Rise of the Fallen

Chapter 2: The Forest of Blood

What kind of sick joke is this!? “Help M…” a girl yells as a Nephilim bit her in half.
“No! Please! I don’t want to die!” another boy screams as he gets torn apart by two other giants.
Did they send us in here to die? Drooling, the fourth giant looked at me. The ground shakes as he makes his way towards me. With a stabbing pain shooting through my body, I force myself off of the ground. I grab onto a branch to hold myself up and I trudge away from the giant and the carnage.
“Where do you think your crawling to?” he laughs.
The giant reaches down and takes hold of my right leg. I scream as the bones shatter and pierce through my leg. Am I really going to die like this?  I look up at the giant’s scar ridden face and a red dot appears in the middle of his forehead. “Hey buddy.” a voice says coming from in the trees.
“Who was that?” The giant says as he looked around for the source of the voice.
“Let the boy go now and I might let you live. You have five seconds.”
“Do you really think your little threats scare me!?” He laughs as he swings me around. My leg felt as it were getting ripped off.
The voice sighs, “Ok. I guess I’ll have to show you I’m serious. It’s always the hard way with you guys.” 
The red dot moved to the giant’s arm that’s holding me and a gunshot rang through the forest. The giant roared with pain as his arm started to turn into dust. As I fall to the ground two more gunshots went off and the giant crashed next to me before turning to dust.
“Hey? You alive?” he says as I gasp for air.
I look up a boy with dark brown skin and a fade hovers over me. My eyes slowly start to close as I lose consciousness.
“Hey! Don’t pass out! Shit!”
After what seemed like hours, I wake up in a damp cave barely lit by fire. I try and sit up but a massive pain shoots through my body. I lie back down on what looks like a mattress made out of hide and feathers. Where am I?  “Oh, your awake?” the boy from earlier says as he walked towards me with a handful of strange blue fruit, “Here, you need to eat.” He says as he tosses one to me.
“Thanks”
I bite into the fruit and a burst of flavor that changes from sweet to almost savory with every bite. The boy laughs as he sits down by the fire begins to eat.
“What?”
“It’s nothing, really,” he takes another bite out of the fruit and says, “You’re just too trusting.”
“To trusting?” I ask forcing myself to sit up.
“Pretty sure if it was anybody else you would’ve been dead. Ok, here’s your first lesson. Never take food from people you don’t know.” He answers
“Uh huh… why would you go through the trouble of saving me just to kill me?”
“That’s… that’s not the point. I’m trying to help you out.” He stammers
“Why though and who are you anyway?”
“Oh yea, I completely forgot. I’m Julius. What about you?” he says as he wipes his hands off on his shirt and sticks it out.
“Danny.” I say shaking his hand
“You don’t like to talk, do you?” Julius asked
“Why did you save me?”
“Straight to the point. You are really stressing me out.” He says, sitting down on the cold cave floor, “I didn’t have a reason. I just wanted to kill that giant. Nobody should die like that.”
We sat in silence as the sun started to go down. “I have a question.” I ask biting into another fruit.
“Ask away.”
“You seem like you know your way around a little bit better than everyone else.”
“That’s not a question.” Julius points out
“I’m getting to that, but basically how long have you known about all of… this?  You even know what food to eat.”
“Well, for one I didn’t know that’s why I says never take food from anybody” He shrugs, “I ate after you did.”
I couldn’t even be mad at him. Sighing I say, “You got me. You got me.”
He laughs, “My bad, if it’ll make you feel better if you didn’t eat it I would’ve. But you’re right on the fact that I’m not completely going in this blind. The test never changes. It’s always the same two phases every year. My dad’s been drilling this into me ever since I can remember.”
“Oh, your dad is a member of the Order?”
“Yea, but I thought he was in prison until he came home on my seventh birthday and told me. I thought he was joking at first you know or crazy. He took me Nephilim hunting the same day, and after he killed it, he told me that I had to become one too.” He says looking out of the cave.
“Do you want to?”
“Hell no… well that would’ve been my answer up until last year.” Julius says as his words trail off.
