Chapter four part two
A chilling silence followed.
Davie
"In..."
"Three."
"Two."
"One..."
lights go out.
Langster: "MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"
All the soldiers pulled on their night vision goggles as they moved in they shot at the table where the children were this was supposed to be an easy mission Just got down a couple of kids right...
One of the kids flipped the steel table over with startling force.
Three of them ducked behind it while the others scattered, taking cover in opposite directions.
They moved with discipline-precision. Not the erratic scrambling of scared children... but the deliberate coordination of trained soldiers.
Then came the first strike.
It was the girl-the same one who had once been startled by a mere balloon.
She lunged forward, eyes sharp and unblinking, grabbing a pair of metal plates still resting on the table before it tipped.
With the calmness of experience, she flung one with terrifying accuracy.
It shattered on impact against a soldier's armor. The fragments sprayed like shrapnel-each shard slicing into the exposed, vulnerable seams of our suits.
Cries rang out as blood spilled.
And that's when the blind kid reacted.
His nose flared. His head twitched.
Drawn to the scent like a predator.
He sprinted-no, pounced-toward one of the bleeding men. The soldier fumbled for his sidearm and fired directly into the child's chest.
The bullets barely pierced his skin.
It was like shooting level-six bulletproof glass.
The child reached him. Gripped his leg.
And twisted.
SNAP.
The sound was sickening. The soldier's leg bent the wrong way-half torn off. He screamed, a gut-wrenching sound that echoed across the building.
That scream... that one moment of pain and panic...
It distracted everyone.
And it would cost them their lives.
From behind the flipped table, the remaining three kids finally emerged.
The first was the boy who had earlier been calmly eating pizza.
He flung the half-eaten slice into a soldier's night vision goggles. The cheese stuck, the sauce smeared, and the soldier-blinded and panicking-opened fire in every direction.
His wild shots struck two of our own.
Then the kid was on him.
Carrying a pizza box, the child slowly advanced with that same unsettling joy from earlier-only now, twisted, unfiltered.
He yanked all the pizzas out of the box... and shoved them, forcefully, one by one, down the man's throat.
The soldier thrashed. Gagged. Choked.
But the kid kept smiling.
Meanwhile, the boy who had been playing with the radio earlier?
He picked up the same rifle that fallen soldier had dropped-an AR, full mag-and opened fire.
His posture was tight. His aim controlled.
He fired like a trained marksman. He even handled the recoil like someone twice his size and four times his age.
Another soldier, hidden and waiting for the right moment, was ready to take the shot-
But he never got the chance.
The larger, gluttonous child-the one we barely even noticed before-snuck up from behind.
His mouth opened wide.
And he bit.
Then tackled the grown man to the floor.
We heard the screams.
I believe... he suffered the worst fate of all.
Because that child didn't stop biting.
He started eating him.
Alive.
I watched.
Frozen.
In pure shock. In horror.
Unable to move. Unable to speak.
My entire unit was dying-being slaughtered-by children.
No... not children.
What were they?
How? How could this happen?
My legs wouldn't move. My hands trembled. I couldn't breathe.
And for a single, fractured moment... I wondered-
Is this what Jesus saw when He descended into Hell?
All I could do at this point was grab-
grab and clutch my photo locket of me and my little girl.
I stared at it, as this might be the last time I see her before-
turning to Langster.
Desperate.
I needed orders. Guidance. Permission to do something. Even to shoot myself.
But all I saw... was a broken man.
Langster had dropped his gun.
He fell to his knees.
He removed his helmet, then his goggles, and just looked at me.
His face-empty.
His eyes-haunted.
This was a man who had seen over thirty years of war. Who had cradled dying comrades in his arms.
Who had taken countless lives without flinching.
And yet... I had never seen him like this.
So completely defeated.
Langster: "I'm... I'm sorry. I don't know who the real monsters are anymore."
He looked hollow.
Human, for the first time.
And then-
CRACK!
