Shortly after escaping the hellscape that Iran had become, many were interested in asking the survivors what they saw; what happened in there, most specifically in Fallujah, and their testimonies were certainly good enough for each of them to fight for their right to appear in the front page of every journal in the United States and the United Kingdom. However, the journalists themselves who listened to these testimonies directly were witness of the absolute horror, sadness and trauma that had scarred the survivors for the rest of their lives, many of them even collapsed in the middle of the interview because of remembering the nightmare they were forced to live through.
They talked about remaining hidden in their homes, trying to stay out of sight from both the insurgents and the Americans as they killed each other with their accursed firearms and explosives.
One day, it would seem like all hell broke loose, there were fires everywhere, corpses littering the streets, a huge black cloud covered the skies. The sound of gunfire drowned all the other noises as the battle intensified. None of them knew which faction was going to come out as the victor.
But then, there was a sudden deafening silence, everyone had stopped shooting. One of the survivors said that he dared look out the window of his house to try and see what was happening. He saw one of the insurgents, wearing a blue scarf around his head and carrying a rocket launcher. He was standing still, looking around, dumbfounded it seemed. He watched as the insurgent dropped his rocket launcher gently on the ground and then took the scarf off his face, the man was bleeding through his nostrils and mouth. The man seemed to be in shock, trying to stop the bleeding.
Then, and every single survivor testified the same, an ear-piercing scream echoed through the entire city. The ground trembled, the windows shattered, the walls cracked. That survivor that saw the insurgent with the rocket launcher said that the moment they heard that scream, a bunch of blood came out of the insurgent’s face and he perished right there and then.
None of them knew where that scream had come from, but they would soon discover that after that scream, many people, insurgent or not, had died on puddle of their own blood.
But that was only the beginning of their nightmare, soon enough they’d hear about an unknown soldier ravaging through the desert, killing everything in his wake, extinguishing dozens of lives all at once, and then they’d feel it, in their lungs, hearts, intestines, stomachs… they felt as if there was something inside, pulling and stretching it all apart.
Many people died because of this agony, the children were the only ones this pain discriminated. It wasn’t until they actually escaped the country in planes and boats that they stopped feeling the pain.
Many couldn’t understand nor explain what was happening. Many scientists speculated that they were within the blast radius of a chemical bomb that was released on the entire region, but after making tests on some of the affected, they couldn’t find any trace of any such chemical.
However, some other people had a different interpretation. That pain was being caused by a being with the power to hurt them that way, something supernatural, something too powerful for any human to stand against. Their suspicions were validated, and then some more, because some time after the people that testified they survived the pain, perished at the hands of the same pain a year later.
Whatever it was that was killing them had returned to finish the job, and it succeeded this time. The superstitious and religious people that kept looking into this case were now convinced of their suspicions.
Something had arrived in the desert, something so powerful it could kill people with its mere presence, but they didn’t know if it was the wrath of God himself punishing the infidels and violent, or if it was something else entirely.
They wouldn’t know how close they were to the truth, at least not at the time.
Every single town, no matter how big or small, have their own share of troublemakers. That night it would all begin with a small group of them, five people that considered each other friends, gathering around under a bridge next to a highway, because what they were about to discuss was a very sensible, private matter. One of them had an idea most ingenuous on how they could earn a lot of money in a very short amount of time, get rich and leave that town for good.
“Look man, I got in touch with this dude, he’s an absolute genius!” – Said the ambitious one in his group. – “Look at this.”
He showed his friends a plastic bag, inside the bag there were a bunch of pink and red tablets. – “These are miracle workers man! He told me to sell these 10 dollars a tablet.”
“To who exactly?” – Said another one, he was carrying a baseball bat for protection since you never know what kind of weirdos lurk around in the dark.
“I dunno man, he told me to sell it to anyone, as long as they pay up. So, I had this idea, check this out…” – He raised his finger. – “We find anyone who seems to be having issues, we give them one for free, they are sure to come back, that’s how the pros do it!”
“And if they are already hooked on something?” – Said another one, he was wearing a hoodie to conceal the pocket knife he kept in his right hand.
“Then you just make them a discount and then sell them on 10 dollars when they come back, it’s that simple. But that’s not the end of it.” – He said. – “We sell them to kids outside the schools. Some of them are stupid enough to believe they are candies. They’ll keep coming back, man, they’ll even steal from their parents’ wallets to keep buying.”
“Hey, it’s not that easy man.” – Said the one to his right, he was a little bit cleverer than the rest. – “The police will catch onto us.”
