Mother Of Dolls

Prologue

Gun fire sounded, sirens screamed, blood soaked into the ground, turning it vermillion like the evening sky above. All around the lone facility, people hid in bushes, carrying massive assault rifles on their shoulders, clad in black, skin-tight one pieces with a red skeletal pattern glowing on their limbs. Most of them held pieces of cloth to their mouths, trying to quench the thick scent of death and iron attacking their senses. The siege was nearing its end, most of the once hopeful escapees now donating their blood to the thirsty ground.

Inside the facility was a completely different scene to the one outside. A quiet atmosphere, almost serene, pervaded the air, only to be disturbed every few minutes by a random warning shot or a distant scream as another captive fell. A group of people huddled outside a locked room, the very last in a dead end corridor, the flickering fluorescent light casting an unhealthy yellow glow on their faces. They all struggled to hear what was happening inside the locked room.

“We have to get these dolls out of here!” one man clad in white whispered furiously, in fear the dolls might stir and unleash their wrath on the noise maker. The dolls were lined up all in a neat little row along the rooms’ walls, sleeping soundly though standing upright. Their normal sound-proof capsules were destroyed when the capsule wing exploded, taking several scores of dolls with it.

“Move them yourself! I’m not touching the shits!” the older man, also dressed in white but having seen what the dolls were capable of, demanded. He tensed as one of the dolls let out a little growl, lifting its lip in sleep and exposing a row of inhumanly sharp teeth. Most of the dolls were like this. They were humans specially bred to contain a special gene, but these ones had failed to be born with it. They had, instead, lost all humanity and reason in them. These were called ‘Dolls’, ferocious animal like fighting machines. Only God knew what happened to the ones who were born with that gene.

The two men stood glaring at each other when, suddenly, they felt the building rock, a loud bang going off in the distance. They looked across, terrified, to the row of dolls swaying with the building. Some of them shivered, their hair rising a bit like the hackles on a dog, but they did not wake; a big relief to the two men in the room with them.

The men looked to the window. They could see over the battlefield - being a story off the ground - and the sight nearly scared them nearly as much as the dolls did. The General stood at the fence, almost on the bushes himself, calling out to his forces. Though they could not hear what was being said, the men standing at the window knew the intention; ‘all those with phantom suits, assemble’.

The men watched with fluttering hearts as millions of black clad people emerged from the bushes and amassed at the fence. In perfect unison they bent at the knees and, shouldering their rifles, easily jumped the tall fence when the red stripes on their legs had faded into a bright red glow. They all landed on the other side, the red going back to just a faint colour.

“Oh... shit!” the older man said to the younger one.

“What... How...?” the younger one stammered. He found his voice after several uncertain looks his seniors’ way. “How did they clear the fence? What are those suits they’re wearing?”

“Shit, phantom suits” he whispered to himself. The people outside were advancing on the facilities courtyard wall, at a slow painful march, their rifles on their shoulders.

“What are…? Phantom suits?” the younger one asked.

“Exactly what you see before you” the older man pointed to the people in the black ensembles. “Suits that enhance the wearer’s performance at the simplest things. You see those red strips up the side? The glow helps you determine the strength that the action will be. The brighter the glow, the more power”

“That was really technical, even for you” the younger one answered, not really grasping the exact threat the Phantom Suits presented.

“Memorised it word for word, dumbed it down a bit for you, though, idiot”

“Thanks… wait…” another wave hit the building, making it feel like a babies rattle before the junior could retaliate.

“Crap, we have to get out of here” Grandpa cursed.

“Do you always have to use such profanities?”  Between their squabbles, they heard it; a sound that would haunt anyone’s dreams and give anybody nightmares for the rest of their lives. The sound conjured up a picture of a bloodthirsty being slinking around in the shadows, hunting for its next meal and preying on whatever it spied, friend or foe. The two arguing men turned slowly and faced the hungry faces of thirteen, red eyed dolls, their teeth protruding from their snarling mouths, saliva dripping from the points. They were more animal than human, flicking their long ears at distant sounds the two men could not hear. The older man started to laugh

“Heh… We’re facing attack from both sides, inside and out” he glanced behind him at the advancing troops. They were nearly on top of the facilities front door and they had no intention of stopping to knock. He smiled and resigned himself to his fate, but the younger man made a break for the door, drawing the attention of all thirteen dolls.

The people dressed in black within the front rows of the advancing mob were priming their arm strips to punch a massive hole around where the front door would soon not be when they heard the terrible screeching of a human being torn painfully apart. They all stood silently as the sound whirled all around them and stabbed at their ears. Suddenly, it went all quiet. The mob waited in suspense to see what was going to happen when the door suddenly burst open and dolls and survivors started streaming out, both joining in with the howls that echoed into the night.