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Afraid the end makes the main character come off a little gay...
When Man has Fallen; Chapter 4: Silver Vigil Two men approached him, hand guns aimed at his head. “Hey guys… Its me. You know me… I ain’t gonna do nothin.” “Shut the fuck up freak. Hands where we can see ‘em.” Silas slowly raised his blood covered hands, and the men each jabbed a single hand into his armpits, yanking him to his feet. “Hands on your head, freak.” Silas lowered his hands to his head, and they slapped a pair of handcuffs on him… He laughed… “If I wanted to get free, you really think these would stop me? Or those?” He motioned towards the guns, still aimed at his head. “Besides… You’re aiming at the back of my head… Where my hands are. You’re going to shoot through my hand bones first? Dumb asses.” They stared at him blankly, and then readjusted their aim to the back of his neck. “There ya go… Hope for you two yet!” He grinned at them. Turning away, he grimaced, thinking to himself. ‘Fuck. Caught. Again… Now what? Son of a bitch. I really hope I don’t have to fight my way out of here.’ They marched him down the street, towards a decrepit building, which, unknown to most, was a hidden entrance the real power bunker here in the fortress… The ‘Town Hall’ in the center of the fortress actually was nothing more than a symbolic front… and a place to put a Banquet Hall. It had absolutely no access to this bunker. ’God damnit. This makes it even harder. I’d really rather not kill anyone.’ Stepping into the building, one of the men held a hand out and placed it on a slightly discolored, water damaged patch of wall. A buzzer sounded, and the fireplace grated, the back sinking slowly into the ground, revealing a passageway. Halfway down the passageway, they passed a single guard, who, with a curious look at who their prisoner was, flicked a switch, which shone an ultraviolet light across the soldiers. The two men let go of Silas for a moment, rolling up their left sleeves to show the invisible tattoo of authority which was inscribed across the inside of their wrists. Mistake. Clenching his hands together, Silas lifted them up over his head and spun quickly in a circle, his double fist slamming into the head of one of the guards, whom crumpled. The second guard swung quickly, rapidly squeezing off two shots. Silas had already dodged out of the way. Dropping to one knee, he quickly swept the legs out from underneath the second guard, and catching the gun as it fell, stood and pointed it in the face of the bunker guard. Fear engulfed the eyes of the guard, as Silas stared coldly at him. “Unlock these fucking handcuffs.” The guard hardened, his sense of self-preservation taken over by his love of his friends and family. “No.” Silas groaned inwardly. He hated having to act like this. “Unlock them, or I’ll kill you, Joshua. And then, I’ll go to your house. How old is your daughter now? Four?” Even as he said the words, he hated himself. The guard was silent for a moment. “… She just turned four, yeah... Silas… I heard things, over the radio, freaky shit, I don’t know what to think… I just saw you take out two of our best men… I can’t. I can’t let you hurt anyone.” “If I wanted to hurt anyone, Joshua, you wouldn’t be breathing right now, and neither would be Dmitri or Red.” Joshua stared at him distrustingly. “What are you, man? Are you one of those, enhanced soldiers they tried making a few years back?” “Joshua… I can’t explain. I don’t know myself. Just... give me the keys, and you can say I knocked you out along with them… You can go home to your daughter, your dog, your fireplace.” Joshua stared at him, not speaking. Silas cocked the gun. “Or… I can kill you, if that’s what you want. Hit you over the head, smash your skull.. It would be quieter… Your little girl, will grow up without a father. No provider. Her mom’s dead, right? Where will she go? Oh… Right… She’ll go to the kitchen within a month, we’ll be eating the withered scraps of her starved flesh soon enough. What? You think that babysitter will take her in? Maybe… It’s a long shot. Probably not. I guarantee your daughter will end up in the banquet hall… All because you wouldn’t give me the fucking keys!” Joshua paled. Then, slowly, reaching behind him, pulled out a small set of keys, and taking a step to the side, began to unlock the shackles upon Silas’ wrists. As they snapped and fell the floor, Silas caught a look on Josh’s face. “Shit…” Joshua swung his hand up to his back, reaching