Aries (#Wattys2018)

Chapter Eight

***

  Now that she wasn't bound up and slowly dying at the bottom of a pool, Azah had a moment to actually inspect the sphere hovering above her hand.
  It wasn't, as she had first thought, a ball of fire.  It was the same orange colour, but no flames flickered within it.  And although the light was only about the size of a fist, the heat radiating from it beat down on her hand like she had shoved it into an exhaust pipe.
  She could have sworn that she had seen something almost exactly like it before, but couldn't quite place where.
  And then it clicked.
  It had been floating in the secret room in the passage deep beneath the Spiral Building
  The more Azah looked at it, the more likely it seemed; the size, heat and texture were mirror images of the one she had burned herself with.  The only differences were the colour - vibrant orange instead of eggshell white, and the light, which was noticeably dimmer than before.
  Reared her arm back - tensed - and let go.
  The sphere flew across the room in less than an instant, and seemed to be absorbed by the window.  Azah stood paralyzed for a fraction of a second, getting ready to be disappointed, before the window disintegrated in a giant wave of glass cubes.
  Oh.
  Stepping carefully over the cubes littering the floor, she approached the completely obliterated window frame and peered downwards to find more glass littering the sidewalk.  The cubes had all been darkened to varying shades of gray and black from the fire, and Azah marveled at how every individual cube was so perfect and identical to the rest before another thought began to itch at her mind.
  That tiny orb, that Azah had made appear with just willpower (albeit after half an hour of trying, but she had still achieved the feat nonetheless), had entirely demolished several layers of glass in just a blink.  If it really was the same type of ball that she had discovered underneath the Spiral Building, then why hadn't the first one blown her hand to bits when her finger had brushed against it?
  She leaned forwards slightly, careful to avoid the sharp and likely flaming glass surrounding her, to gauge the distance from the window to the ground, and nearly fell out when she spotted something in the distance.
  Thick, black smoke erupted from between the rooftops and hung in the air, like a giant, formidable ghost.

