Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Destiny's Call ❯ Entry the Fifteenth ( Chapter 15 )

Entry the Fifteenth

 

The world is different when one is all alone, by one's self. People seem different, look at you different, you watch your back more, become more wary. One of the first interesting things that happened was meeting a group of Vigilante Bikers on the road. I'm not talking 5-6, or even ten, I'm talking fiftyish. I came across them as I was camped out by the road. They came motoring down the highway, and had I not been armed and riding a bike, I'm not sure they would have let me pass. As it was, they claimed the stretch of Highway I was on, and Escorted me through it, safely. I don't know if the area was just unimportant to the A.D.s, or something else, but I saw nothing of them. The men were nice enough, but trusted me no more than I trusted them. They did not share food, nor did they offer me gasoline, not that I would have needed it.

 

I did gleam some information from them. Lizardmen and raptors had been spotted using giant turtles to escort huge groups of people down the roadway one day. That was much farther north though, and west of where we were, it was rumored there was a huge camp.

 

I found the camp after two days of searching. It was huge, giant, a flaming scar on the land. And there were millions of people there. I was already thankful for the stuff Tarius had given me. The ground sonar is what led me to the camp.

 

As I stared at the camp, I could see giant ritual circles, where people were being led. And on the other side, I could see lizardmen, I would guess newly formed, standing about or being instructed. The people being led to, as I felt, the slaughter were frightened, scared, some with a brave face on as I watched with my zoom function. The lizardmen were confident, slightly confused, it seemed, but wholly of their position. I decided at that moment they no longer remembered being human. Indeed, one of the first things most of them were taught to do was to kill a human. It sickened me inside, and a rage grew, until it was ready to explode.

 

I grabbed the Gemini and took aim, and then shot one of those about to kill a young girl of about 7. 1 shot to the head, and down he went. I shot another, and still more. I kept shooting and killing, quickly turning my sights to the raptoid creatues performing the ceremony, and killed them. The camp was in chaos and confusion, but I was quickly smelled out, it seems.

 

I let them come, first in small numbers, then larger ones, shooting them all before they could reach me. And I kept count all the while. I reach 76 dead when they finally sent a force to large for me to kill with the guns. Still, I kept shooting, and when they got close, I split the Gemini into pistols and shot some more. That made 109 kills. 109 of the creatures that would never hurt another human. I did not distinguish between raptors, crocs, lizardmen, or anything else. I just killed.

 

I stormed the camp next, Charging in on the Leviathan, first guns blazing, then blades slashing, riding, then on foot. Still I kept count. 156, 203, 267. 305. 305 of them dead by my hand when the rest fled. The survivors, those who could, had also been fighting back now, some spell or other broken that had once held them in thrall to fear and submission. I found myself the center of a group of people, many thousands began to gather near me. They stared at me, and finally one asked, “Is it over?”

 

“This battle is over, but the war continues. You are not the only ones taken prisoner, of that I am sure. I must find the others, I give to them the freedom you now have.”

 

“So what about us?”

 

“to the southeast is a refugee camp for all those who were never captured. Go there.”

 

“Who are you.” This question, from a young man who yet held a fire in his eyes, a bright hope.

 

I looked at him, and said, “My name is Corben Cypher.”