It happened so fast, I couldn't tell exactly what happened. I looked up and saw a long fresh cut on the monster's neck. The wound steamed, lava and purplish blood spilling out.
Right next to me, a young woman had appeared, about two or three years older than me but she had a cold, stern look on her face.
She was wearing some kind of black army uniform, special forces maybe? She held an oversized axe to her side. The blade had a bluish tinge that matched the color of her eyes.
She looked at me and Meg huddled together, covered in ash and soot, her cold eyes lingering on Meg for a moment and I felt Meg inhale sharply.
Yeah, so Meg…well Meg is not someone you'd ever want a relationship with. She never committed. But of course she used her hot goth make-up and aesthetics to steal the hearts of young gals and girls and dump them after a night or two. I wanted to warn this intimidating lady about her right there and then but she turned her focus back on the towering monster which was now swaying on its feet.
"I'm Hylla, listen it's not safe here, kids," the girl said in a breathy, soft yet authoritative voice, "Take cover somewhere, this might get messy."
God, she sounded so hot and cool but I wasn't focused on that then. She called us kids. Since I was like 12, I'd always tried to act as mature as I could so I could be taken seriously because I was a slow grower. I was always made to attend birthday parties with kids a lot younger than me, forced to stay in the little kids' portion of the church until I was 16, just because it looked like I fit in better around them. I'm 5'10 now but still a little…insecure.
Petty? I know
I stood up high, in my dusty haggard glory and squeaked, "I'm not a kid!"
Meg whispered furiously, "You gremlin! What are you-"
The woman's eyes flashed dangerously as she faced me, "what are you-"
The attack was swift, brutal and powerful. The dragon had backhanded(backwinged?)her with its huge wing so hard, she flew about thirty feet into the air and landed hard on an old Prius, making a big dent on the roof of the car and shattering the windows.
"You fool!" Meg hissed, "You've killed her!"
My chest seized with guilt, but we didn't have time for that now because the dragon had now turned its attention back on us, its pinkish throat warming up again like oven.
However, before we became burnt steak, a dozen other soldiers just like Hylla came rushing in, wielding a wild assortment of weapons.
I spotted a bearded guy swinging around a massive chain, big enough to anchor a cruise ship; others wielded simpler weapons like swords and axes too. Some just brandished simple guns.
As I watched, the bearded guy swung his chain at the dragon's right leg and pulled, making the dragon actually lose balance, crashing on a row of burning cars.
The others rushed in for the kill without any hesitation, slashing its ankles and climbing its body, hacking and slicing. They brought to mind a pack of wolves. The way they attacked as one without even saying a word to one another.
What were they?
I saw some guys helping out the girl that saved us earlier. I didn't know how she'd still be conscious from that fall but she was very much awake. Even from where I stood I could see her eyes brimming with anger.
Her brown ponytail had come undone and she was glaring daggers at me. I gulped. I was a fool.
She finally tore her eyes away from me and strolled towards the struggling monster in front of her. It was already pinned down and bleeding from a thousand wounds and cuts.
I faintly heard her tell her comrades to hold it down. Then as I watched, in one fluid movement, she jumped right from where she stood and completely decapitated the dragon with one swing. A deadly arc with her axe.
Meg whistled, "She completely decapitated that thing, she's going to do exactly that to you, just watch." she snickered, though I heard fear in her voice.
***
Few hours later, Meg and I were sitting in some kind of mini military base somewhere in the outskirts of North Dakota. It was about three hundred metres wide, which was like the size of three professional football fields put together, all surrounded by thick forest. The edges were ringed with manned watchtowers, I counted at least six.
Hylla(who turned out to be the captain, which was just great by the way)had insisted we came with them to their camp. I figured she just wanted to torture us just because I accidentally almost got her killed. People tend to get mad about stuff like that.
Meg and I were being escorted inside the barracks by four of the special forces people, with Hylla leading our group. The place looked just like a regular barracks, soldiers jogging past, armored trucks and stuff, just like in movies, but I could have sworn I spotted a blond ponytail girl levitating off the ground or maybe I was just seeing things. Maybe I've just been seeing things all day, I hoped.
Meg nudged me as we walked and nodded her head at Hylla's rear and then mouthed, "Purrrrrfect."