***

  He knew that Shojaei had sensed it, too.
  'What the-'
  His brows furrowed, and he turned slightly, lifting the axe off of Myrna's head (thankfully).
  'Don't move.'
  Myrna bit his tongue to hold back a witty comment about how he was a little 'tied-up' at the moment, and watched the man's back as he exited the cellar through the hatchway, near some giant brown barrels with ominous-looking skulls painted on.  Through the slightly ajar doors, Myrna could catch sight of shadows flickering along the chipped walls of the hallway above.
  Fidgeting in the chair, he strained his bound arms around the back of the chair to try and guide them towards his pocket zipper. 
  'What're you doin'?' Lutfi asked, staring at him quizzically.
  'Oh, Lutfi!  Good thing you're awake ...  Listen, we're in Faaris' cellar right now, beneath the barn, and he just left, so we gotta escape!  Fast!'
  He looked drowsily to the left - to the right - and then back at Myrna through half-closed lids.
  'I thought we were looking for Jihaad.'
  Myrna groaned inwardly.  Obviously, Lutfi had been hit on the head a little too hard.
  He managed to shift a little more, lifted his leg up, and unzipped the pocket with his pod in it.  The rope around his wrists strained against the chair, and it gave way all of a sudden and toppled towards his head.  He yelped, kicking out his legs in an effort to save himself, and accidentally kicked over the ladder leaning against the hatchway.  The heavy wooden doors banged closed loudly, and he froze, the echo ringing in his ears.
  Ten seconds passed.  No one came.
  Myrna tilted his wrist at an awkward angle and snatched up his pod, pulling apart the ends and lighting up the dark, wet cellar with the blue light from his holographic screen.  He pressed the projector three times, and then three more for good measure.  It didn't make a sound, nothing to notify him that his request for backup had been sent.
  But even if it had, how exactly would the backup get there?  Unless there were some soldiers hiding in Ranrik - which there weren't, or else they wouldn't have been sent on this mission - it would take several hours for the next train from the base to arrive.  They might not even know where they were, if there weren't any tracking devices inside their pods.  And by that time, he and the rest of his squad might have bled out from identical axe wounds in their hearts.  Shojaei seemed unstable enough to kill any and all members of the military, regardless of eye colour.
  Except for Azah.  They hadn't even let her come along.  Perhaps they wouldn't be in this fix then ...
  No, then she would just have been captured as well.  He should be grateful that she wasn't going to be killed.
  But she might have had a plan.
  And she might have been a better leader than Myrna was.
  'You moved.' said a voice from behind him.
  The pod dropped from his hands and rolled along the floor, right to Shojaei's feet.  Unable to do anything in his current state, Myrna could only remain silent in growing horror as the farmer grabbed the back of the chair and dragged him along the rough stone to face him.
  The hatchway doors were wide open, but the ladder was still lying sadly on it's side.  How hadn't he heard the man drop into the cellar? 
  Shojaei didn't seem overly angry, or even annoyed.  Outwardly, he just appeared slightly amused, towering over Myrna as he kneeled on the floor.  Lutfi had quickly let his head fall back and snapped his eyes shut to feign unconsciousness. 
  Jerk.
  He followed Myrna's line of sight to the other members of his team, and a small smirk made its way across his face.
  'It's strange, really.  I hit you the hardest, yet you're the first to regain consciousness, while your comrades stay knocked out?  Unless, they're faking it.'
  He raised his eyes to the ceiling, and it was then that Myrna noticed the absence of his axe. It was leaning against the wall a few centimetres away from them.  Unfortunately, Shojaei noticed where he was looking again, and he grabbed the head, throwing the axe into the air with one hand and then catching it.
  'Well, no matter.  I'll soon -'  Faaris looked down, and stopped, kicking the small white stick with his heavy boot.
  'What is this?'
  'I - It -'
  He dropped the axe to the ground with a loud thud and snatched up his pod, running his long fingers over it.  If he ever made it out of there alive, even though the chances were dwindling every second, Myrna never wanted it back.
  'Incredible.'  He found the groove cut into the centre of the plastic and dug his dirty nail into it, pulling to reveal the screen with BASHAR M. - SOLDIER written across it.  His face, lit up with the bright light, looked pinched and gaunt through the darkness.
  'Ah, military technology?'  Shojaei let the pod plummet to the ground from between his fingers, allowing Myrna one last look, before he raised his axe high above his head and brought it crashing down again.  The pod barely made a sound as it was smashed to pieces.
  He looked up again, eyes wide, and strolled nearer to Myrna, who scooted backward until he and the chair hit the back wall.
  'Well, it doesn't matter in the end.' he whispered creepily, raising the axe once more.  'You're just as guilty as the others.'
  He prepared the axe like he was about to cut down a tree, taking a few test swings.  The cutting edge was directly pointed towards Myrna's chest.  His thoracic cavity, he remembered randomly.
  'Wait!  I thought you only killed people with blue eyes!' he cried out desperately.  'My eyes are brown!'
  'But now that you know about me,' Shojaei breathed, 'I can't let you walk free.'
  Without warning, the axe flew towards the air towards him.  Myrna screamed, scuttling to the side as far as he could, which was still in the line of the older man's weapon.
  He sat paralyzed, with his arm thrown in front of him, for what could have been eons, his eyes clamped shut as he waited for the inevitable pain that was bound to follow.
  Instead, he heard something that sounded like tin hitting stone, and felt something warm and wet begin to run over his hand.  He screamed again, his eyes flying open in panic.
  Lying on the floor, face down in a pool of his own blood, was Faaris Shojaei.  Myrna shuddered, and wiped the scarlet fluid on the chair leg next to him.  The hatchway was wide open, it's double doors swinging, and beneath it stood Azah.
  She held an ordinary kitchen knife in her left hand, examining the gore coating the blade with disgust. 
  Her eyes fell on Myrna, cowering in the corner, and she hastened towards him, swiftly cutting the ties around his wrists as she spoke.
  'I know, I stabbed him, but it's the only thing I could think of to do.  He won't die - well, maybe from blood loss.  But anyways, I didn't want to shoot him.  I was looking out of the hotel room window, and I saw a bunch of smoke coming from the direction of the farm, so I broke the window and jumped out.  When I got here, the smoke had stopped, but the whole top floor of the house was burned, like in a fire.'
  She finished releasing him from his bindings and moved on to the rest of their squad who, miraculously, were beginning to stir in their chairs.
