Parallel: A Story Of Two Universes

9-WAR

After he finished speaking, he gripped my arm and rushed over to the left side of the compound, far away from the crowd. As we ran he began to ask me questions. “Do any of these places have somewhere where you can hide?” I thought about it, and unfortunately, nothing came to mind except for the farm. “Yes, there’s a tunnel between a shed and the farm, if you turn right past that brown hut we’ll see it shortly.” “Alright, let’s do this.” He cut diagonally through and I could glimpse over to my side to see what was going on. The crowd of people was beginning to break into the church, trying to take down the cops within. All the while some of them had managed to get to the roof. As I got another angle through some more huts I saw what they were doing up there. Hopping across the rooftops as I had to escape, these officers were equipped with some sort of weapon. “Do they have guns?!” I asked, unaware of what exactly was to happen in this disastrous of a situation. He had mentioned a war, but I never assumed things were meant to go this badly. “Yes, tranquilisers. They’ll sedate the crowd so that we can detain the right people and deal with this whole mess.” That was good to hear. Even though many people in the crowd had done awful things, the looks on their faces after my speech were genuine enough that I could still see true humanity, so it was good that they weren’t going to simply be slaughtered. We arrived at the shed and he opened the door, saying one last thing before slamming it shut. “Stay in here, this war isn’t for you to witness.” I was now stuck in there, it was cold, damp, and miserable, but much better than trying to avoid death. I had learned to fight, and though I knew it was foolish, I wanted to use that knowledge deep down. I thought back to a memory I had with the Keeper. It was around… 3 years ago. I had been training to fight using the cult’s own weapons against them, and I finally made a breakthrough. “You’re getting quite good with that blade there, but let’s put your skill to the test.” He said playfully, pulling out his own blade so we could spar. I took my time and lackadaisically crept toward him, learning from all the times I had foolishly sprinted. I made one swipe, and he matched me in retaliation, however, I managed to quickly recognise his angle and dodge. All the times I had made blunders helped me understand how I needed to handle this fight. Against the cultists, it would not be controlled, so I needed to be properly prepared for the ultimate fight, and any such mistakes would have to be ironed out. We continued to try and get hits in on each other until I finally managed to use the right positioning and hit him with lots of force. It kept going like that, as I had finally learned to take my time. I was a bit worried, despite having learned so much because there was easily the possibility that my fury toward the cult would take over and I would focus more on rage than strategy. But if there was ever a time to lose sight of my training, it was NOT now. Being trapped in here, while by no means pleasant, felt normal. In a way, I had been trapped in a limited space my entire life, so this just felt as if I was going back to what I had known. I began feeling a motion at my ankle like something was rubbing against my leg. I looked down and saw through the darkness that a pig was gleefully chewing on my pant leg. I pulled away and decided to start moving a bit. Maybe I would be able to see what was going on from the farmhouse. I began making my way through the sea of animals once again, the smell made me want to vomit profusely. I finally got to the other side and crawled up to the inside of the farm. I peeked around the corner of the exit and could see into the outside a bit better. The crowd was still pretty large and raging, but some of them were on the ground, tranquilised. Shots kept coming from above with incredible accuracy, but the horde was so hellbent on entering the church and getting some blood on their hands, that they paid practically no mind to the fact that they could fall at any moment. After a minute or two more, they managed to burst through the church and I could hear yelling and screaming to an unfathomable degree. Shots from the tranquilisers continued to make noises of their soft impact, but eventually, I heard two truly defining noises. At first, the scream of a police officer who had been possibly stabbed, followed by the loud pop of a real gun. Multiple members of the crowd screamed in terror, and the gunshots continued further and further. It was apparent that, at this point, it was a true bloodbath. The shots died down, most likely because the crowd had finally overtaken the officer with the weapon. I just hoped it wasn’t the one I had known. I decided it was safe to step out a bit and peek from a different angle, so I moved to one of the beams holding up the higher level and looked, this time to my left. I could now see that the cultists had gotten