The Book of Gemma -Apocalyptic Fantasy Romance-

CHAPTER 22: THE BOOK OF STARZITHIANS

I approached the abandoned city again where I had a scuffle with three women.
I hear crunching on the ground as footsteps come towards my direction.

Not again.

I raise my masked face to the three women standing in a line to block my exit.

"Where's the location to your other stash spots!?" The girl with the machete yells to me as I approach.
"Stash?" I questioned.
I hear more crunching.

At least fifty other people begin to form a circle around me.
An ambush?
I look in all directions to see them blocking my every move.
"We dug up every shack here, nothing. You go into one and bring out food.. So.. where is the rest? Is that why you don't travel with food in your pack? You stash it around the planet?"

You do not scare me.

I begin to step closer to her position and hear the sound of guns being cocked, arrows gliding across a bow from all rooftops, knives being slipped out of the holsters.

"I do not have time for another one of our encounters... move."

You were lucky I was trying to control my emotions and I landed on numbness instead of murderous thoughts.
She pulls a gun from her waist and points it to my forehead.

"Where is it?" She growls.

If she pulls the trigger, it will shatter over my shield. My flesh wouldn't even feel the pressure... but they would see that.
Over fifty minds to erase the memory? That's too risky.
...but I'm not being my old self lately.

Give me another reason to leave your kind to rot.

I step back to the center of the circle they have formed around me.

"I'll make you deal.. What do you people call it? A deal with the devil? It was some bullshit saying like that right?... You have faith in me as a community to go into a shack and pop out a whole buffet for you. Enough to get every last person before me to survive let's say I'm feeling generous... a month?
Yes, a month's worth of food to every person...
I give you another chance to not eat another human yeah? And all you have to do is believe my word.. All I want in return is that I can leave here with no mention of my existence to anyone outside this circle. I am a ghost to your people. That is all I ask.. No brainer to me."

She cocks the gun, "We want all the locations to every stash you have, we have already checked all the shacks.... You're lying."

She looks up to one of the archers on the rooftop and nods.
The pull of the bow slices through my eardrum.

I shake my finger at her, "So your better option for me is to feed a finger size portion to every last person instead of having faith?"
She holds her hand up to the archer to wait a second.
"Are you going to tell us where the rest of the food is?"

I begin to laugh, "Go ahead.. Take the shot... I would like to see how you provide for your people."

Do it, let your people starve under your leadership.
She nods to the archer and I hear the arrow come whizzing towards me, wait two.

One headed for my cranium and one to my heart.
They weren't bad shots.

I lift both my arms and catch them before making contact. I hear the gasps around the circle as I twirl them around in the air and snap them over my knee.
I throw the broken pieces towards their leader,

"You shouldn't aim for my heart if you are to eat it, loses the juices if punctured."

I crouch now to get in position for the rest of the arrows flung my way.
One arrow, two, three, four.
I leap from the ground, two arrows dive into the dirt while the other two I catch between my fingers.

SNAP, I chuck the others towards her.

I hear a gun cock and they don't even hesitate, they follow blindly all beginning to point their guns at me like 'follow the leader'.
"I promise you, once you pull those triggers... You believe the hardest work will be pulling the bullet shrapnel from my body but it will end up in the slaughter of your people... have faith in me or I will smite you."

That's all I have ever asked for, faith in me.

She raises her hand for their guns to rise upwards to me.
"You are now a threat to my people and I cannot have you be a potential danger."
Her arm drops and the bullets begin to fly in my direction.

They hit my body and bounce off towards the ground. Every last one flatten like a penny and clink at my feet. They continue to fire until a circle of the bullets surrounds me.
I hear the clicks of empty chambers and the panic begins to sweep over.

"All I asked for was faith... leader."