Chapter 32: Surrounded
Shinning upon the earth with all it’s glory was the silver moon, and at an eerie distance, the Veiled world glowed. This combination made night time nearly as bright as day.
By now the strong and willing to continue existing had adapted to these changes, it was the twenty first day after all. However they were a few exceptions, those who ran on luck.
Squatting at the very edge of the building’s roof was a handsome muscular boy of seventeen, his bloody face lay grim as thoughts ran through his mind.
His eyes were wide open, his iris refusing to shudder, his eyelids refusing to blink. With a dagger in his hands and the cool breeze blowing across his face, he watched.
Sounds of laughter and chattering echoed through the cold night, causing the lose of serenity. The boy clenched his fists gritting his teeth in annoyance.
"Marcus..., Marcus, Your awfully close to the edge, come sit close to the fire." A female voice called out, but he didn’t reply. After some moments he rose and turned away from the edge.
Directly in front of him was a girl about his age looking at him with deep sorrow in her eyes. "You don’t have to worry about me Martha, I was just thinking of a way to get us all out." He said smiling for the first time as he touched her face.
At a little distance was a campfire and around it were seven people, in other words Marcus’s current responsibility. Or so he told himself.
Sitting at the fire, he looked at the people around him and sighed. "I am not sure these people have any intention to leave."
Hearing this everyone in the group lowered their heads. "I told myself I wouldn’t break your spirits, but it would cause more harm to leave you all in the dark." He began in a sorrowful tone.
"Tomorrow makes it the sixth day after we sent off Tim and Sera, no news, our food supplies have been gone two days ago. The bitting cold at night time and uncertainty of survival under an unveiled sun.
Our chances have been reduced to nearly ten percent if we remain here, lower if we confront those people." He cough at the last sentence and looked at all the members of his cohort.
"At this stage all we can hope for is a miracle. Sending Tim and Sera who had the highest chances of survival amongst us was our only hope..., And now we can’t afford another." Marcus said ending his analysis.
Tucking his head behind his knees, he became introspective as for once he was left totally stranded. If not for the awakened physiology of his cohort, they would have all been dead by now.
The freezing night colds reached subzero temperatures, without proper clothing most of them should have died from hypothermia. Coupled with hours of intense hunger, the nights were hell.
Day time was it’s own horror altogether, with high temperatures despite cloud cover. The cohort spent hours praying the cover doesn’t break leaving them at the mercy of the sun.
Although the cohort hard faced devastating enemies for their capabilities, the psychological torment of nature threatened to break them.
A sort of torment not even the undead and abominations were able to give them. Marcus rose and walked a few paces away from the fire and lay down on his side.
His hands were clenched on the zipper of this torn jacket, zipping and unzipping it. His eyes meanwhile stared at the stars above them.
Moments later he closed his eyes, sleepiness almost taking over, however, everything went silent. The benign wind stopped howling in his ears, the crackling flames, even the abrasive distant cricket sounds ceased.
At first Marcus enjoyed it, the sleep crept in faster, the cold felt more distance, his body was simply at temporal peace. However in the coming moments terror shook his bones.
He soon realized, those sounds weren’t gone because they had ceased existing, they were gone because he couldn’t hear anything. Fighting his tiredness, he groggily rose shaking his head.
Not even moments after he sat up, Martha fell knees to the ground. Marcus rushed to her, his hands touching her strangely wet back. He wasn’t even focusing on her but the massive shadow circling the roof of the building.
In other words, them.
A few paces away, their teammates were shakingly gripping on their weapons. Martha coughed up blood, her face twisted in pain.
Looking at his focused gaze she tried saying something but no sound came from her mouth. Her lips moved but no vibration came from her vocal cords.
They all couldn’t hear anything
Rising from the ground, Martha stood besides Marcus who’s entire focus rested on the five six meter create circling them. In a single swoop it descended directly at the cohort.
Realizing this Marcus closed the distance, nearly 6x faster than what the peak human could move at, he wasn’t still fast enough. In moments the creature flew past the bonfire carrying a huge gale which blew it out.
The gale continued towards Marcus and Martha while the creature now identified as a huge mutant owl headed towards a girl. She held her longsword before her knowing she couldn’t evade the attack.
Inches away from being grabbed by the owl’s talons, the girl disappeared, leaving the owl to fly of the roof and ascend back to the clouds.
’Good job Allen’ Marcus gave a thumbs up to the boy who had helped teleport their teammate away from the owl. The boy who was still holding the girl in his arms dropped her and waved the gesture off.
Looking back at the shadow, Marcus, Martha, Allen and the girl, Sofia ran back to the rest. Marcus pointed to himself, his teammates and made a circle with his arms.
Those looking at him understood and stood around him in a circle. Others caught up later and soon all nine members of the supply cohort were standing in a circle, prepared to fend off the silent owl.
Plunging down from the clouds the owl flew towards Allen. ’ It’s intelligent. ’ Upon realizing this Marcus tightened his grip on his dagger and leaped towards the owl and Allen.
He held up his dagger receiving all impact from the owl’s balled claw, In a instant he was sent across the roof. Tumbling of the ground a faint green light shown across his face and a hand caught him by the hood of his jacket.
Allen looked at him with a distant expression and effortless threw him back at the owl. Marcus dazed at first stabilized himself mid air, his cohort was already engaging the now standing owl.
Besides him was an airborne Allen with a purple glowing energy blade. The landed at the same time and burst forward moving at near similar speeds with Marcus faster.
’With Allen, Martha, Obi, and Zendaya still moving, we can fend this thing off.’ Staring at a dark skinned boy and girl in a gothic aesthetic.
Considering the lack of communication, their survival lay at ten percent. Three weeks into the apocalypse and their only strategy for this sort of scenario was throwing you most powerful attack, a plan Marcus dreaded.
Since he had no other choice at the moment, the best he could afford was keeping his cohort alive. Once he was twenty meters away from the owl, he threw his dagger at it.
Turning into a disk of light, the dagger spun through the air, moving like a boomerang which was shot from a cannon. The owl lost an eye to this attack.
Went it through it was over, Marcus called back the dagger before it could lose momentum. Once again the owl was struck by an attack it never saw coming. It’s neck area was cut badly.
Stunned by the pain, Martha hurdled a javelin at it striking the chest cleanly, the rest saw the opportunity to go for thier attacks. But the owl raised it’s head and let out a horrifying screech.
Every one present shook violently, dropping to the ground in painful spasms. Marcus dropped to his knees and palms retching blood. His nose and ears were bleeding and the only thing he could hear was pure static.
That was only the beginning
