章節 27: [XXVII] - Angel of Death
Before I could realize what happened, I was already falling through the still air in the hall.
As quick as any object my weight would have fallen to the floor, I will as well.
…But I couldn't just be inert like that, frozen by the fear of sudden death by hitting the ground. A situation happening so quick, no mere human would react fast enough to save their life from a miserable end.
Yet in the middle of the milliseconds happening, something stung my heart, as if a bullet was shot right through it. But there was no gunshot, or anything else, that would have caused it.
It was just this unknown will inside of me, screaming in my mind, that I should take every chance in surviving all of this.
An instinct told me to open my eyes and focus. That everything will be alright only if I listen to the voice of my heart.
The sound of my deep breath twitched in my ears.
…
I tilted in the air, and landed on the hard concrete with my both feet. Feeling hard cracks inside of my legs, I was honestly surprised, no big pain came as a result of me falling around 10 meters.
But the physical pain was just like a grain of sand in comparison to the arising darkness swirling in my mind.
This being the closest to my death I ever was…
They say one's entire life as a movie is being shown seconds before death, when you already know there is no turning back from the fact.
But in my case, I felt like always.
My mind was hollow and empty. Maybe because the unconscious part of me already knew I won't die yet. Yet still…
Every minute alive in this cursed metropolis was making my heart more and more wretched, from all of the demise I've experienced.
After landing, I just fell forwards to the ground on my knees, not because my body was feeling weak. I was mentally tired from all of this shit happening around me, everyone wanting to kill me. I've had enough. Enough already. I wish to rest. Give me a damn rest.
"Hey?! You alive down there?!" — An inquisitive and burning voice echoed from above.
As I raised my head to search the person whose voice was reaching me, I saw a smirking face of a blonde-haired man, sticking just above the edge.
"Huuuuh. You're a nice one. What school taught you that?"
I slowly stood up, wobbling to the sides, giving this man the most hateful glare I could send. Clenching my teeth so strongly my jaws were burning with pain, my hands were shaking, ready to grip this man's neck and snap it in half.
"What… The hell do you want from me?"
"I wanted to deal with you the easy way. But it seems it won't be as boring as I thought!"
As he yelled out those last words with passion, the man stepped back a few steps, disappearing from my view.
Yet the moment I thought he escaped, a thing that wouldn't even come to my mind, happened.
From the above, I heard heavy, fast steps rushing in my direction. The shattered glass shards were creaking under his swift legs.
The moment I saw him in the air, I thought a mysterious creature has descended from the heavens. A posture of a man in a long white coat, flying right behind him, like a pair of wide wings. With his long, silky hair waving with the direction of his movements, they were shining in the sizzling lights of the grand hall, like the rays of a godly aura. A pair of crimson red eyes, burning with an unknown passion, this man looked like an angel. But covered all in blood, with his expression being a one wide smile, for a moment, I thought there was no man, but the angel of death.
Falling with the speed of a lighting, right in the direction where I was standing, I forced myself not to admire this view anymore.
Before his air-piercing legs could violently hit my body, I jumped to the side. This contact would have surely been painful.
Hearing the noise of rumbling, the blonde-haired man crushed into some piled up electronics that were behind me before. A white meteorite has fallen. To end me like it has done with the humanity before.
And I didn't know if to run, or hide, or wait. Why did I have a feeling he is one of that people that actually don't want to kill me, but abuse instead… I still didn't get the information about what happened here, I was so eager to know if all I hoped for was lost.
The man collected himself from the destroyed pile of electronic rubbish, and turned his head towards me.
"Why aren't you running? Don't you fear me?" — A spark of amusement came from his sharp glare when he saw my face, which despite being a step next to death, still showed some hope for knowledge. He must have read that from my expression. I need to get some information! That no one close to me is hurt… That the organization wasn't entirely wiped out, just like those officers I saw.
