Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 115: The Benefit - Weaponised Stinky Shoe

Irina Peneus was standing there, my own mother, holding that large knife that had stolen Mrs Nevermore's life from her. Her blood had turned the silvery blade crimson, and it was dripping thick droplets on the floor of the stage in front of my mother's feet.

She was fully dressed in military gear. Her eyes were two inhuman, blue orbs with a similar glowing as mine, but hers seemed artificial in nature. Her face was marred with the poison of hatred. Her body language was screaming war. The stiffness in her revealed that her emotions were long lost.

It was obvious that she didn't recognise me at all. She was an android, one who was not 'awake' like my brother and his colleagues on that stage in Hotel Poseidon during Apollo's press conference.

I tried the impossible, nonetheless: calling her.

"Mom?" I whispered, feeling that time had frozen for me. However, I recall many other heavily-armed androids like her springing into action, coming from backstage, running behind her, jumping down onto the grass dance floor, and running to the dining area. "MOM?" I said louder, hoping she would snap out of it.

In a matter of seconds, the dining area was a war zone. Red tainted the tablecloths, the napkins, the glasses, the food, the chairs, the humid grass, everything. Yelling and gutting was the symphony of corruption I could hear. An unspeakable massacre took place despite Apollo's bodyguards and the extra security he had requested.

Speaking of the devil, he was the only one to get protected. The rest of the clones were being slaughtered.

Eros was kneeling on the floor, holding his mother close to the floor with tears in his eyes. He was shaking her body as if he could make her magically come back to life, but it was no use, obviously.

My mother's eyes shifted from me to him, and then she smirked with blood lust written all over her face.

"MOM?!" I called even louder. "Wake up! This isn't you!"

Eros turned his face to me and stared at me as if a bolt of lightning had just struck him. Then, his gaze turned to my mother. She was already raising her large knife to strike at Eros.

"Irina Peneus! Please, stop!" I yelled, hoping that her name would shake something in her. It didn't.

Out of the blue, Eros left his mother's lifeless body on the floor. With a look of pure hatred that I had never seen in him before, he dodged my mother's direct attack. He kicked her arms, making the knife fall with a loud clatter a few feet from both of them.

They lunged to get it at the same time. I gasped.

Eros was faster. He got the knife and stuck it in my mother's gut.

I saw the tip of the knife kiss the air on the other side of her body. Blood emerged from the wound on her back.

"NO!" I yelled with teary eyes.

My mother's lifeless body fell to her knees, and then, flatly on the floor, face down with the knife still piercing her abdomen. I was shaking all over.

Eros was panting and in a state of shock. So was I.

I fell to my knees, and then he said in a panic-driven voice:

"I'm... I'm so sorry. I-I... What... w-what have I done?" His voice creaked by the end. He stared at his blood-stained hands, which were shaking.

All of a sudden, the egg hatched and I found a baby dodo staring at me with love and devotion. It flapped its baby wings with joy and tried to come closer to my chest, to the edges of the box. Its clumsy, baby feet found some trouble while walking on the straw inside the box.