Insanity Chapter Thirty

Insanity

Chapter Thirty

~Voice Of The Unheard~

Day Twenty-Four

“Come on, come on! This way!”

“Move it people! Get into position!”

“Keep it down! Their coming through the front!”

Edonya did her best to keep up with Zorah but the older woman’s strides were much longer than her own. They made their way the entrance way of the building. Zorah ducked down into her hiding place behind the railing of the balcony that overlooked the lobby below. Edonya joined her, breathless.

“Now don’t tell me your tired before the fun begins,” she said jokingly

Edonya didn’t answer.

“Everyone ready?! This starts now!”

Everyone quieted down. There was silence as they waited for the enemy.

Edonya looked over at Zorah, “Why are we hiding here? Couldn’t they pop up some other place?”

“Chances are they’ll pop up here. They don’t know where their goin’ so they’ll ‘ave ta go room by room. No place ta start like the beginin’, wouldn’t ya say?”

Edonya nodded.

Everyone silence completely when they heard something; someone was walking down below.

“Well, what are we going to do now?” a deep voice said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” there was a high feminine sounding voice.

Zorah flinched, “She sounds as ugly as a troll.”

Edonya struggled to cover a laugh. Zorah reached for the staff on her back. It looked identical to her old one and looked almost brand new. She moved to a crouch as she prepared to attack. Edonya did the same.

“Oh, what are we going to do,” the deep voice said.

“Well, there is no one here, what are we going to do?” the squeaky voice said.

 Zorah looked around, “On my mark. Ready, set, go!”

Others everywhere stood and aimed their weapons down into the lobby. For a good minute there was constant gun fire. Slowly however it stopped when people realized that the lone thing in the lobby wasn’t human. Upon closer inspection it was a poorly made dummy. Soon though, someone stepped out from behind the sorry excuse for a dummy.

“That’s what I call choosin’ the short stick! What if I’d been killed? Would they ‘ave cared ‘bout that?” Alister complained as he looked himself over for bullet holes.

“What the—?” Zorah started before she felt some hot air blow past her.

Edonya turned to see what it was. Zorah turned around quickly, extending her staff as she did so. Her staff hit Edonya in the stomach, sending her over the edge. Others started to notice the heat and turned around. Zorah looked at the flaming inferno headed their way. She bent backward over the edge and fell over. Zorah landed on her feet as flames soared above her. Edonya sat sprawled on the floor as she looked up at what could have been her demise.

Glass shattered from above as Raven fell through purposefully. Her cloak made her look like a bird of death as she reached for one of her long swords. The Others who were unaffected by the fire shot at her and Alister. Raven used her blade to protect her form the deadly bullets while Alister pulled out an automatic weapon from the back of the dummy and started to aim and shoot.

Thae grew his wings and went to engage her in battle. Raven unclipped her cloak, pulled her other sword and prepared for the impact. The two practically ran into each other. Thae grabbed her leg and flew higher. Raven was whipped around and in the shock of the force she dropped one of her weapons. She took her other sword and cut at Thae’s wrist. The cut didn’t faze him he threw her into a beam in the wall. He flew at her and used his powers to go through the beam and take her along with him.

Edonya screamed. Zorah looked and saw the girl being pulled into the ground. The older woman dashed and grabbed Edonya’s hand. Edonya was already half pulled into the floor. Zorah’s staff was back on her back when she dashed to save the girl abd now both her hands were keeping the girl from unknown harm.

“I need ta reach my staff, Edonya!” Zorah yelled over a sudden gust of wind that was Alister’s doing, “I’m going ta have ta let one hand go!”

“But—”

“Promise it’ll be betta’ for the both a us!” Zorah did her best to smile.

She let go of one had and Edonya sunk deeper into the floor. Zorah reached for her staff and situated it as she prepared for a one handed lunge. The point of the staff unraveled into two deadly points. She trusted the staff fairly close to Edonya’s body. The staff point sailed through the floor. There was some resistance as the two points his something. What or whoever grabbed onto her leg let go and Edonya flew out of the floor. Zorah pulled her staff out.