I… I couldn't live through another tragedy like this…
He started to come closer to me, and as a response, I just walked back with the same pace, hoping not to reach an obstacle eventually. What am I even doing? I should escape as fast as possible! But this devastating feeling inside of me… The unawareness is worse than the most painful knowledge.
"Actually, I have a question. I wanted to ask you before, but I guess you didn't fall for my comforting embrace, ha…" — He was staring at me just like I was staring at him. None of us wanted to lose a bit of information about what was currently happening. — "What about this deal: I ask you one question, you answer honestly, and before I end your demise I will answer one of your questions too. Sounds good?"
A soft smile was sent in my direction. I was slowly being cornered, but wasn't some information what I wanted in the first place?
"Mine first." — I nodded in approval to him.
The more he looked at me, the more his face became astonished. Was he surprised from my response?
"Alright. I'll let you start."
"…"
I want to ask him if he was involved with the disappearance of everyone around. But I wanted a more wide answer.
"Do you know what happened here?"
I didn't get an immediate response. Instead, The man just let out a quiet giggle.
"Ahaha… Why are people so predictable?…"
I know what he wanted to point out.
"…Why else would I be here? To know, right?"
"So you're not one of them. If you were, you wouldn't be asking such question, being in the place you are… Did they abandon you for being such a redundant element?"
When the psychical abuse stops, another one always finds it way to substitute.
I… Didn't want to let that thought come to my mind…
I… could they run away because I was a threat, coming closer and closer to their demise… Did…
Everyone purposefully left me…
"You didn't answer my question, and yet you asked me one yourself. What an idiot comes up with some rules and is the first one to break them so easily?"
The smile left his face in a blink of an eye.
"Well, I guess keeping up my facade before such a stubborn person like you won't work… And I hoped I could be the one to squeeze some information from you…" — The distance between us was growing smaller.
Another of my mistakes. For hoping to actually make the scenario in my mind happen. No miracles like that are possible.
"I'm gonna have to either ignore you, or get the information the…
…other way."
As these two last words came to my ears, they became incredibly louder in comparison to the other ones.
The mess that was in my sight changed, into a close-up view of a face with two burning red eyes staring into mine.
"The only good thing I can say is that you have good instinct. But that's all. It won't help you against facing situations like this. Where your opponent is in an entirely… different league."
My neck started burning all of a sudden. A moment of disorientation occurred, as his hand, faster than my reflexes, grabbed me below my head, and began to rise me up, making my legs separate with the floor.
"A… Agh….."
I couldn't let any words out of my strangled throat.
Everything was happening so quickly, the only reaction I could give, was an attempt to get a hold of his gripping arm.
I struggled. Struggled to get alive from this hell of an iron hand squeezing even more tightly around me. My vision was getting blurry, with his scarlet piercing eyes becoming just a red light for my road to be crossed. The oxygen was starting to lack. My lungs felt clustered and were internally screaming for some small breath of fresh air. With every second, I felt more and more weight being lifted by my paralyzed body.
I have resisted for long enough.
In moments like this, nothing but the bitter regret grows inside. Despair.
And when I thought nothing more awaits me, other than just my stone body hitting the concrete floor with a sorrowful tumbling sound…
…exactly that happened.
But… I was still alive?
Being on the verge of my consciousness, I was inhaling the bland air of this unventilated hall into my desperate lungs. They've burned like a forest in a drought. I travailed my throat sharply, it felt as if I was swallowing crushed glass and stones. The salty taste of my tears on the tongue made me curl up, not even having energy for screaming the pain out of me.
But I wasn't the only one suffering in this hall.
Right next to my aggravated body, almost a corpse, another wailing organism was curling up in pain.
Slowly opening my eyes, I saw a sly, black-haired person standing just right above another one, or I could say now just a cramped up person covered in a dirty white coat, with his once pretty blonde hair now collecting all of the mess from the floor.
