David was just starting to get into his stroll on the old trail. Tonight the woods seemed exceptionally clear. David assumed it was due to the bright moonlight from the full moon. Regardless, he could clearly see the trail as he hiked along the path.
After a few minutes of walking, David started to realize that he felt very comfortable. It wasn't a relaxing on the beach sort of comfortable either. It was similar to the comfort he felt when his mother hugged him earlier today. He felt a lifting of some of his life's burdens and worries as if someone was looking out for him.
"Maybe this is the "help" she mentioned," David couldn't keep himself from thinking.
After experiencing the feeling for the first 20 minutes of walking, David had the urge to just sit down and enjoy the night. He remembered that there was a nice rock outcropping a bit further down the trail. He always recalled this rock formation because it would reflect the moonlight nicely and was wonderful to lay down on for a break.
In a few minutes time, David saw the rock outcrop ahead and started to walk off the path to go relax. David laid down on the rock and closed his eyes. He felt wonderful relaxing on the rock at night. It was if he had become a part of the night. Slowly, he began to focus on the exceptional feeling.
David started to sense the hustle and bustle of the night time animals in the woods. He could feel everything around him in the darkness of the night. An owl's mostly silent wings beating the air as it chased down a mouse. The opposum digging into the nest of some ground dwelling bird to have a meal. The family of racoons moving like a pack along a creekbed to scavange for some food. A snake sitting motionlessly at the base of a tree waiting on something to walk by it. The predators were out in full force tonight. David enjoyed laying there watching the show through his special mental sense.
As David laid there relaxing, listening and watching the creatures of the night, he started to feel himself drift off and become a part of the night. He could feel everything going on around him as if he was some sort of omnipresent being. Nothing escaped this notice. If someone were to be able to see David in the darkness, all they would see is darkness with two starry eyes.
As he was sitting there feeling the best that he had ever felt in his life, an odd sound of static caught David off guard. He heard what appeared to be a radio break the natural sounds of the night. Sure enough, David could feel them moving through the night. There were a group of men spread out and walking through the woods as they just entered David's realm of perception.
These men seemed like soldiers and were decked out in various equipment from swords and bows to guns and grenades. Focusing in on the men, David began to get some clear information. The group of around 15 men were around 1,000 yards away and were slowly walking through the woods towards his family home.
David couldn't help but feel that something really bad was going to happen and worried for his parents. Just when he was about to stand up and run back to the house, he clearly heard one of the men speak.
"Grover, how long until the arrival time?", one man carrying a long sword on his back asked.
"The two cars that left the Carmine Estate should be here in around 3 hours. They should arrive just around midnight. We need to hurry to get in place for the ambush.", another man responded.
"What are we supposed to do with the people in the house?," the same guy asked.
"The boss said to leave no witnesses, so they can be killed once we are done with capturing Karine Carmine and killing the guards. We'll just burn the place to the ground before we leave," the other man responded.
David's mind went blank and he seemed to revert back into some sort of primal mindset. Someone was just casually talking about killing him and his parents. David felt an urge to violence build within him at the thought. He would not let someone hurt his mother and father. He would not allow it.
David slowly stood up on the rock and knew what he was going to do. The starry light in David's eyes began to shift from the light of stars to a dull red color of dried blood. He was going to stop these men from hurting his family at all costs. There was no thought of his own safety. He was the night. He was retribution. He was violent battle. David ran off into the dark woods in the direction of the group of men. If anyone was around, they would have been surprised. David shadow like form did not make a single noise when he moved off into the darkness. He had become a part of the night.
_______________________________________
After several minutes of stalking his prey, David finally figure out what the people's plans were for their attack. The group of 15 was going to split into five groups of three. These men weren't the strongest. By David's guess they were a mix of Class B warriors and mages. Two of the members seemed to be stronger than the rest. One older guy named Grover and one young mage named Winston seemed to be stronger than the rest. These two guys were probably Class A's.
Per what David could make from their discussions, two groups would be responsible for attacking Karine and her three personal guards. The other three groups would handle the other car full of other guards that had accompanied Karine on her trip. Apparently, she was on her way to see David which Kind of took him by surprise.
David had about two and a half hours until Karine's group arrived and all hell broke loose. After thinking the situation over, David finally decided upon a plan. He would try to kill them all for coming into the property...he didn't care about their strength...he had strength of his own.....and after all....Tonight was a night for predators in the dark.
——————————-
David had fought large groups of guards in his favorite repeater dream in the past. He had some confidence that he could at least take the majority of them down, so that Karine's group could easilily handle the rest. That way, his parents would be safe even if something happened to him.