There was an explosion and glass shattered everywhere. Penelope ran in the red glow laying down time bombs that she had invented and made herself near the front doors. She flipped to dodge the bullets that were fired at her. When she did, she pulled out a handgun from her belt and fired back.

Fang stood somewhere on the higher level in all the chaos watching the events that transpired. He kept close tabs on everyone and was worried about Raven. There was no sight of her after her disappearance with Thae. Shadow appeared beside him, clutching his shoulder.

“What happened to you?” Fang asked during another explosion.

“I got a nice massage,” Shadow said, “I got speared! What does it look like!?”

“Find Raven,” Fang said, “Thae got to her.”

“Not even an ‘oh sorry to hear that Shadow. Now go find Raven’?” Shadow asked.

Fang glared at him. Shadow nodded and shifted into the wall. Inside the wall Shadow looked around. He saw a white figure laying above him. It looked like Raven and Shadow ran to her. He was about to get to her when he felt something around his throat. Thae’s arm was around his neck like a grey snake slowly killing him. Shadow reached for one of his many daggers. He found one strapped to his chest and cut the arm. Shadow fell to his knees and gasped for breath. He got up quickly and turned around to see where Thae ended up.

Thae came at him. Shadow raised his dagger to defend himself. He was pushed back and ended up on his back, the dagger thrown from his hand. Thae’s hand sealed its grip around Shadow’s neck. He struggled and tried to pull Thae’s arm away from his neck. Thae didn’t seem to approve. He raised his other hand. His nails lengthened and he shot his hand forward pushing his nails into Shadow’s shoulder wound. With Thae’s other hand around his neck Shadow couldn’t even scream in pain. Shadow was starting to get dizzy. That was when Shadow’s survival instincts kicked in. He tried to scratch Thae anywhere trying to find a weak point. His vision started to blur and his efforts became weaker and weaker. Eventually, he was too weak to raise his hands. He stared into Thae’s eyes as his life was being squeezed out of him.

This wasn’t like how he thought it would feel. Death. He had pictured maybe blowing up in some situation, getting shot, stabbed, heck; getting killed by Fang had even crossed his mind a few times. But strangulation hadn’t made the list. He lay there looking into his killers eyes as his eyes slowly closed.

Though the slits of his eyes he saw something graze past his attackers face. Thae let go suddenly and Shadow’s lungs suddenly filled with air. A white blur darted across his vision knocking Thae off of him. Shadow rolled over to his side gasping for air that his body hungrily desired.

Thae easily threw off the white figure. By the way it was fighting it was quickly getting weak. It fell to the matter-less ground and stayed relatively still. Shadow pulled out three daggers hidden in his pant legs and threw them at Thae. The daggers missed; Shadow’s head felt light and almost made him sick to move, but they kept Thae away. Angered, Thae’s grey figure turned white as he left the dimensional space. Shadow grabbed the figure and exited as well.

He pulled Raven out of the wall in a deserted hallway. Shadow leaned against the wall and collapsed. Raven lay unconscious beside him with her head on his shoulder. Shadow breathed heavily. Slowly, Raven woke up. Her head felt like it was filled with led. She looked at Shadow at an angle.

“You’re bleeding,” she stated in her usual monotone voice.

Shadow laughed, “I’m glad you noticed!”

“Are you hurt that bad?” she asked.

“Nothing that can’t heal,” he said, “Thanks for the rescue back there.”

“I’m not the sort of girl that waits to be rescued. I fight as long as I can even if it kills me. I saved you so you could get me out of there. Besides, I wasn’t going to watch you die,” Raven closed her eyes for a moment, “Is there any water nearby?”

Shadow looked around. There was a drinking fountain down the hallway. Shadow helped Raven to her feet and the walked to the drinking fountain. Raven pushed in the button. At first there was a lot of flowing water but it slowly waned away to nothing.