for the sawed off shotgun strapped there, while at the same time, snapping his hand gun up to fire from his hip, he fired three quick bullets into Silas’ leg. Silas staggered a moment, falling into the wall, leaning, before regaining his balance. “You piece of shit! How dare you threaten my fucking family?! I’ll fucking kill you!” Bringing the shotgun to bear, Josh dropped the hand gun, swung the shot gun to his hip, and took a shot at Silas. The sound was deafening in the twenty yard stone corridor. Silas dropped to the ground and rolled to the side before jumping up again. As he landed on his feet, he deftly leaped to the side, pushing off the other wall, jumping towards Josh, he threw one leg in the air, catching Josh in the stomach, who doubled over. Silas brought the butt of his hand gun down on the back of Joshua’s skull. Josh hit the floor, face first… Blood pooling out from his nose. He groaned. Silas got down on one knee, and rolled Josh over, then propped him up against the wall. He held a hand in front of Josh’s face. “How many fingers am I holdin’ up?” “… Three? Two? No, no. Three.” He was correct. No concussion at least. “Josh… you idiot. I wasn’t going to hurt you or your family…. Shit man. I might have a monster inside me… But that doesn’t mean I am one...” ‘You’re not? Since when? You are a monster. I gave you that, remember?' He ignored the voice, continued talking. “I was gonna knock you out, but fuck. I just wanted to leave.’ Joshua stared at him through dazed eyes. “You… you threatened my daughter.” “Just wanted the keys bro.” “Oh.” “Just tell them I knocked you out and took the keys from you, ok? Tell them there was a skirmish and you don’t remember what happened. All right?” “Alright. Sure thing… Where am I?” Silas didn’t think that Josh had any idea what was going on anymore, or what had happened. A small blessing, as Lucas would have said. Touching the cross around his neck, Silas set about collecting the guns off the guards, strapping them onto his legs and back. Heading back towards the door, Silas again reached up to touch the small silver cross which adorned the simple rope necklace which he wore… Dec. 20, 2012 4:17 p.m. He came too groggily, staring up at a whitewashed ceiling. The smell of antiseptic filled his nostrils. A hospital? He could hear the noises of the injured all around, the groans of the confused, the agonized scream of the dying. “We have another Driller! I need a surgeon, NOW!” A yelling male nurse ran past, pulling a woman on a stretcher, writhing in pain, face down in the pillow, screaming in absolute agony. Silas stared at her… There was something clamped onto her back. It appeared to be an organic contraption of some sort, it looked almost like a squid… it was about 6-7 inches long, jet black, with four long splaying legs, that it had sunk into the woman’s flesh. Standing up slightly, its mouthpiece, if that’s what you could call it, was about 2 inches away from the skin on her spine. It was eating away at the center of her spine with six giant… hooks? That’s what they looked like anyway. They were stabbing into her flesh, yanking out pieces of skin and muscle tissue on the barbed ends, which it then pulled up into the innards of the creature with a hideous squelching noise. It was drilling a hole in her, about an inch wide. They stopped wheeling the stretcher, almost immediately in front of the table on which Silas had been tossed, as the surgeon ran up, a miniaturized rotating saw in hand, already whirring. Two men grabbed the conical structure that made up the body of the Driller, another four ran up and held down the struggling woman, keeping her tightly pressed against the stretcher, while a female nurse came up and turned the woman’s head to the side and spoke soothing words to her. Making sure not to move too quickly, the surgeon pressed the saw blade up to the joints of the legs on the Driller. With a sound like a circular saw cutting through a steel screw, he began to work through the finger-width leg of the creature. It took about thirty seconds… Thirty seconds with a saw that could cut through a femur in twenty two. The Driller, made no pause, gave no indication that it was hurt, disabled, anything, even as a thick yellow liquid poured all over the place, across the woman, down the stretcher legs, and began to pool upon the floor. Silas couldn’t believe that much had come out of such a small creature. Another nurse ran up, nodded to the four who were holding the woman down, who pressed even harder