Pandora's Trials

Death and Truth

I woke up to shouts and screams of terror intermingled with the pops of guns. I shook Elijah awake, my adrenaline kicking me into high-gear. He flinched and pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Hm? Wha—"

"They're here," I interrupted.

That was all I had to say for him to understand. His eyes widened and he immediately jumped up and began dressing quickly. I knelt down by Anthony and woke him up too.

"What's going on?" he mumbled.

"We have to go," I said as another round of screams and shots rang out in the streets above us.

"Shit, they made it here already?" Anthony said exasperatedly while pulling on his old, worn tennis shoes.

It only took the three of us a minute or so to go from peacefully sleeping to battle-ready complete with weapons and gung-ho attitudes. This would have been the first decent sleep I had gotten in nearly two days, so I was royally pissed off when, yet again, my sleep was interrupted. We took the stairs two at a time and crouched by the front windows of the church to make heads or tails of what was going on.

The streets were still dark; my guess was that it was around five or six in the morning. Despite the low visibility, I could see people running in a desperate panic to get away. Out of view, shots disturbed the stillness of the early morning air.

"Is there a way to get to a higher vantage point, Elijah?" I asked.

"I think I saw a doorway that might lead up into the church's attic," he said before leaving the windowsill and marching towards the back of the chapel. There, by the raised platform in the front, was a small door. He twisted the knob and ripped the door open. As he suspected, there was a thin staircase that was damn near as vertical as a ladder that led into the inky darkness of the attic. We wasted no time in climbing up the stairs, and mere seconds later we had flashlights flicked on and sweeping the attic floor.

Other than cardboard boxes and dusty furniture, there wasn't much else to see. A small, circular window faced towards the front of the church and would be the perfect spot to sit and observe most of the town. Elijah led us towards it, and upon seeing the lack of hinges or locks on the frame, smashed it with the butt of his rifle. I cringed, wondering if the sound would alert our attackers, but no one shot at us as we squeezed through the now empty window frame one-by-one onto the roof.

The three of us crouched as low as possible and, once again, surveyed the scene. From here, we could see the glow of a long line of vehicles creeping through the trees from the south. It was impossible to tell exactly how many cars there might have been, but I guessed somewhere in the thirties.

"Fuck," Anthony hissed.

"Exactly," I responded.

"That's gotta be over a hundred Flat-Landers coming right this way. How many people do we have? Fifty? Sixty?" Elijah sighed and rubbed his eyes in frustration.

"What's the plan?" Anthony asked.

After a long moment of silence, Elijah answered, "First, we should find the Commander."

I could see flashes from guns coming not only from the woods, but from the southernmost structures in town. My guess was that Nunez moved the civilians into the northern part of town while the actual fighters found cover in the south and were returning fire at that very moment. I repeated my thought process aloud, and the boys agreed.

"Let's move!" Elijah said as a final order, and the three of us squeezed back through the shattered window and quickly made our way back down the stairs and to the front doors of the church.