“What happened?” I ask
“He died on a mission. That’s all the new headmasters would tell me. I even tried to talk to Master Ciel, but I couldn’t. So, I’m doing this for him. He always told me this is a job that’s never finished, an everlasting struggle. It made him strong, and I want to be like him.” He says as the sound of thunder echoes across the sky, “What about you?” 
“My dad was an assassin too, but um…he was killed before he could tell me his self. I was raised by one of my dad’s friends from his Academy days, and I only found out about all of this about like a day ago.” I says rubbing my hand together.
“So why do you want to join. What will be being an assassin for the order help you with?”
“The man who killed him and my mother is someone in the Order.”
“What’re going to do if you find him? Kill him.” He says as the rain pours from the sky.
I don’t say anything as rain pours down.
“Ok, then what?” he asks
“What do you mean?” I say as Julius gets up and walks over to me and grabs my shirt.
“After you kill him what’re going to do? Go back to a normal life. You already have that scar, but you don’t even know what it means to have it!”
I slap his hand away from my shirt and look up at him and say, “Why do you care so much?”
He looks at me with this look in his eyes and says, “I’m not gonna help anybody using something my dad died for as a means to an end. The Order is not some steppingstone.”
He walks to the entrance of the cave and turns around and says, “You’re on your own. Good luck on that revenge of yours.” 
As he disappears in the rain, I sit there in silence until the fire died out. I think he really left. I think to myself as I stare out of the cave. Great, I’m stuck. The ground suddenly began to move underneath me.
“Don’t tell me…” I say to myself as a giant hand reaches over the front of the cave. I crawled as far away from the cave entrance as I could. The giant showed his ugly face.
“Look what I found.” He says, reaching into the cave.
As he gets within a hair’s breadth of me, a storm of bullets came down on him. “I leave for a few hours and you almost die again. Do you attract them or something?” Julius jokes as he walks into the cave holding an assault rifle.
“What happened to being on my own?” I ask chuckling.
“You got jokes, but I thought about it. Then I realized it’d be wrong to leave someone I saved.”  He says helping me up.
“Where’re we going?” I ask wincing with every step as we walk out of the cave.
“I found a new hideout. It’s not far from here.”
“And the new gun?” I ask
“Oh this,” he laughs as we make our way through the vegetation, “Just something I found. Actually, I found some more stuff but it’s at the hideout.”
“You got one for me?” I say as we slowly walked down the hill
“Na, this was the only one. You can get the pistol though.” He jokes as we approach a giant tree with a ladder leading up to a massive tree house.”
“Wow!” I say as my mouth drops to the floor
“Cool right? My dad built it when he went through this. Can you climb up?”
“I can try.” I say as I slowly climbed the ladder.
The higher I go the more my leg began to hurt. I finally make into the tree house. It was pretty much empty except for a few makeshift beds and a locked crate. I limp my way over to one of the beds and lie down. It was surprisingly soft. Julius climbed and pulled up the ladder.
“It’s pretty nice despite the circumstances.”  He says as he walked over to unlock the crate.
“Yea. I don’t know what to say really. I appreciate you helping me out.”
“Don’t mention it, but I do want something from you… well two things.” He says
“Those are?”
“Well, I want you to really think this revenge thing out. I’m not sayin’ you can’t kill em,” he says as he takes out a pistol and some magazines and hands them to me, “But at least have a plan. Information is key.” He walks over to the bed across from me and sits down.
“Ok. What’s the second thing?”
“It’s more like a favor. You help me find out what happened to my dad and I’ll help you out with your revenge.”
“Uh huh, so that’s what you want.”
“What’re you talking about?” He says as his breathing became more erratic.
“Be honest.” I say putting in the magazine and cocking the pistol back. “I’m gonna give you five seconds to tell me the truth.”
Julius lifts his hands and says, “Ok, you got me. I’ve been watching you since you walked in with the Headmaster Jeanne. I thought that you were close. She’s the one who told me that a Nephilim killed my dad. I don’t believe her, so I figured that I’d get close to you and get the information I need.”
“So, you were watching from the start?” I ask as Julius nods his head, “You watched that boy and girl die and didn’t do anything.”
