End Of Days

20: Blood

Techno stalked through the corridors of the underground train station like an animal on the hunt.

Blood dripped from his sword, staining his hands and leaking from the few spots where he'd slipped up and allowed his opponents to get a hit in. His mistakes were few and far between, but he barely felt the cuts and grazes. Not even the bullet wound in his shoulder was enough to slow him down. The adrenaline in his veins was electrifying and his thirst for blood greatly outmatched any pain he might have felt.

"Stop!" Shouted someone as they drew a pistol. Techno barely spared them a glance before he was wrenching the pistol from their hands, tossing it to the ground with a useless clatter. He brought his blade back and drove it through the poor soul's sternum with a sickening crunch.

He watched as the blood leaked out for a moment, and then he rested his boot against their chest and ripped his weapon clear. He heard their chokes of blood and gasps as he walked away. He didn't care.

They deserved it. They had taken his people, and they would pay with their lives.

He came across another room, this one a bit smaller than the last. It was mostly hammocks with a large table in the middle. Playing cards were scattered around, half empty waterbottles left uncapped carelessly.

"What are you--" Someone began, but Techno saw red. He brought his blade up, and the rest was blood and screaming.

He didn't know how many people he killed in that room. It was easy. Methodical. Calming. When there was only one person left in the room, he towered over them, using his blade to spear through their shoulder before crouching over them.

It was a woman who couldn't have been over thirty. Dark hair and desperate eyes, smudgy makeup and hand outstretched for a knife that was just out of her reach. Techno looked down at her with clinical eyes. She looked up at him with fearful ones.

"Where are they?" He asked calmly, his hands resting on the handle of his blade.

"W--What?" The woman choked, letting out a pained gasp as he slowly started to turn the sword.

"You know who." He pressed with a sneer. "And the longer you drag this out, the longer it will hurt."

"S-Storage room." She gritted out, her eyes closed tightly as though the pain had blinded her. "And the platform. Platform one. Please stop. Please."

Techno slowly stood, pulling his blade out with a single tug. Her eyes opened again and she breathed heavily, looking up at him with relief. Techno held her gaze for a moment longer before he drove his sword into her heart. He watched the shock turn to nothing as her life drained away, and he could almost feel it as she died.

He left the room with blood on his hands and cold, calculating eyes.

The storage room wasn't hard to locate. It was a blue door with its name plastered over a frosted glass window, and he wasted no time in wrenching the door open. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness on the other side. It seemed as though the gang hadn't bothered to light this room with lanterns as they had with the rest of the place.

But it didn't matter what he could or couldn't see, because a voice called out to him.

"Techno?"

And he knew that he'd found her. "Sally?" He stepped into the room, falling to his knees by her side. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

"No, no I'm fine." She was looking over him with worry, shaking her head. "Who's blood is that?"

"Not mine." He reassures as he shuffled around behind her and felt for the rope that bound her hands. "Most of it." He clarified when her silence held up.