AWAKENING

Chapter Two: Awakening

I stood in the dark, sinking in the cold mud, waiting for the group to pass. I have been following them for about a day back to their camp. They had something I desperately needed, Food and weapons. The sun had set about an hour ago and since there were no stars or moon in the dark sky, I had the cover of complete darkness. The air was silent and they had all fallen asleep. Time to move in.

    They all slept soundly. There was about thirteen of them, not a big deal. I crouched and made my way towards their little camp. In the distance I heard the howls of the Screecher, those terrifying beasts. Screechers are big mutated wolves, they have no eyes but an acute hearing and sense of smell. Nothing can hide from them except their own pack. I had a few run ins with them. I made my way over to one of the raiders laying away from everyone else. I unsheathed my blade and covered his mouth. He started to struggle and he tried to scream. With no life in my eyes I jammed my blade right his throat. He stopped struggling and went limp. I looked up to see if anyone had awaken, nothing, perfect.

I slowly picked off each raider, I nearly woke them up, but thankfully I didn't. There was only one left, I slowly approached and pulled my arm to my chest keeping the blade forward. I slowly reached down to remove the blanket covering their body. I quickly removed the blanket but there was no body, just pillows. I stepped back and quickly realized what was happening. I swung around swinging my blade outwards. They quickly stepped back and pulled out a gun, aiming right at me. "Hands up right now or I'll kill you where you stand" I couldn't quite make out who it was but they had a high voice so definitely not a man. Maybe a young man or a woman. "Who are you and what did you do my group" They said again. I remained silent. I ran towards them. Instead of shooting me they spun around and kicked me right in the face sending back about a foot. They walked over to me and stood over me. They put the gun right to my forehead. "I'm not going to ask again, WHO ARE YOU??" they were very unhappy.

I jumped to my feet and punched them in the face sending them staggering back. I unsheathed my blade and launched forward knocking them to the ground. I got on top of them and held them down. I held the blade to their throat. "Answer my question, who the fuck are you?" I noticed the gun and pushed it away. I refocused on them. They remained quiet, I didn't like that. I let off a shot right next to their head "SPEAK!" there was a moment of silence. "Fine, I am Mercury, leader of the platoon you just wiped out" They struggled a bit, trying to get free but to no avail. "I could kill you right now, there's nothing stopping me" I said "but I don't want too" I carefully got up and put the blade away. "Leave, NOW!" They got up and they must've contemplated attacking me again, they would've won if they did. "Fine" they turned and walked away, without contest. I watched them walk away until they were out of sight. "I have a feeling we'll meet again" I said to myself "I'm counting on it" I turned and walked away from the camp in the opposite direction. I pulled out a radio device. "hopefully that tracker still works" I said as I tapped the device on. "Should've killed me Mercury, Should've killed me" I put the device away and continued walking.

This device will let out a beep if the tracker gets close. It's actually quite useful. Although I didn't really need it this time, it pays to be safe. Why did I let them walk away? Why didn't I just kill them? Am I OK? Who knows?

As I was walking the ground began to shake. The trees began to swing back and forth. The ground began cracking beneath me. The cracks climbed the tree in front of me and just as everything started, it all stopped. Everything seemed to freeze. There was a loud roar, but it came from underneath my feet. Everything began shaking violently and trees began falling and snapping. I looked around, the sound of snapping trees and buckling rock beneath me was nothing compared to that roar. I began to run as trees fell behind me. The ground began splitting in half. Lava began spilling from the cracks, the ground was shooting rocks of fire from the ground. Something big was coming and it was not happy. I ran to a hill about a mile away from where everything began. The rocks stopped falling but something was rising from where I was before. The ground lifted up and then fell back down, con-caving inwards and a plume of smoke and ash rose. Something came from the crater, It looked like a wing but there's nothing that big that can fly. Another wing appeared and both came crashing down sending a shock wave that leveled a five mile radius of forest. I was sent flying backwards and was blown off the hill. I was knocked hard against a tree and passed out.

When I came to, it was gone but everything was on fire. No sign of life anywhere, not a trace. "What the hell was that?" I said rubbing my head which was bruised and I had a major headache. I grabbed my stuff and looked into the sky for anything that might tell which direction it went. Not trace of anything.

I gathered what I had and looked around the skeleton of the once green forest, I was lucky to survive. At least I know where it came from but why did I survive. I looked around some more and then towards the crater. The crater was about half a mile wide and a mile deep, whatever came out was big and angry and I need to find it. It's the biggest behemoth this world has ever seen and it came straight from hell itself. If it's looking for a fight or a mate it might be heading west, but that's where my home village is. I don't know if I can go back there, not after losing Sam. They might hate me for being gone so long. I let out a long sigh and looked at my compass before putting it back in my bag. I throw the bag on my back and started west.