“We just keep changing spots, no matter what, the police cannot be in every place at the same time. If we are subtle enough they’ll never have a clue! We are practically invisible man, they have no record on us, it’s gonna be easy!”
His pals were getting excited, they were all in.
“Alright, look, let’s start small and then go from there. Dwayne, you can go fish clients at downtown.” – He gave him three sets of nine tablets. – “James, you can-”
“What the…? Sean, your nose is bleeding!”
“What? Oh shit!” – He touched under his nose to find out that he was, indeed, bleeding through his nose, it was a lot of blood. – “What the fuck!?”
“What the hell happened man!?” – His friends approached, thinking of what they could do to help his friend.
“Shit, bring me some napkin or somethin’. Why the hell am I bleeding!?”
Then suddenly he felt his stomach turning on itself, like a bad gastritis.
“You think we should go to the hospital?”
“Yeah, I think that’s our best shot, it might be something very bad man.”
They were about to get to a conclusion amongst each other, when suddenly the man named Sean, the one bleeding and the one that had called them there in the first place, noticed someone stumbling across the sidewalk, approaching them slowly.
“Hey…who’s that?” – He pointed at the stranger approaching.
It seemed to be a girl, and she didn’t seem to be on her right senses. Sean’s friends valued his safety and health, but some things took priority over others.
“Hey man, you think you can hold on for a lil’?” – Asked the hooded one. – “I think we are all thinking the same thing here.”
One of them, the one that had come unarmed, approached the girl confidently.
“Yo wassup girl? You need any help?”
She stepped out of the dark, into the light of the lamppost next to her, now he knew that his eyes weren’t fooling him, that girl had some very weird scars on her arms and face, and they had a very bright red color.
“Hooo-o-oly shit, what’s that on your face!? you into freaky stuff!?”
He placed a hand over her shoulder which seemed to stop her on her tracks. Then he noticed her moving her nose, sniffing something. He couldn’t smell anything beyond the cold and humid air, but for her there was something attractive and tasty quite nearby. She wanted it.
She grabbed his face, and with supernatural strength, she twisted his head, bending and breaking his neck faster than what the eye can perceive.
He dropped to the ground, having his neck contorted. The others screamed with shock and panic.
“What the fuck!? You fucking bitch!” – The one with the baseball bat put his bravery forward and rushed at her swinging the weapon. She evaded the first two attacks and destroyed the bat with a single punch when he swung a third time, she then grabbed both sides of his face and broke his neck.
“Holy fuck!” – The clever one pulled out a revolver, but she suddenly shortened the distance between them and twisted his shooter arm, snatched the gun from his hand and smashed his Adam’s apple, sending him down to the ground while choking.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
The last one pounced on her with his pocket knife. Same story. She grabbed the arm and kicked his dominant leg, making him kneel, she then plunged the knife into his throat and pulled it out, then she discarded the knife.
Something none of them had noticed before dying was that the closer she got to Sean, the more he agonized and the more his innards burned. Once she was right next to him, Sean was twisting and turning on the ground, seemingly tortured by a fiery pain that spread all across his body, from his toes to his head, screaming his soul out, wishing to die already and get the pain to stop at once. She just stared at him until he passed out and eventually died because of such a piercing and ruthless pain. If you could look inside his body, you’d notice that his organs had become a bloody mess.
That was a great opening for Alicia, and now she had a gun. She looked at it for a moment. It was a snub nose .38, this gun had a certain nostalgic value for her. This was the very first gun she used, back then, the day she could claim revenge.
It was a long time ago, she had just killed the evilest man in the world and his colleagues; it was all over, their little project was done for, their machines destroyed and each and every single one of them had gotten what they deserved. She was so dead before it all and she had come back to life simply by taking the life from them.
But there was one last loose end, and she intended to take care of it. She was standing right in front of the only woman in that group, she was kneeling and begging with eyes drowning her vision. Alicia was holding a revolver that was pretty similar to the one she was holding nine years in the future, it seemed so light and for some reason she already knew how to use it.
The woman was saying something, something Alicia couldn’t quite grasp, but she could infer that the woman believed that whatever she was saying would be enough to get her to put the gun down and spare her life. Out of all the people in that group, she wasn’t the evilest, but she indeed was the most cowardly, hiding behind any pretext or authority figure or concept she could find or think of in order to save herself from the consequences of her actions.
But that wouldn’t save her this time around.
She unloaded the revolver on her, and that was the end of her pleas. Afterwards, Alicia dropped the gun and marched forward, towards the future, towards war.
