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1.68% Strange Tales of a Little Mystic / Chapter 2: People in The Shadow

章節 2: People in The Shadow

#Movement in the shadows at the docks of Port Emerald

Port Emerald - cargo terminal. One hour before dawn. Denzel Takahashi was doing his round to check if everything was okay in the cargo holding area.

There would be an inspection first thing in the morning. It was the usual round. Nothing special. In his twenty-five years of service, he had never had an incident worth mentioning.

He stopped to light a cigarette. He carefully looked around as he took a cigarette out and bit it with his lips. In order to prevent the wind from extinguishing the lighter's fire, he slightly bowed his head downward.

Once the cigarette was on fire, he took a puff and casually held the cigarette in his right hand, lifted the torch with his left, and kept moving through the cargo containers stacked up one on top of the other.

Suddenly, a gust of wind almost blew his uniform hat away. He struggled to keep the hat on by putting his right hand on it. "What kind of wind all of a sudden!" he was a bit annoyed. His cigarette almost flew with the wind. He did not like any anomalies during his rounds.

"What bad luck!" he said. The wind that suddenly blew in from the sea smelled like something rotten. He wrinkled his nose. "Ptui!" as if he tried to spit out the smell. "Disgusting!"

The disagreeable smell of dimethyl sulfide almost put a permanent frown on his forehead. As he tried to gather himself up, he suddenly felt some movement in the shadows of the towering pile of cargo containers. He lit up the shadow with his powerful torchlight. Nothing!

"Am I seeing things now? After all these years? What a night!"

A large oil tanker, 'Liquid Gold', was approaching the docks for crude oil discharge. Massive crude holding tanks were standing in the oil terminal at the docks.

Liquid Gold was an ULCC with a capacity of sixteen million barrels of crude oil. This was a mammoth of an oil tanker and the first of its kind. The usual capacity of the ULCC would be around five million barrels. The colossal silhouette of Liquid Gold inspired awe.

"What a monster!" Denzel looked away from the shadows and to the tanker. "How can they make such a thing? Is that even allowed?" The jaw-dropping scene made him forget to breathe. He was so preoccupied that he did not notice the suspicious movement behind him.

The tanker sent a whistle out and a honk of its foghorn. And that was when Denzel felt a needle in his neck. A set of strong and trained hands put him into a chokehold like a massive boa constrictor.

Denzel could only flail for a few moments before losing consciousness. He was dragged, gagged, and tied in the shadows, and he was put into one of the containers where the shadowy figure emerged from.

As he was carefully laid down, eleven men in tactical garb and gear came out from hiding. They did not speak. They all wore black, were painted black, and carried suppressed M4 carbines and FNX-45 tactical sidearms.

They moved into three teams of four. Each of the teams had a particular task to do. They moved like black jaguars on a hunt without wasting the darkness and vanished into the shadows again.

#Day break at Port Emerald

The crew from NBS, the national TV channel, was at the port setting up their shop at a safe distance from the ULCC Liquid Gold. The seniors were reviewing the scripts the rookies had prepared.

The sun was almost up. A fine line of light was slowly painting the eastern horizon in saffron-yellow. The wind blew very strongly, as if a storm were about to come. Legions of cumulonimbus clouds moved in unison and gradually overshadowed the rising glory of the sun.

"Was there supposed to be rain?" Anne, a rookie, seemed confused.

"I haven't heard anything!" Aliyah, one of the seniors, said

They anxiously looked at the sky. It was getting darker with every passing minute. Dominykas, the other senior, looked at his smartwatch. Although he seemed calm, the watch showed an elevated heartbeat. "Damn! All these years of experience, yet every time I get nervous!" he thought.

When the clock hit seven, the rain began. It did not take even a minute before everything was soaking wet and drenched in the morning shower. Everybody ran for cover with crews and gears.

The day was supposed to be brighter. No weather station had this rain registered in their scheduled forecasts! The rain started right when they had their scripts in their hands.

All the graphics designed to go with the script had been done. Right at that moment, nature decided to overtrump human forecasts.

In the midst of this chaos, a few men quickly blended into the crowd and crew. They were dressed in casual dresses but significantly different from each other. They were moving either alone or in a group of two or three.

If there was someone with experience in covert operations, their disguise would have been blown. Fortunately for them, there was none, and nobody had the time to notice anyway. The camera crew, the rookies, seniors, port officials, and other employees—the inside of the office turned into a chaotic madhouse.

One camera was running and filming. Usually, one camera records everything in case anything important could be recorded when everyone looks away. The cameraman kept looking at the tanker from a distance. The footage was recorded on the central server at the NBS HQ.

The tanker was still unloading. Everyone was watching the process through the heavy rain. The rookies were also on their smartphones capturing the chaos. They mainly focused on selfie videos and the crowd. One of those men dialed a number and started talking to someone in a low voice.

Suddenly, a massive explosion shook the terminal. The monstrous tanker suddenly became a gigantic ball of fire. The sight sent a chill down everyone's spine.

The only thing that came to their mind was, "RUN!" None could even move an inch when another series of explosions took place. The heavy rain continued on the exposed belly of Hellfire.

As the pandemonium broke out, the men also disappeared one by one with the scared and fleeing crowd.