It was the girl who has led me through the underground net of this city, the one that has saved my life twice now, Aura. She came back for me.
With her long hair shining like the swaying spider webs, the girl was holding a small black dagger with something dripping slowly from it.
Her tall posture was thin, athletic, with tight clothes covering this beautiful body. And her black piercing eyes, like a black hole sucking in every light that was around. This wasn't the glare of a girl I met an hour ago. This was a glare of a coldblooded assassin. And those eyes looked just into mine.
"You now owe me again."
…She just overcame this foe with a one strike… Undetectable to be more precise… Just who on Earth is she? Is she really stronger than him…?
We both turned our eyes to the posture of a man who tried to get up, all in blood, groaning in the severe pain his body was put in. Like a fallen angel.
He brushed his long hair away from his face, just to strike his ambusher with the most terrifying gaze ever, striking like a pair of burning lasers. A quiet laugh could be heard before he whispered:
"You don't even know who you messed up with."
"You look quite girly and innocent for a man you say you are. So cocky." — Aura responded to him with the same tone he said first.
She looked at me and moved her eyes to the side, as if she wanted to tell me that I should get away while she takes care of him. Still lying on the ground behind the man, I stared at her, making a worried expression.
I have this weird feeling, that…
…it's not going to work.
I understood her command, and tried to quietly get up and move away from the place a bloody fight was about to light up.
But as if this man had senses like a literal bat, he turned his head towards me and sent me a petrifying smile. He heard me.
I won't be going anywhere.
In the blink of my eye, I just saw his sleek hair swiftly swirl in the air. Before I could notice, he got up from the puddle of his own blood mixed with scraps of electronics, and got behind the girl, trying to twist her arm.
Expecting nothing, we both didn't have time to react. Me lying on the ground, stupidly watching everything that was happening, and her, wailing from the pain of her twisted arm. Dropping her dagger, she was trying to unleash from his grasp, twisting around. I watched all of this happening, terrified.
Kicking his leg, she made him trip for a second, and then used the moment to catch the blade on the ground.
But the man was faster. Before she could reach it, he kicked it flying a few meters away.
With no weapon to fight, she was left to fight with her body as the only weapon, and so they began the most painful fight I've ever been a witness to.
Isn't there truly something I can do?! The must be… If I interfere in the fight with my current skills, I won't probably have any chances to help… I should find myself a weapon…
The dagger she had… Can I find it?
Let's use the moment. I need to be quick…
The man bending like the streets of our metropolis, he was landing punches after kicks on her thin body, making her whine, while she effortlessly tried to deal him a strike. I watched her slowly lose her stamina in a battle she never had chances to win. Every hit the man landed, it hurt me too, as I was powerless with no courage to help. Her face was full of agony and disappointment, as she probably didn't expect to be so weak and futile against a target she thought was going to be easy.
And then he knocked her body spinning on the floor, turning his back to me. It made the girl let out a scream of terror, with black hair hanging to the ground, covering her face.
Coming closer to the inert body, he pulled her head back, holding tightly the black sleek hair.
"You look quite beaten up and twisted for a woman you said you are. So cocky."
"You dog on steroids. Get lost." — She wrathfully spitted on the shoe of the man.
An energized face from the winning fight he just had, has lost all of its passion. An indifferent expression with his hair hanging down to the ground, glaring at the smashed face of the girl.
„And I wonder where do people like you even come from. All the pests like you should have been eradicated long ago… I always need to do the work myself."
His hand moved below his white coat, and pulled a black object from below it.
A slim, pale hand gripping a gun. Pointing it directly at the girl's head.
Her black eyes widened, and stared at the thing, not even blinking. The terror in her eyes, she didn't dare to even slightly move. He had a gun all along, but didn't even use it?