Having acquired a gun, no matter how ineffective it might be, it was a start. Alicia smelled the air, searching for the next group of prey to hunt. Certainly, there was a big group of them to the east, in what seemed to be a warehouse. She didn’t waste any time and rushed forward before someone looked out their window and saw the corpses on the sidewalk. The neighbors called the police and they arrived in a matter of minutes, forming a perimeter around the block.
The police had no idea that was merely the beginning of a very busy and long night.
There was a party in an abandoned warehouse, gang members had gathered there in order there to celebrate their boss’s birthday. They brought booze, coke and the finest women around, that’s what you can get with enough money.
The party was inside the warehouse but the guards outside were also having fun, six of them were playing soccer with improvised goals while two at the front were on lookout for anything suspicious. They doubted anyone was going to come, but that was how things were in the end.
The two guards looked forward and noticed someone approaching, it was a young girl, she seemed to have something on her that glowed red in the dark.
“Da fuck!? This is a private party bitch! Get lost!” – Said one of the guards walking forward and showing her his Tec 9 to deter him from approaching, but she kept walking forward. – “Hey! I’m talking to you bitc-!”
She produced a gun seemingly out of nowhere and put a cap in between his eyes, and then dropped the other guard almost instantly the same way. She opened fire on the ones that hadn’t finished processing what was happening, dropping four of them, the last two stopped panicking and reached for their pistols.
Alicia rushed forward and reached for the Tec-9 on the ground, she went prone and burst fired on them before they could pull the trigger.
She took a moment to see her new options. They were all carrying pistols while the guard she killed had a Tec-9 and his partner had a Mac-10.
Alicia discarded the Tec-9 and took the Mac-10, then she took the pistols and holstered them around her belt. This was less than optimal, but it was better than just carrying two guns.
Without further ado, she took a deep breath and dropkicked the warehouse’s entrance, sending whoever was on the other side flying through the air and hitting his head against a metal bar.
“What the fuck!?” – Someone said inside. Alicia rushed inside and assessed the situation.
Multiple gangbangers sitting on couches, five watching from above on the catwalk, one near a fridge at the bottom of the warehouse holding a beer. Two of them sitting on a couch in front of a television playing some videogame, their guns were over the table right in front of them.
Also, there were women, some too drunk to know what was going on, others were as shocked as the gangbangers next to them. Then, at the center of it all was who she assumed was the leader judging by the golden necklace around his necks and his rings, typical gangsta stereotype that she saw in a movie or two.
They didn’t have their guns ready, another point in her favor.
Time advanced slowly for Alicia, but for them she was faster than a cheetah, but for her they moved like turtles. She burst fired on the ones in the couch, destroying one’s head, making the ladies scream in fear. The others cursed, processing what was going on. She aimed the Glock at the ones on the catwalk, hitting three in the center of mass, the last one was fast enough to hide behind a wall.
She kept running forward, spraying the Mac-10 on those around the boss, the remaining ones fired back, she hid behind the couch. They screamed and cursed but Alicia couldn’t bring herself to try and understand what the hell they were saying; their English was simply deplorable.
The Mac-10 dried up, she dropped it and took out one of the pistols around her belt.
She turned around and kicked the couch towards them, managing to throw the three on its course of collision off balance.
She jumped over the couch and put a bullet in the heads of the two around the boss while hitting him in the face with her knee, crashing him into the ground.
She placed the end of the Glock into his mouth and pulled the trigger, no shame and no hesitation. The last one above finally got brave enough to open fire. Alicia rushed to her right and took cover behind a pillar. The glock was empty, discarded, she drew out the revolver on a side of her belt.
The guy mag dumped recklessly and when she heard the expected click, she peeked out of cover and blew his brains out with a .357 bullet. He fell off the catwalk and fell on his head, destroying his neck, he was dead already though, that was just an accidental overkill.
“Donny fucking brin’ everyone! She killed them all! Everyone!”
Alicia turned around to see one of the girls holding up a phone. Calling in the reinforcements, that was a consequence to be expected from a full-on assault with little to no preparation. The other girls that were sober enough had already run away, leaving the knocked down and drunk behind.
But this one was stupid enough to stay only to reach for her boyfriend’s phone who was now lying on the ground with 4 rounds in his chest.
“Now, wait…!” – She was pretty, she probably used that to her advantage a lot. In a way, Alicia envied women like that, both good and bad, because whatever beauty she had could only be brought back whenever Ten assumed full control, otherwise you could say that her beauty was snatched away a long time ago.
