Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 21: Warning

Chloé smiled briefly. Then, mirroring my mournful demeanour, she told me that she liked the image of a balloon escaping into the sky until it was out of sight. After saying farewell, she returned to her seat a few aisles down in the stands. I saw her wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket.

I sighed once. I liked her despite our abysmal differences. To be honest, I liked her better than any of my friends, and since my brother was dead, she wouldn't come home anymore. I would miss her a lot.

But an aggressive murmur of angry voices took me out of my reverie. It was coming from outside the doors of the Sports Palace, but the only people who noticed them were those who were the closest to it, those who were standing on the top aisle, like me.

Well-built and heavily armed policemen kicked the doors to the ground and ran in shouting. They wore bulletproof vests, rubber-bullet rifles, helmets and joint protection, batons, and guns.

Instinctively, I started running to the end of the aisle, like so many others. I could hear shouting as the cops opened fire and hit people. As I ran, I peeked briefly over my shoulder and saw a group of policemen running down the aisle towards me, while a larger group of policemen descended the stands and spread out among the rest of the aisles. Some of them even went down below, to the court.

The audience of the Palace agonized, understanding nothing, like me. The clone police forces, or clones in general, never came to any events hosted by traditional humans.

The commentator even lost control of the electronic equipment, which let out an unbearable metallic shriek when the microphone got a good kick and fell on the floor.

The cops had started firing rubber bullets indiscriminately. One hit me hard in the ribs on my left side. Many people near me were hit too and fell to the ground in excruciating pain. I had already reached the end of the aisle, where the stairs at the other end of the stands were, when I fell to the ground because of the blow on my ribs. I fell oddly due to the pain, almost smashing my face onto the skirting board. I tried to get up, but my ribs were hurting too much, and I could only remain on my knees, agonizing.

With my wavy hair covering my face on either side, I leaned on the wall in front of me with my left hand, trembling as I touched my ribs on the left side with my right hand. I even had trouble breathing. I wondered if some ribs were broken. The pain was killing me.

"Daphne!"

Turning my head instinctively to the sound of my name, I saw Siegfried running up the stairs towards me, desperately, with his roller skates still on and all his gear. He knew how to move with amazing ease wearing skates. The stairs were nothing to him.

He threw himself on his knees by my side, pushing me back against the wall and covering me, while the cops kept firing right and left. He was shielding me with his whole body, while his arms and his stick were caging me on either side. I felt his hard rock chest glued to my back.

Tear gas had been thrown down below, on the court. I could tell by the hissing sound of gas and the people were screaming and coughing. Above all, the cries of the children.

"Shit! Not the kids," Siegfried said in an angry whisper. "Sons of bitches! We can't even get out of here!"

The cops had locked the doors shut, trapping us inside with them. I knew because I took a glimpse behind our shoulders.

People ran if they could and screamed in panic or fell down the stairs of the stands in a vain attempt at fleeing. By the panic-stricken voices, I assumed there were a lot of broken arms and legs, bruises, trampling, and sores of varying severity.

Then, Siegfried pushed me harder against the wall and groaned.

"Fuck." He started breathing raggedly.