Since he could feel himself blended into the darkness of night, David was going to do a modified version of the hit and run tactic that he enjoyed so much in his dreams. He would attack quick and aim for the most damage right away. Thankfully, the groups of assailants had spread out into different locations around the house and driveway. To David's delight, some of the men had even started to sleep to rest up for upcoming battle.
"Sleep", David thought as a grin emerged on his face, "that was very stupid on their part."
David walked back to safe distance away from the group of attackers. Finding a cozy spot in the crook of a tree, David sat down and snuggled into the crevice. His presence disappeared from the world as he closed his eyes and willed himself into the darkness of his dream realm. He was instantly floating in the darkness of his own personal dream space. With a quick focus, lights began to pop up all round him.
He could sense four lights in the nearby area and two lights off in the distance. Realizing who the two lights belonged to, David was thankful his parents were still okay and sleeping. His dark world seemed a bit different than in the past...or it would be safe to say that David saw it differently. He had an instinctual knowledge of how to use the space now, so the darkness felt like home.
"Some more of her help," David thought in recognition.
With this information in mind, He made his way over to his parent's dream orbs. He concentrated on the two orbs and reached to touch them. Somehow he knew that he could influence his parents through their dreams. With a few injections of his will, they would not wake up unless he wanted it to happen. He didn't want them to wake up from any noise related to the fighting. He wanted them to enjoy their sleep. He didn't want them to know about this Other world.
After a quick thought, he began to focus in on the other four dreams. He only had a little bit of time. Two of the lights were floating very close to one another. David realized that one group of three actually had two members that were asleep. This is perfect.
David floated over to the two glowing spheres. He wanted these people dead. Not just a normal death. A very violent death. But he had to be quick. Looking into one of the orbs, David saw a man sitting around a campfire with three other men. It looked like a few buddies on a camp out. It looked like it was a nice dream.
David instantly knew what he wanted to do. Reliving the dream where he first attached that man in the woods, David turned into a beast to massacre the group of men. When David felt that the originator of the dream was trying to wake up, he willed the dream to stay in place. The man couldn't resist David and was trapped within his own dream. David violently tore the man's body to pieces as the man screamed in pain and misery. As if David could feel it, the man's life was slowly fading away.
As the man was died, David reappeared in his dream world and felt a the man's residual mental strength wash over his body. It felt very nice to kill those who plotted against him....and it also made him stronger.
David then drifted over to the other dream orb. Peaking inside, David saw something that was unspeakable. This man was abusing children. Unending rage filled David at the sight and he reached up to grab the dream orb. Unlike before, he did not appear in the dream. His hands gripped the outside of the orb as it started to crush in David's grip. As the orb broke and shattered, David felt another surge enter his body. He had destroyed the man's soul. This time the power increase wasn't just a relaxing comfort like the others. It was if his soul's essence was strengthened. It had a much greater impact on his own mental strength and he could feel his mental power rising.
After coming back to his senses, David quickly proceeded to take out his retribution on the other two orbs. It only took around 20 minutes for David to kill four of the men that were planning to attack his house.
Now was time for the actual combat. He needed to move quickly before those still alive realized that they had already lost four teammates. David exited his dreamworld and quickly opened his starry eyes to sense the groups near him. Sure enough, one group had two corpses laying on the ground and one man standing a few yards away without any clue that his two team members had just been killed.
David quietly blended into the night and began to move towards the lone living team member. Slipping his knife out of its sheath on his side, David silently appeared directly behind the man. Before he could realize it, the last team member fell to the ground with a knife cut across his neck and a hand crushing his mouth into silence. David was thankful that he had practiced a few assassinations during the party dream, so he knew the basics of how to conduct himself. The key to assassinations is being quick and quiet.
"One group down, four more to go," David thought as he walked toward the next group.
David was surprised how easy killing had become to him. Honestly, this night was the first time that he had killed someone in real life. In the dream world, he had killed hundreds, but he never imagined that he would actually need to apply those skills to hunt people in the real world. Letting his thoughts distract him only for a second, David quickly went forward and dispatched the two groups that only had two members remaining. He used the same strategy for both groups.
He tied his knife to his walking stick to form a spear. David infiltrated the group in the location of the one dead member. Each group of three had positioned themselves in a triangle shape formation with a man at each of the corners. They expected that one of the team members would alert the other so no one could sneak up behind them. That formation didn't work if one of the team members was already dead and David easily get near them in the darkness.
Using the night, David would appear behind one man while thrusting his spear at the other man's throat. When the first man reacted to getting stabbed in the neck, David would drop the spear and get the other man in a headlock. It was pretty effective. After the man in the headlock passed out, David would go grab his spear and finish the pair off. After killing both pairs of remainders in this fashion, he was very pleased with the way the plan succeeded.
"Only 6 men left," David thought as he headed toward the two remaining groups.