“I had to get you away from them and I couldn’t if they ran, and you died. So, yea I let them die. Odds are they were going to at some point.” Julius argues
“Wow. So, was leaving and coming back was planned too?  Let me guess it was to get leverage so I would feel like I owe you for saving my life twice right”
“It wasn’t. I just thought that you and I aren’t so different. I was wrong about this being a steppingstone for you. Shit, this only your three days since all of this started for you. I just go heated.”
“Ok, I’ll help you, but if you lie to me again, I’ll kill you.” I say putting the gun down on the bed.
“I doubt it.” He laughs.
“Why?” I ask with a confused face
“It was on safety the whole time.” He says bursting with laughter. I look down at the gun and sure enough the safety was on. I start laughing and it feels good. It was the first time in a long time. My chest begins to tighten, and tears roll uncontrollably down my face. My chest hurts. My laughter fades into silence.
“I’ll go find some fruit.” Julius says before he opens the hatch and climbs out of the tree house. I break down into tears as memories about my mom and dad come flooding into my mind. I cried until Julius came back with a shirt full of fruit.
“You good?” he asks as he pours the fruit into the crate.
“Yea… can you pass me one of those… what are those anyway?”
Julius grabs one from inside the crate and tosses it to me. “I think they’re called herans, or he-rans, I’m not sure.” He grabs one from inside the crate and closes it.
Taking a bite out of the heran, the initial taste is different from last time. “So, Julius, what’s the plan for the next twenty-nine days?”  I say after I swallow. He chews swallows and says, “Nothing stay here and hope a Nephilim doesn’t find us. That would be bad, very bad… but just get rest we can’t do anything if you can’t walk.”
“True.”
“Is it broken?”
I squeeze my right thigh and pain shoots through my leg, but nothing’s out of place. “I don’t think so. I hope it’ll be better before the second phase. Speaking of which what do you know about it?”
“As far as I know it’s a basic fighting competition. You know how to fight don’t you?”
I scoff, “Yea, I killed a Nephilim before I came here.”
“Ooo scary.” Julius laughs “We’ll see. I’ll spar with you when your leg gets better.”
“Don’t regret it.” I say as I lie down and look up at the ceiling. Before I knew it, I drifted off to sleep.
Two weeks after entering the Nether and I’ve finally gotten used to my situation and what exactly the Order does thanks to Julius getting me up to speed. He began telling me what his dad told him. “I don’t know the full story, but the Order was founded after Noah’s flood. No one knows exactly who started it, but the mission has always been the same. To protect the world from evil. It’s kind of cliché, but hey it’s what we do.” Julius says as he lays back in his bed. “Any questions before I start getting into the complicated stuff?” he asks
I have a hundred questions; I don’t know where to start. Taking a moment to think, “What are we protecting the world from exactly?”
“That’s where shit gets complicated.”
“How?”
“We’ll as you can already guess there’s the Nephilim, but they’re numbers are so low on the surface it’s barely a problem. Then you have your occasional demon. They aren’t as strong as you would think, but also way smarter. You following me so far?”
I nod my head trying to process all the information. “Then you have the biggest threat,” Julius’ face began to sink. “What?” I ask
“The Fallen.”
“Fallen? Like Fallen angels?” He shakes his head. “Remember when I says it gets complicated? Well fallen angels are different from Fallen.”
“How?”
“There are no fallen angels for one. Well at least not anymore. They were sealed along with most of the Nephilim.”
“Ok, ok I’m following. What about the Fallen?”
“The best way I can describe them is something like a natural disaster. Normal people, the powerful and influential, and even us anybody can turn into one,” he snaps his fingers, “just like that. They’re insanely strong and fast. They can heal pretty fast too, and that’s not even the worst part.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. The way he’s talking about them. “What is it?”
“They leave a trail of bodies wherever they go.”
I’m at a loss for words. A trail of bodies? I look at Julius staring up at the celling, “What exactly do you mean by a trail of bodies?”
“People start to kill each other. Wherever a fallen goes for some reason people rip each other apart and it spreads like a virus until the Fallen is killed. Cities, countries wiped off the map. When my dad told me, I could almost see it in his eyes. There’s more but I don’t want to give you a lesson about it. The most important thing though is that everything is killed differently. Luckily, it’s only giants we have to worry about.”
