was flushed against his body. His thumb tenderly caressed my cheek as he looked into my eyes as if he were trying to dissect my thoughts.

He looked at me, touched me, and held me as if it were any regular day. Like he hadn’t slaughtered so many people. As if he were expecting me to melt into his arms as I always did.

But as I looked at him… all I felt was fear.

“N-Noah,” I swallowed, finally finding my voice. “W-where… where’s Dylan… and Dreykov?”

His brows dramatically narrowed as if I had offended him, and his expression confused me. I had never seen him look so displeased at the mention of the two men I knew meant the world to him.

“Resting,” he said finally before peeling away from me. I heard him crack his knuckles as he strolled towards the window. “I’m giving them time to make their decision.”

I looked at him, startled. “What? You can’t give them an ultimatum, Noah-”

“Yes, I can,” he said casually. “It’s fine, baby. I know they’ll make the right decision…”

When the fuck did he become this person?!

“Noah! You can’t do this! You’re supposed to protect humans, not kill th-”

“They don’t deserve protection!” he shouted at me.

I jumped back as his eyes practically glowed with anger.

The walls shook with the ferocity behind his words as he looked at me with that same malevolence.

“Humans… are… inferior to us, Nia!” he said, approaching me. “They treat us like shit because they think we’re lesser than them! But we are superior to them! We are!”

I could barely control my body which seemed to be having a visceral reaction, and I didn’t know if it was out of fear… or a broken heart.

I didn’t understand where I went wrong. How did I miss these strong feelings he had towards humans?

Slight panic flickered in his eyes, I imagined, at the fear in mine. His eyes softened as he took my face between his hands again with a gentler touch.

“I’m doing this for you, baby. Don’t you get it? This is for you. I’m so fucking in love with you that sometimes it drives me insane. And I would do anything for you. Kill anyone for you. I would destroy this world and all other worlds over and over and fucking over again for you, baby. All for you.”

His violent declaration of love tore me to shreds. Every word felt like another knife to my chest. I felt like I was bleeding out.

“You… you were supposed to be a hero… Noah…” My voice sounded as shattered as my heart felt…

All the tenderness left his face as his grip tensed on my chin.

“...I don’t want to be a hero, Nia. I want to be yours.”

That familiar numbing sensation of shock imprisoned me as he pulled me into his arms.

And as he held me close… all I could think… was…

...how did it come to this…