The problem with the six men that were grouped together is that their formation was solid. He could kill one of the six on the first strike but would be quickly surrounded by the other five. If David wanted to fight head on, he would have to fight at least 5 at once.
Standing in the dark, David was thinking over possible scenarios. He knew that these 6 men were the strongest of the bunch. Their first task was to capture Karine and that required strong men to handle her guards. David smiled as he remembered his own rule of fighting stronger opponents. Injure them first. His parents had been locked in sleep. And he had 9 bodies that were full of weapons already piled up behind him.
David made his way back to the bodies he had left behind. After a few minutes of scavenging the corpses, David found an assortment of goodies. A few remote explosives, a handful of knives, some incendiary grenades, one standard pistol, two swords, and an assortment of other weapons. David wasn't much of a sword or gun fighter. He liked knives and close combat. Thinking over his possibilities, David finally smiled as he decided a plan. He took up one of the swords and started walking toward the pile of bodies.
——————————————-
The six guards were standing in formation at the ready. These guys were definitely better trained and more experienced than the other three groups. David smiled at the chaos and destruction that he was about to cause.
With a strong toss a bundle flew out of David's hands towards the group of 6. Immediately, one group of three split from the other to pursue the direction the where the bundle had been thrown from. David could only laugh to himself. There was no way they could find him at night. Additionally, the other group of three fell back and surrounded the bundle that was thrown their way.
"Shit, fall back. This is someone trying to split us us up. Stay in a five star formation," the voice that belonged to Grover said as he saw what the bundle contained. Three heads bound together with cord were sitting on the ground. The three men that had just started to run off returned immediately.
In less than two seconds, the six men reunited quickly setup perimeter to ward off any incoming attacks. They were quick. Two of the men pulled amulets out that brought light out in the darkness. Two had swords drawn. Grover had pulled a crossbow off of his back.
"Winston, go see check out that bundle," Grover said, "Who did they get?"
Winston walked over to the package of heads and bent down to see which group it was that got killed. He rolled over the bundle and saw what was present.
"My god," Winston said, "They have no eyelids." If they were just heads, it wouldn't have affected the him as much. But someone had actually took the time to remove the eyelids of each person. It was like the heads were being forced to stare at those still alive. Fear went through every one of the men present at Winston's sentence.
"Every group," Winston muttered in shock as he examined the faces on the heads.
"What?" Grover said.
"All of them are dead. And you are next," came a staticky voice that came over Grover's radio.
Then a boom that shook the entire forest sounded as the bundle of heads exploded.
David had put one of the remote bombs that was probably intended to be used on the the Carmine's cars at the center of the head bundle. He had also emptied every one of the gun's bullets and crammed them into the mouths, noses and other cavities of the heads.
The explosion was wicked as pieces and parts of the men's bodies flew in all directions. The light from the amulets disappeared as they were destroyed and David had no worries as he walked up to the mess that he had caused. Four of the six men were directly killed by the blast. At least, David assumed Winston was killed. There wasn't a body left as he was closest to the blast. The other three dead men were a mangled mess of meat, but you could still make out human forms. Grover and one other guy remained.
David walked over to Grover and squatted down next to his crippled body. A cough rang through the woods as the other man seemed to be on his last breath.
"Looks like he caught a few pieces of crap in the lungs. You are about to be the last one left," David said to Grover as he looked down with his dull red glowing eyes.
Grover was scared and in a whole lot of pain. One of his arms was gone below the elbow. Pieces of something were imbedded throughout his body and he could barely see.
Choking on his blood, Grover asked David, "Who are you?"
"I'm David. And you shouldn't have threatened my family," he replied as he laughed then swung his fist to hit Grover on the side of the head. Grover passed out instantly. David had to hurry because he didn't think this guy would live that long.
David sat down among the massive amount of blood and body parts and closed his eyes. He immediately was within the dark space and could now see three lights glowing. His parents two lights were still doing well but the one closest to him would fade slightly every few seconds. David reached over and touched the orb. He squeezed the orb causing it to burst. Instead of absorbing the damaged orb pieces, David understood that he could try to pluck certain information out of the fragments. The dream orbs were a critical part of a persons soul. If it was destroyed, he could catch glimpses at what that person's life was like. David had wanted to try this to find out more information. Now he knew who was behind this whole incident. They were not going to like what David had planned for them.
Now, all of the intruders were dead. The entire team of 15. All David had to do was clean up the mess. He had to dispose of the evidence. Actually, it wasn't hard to get rid of bodies when most of them were already destroyed in an explosion. Knowing he only had an hour and a half until Karine arrived, David got to work. After 45 minutes of work, the area was pretty much back to normal except for a slight depression in the ground were the explosion occurred. The area wasn't perfect but David knew that natural processes would soon wash away all remaining signs of a battle. He had piled up the corpses at the location of the bomb. Then he had tossed the three incendiary grenades onto the pile of bodies. Under the intense burn of the grenades, the bodies were reduced to a pile of ash in no time at all. David figured that he would revisit the site tomorrow for a view during the day. Now was time to get himself cleaned up for Karine's visit.