  Myrna stared at his shaking hands, red lines crossing over each other from where the ropes had been digging into him.
  He had been so close.
  So close to death.
  'I got the knife from the kitchen, and kind of wandered around for a while until I found this tiny hallway with the hatchway doors open in the middle of the floor.'  Azah straightened up, finally stopping long enough to notice that Myrna hadn't made a sound.
  'Are you going to get up?'
  'Y - you ...'  His wide eyes rested on the giant hole in Shojaei's back, where blood still gushed out of him.
  'I didn't want to.'  Myrna heard a few light steps and looked up, to find Azah crouching in front of him.  It felt like she was staring straight into the depths of his soul, and he tried to quickly make his expression stoic, in case she could somehow read his emotions.  'You know that I don't believe in violence, but what would you have done?'
  'The same thing.'
  She stood up and took his hand, pulling him to his feet.
  'You want to live, you have to fight.  Right now, they,' she nodded towards the four behind them, 'Need you.  They need a leader Myrna, and you can be a good one.'
  'Hello?' Amal asked, stretching like she had just woken up from a nap, and looking over at them incredulously.  'Why is there someone bleeding on the ground in this mysterious room?  And why does my head feel like it's been put through a grinder?'
  'That's Faaris Shojaei.  He's the one who's been killing the soldiers.' Myrna replied.
  'I thought he was dead!' she said. 
  'Oh yeah.' Azah mused, only now noticing the gray streaks in the hair of the man she had stabbed.  'I thought that was Jihad.  I didn't notice that he's way too old.'
  'Basically what happened, was that the person who got hit in the chest with his own axe in 1529 was actually Jihad.  The soldier guy who came to do the inspection-'
  'Ahmed Sarwar.' Azah interjected.
  '-Yeah, him, just mistook him for his father.  And since then, Faaris has just been getting revenge for his son's death on whatever blue-eyed soldiers showed up.'
  'Wait a minute.  Wasn't Jihad, like, ten years old at the time?  How the heck did Sarwar mistake him for a grown man?' questioned Lutfi, trying to pick up the farmer's discarded axe and nearly falling over.  'Woah, this is heavy!'
  'I know, that's exactly what I said!' Myrna exclaimed.  'Apparently there was a typo on the page or something, Jihad was fifteen.  And I haven't forgotten how you pretended to be unconscious when Shojaei came back downstairs, by the way!'
  'I'm sorry!  He would've killed the both of us!' Lutfi whined.
  'So if Shojaei was only aiming to kill the blue-eyed soldiers, then why did he try to kill all of us?' Laila asked, rolling her shoulders and rubbing her wrists.
  'Exactly!' Myrna burst out once again.  'He said that he had to get rid of me because I knew too much or something.'
  'Why do villains always reveal their plans before killing?' Amal wondered aloud.
  'Anyways,' Azah said loudly, 'We need to think of a plan.  What do you think we should do, Myrna?'
  Everyone turned to look at him, and Myrna could feel himself wilting under their gazes.  He nibbled at his lip, and then his eyes hardened as he came to a decision.
  'At one point when you were all unconscious - well, most of you -'  He glared at Lutfi, who withered, 'Shojaei left the cellar and I managed to get my pod out of my pocket and called for backup.'
  'Good thinking!' said Ommer. 
  'But it'll take a few hours for anyone to get here from the military base.  And my pod got destroyed.'
  'Oh.' he said, sounding like a deflated balloon.
  'For now, we should contact the local police to deal with the body.  Maybe three of you could do that?  And take the axe with you, for proof.  Show them your pods if you have to.'
  'But it's so heavyyyyy.' Lutfi complained, trying to lift the axe feebly.
  'I'll do it.' Laila snapped, taking it from him.
  'I'll go too.' said Amal.
  'Alright.  Someone else should go find our handguns and watches, since Shojaei took them from us while we were unconscious.  He might have hid them somewhere in the his house, or the forest?  But don't go to the second floor of his house.  If it's all burned up like Azah said, then the floorboards will be unstable.'
  'I can take care of that.' Ommer volunteered.  'I'll check in the forest first.  Although I wonder what could have caused that fire, if there was no one else in the house.'
  'Did you see anyone on your way in, Azah?' asked Myrna.
  'Nope.'  She shook her head.  'Maybe a fuse blew.  It is a pretty old house.' she suggested.
  'Alright.  So I'll stay here and watch over Shojaei.'
  'Should I stay with you?' Azah asked.
  'No, you go with Ommer.  And try to keep the public away from this general area.'
  'Are you sure?' she said worriedly.  'What if he tries to attack you while you're alone?'
  'Myrna'll be fine.' Ommer chimed in.  'It's not like he can do much in this state.'
  He stepped down on the wounded man's ankle hard enough that they could all hear the bones grinding together, but he didn't so much as twitch.
  'Take the knife, just in case.' she assented, handing Myrna the slightly stained kitchen knife.
  'Well, we need to put the ladder back first.' said Lutfi, walking over to said object, which was abandoned on the floor near the opposite wall.  He bent down to pick it up, and yelped as he was suddenly jerked off his feet and fell backwards.
  'What the-?'
  He lifted his hand, and it came back sticky.  The whole floor was covered in gasoline, and one of the giant barrels was lying on the floor, dented.
  'Oops.' Azah laughed, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.  'I guess I knocked that over.'
  The gasoline spread across almost half the cellar, transparent and mingling with Shojaei's blood.  The small amount of light that managed to pour in from the hatchway above cast circular rainbows across the liquid.
  'Great!  Now my clothes are dirty!  This is one of the worst days of my life!' Lutfi groaned.
  'Quit whining.' said Myrna, unsticking the ladder from the floor and standing it straight up.  'I'll hold the ladder still while you guys climb out.'
  He stood with his back to the prone farmer, as his comrades filed out one by one.  He didn't see Shojaei's hand produce a box of matches from an armband beneath his sleeve.  He didn't see the maniac smile crossing his face as he lit two and let his hand fall to the floor.
  'How do we contact the police, anyways?' asked Amal once they were outside.  Night had almost fallen, and the sky was navy blue with the figures of the pine trees swaying ominously against it.
  'Try to find a phone booth nearby.  I'm going to check for our guns and watches in the bushes over by the road, although I doubt that Shojaei would put them there.' said Azah.
  She had gotten less than a metre away from the rest of her squad when she felt a giant heat against her back, and the dead grass around her lit up in the dark evening.
  They all spun around more-or-less simultaneously. 
  The world had become hell. 
  Everything was on fire.
  Azah turned to Ommer, who was closest to her.  He had crumpled to the ground, and she found the tongues of flame reflected in his hollow eyes.