But aside from envy, she had only one more thing to give to the bad ones.
Alicia raised up the revolver and executed her right there and then, the bullet travelled through one side of her skull and came out through the opposite side, bringing out pieces of her brain with it. Death is the brake of all beauty, just like bad decisions, and she had made hers.
The reinforcements would arrive soon, she didn’t know how strong they were numbers wise, but she was sure there had to be enough for them to cover a neighborhood or district, that was good enough in her book.
She looked around the warehouse for anything that could give her greater firepower. After looking through drawers and lockers she found a few things that would be mighty useful.
Four frag grenades, a shotgun with twelve rounds to spare for it and the cherry on top: an M4 with three spare mags to have fun with.
Next to the rifle she had found a purple heart medal and a photograph of their leader in a navy uniform. It made sense, otherwise she doubted that a mere gangbanger would have a rifle like that stashed in his hideout.
Whatever the case might be, she’d make sure to put that rifle to good use.
The reinforcements would arrive a few minutes later, three green cars arrive at the front of the warehouse, bringing a total of twelve hoodlums armed with pistols and MP5s into the scene.
“Someone fucking killed Big D, we have to go in!”
They rushed towards the entrance, finding the corpses of their fallen allies on the entrance. Before they could stop to think about what happened and who might be the culprit, they were already within Alicia’s kill-zone.
Alicia peeked out of the window on the second floor and opened fire, punching holes into the bodies of five of the gangers that were spearheading the assault.
“Shit! He’s got Big D’s rifle!”
The others hid behind their cars and opened fire on her position, she moved away from the window and jumped down to the first floor.
She took a grenade, pulled the pin and threw it through the door, landing behind the line of cars.
Three thugs go out flying, half a car’s frame bent because of the force and shrapnel. One of the remaining survivors pisses himself while his friends decided it’s not worth it and tried to escape.
“We gotta leave! Get in! Fuck! Fuck!”
They all crawled back into the car, fortunately they had left the motor running in case they had to make a quick getaway. But while they did that, she rushed out of the warehouse and opened fire on them, hitting the tires and destroying the windows. A lucky bullet pierced the driver’s skull, making him fall out of the vehicle.
“Miles!” – Said one of the two sitting in the back, he and his pal crouched while bullets kept whistling above their heads. – “God! help us!”
The other one sitting at the front tried to respond, shooting his Uzi.
“Die bitch! Die! Die!” – He mag dumped on her general position, more out of panic than out of rage.
It did manage to stop her for a moment though, forcing her to run to evade the fire and hide behind a cinder block.
The thug took that chance to get on the driver’s seat and step on the accelerator, regardless if the tires were busted or not, at least the ones on the opposite side weren’t.
He managed to turn the car towards the road. Maybe they could escape, but another burst of bullets coming from behind said otherwise. Two bullets lodge themselves into the back of his head and he perished with his foot pressing the accelerator. The car kept advancing until they crash with a lamppost; there were two of them left, and suffice to say, this was the scariest night of their lives.
They looked out from the window and saw someone with red glowing lights coming out from him approaching slowly. They were scared but at least the pistols they were holding in their hands gave them some comfort.
They shot at the shadowy figure but when the bullets flied she leaned forward and rushed at them, zigzagging, avoiding their line of fire. They were so scared their pulse was trembling, the bullets were scattering all over the place, and she used that to her advantage.
Once she was close enough she jumped onto the car and using one of the MP5s their friends had dropped she shot into the vehicle, raining bullets on the last two gangbangers. The both of them screamed as a bunch of bullets punched holes into their arms, shoulders, stomach and legs.
Miraculously, one of them survived that onslaught, his partner had no such luck as he lied dead next to him, his eyes bloodshot and lifeless.
“Ugh…ahg…help…someone…ugh…” – He coughed up blood, he wasn’t long for this world. –“What the fuck…? …agh…I can’t…”
Alicia opened the door, meeting the last thug alive, or whatever remained of him. He tried to raise up his pistol and shoot, but the dreaded click of the gun told him that it was all over.
“What did we do to you…? Why…?” – He asked, receiving a .45 bullet into his head as her answer.
Alicia ran away from the area; the police would arrive shortly after, finding the carnage she had left behind. This assault was bountiful, she now had a rifle, a shotgun and pistols. She’d put them to good use, the night was still young, and she was just getting started.
She had already forgotten about the assassins after her, but they certainly hadn’t forgotten about her. However, they were the least of her problems, because the longer she remained in that state, more and more strange things and events would appear before her.