章節 3: People in The Shadow - Part 2 & The Kids

#Zilan International Airport

Zilan City. A city a few hundred miles away from Port Emerald. It was the third-largest city in the Kingdom and had the second-largest international airport. Busy morning. Airbuses entering and leaving the airport, huge traffic all day long—the usual sight. A tomboyish girl of eighteen entered the customs area. She went to baggage and body checks, then arrived at a counter.

"Identification, please!" said the lady officer in a monotonous voice.

The girl handed over her passport.

"Purpose of your visit, ma'am?"

"Tourist!" said the girl in a confident voice.

"Welcome to Nordurljos Kingdom, ma'am! Have a nice stay!"

The girl came out of the airport, and the rain began. The rain was so heavy! She looked left and right for something or someone. A black Bentley pulled in. Someone from the back seat opened the door. She put her baggage in the trunk and got in, closing the door.

"The assignment?" asked the girl.

A man handed her a folio.

"Extraction? Interrogation? Observation?" Her every word meant business and exuded professionalism.

"Observation! For now! Don't make any unnecessary moves!"

"Okay!"

The car smoothly moved toward Ayodale, cutting through the thick veil of mist created by the heavy rain.

#Nordurljos and Arkistan Kingdom Border

The rain messed up everything. The border guards on both sides were busy doing checks. The rain was not helping at all.

"What a mess!" A guard said, "Damn it! Everything is wet now!" He knocked on the window of a black Toyota HiAce with tinted windows.

The windows rolled down, and the guard peeked inside. "Identifications, please!" He looked at the tough-looking men inside.

"What is the purpose of your visit?" He was going through the documents. There was no answer. He looked through the window.

"The purpose of your visit, sir!" He was getting suspicious.

"Sorry, sorry officer!" A guy by the window peeked outside and said, "The rain was suppressing your voice. We are here for official business. As you can see, we have been coming to the kingdom for many years."

The guard looked at him and the rest of his crew. Only he spoke, and the rest of them were relaxed and gave him forced smiles.

"Why bother in this rain? Just let them go!" said another guard from behind the first guard.

"Okay, sir! You may go! Welcome to Nordurljos!" He handed them the documents and stepped away.

The van crossed the border.

The guard watched the van with anxious eyes as it disappeared behind the curtain of heavy rainfall.

#Ayodale City Hospital

Right after the incident regarding the ULCC Liquid Gold, the female recruits, and the group of dangerous people had entered the national territory, the girl who survived the incident opened her eyes for the first time.

She still did not know what had happened to her. She had no memory of her past. She was a completely blank canvas.

The little girl woke up in the middle of the night. She was in a confused state. She looked at the ceiling. Then at the front, a curtain? She could not see anything beyond the curtain.

On her right, there was a plastic bag hanging from a stand, and a long, thin pipe came all the way down to her arm—an IV drip—but she didn't know that.

She tried to get free, but she didn't have the strength to move. She felt like she was swimming in an ocean of pain. She could not think of anything, and her brain was foggy.

"Where am I?"

"Why am I here?"

"Is it morning? Night?"

Suddenly, she felt really tired from the effort she made just to look around. On the left side of the bed, there was a machine. She did not know what it was doing.

She saw some numbers on the monitor and some waves going up and down. She gave up and fell asleep—or at least she thought she should. The room was dark, and the only thing shining dimly was a little light over and at the back of the headboard.

#Somewhere deep in Akunomori

A little boy opened his eyes in a very bizarre atmosphere. He was lying on the grass by a big, fat tree. It was cold.

"Where am I?"

The little boy shivered in cold and fear. He was lying on the ground. In a muffled voice, he called out.

"Hello! Anyone there?"

Jungle did not seem to be new to this boy. But what scared him was that he could not remember anything.

"Where am I?" He did not know who to call for help. He was a lost boy in a jungle without any memory. The weather felt like winter. He curled up his body and tried to make it warm for himself, but to no effect.

"Hello!" he called out to someone who might help him, but there was nobody to answer his distress call.

He felt hungry as if he had not eaten anything for many days. He was exhausted. He realized it was no use calling for help. The only thing he could see was the pitch-black darkness and the ghostly silhouettes of tall, towering trees.

The jungle was so thick that the sky remained invisible. The boy could not stay still. The cold weather was unbearable. His survival instinct told him to stand up and look for shelter.

The boy was weak on his feet. He focused on moving from one tree to the next, not knowing where exactly he was going. He fumbled and stumbled, but kept moving slowly.

He could hear the roars and howls of beasts far away from him from somewhere inside the jungle. He would immediately freeze in his place in fear and hug the tree by him. The scared little boy would forget to breathe; what if it gave away his presence?

Night creatures kept making sounds around him, and he chose to follow the path that seemed more silent than the rest.

"Hssss." A hissing sound made his heart jump in fear—snake? His eyes were getting a bit clearer with time. Somewhere in the woods, an owl hooted. He tried to listen closely.

Some nocturnal birds flapped their wings as they moved from one tree to another. With every little sound, the boy's heart would jump, and he would freeze in his place and wait.

He sobbed and whined in a low voice as he slowly wandered deeper into the woods. The fear, anxiety, and loneliness were straining the heart of the frail-looking boy. His body wanted to give out and drop to the ground from exhaustion, but he kept slowly moving in search of shelter.


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