Archiver Manhunt

Into the Night

Speeding down the dark streets, several pickup trucks, lead by the cargo truck, race towards their next intended destination, over a cracked paved road surrounded by a near barren landscape, occasionally littered with a vehicular wreck or small clusters of shrubbery.

Faint moonlight gives little illumination to the road and surrounding environment, only to be occasionally interrupted with a vehicle's burning husk.

A pair of ceiling lights give minimal visibility within the cargo compartment of the lead vehicle.

Adiel holds onto one of the interior side rails to maintain his balance, while maintaining grip of the carbine in his other hand.

A handful of fox hybrid cope with the terrain induced turbulence in similar manner, around a number of pilate containing wooden crates in the middle of the cargo bay.

Adiel hears muffled shouting over the roaring diesel engines, before a faint rain of projectiles meets the exterior of the vehicle, creating metallic like raindrop sounds.

The vehicle continues its' course unaffected, while the metallic rain consists.

Moments later the vehicle comes to an abrupt halt , slinging the occupants inside the cargo area about.

Recovering from his fall, Adiel stands himself upright facing the now damaged doors of the vehicle.

Though he retains his motor functions, his visual and auditory senses are rendered null from the impact of the collision.

A pair of headlights shed light through the compartment, only to be eclipsed by the hybrid picking themselves up, before moving towards the open rear.

Following them outside Adiel begins to see past the blinding lights. Forming into his view the outline of a pickup truck emerges from behind the glaring headlights.

The departing hybrid exchange few words with the occupants of the off road vehicle before boarding its' rear truck bed.

Barely able to see the shadows of the foxes as they board the pickup truck, Adiel follows them onto the rear bed of the vehicle.

The pickup truck takes off, with the remaining following behind.

Shortly after boarding, his senses seem to gradually restore.

The outline of shadows begin to form into color once again, forming the visually correct forms of the fellow occupants in the truck bed. The remainder of his sight soon recovers to form the environment around them.

Following the recovery of his sight, the sounds of shouts and crackling gunfire emerge into his audio spectrum.

Despite having regained his senses, the owl hybrid turns about frantically to make sense of his current situation.

Around him he notices the fox hybrid still geared similar to him. Firearms ready, and backpacks on over their urban clothing.

Bright yellow tracer rounds zip past, the occupants, while the off road vehicle continues its' rapid pace down the nearly empty main road.

Swerving from one side to another the pickup trucks evade collision with the occasional vehicle husk that lay upon varying areas of their path.

The fox hybrids near Adiel send a volley of gunfire down the right side of the truck bed onto the distance with no visible target in sight.

Surrounded by these armed foxes, Adiel ducks and briefly checks the rear of the vehicle.

Finding the middle rear of the truck bed to be vacant, he sets himself crouched against the walling firearm raised.

As the exchange in gunfire persists, Adiel feels the weight of a collapsing body brushing against his back.

Turning to see what had transpired, the owl hybrid takes witness to the falling of an additional fox.

The remaining occupants of the truck bed lay themselves as flat as they can against wallings of the vehicle in attempt to evade the oncoming projectiles.

Taking notice to the movement of his nearby associates, Adiel turns to see roughly half of the prone hybrid having numerous bleeding wounds throughout their body.

Redirecting his attention back to the rear view of the vehicle, he finds the two following pickup trucks come under attack from similar projectiles.

Taking note that the oncoming fire had shifted from his vehicle to another, Adiel prompts himself up, to take a visual of where his attackers are residing.

After a moment of observation he spots a line of large apartment buildings in the far distance, where of which the light streaking rounds appear to be coming from.

Taking aim off the side of the truck bed, Adiel focuses the crosshairs of his carbine onto the rooftops of the distant buildings.

While he sends down three burst of fire he catches glimpse of the following vehicles' demise, through his peripheral vision.

One burst of oncoming fire strikes the head of the second pickup truck's driver, sending the vehicle into a swerve, before colliding with the rear most automobile.

Having taken partial witness to the demise of the following vehicles, Adiel comes to realize that the the pickup truck he resides in is now the only vehicle of the convoy that is still mobile.

The gunfire ceases, bringing an eerie calm over the owl hybrid.

He turns his head, facing the front passenger compartment of the vehicle to find the driver with his upper body laying on the dashboard with Franklin leaning over the fallen hybrid maintaining control over the steering wheel.

Hitting a pothole in the paved road, the vehicle thrashes down and up, throwing Franklin off the steering wheel.

Without having someone to control the turning of the vehicle, the truck naturally runs off road into a descending slope.

Reaching an uneven surface at the bottom, the vehicle flips on it's side, tossing the occupants of the enclosed front area about, while the rear occupants are tossed from the truck bed onto the sand deep terrain.

A moment passes before Adiel regains consciousness.

Retracting his buried head from the desert ground, the owl hybrid turns about to scan the area around him.

The impact with the ground leaves his sight temporarily impaired, with a mesh of colors and shapes bleeding into one another.

Adiel staggers about, gradually retaining control over his motor functions.

His visual disability fades, allowing him to acquire a picture of his surroundings.

The sandy dunes first meet his sight, with the occasional bush or rock to break the homogeneous landscape.

Turning again, to further analyze his environment, he finds one of the fox hybrid laying aside a sizable stone.

The hybrid's head turned to an unnatural direction, in addition to the small pool of blood aside him, leads Adiel to conclude that individual is now deceased, from breaking his neck against the rock.

Panning his sight further amidst the wreckage of the tumbled vehicle and scattered occupants, the owl hybrid finds a handful of the foxes picking themselves up from the dunes.

Continuing his scan of the area he focuses in on the tipped pickup truck.

The body of the deceased driver partially hangs out of the vehicle's left window, still bleeding from his head as result of the gunshot wound.

Franklin emerges from the other side of the pickup truck staggering about similar to Adiel when he first recovered from the impact.

Turning again to see the open terrain before him, Adiel braces himself for a long and dreadful journey still ahead.