“What are you waiting for?” Shadow asked.

“There’s no water,” Raven said.

There was a bathroom nearby and Shadow helped her inside. All of the toilets were emptied of their water and none of the faucets worked. Shadow smiled into the mirror.

“I wonder what Fang told Blue to do,” he said.

“The only thing we can do now is to do what they expect us to do while we do something they don’t expect but what we really intended,” Raven stated, she looked up at Shadow, “In the circus I used a phrase that describes the situation because it sounded really nice and naïve people don’t know its real meaning. It’s called a Cleansing By Water.”

“That’s just a fancy way of saying you’re going to drown,” Shadow interpreted.

“It’s nice to know you’re not a naïve person who doesn’t know the real meaning,” she said.

“I try,” he smiled, “It’s good that we got out of there when we did.”

There was a loud creaking sound in the pipes.

“I think we should go up higher,” Raven looked a little worried.

“Yeah, sure,” Shadow nodded, “What about the others?”

“Fang’s got this all figured out,” Raven stood up as their watches beeped.”

“Why do I have the feeling that Fang knew we would be here at this time talking about going when our watches would tell us to do just that?” Shadow sighed.

“Possibilities? Probabilities? Chances? Odds? Likelihoods? Does it really matter?” Raven walked out, “We’re 5.3 seconds behind schedule.”

“You’re their leader! I’ll—”

Fang wasn’t in the nicest of moods when his thoughts were interrupted. A blue bullet fired into the man’s head leaving him in a heap on the ground. Fang placed his gun back into its place. His ears picked up a groaning sound from inside the walls. It creaked and moaned.

“Fall back!” Zorah’s voice cried out.

Her voice stopped suddenly as she listened to the creaking of the walls. She looked around for Edonya. Zorah called for her when the water came. It fell from one of the higher levels and down on the lobby below. Almost instantly the water swept everyone on the lobby floor. Zorah was lifted off her feet and pulled away from Edonya. Edonya tried to reach for Zorah but was submerged by the water. A wave of water pushed Zorah under the water. She swam as hard as she could against the current. When her head popped back up she grabbed her staff. The two spikes uncurled and this time shot forward. They hit the railing of one of the stairs. As they retracted they pulled Zorah to safety.

She was still waist deep in water when she got to the stairs and it was quickly rising. Zorah ran up the steps as fast as she could. She glanced back at the rising water. A whirlpool developed and shot up to one of the higher levels before dissipating into mist. Zorah ran up the stairs with the water at her heels.

Some of the Others that survived rad down the hallway they had just come only to get a face full of fire. Zorah was about to go down the hallway too when a blast of fire escaped the hallway again. She stood to one side of the door as the flames snaked out. The flames stopped and Zorah waited a moment. A girl skipped out onto the balcony she couldn’t have been older that twelve. She looked at the rising waters and smiled. Then she burst into flames. She jumped and propelled herself to the same level that Zorah noticed. Zorah scowled. She glanced around the corner; the water was already at her feet and still rising. There was no one there and she ran down the hallway in search for the stairs.

“Good work, Blue,” Fang said as Blue walked up behind him.

Alister flew over the balcony. He was soaked and out of breath. Penelope appeared suddenly. She too was soaked.

“That was way before when it was supposed to happen!” she complained.

Try holding back more than 28,500* gallons of water.

Arisa came up and landed on the floor. When she saw Blue she jumped of the railing and ran to him. She jumped into his arms.

“Blue! I did a good job, right?!” she asked.

I’m assuming you did.

Blue smiled.

“What are we doin’ next again?” Alister asked.

“We’re finding the leader of this building and put an end to him,” Fang said as he walked back down the hallway.

The others followed close behind him.

***

To be Continued…

*I don’t really know how much water is in a building if its less just imagine Blue stole some water from neighboring buildings if its more well…oh well.