down upon her, and then, the new nurse grabbed a hold of the now severed leg and yanked. The woman screamed in renewed agony as the leg tore from her flesh. The nurse tossed the table on the leg with Silas. Silas glanced down at it. It looked like a giant cockroach leg. With three segments, the first portion and the last portion were covered in iron hard bristles, to which flesh still clung. Silas assumed this was for gripping the victim while it consumed them. Another leg clattered down, landing in the last one’s goo, splashing some up onto Silas’ face. He grimaced. It burned slightly, and stunk. He wiped it off with the back of his hand, and then wiped it on his shorts. The two nurses holding onto the main structure began to pull, yank on the creature, but to no effect. Even with only two legs, it was holding fast, and with two grown men pulling on it, not budging in the slightest. The hooks seemed to be plunging deeper, with cracking noises now among the tearing, pieces of bloodied bone coming up among the red flesh. The woman was no longer screaming. Rather, her breath was coming as short gasps, and her back was arching, even under the pressure being exerted from the men… Suddenly, the hooks stopped, and all of them pulled up into the belly of the creature. The woman fell still as well. “Whats happening?” “I don’t know.” Remarked the surgeon. “We’ve always managed to remove them before they got too far into the drilling process… I guess… It’s full.” A shudder went through the people nearby. A clicking noise emanated from the creature. Everyone turned their head slowly to look at it. Suddenly, the maw on its bottom, from which the hooks came, opened wider. A feeling of dread filled the room, as all of them stood frozen, knowing they should do something… But dying to know what was going to happen. All six hooks exploded downwards, something dark, many legged and tentacled contained in their middle, cradled by them, they plowed into the woman’s spine, delivering their hideous package with an audible crunch. She screamed. It was the most horrific sound, anyone could ever hear. She screamed so loud that everyone in the room shrank away, couldn’t bear to look at her, dug their ears into their shoulders. As she screamed, the tower on her back slowly toppled, the legs releasing, it fell to the floor. She spasmed so strongly that all four men were thrown back, and she toppled from the stretcher, throwing herself about, foaming at the mouth, screaming, her mouth forming half intelligible words, blood leaking from her back… She rolled into the table, knocking it sideways, causing Silas to fall. Looking into her eyes, he saw that they were rolled back into her head, he could swear that he saw her optic nerve, pressing up just above her lower lid. A rattle escaped her lips, a beg to kill her, and then, she shuddered… stopped… took a deep breath… and fell into unconsciousness. Silas scrambled to his feet, running for the door, knocking over equipment and nurses alike. The images were burned into his mind, wouldn’t get out, he kept playing it over and over in his head, he could see nothing else. Suddenly, someone stepped out in front of him, hands outstretched, and he ran straight into them, losing his balance, falling back, landing flat on his rump. Reaching down a hand, Lucas stood over him, his face grave. Taking the proffered hand, Silas leaped to his feet, questions leaving his mouth even before he landed. “What the bloody hell is going on dude? How the fuck did I get here?” Lucas stared at him silently, biting his lower lip, not answering right away. He looked like a man weighing his next words with his life. “… I don’t know, Silas. The world outside those doors is in chaos. There’s rioting in the streets, shops being looted, people killing one another over canned goods in the stores… The police have their hands full, and the army is here as well. This is one of the only buildings left with power, every where is dark, a lot of places are burning.” He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling forcefully. “Millions are dead. The rats got forced up into the streets by the flood. Gators got washed into the city… If you aren’t killed by one of your friends, you’re likely to get attacked by something else.” Silas stared at him. “How did I end up here?” “You fainted. You hit your head after the…” He trailed off. “Well you know… But yeah, you hit your head on something, and when you saw the blood, you passed out.” He grinned suddenly. “Never knew you were so