Descent into the Abyss

Chapter 51

"Do we got eyes on whatever was blowing the fuck outta our two o'clock?" Skylar called out, her hand darting for the radio at her left side. "Michael wouldn't want Chicago to keep anyone worth a damn."

"No movement, but they could've just ran," Claude answered, his scope scanning along the sidewalk and abandoned cars.

Skylar paced from one edge of the nest to the other, her hair itching as a hand shot up, streaking the dark mass back. Her other hand followed, grabbing the band around her wrist and twisting it into the mass of hair. Pulling the hair through the loop, she tightened the band, fixing her ponytail as she pulled her own rifle around and aimed out into the field.

"They're running like ants," She whispered with a smirk.

"Just be lucky the ones that could fight were the only ones armed. After those guys dropped," Claude remarked, firing once and pulling the bolt back with a smile to chamber another ill-intended round. "The rest will run or submit. Saw it when Michael took over a port town, over on the edge of Toledo."

"Damn, I didn't even know there was a colony down there," Carmen replied, breaking away from his optic facing to the north.

"There's not one anymore," Claude looked back at his squadmate. "He razed it to the ground, just like he'll do tonight."

Skylar shook her head, "Did they really think Michael wouldn't want payback after the bullshit they pulled last week?" She aimed back down the sights, lining up an unsuspecting target. "After three years, what the---" Her shoulder jerked back, recoiling from the shot.

"They finally got the balls to do it," Carmen joked with a smile back to Claude, arrogance seeping out of his words. "And then they get their ass whooped."

Claude grimaced with his back to his squadmate. The weight of taking a life. Even for survival. He knew it and played a deadly game with it. He loved killing, but knew he couldn't enjoy it too much. If he was efficient, he could kill more. If he sided with those willing to fight, for whatever means, his murderous intentions would become honorable and legendary under a different scope. Of all this though, he knew he was a member of a tiny percentage, a select family... And this Carmen was not a Brother or Sister.

The weight of a taking a life, for a normal person, is in its very nature life changing. This you is no longer the You that existed a moment beforehand. Normal people can break and lose all emotion, or lose their self to emotions---

"Claude, five, maybe seven hundred meters north, next to the building. You seeing that?" Skylar cut in, drawing his drifting scope to attention.

"What do you got?" Carmen inquired, maneuvering between the two others. "Come on, at least be a challenge."

"Kid, will you shut it!? Haven't seen you land a shot tonight, so piss off while we do our job," Skylar snapped, looking away from the scope to the bare jawline of teenager, to the shifting darkness behind him. "Mo---"

Her word never finished as blood poured out of her agape mouth, her body trembling with panicked convulsions. Her left hand shook with violent tremors, inching downward towards her waist and then stopped cold. Blood sprayed the air as Marcus adjusted the blade and slashed out into the sky. The momentum carried the blade to the right, to which Marcus stepped back, distancing the tip from his target. The young man turned in surprise, his hands fumbling as the black blade blurred by his head and thrusted into the back of the clothed marksman.

The body convulsed, Claude struggling to turn in response, but Marcus ripped free the blade, an arc of crimson spray misting the air and splattering with sickening wetness the witnesses. A clenched jawline and shadow drenched eyes stared down at the young boy, now finally holding his pistol. One shot fired off. One body fell back, dead in the moments after. As Claude lay dying, he looked once more at the boy infatuated in a world he never could exist in.