…
Meanwhile, I slowly got to the place where the dagger fell, and quietly moved the pieces of scrap scattered around. Everything in the color of a dark depth of the void, the contours melted with themselves, making me hard to find the object I was looking for. Hearing Aura struggling, with every scream of her, my hands were shivering even more, making it difficult looking around. Hot sweat dripped from my agonized face. I couldn't focus at all, hearing a person being beaten up to death nearby.
Where? Where is it?! I…
I can't let anyone die!
My heart stung as if something pierced it with a needle, when I saw him reach out the gun towards her.
I froze in one moment, with the tears in my face, begging internally for a salvation to come.
Why is everything close to me crumbling one by one? Why is everything against me? What have I done to deserve such a fate?
…
Suddenly, my hand stung from approaching something sharp lying on the ground.
I felt warm liquid running through my fingers, as I accidentally grabbed the sharp blade of something.
Picking it up among the electronic rubbish lying around, a dark, pointed dagger, covered in scarlet fluid.
The boiling warmness came up to my head.
Am I swift and quiet enough to deal a fatal strike to this man? An enemy that came out of nowhere?
I had to. I turned my sight towards him, being ready to pull the trigger any moment, and stood up.
But before I could jump at him, swinging this dagger against his unguarded back, a gunshot was heard before.
I closed my eyes, scared of this terrifying sound. The loud noise echoed in the vast space of the grand hall. It rang agonizingly in my ears.
My limbs froze in place and the air in my lungs got as heavy as stone, making me unable to breathe it out.
…
I heard a groan, and a body falling to the ground.
…
Lying on the floor, I saw a person wearing a white coat collapsing to the ground. Yet after the landing, he still supported himself with one arm. A mysterious bullet pierced through the other one. The screams of immense pain were coming up from his body.
Letting Aura's hair go, she backed up before he could fall on her.
Still confused, we all searched around for the cause of this misery.
And we finally saw him.
Standing on the other end of the hall, A tall posture of man, covered all in black, techware clothes. Just as I remembered him, his face was covered with a black mask, unraveling only a freezing glare. A pair of bright blue eyes piercing the air in between us, from below the bangs of messy, dark brown hair. He was holding a gun steadily, pointed towards us.
But he wasn't the only one standing there.
The other two were masked too.
To his right was standing a short girl, her silhouette being a very curvy one. Wearing similar clothes to Aura, she was standing with arms leaning on her hips, brightly staring at the whole situation from below her amazingly curly, blonde hair.
To his left, there was one more familiar figure.
A slightly shorter man, with messy gray hair, whose shocked silver eyes were locked in with the glare of the man lying in pain, next to me. His figure burned up the turmoil inside the blonde-haired man.
"…You."
The glare of the man lying nearby burst with rage, like an erupting volcano. Looking at the gray-haired viciously, with his nasty, scarlet eyes… Somehow familiar, I think I've seen the same expression before…
"Leave him up to me." — Silen exclaimed, going ahead of the two, slowly coming closer to the lying body of the man.
Crumbled up in pain on the floor, me and Aura both struggled to get up. I was observing the mysterious man lying inertly, the other one coming closer to us, but most importantly, my gaze was focused on the cold stare of the blue-eyed. It was directed on me. As always.
He and the girl started approaching us two, as if nothing more was expected.
But instead of help that I supposed I could get, something else happened instead.
"This is not the end."
Holding his injured arm, bursting with blood, the blonde-haired man reached out his gun that he was still holding. Shivering, I could hear the metal clanking in his hands. His soft smirk was the last thing I remembered from there. And their terrified glares.
After hearing the trigger being pulled a few times, only the echoes of the screams came to me, ringing in my mind with a high pitch.
My body was pushed to the ground with an unknown impact, with all strengths leaving my degraded body. Making my vision slowly darken, and senses cool down, I watched the cold gray ceiling of the grand hall, with its sizzling lights. I saw nothing more, only blue worried eyes appearing in my melting sight, blending with the darkness.
I drifted away in the darkness that surrounded me. Peace at last.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票