Parallel II: A New Ordinance

10-OBEY

I jammed the key into the ignition. Thankfully, Troy had told me a bit about how cars work and are used back when our journey away from the compound had begun, and now it was time to put his teachings to the test. I slammed my foot down on the pedal and the car immediately began to move forward quite quickly. The cultists scrambled, with some of them successfully dodging to the sides, but some just couldn't get away in time. I slammed with such force and desire that I hit four of them immediately and pinned them to the hoods of their own cars. They struggled and squirmed as I pressed down onto the pedal even harder, crushing them between the two vehicles. For the first time, it felt like I was trapping someone, rather than being the one trapped in pain, in an insurmountable amount of grief, in whatever traps had been laid out for me to step into. It was time for me to give them a taste.

I backed the car up and rammed right into them once more just a few seconds after they all fell to the ground in immense pain. I knocked into their heads, crushing them with pure force and anger. "How did you-" Harold whispered, weak and bewildered. "I'm not quite so sure myself," I responded as I backed up to reveal the gruesome results of my rampage. Those four men had been definitively brutalised. I had slain them, yet I didn't feel remorse for a second, I just felt more determination. I wasn't yet finished, so I backed up further and attempted to drive between the small space between the cars and the house's exterior, however, I soon noticed that two of the cultists; the remaining driver and passenger, were inside of one of their damaged vehicles, attempting to back out and flee the scene. "Do you have any weapons, Harold?" I asked, remembering both that John's pistol was empty and that, if we could drive back to Troy and I's cabin, we could find his car and retrieve all of the guns and ammunition within it. But for now, we needed something to handle the remaining cultists and escape. "Yes, I have a few back in my house, but you'd be mad to think I'm going anywhere outside of this car right now!" He responded, clenching one hand in the other nervously. "Don't worry, you don't have to," I said in response. I once again shut my eyes and used that power to wrap myself in that glowing embrace. With pure concentration, I just needed a few answers to get what I was looking for. "Harold, where are the weapons in your house?" I asked, visualising the front door of the house that I had seen before. It seemed I could only manage to transport myself or others to a place that I had already seen before, and within my mind, I couldn't seem to have any impact on the attackers, just myself and those working with me in the car.

"Why don't you just use your little powers to transport these nutjobs to the middle of nowhere or something?!" John shouted out, nearly breaking my concentration. "I can't do anything to them. When I shut my eyes I only see, well, essentially, this car and the people and items in it. And I can only seem to go to a place that I can see or have seen before, but maybe, Harold, if you describe the location of your weapons, I can get to them." I replied, sparking Harold to hesitantly continue speaking. "Well, I... I have a rifle in an attic upstairs, it's surrounded by some boxes and a window on the front side of the house, and it's contained in a large brown box, the bullets are right next to it in a smaller case. Does that help?" He said, trying his best to help me imagine it. I began to see it within my head and, within a few moments, I opened my eyes to find myself in that very room.

I quickly scrambled to find the right box, but soon enough, it was there. A long one, tattered and marked by the eroding power of age, just like its owner. I shook the bottom part of it loose and grabbed hold of the bullets before slamming my eyelids shut as if to block out some tremendous horror and bringing myself back into the car within a matter of seconds. I looked around to get my bearings and then handed the gun over to John, below the front window of the car so that the cultists wouldn't be able to see it. They had now successfully started the car, as they had been struggling to for quite a while, likely due to the damage caused by the impact of my ramming into its hood. John loaded the gun and swiftly yet methodically stepped out of the car, kneeling down and aiming right into the front window of their car. He fired a shot that screamed through the entire forest, shaking the nature around it with its powerful blast. It immediately brought down the driver, who was entirely unprepared for this situation.