squeamish tough guy!” Silas scowled at him. “It’s not funny, asshole.” He cracked a small grin himself. “Ok, well maybe it is a little.” He gazed around the room, at all the injured and bleeding. “However… It looks like I may have to get over that pretty quickly, eh?” “Yeah, I guess.” The stood awkwardly in silence. “Well… I wanna step out and take a look around…” Silas began to push his way past Lucas, who again, put an arm out in front of him, blocking his way. “No. You don’t. “ Silas glared at him angrily. “I have every right to go out there if I want too!” “…yeah. I guess so. But dude… There’s these other things… They look like a cross between a cockroach and a squid. They’re fucking creepy…. They ju-“ Silas held up a hand, silencing him. “I know what they are, and what they do… Drillers, they called them, I think... I just saw what they did to a woman back there." Lucas chewed his lip even harder, blood leaking down. Silas stared at it, his stomach turning, unable to look away… He was fascinated by the way the light gleamed so cleanly off the single drop. Lucas opened his mouth, and the moment passed. “One got Emily.” Silas stared at him. “One… oh shit. Dude.” “I left her at the apartment, when I brought you here, she was too scared to leave… and you needed medical attention. After signing you in, I then when get back to get her… It took a while, but I finally coaxed her out of the apartment, told her she needed to come here too, I was afraid she was in shock. We’d gotten about halfway, we were down by the Maple Street bus station, when a group of them came out of that alleyway there… You know the one,” Silas nodded, “but yeah, a group of like ten came just flying out of there… One jumped, hit her in the back, took her down… I tried to help her up, but she couldn’t, and the others were coming… And I ran. I ran Silas. Like a coward. I left the woman I love to die, because I was scared.” Silas didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent. “I went back about 20 minutes later, but she was gone… there was no sign of her.” Silas still couldn’t find words to utter aloud. Lucas misinterpreted the silence, and grabbed Silas by the shoulders, shaking him. “There was nothing I could do, do you hear me? Nothing! Nothing at all, nothing nothing nothing! We were walking along, and then bam, these things, and then bam, she goes down, I didn’t know what to do, I was so scared…” He began to cry, Silas felt him go weak in the knees as his weight slid down a bit, and reaching out, embraced his friend in a hug. Lucas broke down, sobbing into his shoulder. “So scared… So scared… And now she’s gone. Gone, gone… Gone forever.” Silas cradled him, running a hand through his friend’s hair, comforting him, thinking about what he should say. “I don’t really know what to say, man… That’s not the kind of pain that will ever go away. Trust me, I know-w.” Her face flashed through his mind, and his voice caught. “But, I knew Emily… And knowing her, I know that she forgives you, Luke. She loved you, with all she had, and you made her happier than she ever dreamed, coming from where she did. She understands, and she loves you still.” Lucas choked a little, tears streaming down onto Silas shoulder, and then wrapped his arms about him. They stood a moment, then pulled apart. Lucas heaved another sob, and then inhaled sharply, holding the air, stifling the tears. After about five seconds, he exhaled, sighing. Reaching up, he put his hands behind his neck, and began untying the woven hemp necklace which he always wore, the one that carried the silver cross he always wore, that he worried at with his fingers. He held it a moment, out at arms length, dangling it a moment, looking at it. Then he turned, speaking softly. “Emily gave this to me, about four years ago… Around the time we met. I told her I wouldn’t take it off, til the day I die… I just died with her. I want you to have it, Silas.” “Are you sure?” “Yes… I’m sure. It felt like an iron weight tied about my neck, the whole way here, and while I sat here, waiting for you to wake up.” Silently, Silas reached out a hand, and Lucas dropped it. It shone slightly, as it fell the short distance into Silas hand. Taking it in both hands, he reached up, and tied it in a simple knot behind his neck. Lowering his hands once more, he paused, one hand resting on the small silver cross, rubbing the worn metal softly between his forefinger and his thumb. He looked up at Luke. “Thanks.”
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