Let There Be Darkness

Chapter 8: It Is Always Darkest Before The Dawn

I don't remember how I made my way back after I shot that man. My head was pulsating with pain and grief. I didn't care about anything. Sneaking past those other soldiers would have been impossible in my state so I might have killed them, but right now I wouldn't know about it anyway. I was outside, and my hair, the parts that were not glued together by the drying blood of my father, was fluttering in the wind. The wind smelled like ashes and blood. The fields were burning. Everyone was running around like crazy, some people were on fire, screaming in agonizing pain. My head felt like it was under water, light and dizzy. It was tough to do anything intentionally, my body simply wouldn't listen to any of my commands. 

 I was walking towards my friend Drake. I don't exactly know how I could find him so quickly in this mess, but I was led by my internal feeling. He tried to get people to stay close, to stay organized. But no one listened to him, everyone ran into the woods, ran wherever. Just to get away from death. I stood in place and looked at Drake and the destroyed asteroid. Blood was oozing out of somewhere, flowing down the wall not like a stream, but a waterfall.  One of them fired at the wall of the asteroid and it crumbled. Rocks splashed in all directions again, and someone fell under the rubble, killed to death. Another one walked right up to one of our scouts, who pointed a gun at him, because these people definitely did not have good intentions, and shot him in the chest with some kind of fiery beam. Quickly. Without regret. And then stepped over his body, which fell lifelessly to the floor, and moved on. They were just killing people... Defenseless people who were trying to save themselves.

"NO!", I screamed, suddenly waking up. I had a blaster in my hands, so I rushed at one of them and quickly shot him in the head. The light beam hit the enemy's helmet and melted. It did not damage him. It did not do anything to him. 

The stranger aimed at me. I gripped the blaster tighter, and shot at him non-stop. In the head. In the arms. In the chest. In the legs. He should have died already, but as soon as the beams touched his suit they melted... The stranger still didn't shoot at me, waiting for me to finish playing with my "toy". I slowly came closer, and then unexpectedly fired my foot right into his helmet. This confused him and knocked him down on his back. Forgetting about conspiracy, I squeezed his lungs with my power, which immediately burst out of me in a stream like never before. The idea to block his breathing came suddenly, I could not expect such thoughts from myself. The man grabbed his throat, vainly trying to fill his body with air, but I did not let him do that, although I myself was already feeling a little dizzy. I just watched him squirm and snore, and then just go limp... I threw him aside as if he weighed nothing, and the enemy flew ten meters away. I fell to my knees. My head was burning, and there was darkness before my eyes. The screams of people melted away somewhere far away for just a moment, and then the world came together again. Someone's hands grabbed me and I was scared. It was Drake. Just Drake.

He picked me up and dragged me along with him, while strangers decided what was left of our house. Blood flowed like a river. Bodies were lying around. Most of the people had already managed to run away. Dad...Where is my dad?Where is he?

*

"I need you to put yourself together", I heard from my friend when I gained consciousness again. "Alright? We are going to get up and keep going, ok? We need to move on." 

I looked at him, my eyes finally being able to focus. 

"My dad?", it was the first thing I said. It didn't make sense in the conversation but I didn't know what else I could have said. It was the only thing on my mind, his bloody body lying in our cavern, lifeless and cold, never to be alive again. Ever.