onto the roof and were brutalising the officers who were using the tranquilising guns. Real gunshots picked back up from across the rooftops, and this time I got a view of multiple attacks. One group of cultists jumped over from the left to a building directly ahead of me, and the officer shot multiple of them. Their bodies fell to the ground with a horrific splatter of blood accompanying them. The lifeless gaze met my eyes for a moment as I looked at one of the falling corpses, and it gave me a disturbing feeling unlike any other. I looked back up and saw that another cultist had flanked him from the right and gained the upper hand, beating him into a pulp in a disgusting display that I couldn’t bare to witness. More and more carnage surrounded me as the reinforcements arrived and rushed toward the crowd, who were still finishing off the previous officers. Now the battle was taken to the ground, and my role as a spectator became even more of a burden as a result. They charged at one another, some officers with clubs and shields got up close and personal, while more non-lethal shots came from the distance. A few cultists had weapons and blades at this point, making it much more of a blood bath. Multiple police had their shields knocked away and they were brutally stabbed afterward, yet another one of them down due to their own failure causing such a violent outcome. If only they were more strategic, none of this depravity would have been released at such an absurd rate. At this point, I couldn’t even really tell who had the upper hand. The blood and screams raided the air and blocked out any possible normality. Then, an officer began retreating into the farmhouse. Thankfully, he was walking back into it, giving me a perfect chance to escape back into the tunnel. I scampered across the wall and neared it, however, I was quickly spotted. A gunshot went off and the officer brutally killed a cultist, absolutely remorseless. Then, he turned to me and pointed the gun right at me. “Where do you think you’re going, freak?” I turned around with my hands up and began to calmly explain myself. “I guess not everyone was informed… I’m the escapee, I am on your side.” He stepped a bit closer and smirked. “What are you talking about? All I know is that there’s one thing I’m here to do, slaughter all the crazies.” I looked all over, I was terrified. I suppose that the instructions on this entire plan weren’t told in the same way to everyone, and this misinterpretation… or worse, was about to prove fatal. I couldn’t be stopped now, not like this, I was so close, and I was to be killed by some coward who shoots from a distance and doesn’t face the cult head-on?! Then, out of nowhere, the officer was tackled to the ground. The gun went off, but it flew out of his hand while doing so, meaning I wasn’t hit. I rushed immediately into the tunnel and looked from there. A cultist had brought him to the ground and stabbed him with a blade repeatedly. I knew I would be next, so I rushed back out of the tunnel, around the cultist, and grabbed the gun. I aimed at the cultist, feeling a rush of guilt. Was I to fight like this as well? I moved my aim from his head to his leg and fired, causing him to collapse onto the ground and drop his blade. I grabbed it and stabbed his other leg to stop him from moving any further, and then looked out onto the battlefield once again. In just a few moments, the death toll had risen massively, with only a few skirmishes playing out at this point and a mountain of bodies surrounding the remaining fights. I wanted to believe that most of those were simply knocked out, but I knew that, at this point in the fight, that wasn’t true. At this point, I just wanted to find my mother and put an end to this. I grabbed onto the ladder and started climbing up, and as I looked out I could see even more horrors across the compound. But through all the bodies and stories contained within the most gruesome sights, I couldn’t help but fixate on one thing, the sheer desolation of the entire place. Almost nobody was there, but I could spot one very important person as I walked around the different sides of the rooftop. I could see her, my mother, sitting there. Right outside of our hut, she was sitting there in some sort of pose, almost taunting me with the peacefulness of her current status. She knew I was there to put an end to her reign, and she wanted to anger me until I lost focus. I spotted one last detail, though, as I made my way down the ladder and walked toward the hut. It became exceedingly clear that she had something in her lap, something spherical and white, but with smudges of dirt all over it, and as I got incredibly close, I finally realised that she was holding none other than a skull. Her evil on full display, I began walking more quickly, and once I was mere steps away she started standing up, opening her eyes and facing me. I gripped my blade tightly and positioned myself properly for the most important fight of my life yet. “Hello, mother.”