Holy blight (draft 2)

The world as we know it. Part 1

The world as we know it.

I walk into the house to see Lehana and the others kneeled down on the floor. They are being held at gunpoint by six men who'd entered by kicking in the back door. I notice that their faces are gaunt, and their eyes are sunken in. I can sense their elevated pulses, there's adrenaline yes but, there's something else too, desperation? Sweaty fingers fidget within trigger guards, and feet shuffle back and forth on the hard wood floor.

"Call off your monster, Lehana", one of the men shouts and he presses his gun to the base of Lehana's neck. "Call him off, now!"

"We should just kill the other two", another one of the men chimes in. "We just need the witch alive".

The first man grabs Lehana by the collar of her shirt and stands her up before pushing her up against the wall and slowly bringing the nozzle of his gun down to the base of her spine. "You heard him, witch. Either you call off your monster or this room starts to get a lot less crowded".

Lehana's looks distressed at first but her expression quickly changes. She smirks back at the man and says, "You guys don't seem very bright"

A large sweaty man who had been aiming his gun at Kayuta, tosses his hostage to the ground and angry stomps toward Lehana. "What the hell did she say?!", he shouts.

"Relax, Ali!", the first man shouts as he turns away from Lehana to face his accomplice.

"Now!", Lehana shouts.

Kayuta sprints across the room to grab his staff. The men open fire, spaying a hail of bullets in his direction but missing him as he darts behind the couch. Itoro uses this distraction to stand and clap his massive hands together, creating a magical explosion of blinding light and intense heat that causes the gunmen to shield their eyes. Lehana turns to face her attacker, her hands glowing yellow with divine energy. She pushes him with one hand and sends him flying backward with a powerful blast of force and light. He flails helplessly through the air before colliding with the far wall of the room with enough force to crack open his skull and immediately lose consciousness. Blood oozes and spurts from the open head wound and a scarlet puddle quickly forms around him.

Kayuta grips his staff with both hands and slams it onto the floor, causing a bright pillar of light to emerge from underneath one of the gunmen and lift him upward where he is slammed against the ceiling. The victim is crushed immediately and chunks of bloody viscera splatter onto the walls and drip from the ceilings. His severed arm, still clutching the trigger of his riffle, falls to the grounds and releases a final torrent of gunfire. The gun's recoil causes the limb to flop around the room for a few seconds before going limp when the clip empties. Bullets fly around the room. They burrow through the drywall and burry themselves in the buildings brick veneer. Everyone instinctively ducks to avoid the volley of shots but one of the gunmen is struck in the neck and collapses on the floor gurgling and gasping.

Kayuta's pillar of light disappears and his body slumps over the couch, exhausted.

"two for one", I say under my breath. "he gets points for creativity.". I look over to Itoro who's arms are radiating with a powerful bluish glow. He snatches a rifle from one of the gunman and uses it as a club to bludgeon him to death. It is clear that his strength is being augmented with divine magic. He strikes his unfortunate victim over the head with his weapon. The force of his first blow is enough to snap the man's neck and cause his sink into his shoulders. He falls to his knees but Itoro strikes again. The butt of the rifle slams into the victim's forehead and send his gaze skyward. His head jerks back with so much force that the skin around his neck tears and he is nearly decapitated. He falls backward, and his nerves fire their last signals, causing a series of slight twitches that come to an abrupt end.

The last of the gunmen, the man called "Ali", wanders to the center of the room, his delirium wearing off and his sight finally returning to him. He wipes his eyes and looks around the room to see the broken lifeless corpses of his companions.

He lets out a horrified scream before making a break for the front door. I step aside to accommodate him but when he gets outside, he sees a field littered with the bodies of his other comrades. He hyperventilates and his eyes dart from side to side. Ali leaps from the porch and glances back the house from, the cobblestone street. Lehana steps outside with Itoro and Kayuta behind her.

"Do you take prisoners?", I ask her.

"yeah... but he's a repeat offender", she says angrily.

I chuckle and say, "understood".

Ali climbs into one of the trucks parked on the side of the road. He slams the door behind him and frantically searches for a key before finding a spare in a compartment hidden underneath the seat. He puts the key in the ignition after missing several times due to the nervous trembling of his hands. The key turns and the car grumbles to life but before the man can pull off into the night, he hears a noise. He fails to identify the noise or its source but, his curiosity quickly fades and he pulls off. A few seconds later he hears the noise again, this time he recognizes it as being a cat meowing.

Ali turns his head slowly to see a sickly black and grey cat in the passenger seat. He looked over, and saw me. I leap onto him and he puts up his hand in defense. I sink my teeth into his arm before leaping backward. The car swerves and as Ali's body starts to shut down, he releases a frothy mixture of vomitus. The car slams into a tree. The car ignites and Ali slumps over the dashboard, eventually being consumed by flames, his body melting into the seat and fusing with the upholstery.

I climb out of the fiery wreck and transform back into my humanoid form as I walk towards the house. Out of all the things I have seen tonight I find these mortal's expressions to be the most interesting. Their home and the area that surrounds it, is littered with corpses and rather than cower in fear of the mysterious being that had left most of them there, they welcome it with open arms. They welcome me. Together they'd killed four men but they show no remorse. They show no guilt. They just stand there, smiling and beckoning for me to come back inside. I look into Lehana's eyes and I lose myself there for a moment. Her beauty is noted but it's not what draws me in. Her toothy grin is inviting but it's not what brings me back to the house's threshold. I'm driven back by the warm embrace of a feeling that I've only ever experienced during the rare eras of civility amongst my brothers, the feeling of familiarity I only get from being surrounded by monsters like me.