"What is it that you desire?" A voice grips the throat of Ethan.
Pressure surrounded him. He could barely see and speak, and even just moving his body felt like an incredible feat. With each movement, it became increasingly difficult to breathe. He trembled in fear, unaware of what to do. He started into the glowing red eyes of this darkness, which he could not make out. His heart raced, beating faster to the point his chest splintered. He's always felt this way, in this kind of circumstance, the only thing that would replay in his mind was: 'Again?'
He then saw the boy on the ground, unconscious after being shrouded in darkness.
"What can I possibly do?" Ethan crunched his fist.
'Saia' flashed before his eyes.
"I feel…," Ethan stopped.
"I can feel you, I don't want to hurt you," The voice said.
"How can you help them, in your weakened state?"
"Has this been the way it has always been? Can I do it for you? Allow me to help you." The voice resonated within Ethan.
"You've been needing this… have you?"
Ethan did not want to say anything.
Something started to glow brightly within his peripheral vision.
"Saia?" Ethan quietly questioned, using the tiny amount of energy left within him.
The girl was enveloped in an immaculate aura, her eyes covered in blinding light as her hair floated with such pristine majesty. Her attire is now mostly shredded, with some strange energy encompassing her every movement. She floated across the ground, and immense pressure squeezed the world together. Devastating energy pulsing from her veins, she was something else entirely out of this world.
"I don't know WHAT you are… and I don't care… GET AWAY FROM HIM!" She spoke, or at least that's what Ethan thought.
She raised her hand, crumpling her fingers as she was choking on the presence of the voice.
"MWUAAHAHAHA!" The voice shrieked in laughter.
As it was choking, it whispered to Ethan, "I'll always be here with you." It then decided to hide itself underground.
However, Saia held its spirit from up under the earth.
"WHAT," the voice actually started to panic a bit now.
"Imbecile," Saia choked it further, now beginning to embody it being ripped apart.
It shrieked, but then felt her grip slowly weaken.
Ethan could see this, and as he trembled, he regained his composure and ran towards Saia. She now seemingly appeared to look as though she was going to go unconscious and hit her head.
She lost her grip and started to fall. It had taken the chance to escape.
Ethan caught her right before she fell too hard. It hurt him a bit, but he did it.
Ethan could sense other things, almost as if they were leaving all around them. He then went to carry her with all of his strength to get to the boy as well. When he arrived at the boy, he had no clue how he was going to carry them both out of here, literally. The flames were growing around them, and his mind was still woozy after the white flash and voice choking him out. However, he felt like something within him crumpled up.
"FREEZE!"
Suddenly, many militant-looking people surrounded the three. All pointing firearms at them, and a weird sort of technology Ethan had never seen before, but it almost seemed all too familiar to him at the same time.
"DON'T YOU MOVE," they shouted.
They then carefully rushed Ethan and struck him with the butt of their firearm. Blood spewed from his mouth, and his lip was cut.
'What the? Why?' Ethan's mind wandered.
He felt immense pain again, within him. He saw them begin to incarcerate Saia and Paul.
'Am I just going to let this happen?' Ethan tried to gather his strength, but he trembled again.
He felt someone press their knee onto his back. It pierced through his spine, sending shocks throughout his body. He had a hard time breathing again.
'It's always like this,' Ethan's eyes darkened.
He saw something incredible today: he saw Saia run towards danger when he couldn't, saw that she defended him from that idiot Conrad.
'She didn't have to, but she did, I don't care why she did,'
'I could see what she just did for me,'
Ethan awoke within himself… even as he trembled, he kept his eyes open.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER!" Ethan screamed.
The soldiers did not care whatsoever and just ignored him as they continued to pin him down.
"YOU DON'T GET TO HOLD HER..YOU DON'T GET TO PUT HER IN THAT!" His voice began to darken.
"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! WHAT IS IT HUH?! GET OFF OF HER! I WON'T LET YOU TOUCH HER," the soldier, piercing his spine, raised the butt of their gun to strike Ethan at the back of his head.
He struck Ethan, yet… Ethan did not waver. The butt of the soldier's gun shattered.
"What the hell?!" The soldier gasped as he fell off his knee.
Ethan's appearance had changed; his hair whitened with an ambient glow of darkness surrounding it and across his body. He was pale, his body stretched, as if he were in his prime shape. His breathing indicated that his voice had deepened significantly. The soldiers around him were shocked to feel his oppression.
"4-11, there's another anomaly," one of the soldiers radioed.
"STAND DOWN," the soldiers pointed their fancy tech at this form of Ethan.
"I'm sick of people not doing what I say." Ethan was not trembling anymore.
"FIRE!" They all began to fire at him, and strange electromagnetic pulses emanated.
Ethan quickly dodged the shots and grasped one of the soldiers' helmet and tossed it towards the broken concrete. He turned and unleashed a flurry upon two soldiers who came upon him. Striking their chest and up their face while delivering a final haymaker, shattering both of their helmets.
"GET HIM," the remaining soldiers rushed him with weird-looking batons after exhausting their current ammunition. Ethan's movement was so unnatural that they couldn't keep up with changing a magazine.
He continuously pummeled his foes, striking them to the point their uniforms would shatter.
"HOLY SHI-," the soldier's jaw was sent flying across the school bus.
"Damn, what the hell are we supposed to do?" The soldiers looked at one another as Ethan gripped one of their legs and flung it across the ground.
One of the soldiers was poised to deliver a tranquilizing shot as Ethan continued to beat on the soldiers.
"Okay… this is it!" The soldier fired, and as the tranquilizing dart flew across the air, it was stopped by Ethan's instantaneous reflex.
"Ah—," Ethan then slapped the helmet off the soldier with his foot.
Ethan, after finishing the rest of the soldiers in his form, then picked up both Saia and Paul. His strength was unlike anything before. He quickly navigated out of the area. Ensuring that no one was following them. He felt his energy dwindling; he needed to get to a hospital for both Saia and Paul. His arms were starting to tremble as they had before.
He then tripped and fell back into his normal state. His hair was dark again, and his shape was like his usual, small self. He shouted, "HELP," as he trembled close to the hospital.
A nurse could hear him outside the Emergency entrance, where other folks were from the catastrophe. They quickly exited to support the three.
"Help…them…first," he quickly fell to his face.
The nurses' voices were slowly fading from his hearing. As he finally felt like he could rest, he fell into total darkness.
——
There was a room, a very dark room, and the air was cold and brooding.
"Sir, these two demonstrated the success of your work," an agent stated.
"The tests we've done previously already proved that. However, what was just unleashed is more than just them. Countless years of collecting to lose it this easily," he said.
"Ahh, oh well, I guess we'll finally get the push we need." He smiled, his eyes shone.
"Don't let anything relating to this into the public eye, especially with her… and the boy… cover it up with something domestic, blame someone or anything." He ordered.
"Yes, sir…but, sir, what about the—," the agent could not finish his statement.
"So what? This is what I equipped you all for? The fact that this team failed to utilize actual tactics says a lot about the DoD, then what we like to admit, there are even worse things out there now, so we'll need to gain more authority here if they don't want random people dying or even worse," He said.
The agent saluted and left on his way.
Alone, the man breathed from his nose and exhaled from out his throat. Staring intently at the body cam footage from the soldiers. Especially from what they were able to capture for Saia before she went unconscious.
He then rolled his eyes as he shut the player down.