Initiation (Warriors: S1B1)

Chapter 11

    Earth date: 08/24/11, 12:13

I want you to imagine something for a moment. Imagine the first time you heard someone yell. Not someone yelling in surprise, or letting out frustration, the first time that someone's buttons were so pushed that the only response they could muster was a yell of the purest anger they could muster. Got that? Now flick through all of the horror movies you've seen and pick the one scream from that one movie that sent chills up your spine. Now take those two sounds and combine that with the roar of a grizzly bear.

That was the noise that was coming out of this mysterious creature's mouth.

This...thing...was humanoid, in the sense that it stood on two legs. The resemblance ended there. It was about 10 feet tall with skin like cooling lava and glowing blue-against-black eyes. This thing let out that person-being-mauled-by-a-bear scream-roar again and raised hands the size of hubcaps.

"What the fuck is that?" Frazz yelled.

The creature swept its hands in front of him. Thunder boomed, and two blasts of electricity carved trenches in the field.

That got people going. The field went from still to in motion in seconds. The young kids ran to their parents, who swept them up and then turned tail and ran. Older siblings located younger siblings, then ran with their parents. Mr. Cole slammed the grill shut and started directing people. The creature advanced. There was a serving table in its way. A massive foot caught the underside of the table, flipping it and sending food flying. Something flew inches over my head, and I had enough time to see I had almost been lobotomized by a container of potato salad.

"Joey!" I heard my dad's voice yell.

"Here!" I yelled back. I looked behind me and saw my dad running towards me. 

"Come on, we gotta go!" 

I followed my dad, joining in my mom and the swarm of people moving into the parking lot. I heard the boom of thunder, and the ground shook as lightning struck.

"Everyone down!" a woman screamed. My dad grabbed my shoulders and shoved me down, and something slammed down in front of me. It was a folding table, or a piece of it, rather. A foot of it was gone, blown clean off, and smoke rose from the stump. Behind us, the creature roared again and swung a clenched fist. The sky over us grew dark, and the ground shook as a bolt of lightning struck. Chairs exploded. Tables tipped over. Something rained down around us, which my dad later told me was silica.

"Coming through! Come on, get the kids out of here! Get them out of here! Go!"

Somebody sprinted through the crowd, drawing a pistol as he did.

"Dad!" Max yelled. 

I only caught the side profile of the guy, but what I did see: this guy did look like an adult version of Max, and the sun reflected off a police badge. He fired a shot, and the creature recoiled, his hands waving like he was swatting a mosquito. Those blue-on-black eyes locked right on Mr. DiCaprio. Mr. DiCaprio moved in a zigzag pattern away from the crowd. 

"Get the kids out of here! NOW!" he yelled at the crowd. 

People were jumping to their feet and helping others up. I stood up. "Come on," I said to a few kindergartners. "We gotta get out of here." I heard another gunshot, and another angry roar from the creature.

"No! Dad!" Max screamed. 

I looked to see the creature's massive lightning-charged hand connect with Mr. DiCaprio's chest. Even from 50 feet away, I could hear the whoof of air leaving his lungs. Thunder cracked like a whip as he went flying, sailing over the fence separating the playground from the field and landing hard on his back. The creature walked over to the fence, grabbed and pulled. The metal screamed as inch by inch the creature yanked it out of the ground.