"You're so hopeless." I murmured, "she's literally about to kill us right now, I know."
"Speak for yourself, gremlin." She smirked, "you are the one that tried to kill her."
"Huh?!"
I was glad Meg was back to her talkative self at least. She must have been really shook about almost dying more than once today. Anyone would be actually. But back in that field... she was almost in a complete state of shock all through the battle.
Hylla stopped and turned all of a sudden and Meg and I, still arguing, bumped into her but she didn't budge, just glared.
Meg and I fell over ourselves, trying to get back, and bumped into the soldiers standing behind us…to be fair we weren't always like this, I think. All the tension from that day was probably just making our nerves work up.
"You embarrass me too much." Meg grumbled like it was all my fault.
We had stopped in what looked like a warehouse, many a jet hangar? It was stacked with ammunition though. Endless crates of grenades and rocket launchers going on and on.
Hylla paced back and forth in front of us, then pulled a closed crate of grenades and sat down on the lid. She'd loosened her ponytail, now her honey brown hair fell in curly locks across her shoulders. She was now dressed in a black muscle shirt and her cargo pants and combat boots.
I started, "I want to apologize for our-"
"Our?" Meg demanded, scowling at me.
Hylla held up her hand for silence.
"Girl, what's your name?" she asked, staring at Meg.
She gulped and squeaked, "Meg… Megan."
I snickered, what a wimp, I thought. She glared at me like I was the one that made her voice squeak.
"How do you feel?" Hylla continued. "Did you…feel anything? Like something awakened in you? During today's…incident."
I didn't know what she was talking about but Meg nodded.
"Brody, she's developed abilities, prepare a room." Hylla ordered and the heavily bearded guy left.
"Wait, abilities?" I choked, "What's that?" Maybe she just meant chronic undiagnosed ADHD.
Hylla stood and started pacing again, hands behind her back, "Let me fill you in on what's going on here." She paused, "The world is ending."
I shrugged, "So I've heard, what with all the global warming, climate change…says on the news…" I'd always heard the world was ending soon since the day I was born but "soon" just didn't seem to arrive.
"Not that." She sneered beautifully, "what you experienced today, isn't the first. Been happening rather frequently in fact. Just yesterday, a monstrosity appeared in the Pacific and gulped up two cruise ships and disappeared."
Meg started, "So you're telling me…"
"Creatures and entities that develop inside the core of this planet eventually find their way to the surface and cause extreme chaos as much as possible, depending on the type of monster, some primarily prey on any living thing they can find. Others focus on destroying settlements and infrastructures, while a few can even manipulate our weather. Our theory is that these beings are trying to cure mother Earth from its disease; the human population."
"If this is a nightmare, God, please wake me up now." Meg whispered, clutching one of her thousand beads on her neck. I couldn't blame her. When I woke up this morning my biggest problem was how I'd complete my math assignment before noon. Now...this.
"But…it's not on the news." I said, finally finding my voice again, "or social media or…"
"You've brought us here to kill us right?" Meg said fearfully, "no witnesses, oh Zeph." She grabbed my arm and jerked us away from the soldiers around as if they were going to grab us that minute.
"We are not barbarians." Brody, the giant bearded guy cackled, he'd just come back from his errand, "Well, there's a choice to either join us, mostly if you gained an ability or, we'll just wipe every memory you have of the event."
"Like in Men in Black." I said
"Like in Men in Black." Brody confirmed.
"But this isn't fair." Meg murmured, "The whole world deserves to know at least…that we're all about to die. What happens to families of the victims of these incidents?"
"A fire, collapsed building, terrorist attack, boat accidents". Hylla said. "Those are usually our cover up stories. The public can't know that there's an apocalypse ongoing…all order will be lost. And it's our job to suppress this…chaos as much as we can before…" she shrugged, "well."
"Before it eventually blows out of control and we all die." I completed.
"Bingo." Brody grunted.
We all sat in silence for a while, just digesting it all in. The funny thing is that, it didn't seem all too crazy to me for some reason. I've always imagined the craziest things happening to this world sooner or later, but it was all fiction in my head. And of course it happens in my time.
"So what's the name of this…" I gestured at everything, "...institution?"
"We are called the Extinction Neutralization Department, END for short", Hylla declared, "a global task force created to push back Armageddon as long as possible."