A radio smashed into the side of his head.
The sound was sharp. Final.
This thing was so violent that I dropped my locket at the perpetrator's feet.
Langster collapsed beside me, dead before he hit the floor.
I stared at the perpetrator.
She stood above us, the red-haired girl.
Her expression was unreadable. Her eyes-green and lifeless-locked onto mine.
There was no joy. No hope.
Only... dominion.
Only...pain
And soon there will only be dead...
I can just tell, just by looking at her—
her heart never beats for anything but survival and her own self-preservation.
Even though, compared to all the other children, she did very little…
only when I saw her did I truly see the devil caged in her eyes.
This child was not created by the love of God,
but with me,
by the hatred of man.
Phil.
BUT I'M NOT READY TO DIE!!!
I'M NOT READY TO DIE!!!
I'M NOT READY TO DIE!!!
My heart races—faster and faster than it ever has before.
I've been shot at, caught in large explosions, and fought in duels where only one man would be left standing.
But my heart has never beaten like this.
It's never raced so fast that it feels like it'll burst out of my chest.
My first thought was my wife - she's not ready to lose me. My daughter, My sweet sweet baby girl.. I never wanted her to grow up without a father.
I never wanted her to live like I did. God, why didn't I just keep the money I made from this dirty work and cherish the time I had with them?
No. I can't. I just can't. Even if they're children, I can't let them take me from that life. I have to go home.
I bring the gun up. The red-headed girl - no, that red-headed monster. Maybe he can take a couple of them with him. Maybe, if he's lucky, he can take them all.
It doesn't matter. I have to get out of here or die trying.
Through the scope, the world narrows to one face. My breathing thrums in my ears; the butt of the rifle digs into my shoulder. The crosshair sits on the demon's temple. My finger finds the trigger.
Then I see something I wasn't expecting: tears.
That little girl - the one who never showed a lick of feeling - is crying. For the first time she shows an emotion I thought she couldn't comprehend. Fear. Her tears streak down her cheeks, catching the light like tiny, traitorous stars.
Something in my chest twists. That face - the way she scrunches up, the wetness on her cheeks - it's Hazel's face when she got in trouble.
Not dead eyes this time. Not the flat, unreadable stare I've come to expect. Her pupils are alive; the light is still in them.
But something's wrong. Her nose isn't running.
Her cheeks aren't flushed. Her eyes aren't as watery as they should be for someone whose life is on the line. She's trembling, yes, but the rhythm is off - almost mechanical.
Then it hits me.
She's doing this on purpose.
She knows I don't want to hurt her, and she's taking advantage of that.
Every time my finger inches toward the trigger it stiffens.
My hand shakes. The muscles in my arm feel like rope about to fray. It takes everything I have just to keep the gun steady.
"Please don't hurt me, mister," she says.
The voice is small. It's breath and broken candy and a hundred things I want to protect.
"Shut up!" I bark, more sharply than I mean to.
"I know what you're doing. You don't have to play-" My voice cracks. "You win."
I drop the rifle. It thuds against the floor and the sound is ordinary and final.
I accept my fate like a sentence. I will never see my family again.
I will not hold my daughter as she wakes in the mornings. I will not hear my wife laugh over coffee.
I picture my father, my brothers - the men that have fallen on this day the men I trained with, the man I ate with the brothers that I will soon see the brothers that I will soon die with - a cold certainty settles over me that they don't weigh a thing beside this.
There's one thing I need to know before it's over.
I kneel forward on unsteady legs. I swallow.
"Hey - hey, little girl... what's your name? Please. Tell me before you do what you have to do."
The silence hangs, then the small voice whispers.
"...We don't have one of those."
A beat. The girl tilts her head, like she's searching for a word that isn't there. "Well... maybe I do have.
But it doesn't matter.
What was the word - the word that The woman with the wet dark walls giving me? Oh yeah..."
Her lips shape it, small and sure.
"Selene."
End of chapter.