Mirae Walkers

❗Chapter XVIII❗

The shards pitter-pattered onto the hardwood floor, yet not a single piece of glass hit her.

She looked up, seeing Caste holding out his hands, using magic to keep them away. After a few seconds, he let go and slouched against the wall, taking deep breaths.

"Something is terribly wrong." He said once he caught his breath. "I could feel light and dark about to contact. It almost did. You're lucky this whole building didn't just collapse on itself."

They could now hear the commotion out on the street. People were screaming, yet almost immediately it simmered down and the streets were silent.

As Caste was standing up to take a look again, Ryley muttered "When isn't there something terribly wrong?"

Keoni heaved herself up off the floor, stepping over the broken glass and peering out the window. A huge group was gathered on the roads, all around two people. They were armed, practically decorated with technology very foreign to her. The only thing she could truly recognize was the symbol embroidered on their bulletproof vests. The symbol for the Quuarks.

The first one, a tiger, cleared his throat. His voice boomed through the streets. "Y'all should be able to hear me now."

Everyone glanced around. Or at least the people who dared to look away. Just like Keoni and Caste, many people had their heads poking out of windows that had also been shattered.

"Citizens of Everton, we are here only to protect you. There are approximately 20 Mir-Cognates in your midst, and as you very well can figure out, we are here to remove them." He said 'remove' like they were weeds in a flower field, not people. "Cognates, I know many of you can hear me right now, so I give you this message: You have two minutes to show your faces, or we will start open firing on everyone here to find you."

Keoni glanced at Caste, looking for his response. He seemed a bit paralyzed, but he didn't surrender. He was quiet as someone in the audience, a brunette human woman, spoke out.

"Why would you actually listen to him? He's threatening us. All of us!" She shouted. "We don't even know where the Mir-Cognates are! How do you-"

Her voice was cut off as the second man pulled his gun out of its holster and fired. It hit her right in the head, a red mist spraying from where the bullet exited. A shocked expression remained on her face as her body crumpled to the ground. Blood pooled from her head faster than Keoni or Ryley expected, running down into the gutters below. Keoni had to look away while Ryley almost lost his previous meal. Caste simply didn't react, he just looked blankly out the window.

The holstered his gun and crossed his arms, looking incredibly bored. The group around her backed away from her body.

"Any confessors?" The question was asked again.

"What's your plan?" Ryley whispered to Caste, still trying not to puke. Caste turned his eyes away from the corpse to look at him.

"I need to see how this plays out." He responded, like someone didn't just die in front of him. Ryley still couldn't comprehend how he was still so calm.

"One minute!" The Quuark hollered. "Or we are taking each and every one of you hostage for testing!"

Someone stepped out from the crowd, holding his hands up. "Don't harm them. They are innocent." He looked like he was in his mid-thirties, decently wealthy. Now that Keoni looked at him, he was definitely Everton's Assistant Mayor. What's he doing?

"Are you a Cognate?" The man asked him. Slowly, so slowly, he nodded, earning himself quite a few gasps from the crowd, along with people muttering and whispering.