“I wish I knew about this sooner, but I think I got the gist of it.”
“How’s your leg?” Julius asks reaching over to grab a heran.
“It’s fine. I’m ready to get out of here and look around.”
“Let’s start off with some sparring I wanna see if you can fight first. No use going anywhere if you’re just going to get killed.” Julius says as he finishes eating. He stands up and climbs out of the tree house. I climb down after him and immediately I feel a sort of warmth come over my body. A cloudless blue sky and the smell of spring fills the air. I see Julius standing next to a stream holding a piece of paper. I walk over to him as he puts it away in his pocket. “The nether is pretty nice when you aren’t running for your life.” Julius says looking out towards the mountains.
“Yea it’s really my first time seeing it with a clear head. It’s amazing. You ready to spar?”
“I’ve been ready for two weeks. I’ll go easy on you.”
I put my guard up and throw a punch at Julius. He just barely slips to the side and dodges my punch. He steps in between my guard and pushes me. Flying backwards until I’m stopped by a tree. Gasping I struggle to get back control of my breathing. “At this rate I’ll end up killing you before a giant does.” Julius says laughing.  I throw a couple of punches to his face switching between jabs and hooks. Julius bobs is head and steps back using his hand to deflect my attacks. Julius steps forward and hits me right in the gut. It feels like a baseball bat crashing into me. Suck up the pain he’s right there. I can reach him. I put all my power behind my fist as it connects to his jaw. A sharp pain shoot through my hand as I fall to the ground. “That it you win.” I groan as I roll over to my back. “That last hit wasn’t too bad it actually hurt a little bit.” Julius says as he helps me up. Clutching my stomach, I say, “I almost threw up I didn’t know you going to hit that hard.”
“That was light,” He laughs, “We gotta get up you up to speed before the next phase in two weeks and I know the perfect thing.”
“I gotta feeling I’m not going to like it.”
Julius laughs, “You right, but hear me out. We got two weeks left we can use the rest of the time to train and do some hunting. Sounds fun right.”
“It does. Ok that sounds like a plan. When are you trying to go?” I ask as I get a handful of water from the stream. Julius doesn’t say anything for a while. He stared blankly at the mountains. “You’ve been looking over there a lot what’s up?”
Julius takes out the piece of paper out from his pocket and hands it to me. “It was a note my dad left me. He left me something that’ll help us.”
“You know what it is?” I ask handing the note back to him.
“Na just that it’s a crate like the one up there.” He says putting the note back in his pocket, “but we can go now it should take about a day or two if we walk.”
“That far huh?” I say unenthusiastically, “Before we go do you have a bow up there in the crate.”
“I’m not sure, but you can check,” he says as he lays down in the grass, “and oh, can you get those silver Colt’s they should be in a black case with an O on it.”
“I got you.” I reply as I turn and walk towards the ladder.
Climbing up back into the tree house, I see the crate in front of me and open it. It’s filled with bullets different types of pistols, revolvers. I dig to the bottom until I see the case Julius was talking about. I take the case out and put it on his bed.
“There we go.” I say to myself looking back into the crate and finding the bow and arrow case.
I take it out and open it on the bed. Inside is a sleek black recurve bow and ten arrows underneath. I take out the bow and pull back the bowstring.
“Oh, yea perfect.” I say as I sling the quiver over my shoulder and put the arrows inside of it. Looking around, “Do I need to bring anything else…? I know.”
I pick up one of the pistols on the bed, load it, and put it in a holster on my hip. I put the rest of the stuff we don’t need back inside the crate and make my way down the ladder. “You ready now? It’ll be dark soon.” Julius says mockingly.
“Yea here, and what’s the rush it’ll take a couple of days to get there anyway.”  I say as I hand him his twin colts and magazines.
“Thanks,” he says as he takes colts and loads them, “but to answer your question, it’s more dangerous. The Nephilim come out to hunt. We have to spend at least a night in there before getting out if we leave now.”
“Let’s go then.” I say in a rushed tone, “Following you.”
Julius laughs as he leads the way into the forest.