———————————————-
She had thought that by ignoring David that he would be less threatened by life in the Other. She was absolutely heartbroken by his misunderstanding when she had heard David's voicemail. She panicked when she had heard the emotion in David's voice. She was worried about him. She tried to call him but no one would answer the phone. When she had spoken with her dad that evening, he had mentioned that David had performed exceptionally well on the test and that they were coming up with a plan to get him trained for use by the company. This information had upset her even more since she knew that there was no way she could keep David away from the strife of the Other anymore.
In desperation, she had called David's mother to see if she had heard from him. Kathy Knox had relayed to Karine that David was home and was moping about because of her. Karine did a quick explanation that it was a misunderstanding and that she was coming over immediately. She had asked Kathy to not tell David because she didn't want him to run off again.
Now, Karine and her guards were making their way down the driveway to David's parents' house. She had been an absolute mess for the entire drive to David's parents house.
Quietly exiting the car, she could see the dark silhouette of a man standing on the side of the front porch in the dark. For a second, the entire group exiting the cars paused at the sight. Several of the guards went on alert. Stepping out of the shadows and into the porch light, the crew saw a pale looking David emotionlessly looking out over the yard.
"Be quiet," David whispered, "Don't wake up my parents."
Karine ran up to David and gave him the tightest hug he had ever been given. She was crying, but David didn't hug back.
"Why are you here?," David questioned with a slight aggravation in his voice.
"I'm here for you," Karine said with her eyes facing the ground.
"I thought if you weren't involved with me then you might have a better chance for survival in this world," Karine continued, "I was wrong. My father told me that you tested high on the talent test. That means that you will definitely be placed in danger regardless of me."
"I have had a large number of friends and relatives die over the years. My mother died. I have had guards that I have know since I was a child die in front of my eyes. Others just go missing one day and never return. I have seen entire families threatened as a tool to get those that love them to change sides."
"Our world is deadly and being involved with me increases the risk to your life....and the lives of your loved ones."
"I am sorry for the way I acted," she said crying, "I'm not entirely sure what to do, but I really care for you and do not want you hurt again."
"Will you forgive me?", Karine said while still holding David in an tight hug.
David stood there trying to process her entire speech. He reached his arms up and hugged Karine back.
"Sure, I forgive you," David said, "but can we go ahead and go inside. Having all this discussion in the dark, on the porch, and with all your guards staring at me....it's kind of weird."
David and Karine went inside. By the time they finished talking, Another hour had passed. It was 1:00 a.m. in the morning.
Since they had the room available, David had arranged to let everyone spend the night and leave first thing in the morning. The guards seemed a little hesitant but David had convinced them when he showed them the bunk house.
Since David's dad worked for the forestry group, it wouldn't be uncommon for crews to need a place to stay when working in the area. The Knox family had a little barn off to the side that was partially converted to a small living quarters for the crews. It wasn't anything fancy but it was more than acceptable.
David offered Karine and the one female guard an extra room in the house. It was his sister's old room that now had two beds in it as a guest room.
When Karine asked about David's sister, he simply told her, "She's dead." He didn't want to talk about it.
By 2:00 a.m, everyone was settled in and starting to get rest. Of course, two guards stayed on watch duty to make sure everything secure.
David stood at the door to the bedroom with Karine in front of him. They had both went through a lot recently. David had been infatuated with this woman since he had first seen her smile. Karine had taken a liking to David when she saw how passionately he described the night.
"My dad told me that you are exceptionally talented in the darkness element....You know why I had originally wanted to do a creatures of the night exhibit at the zoo?", Karine said while standing in front of David.
"My mom was also very talented in the darkness element. She would take me out for walks in the night when I was a little girl. My
Main talent is ice element like my dad but I managed to inherit a very small amount darkness talent from my mom. It isn't enough to be effective in use but it was enough that my mom wanted to help me walk in the dark at night."
Karine was crying because of the memories. David could feel the strings in his heart being pulled.
Raising his hand he caressed Karine's check and made her look at him. Then he leaned in for a kiss. The couples lips met for the first time and locked together for a minute.
"That was nice," Karine said as she backed shyly away to the guest bedroom door.
"Yes, it was" David responded before smiling at Karine and saying, "Goodnight."
Gonna try to world build a bit more after the home visit story is done. The novel is currently taking place on modern day Earth in the US with a few fictional cities/towns.....don't think that I have referenced that in the story anywhere.
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