Evelyn Earth Part 36

As the last remnants of his flesh evaporated into the wind my mind caught up with my body and I realised that there were still two guns trained on all of us. In that moment I knew that my reaction would have to be faster than the scavenger scum’s and for that I had to let go. So I did.

Two gunshots boomed mere metres away from me, but they sounded oceans away. I felt time stand still as my black dragon burst its way free out of my chest, thrusting my arms outwards and snapping my neck back almost to breaking point.

 Everything became still and quiet. I tried to open my eyes, but my lashes fluttered freely—it was simply pitch black.

“Is this death?” I whispered to myself. My voice broke the silence and I could hear Luiz’s wailing, diminished to a scared whimper, overshadowed by the rapid voices of frightened boys.

Five more gunshots fired off in quick succession. They sounded muffled and delayed, but there was no mistaking them for what they were. I felt each of them hit me, one after the other after the other. They entered the embodiment of my darkness and were swallowed up by it.  

Instantly I sharpened my vision and allowed it to see past the wall of liquid vengeance that had formed before me. I had created a flowing yet steady force field around all of us—protecting us from the remaining three Jeff’s who seemed to be trying to shoot their way inside.

The frightened voiced of the boy’s escalated, reaching a crescendo of panic.

“Shh” I said, but no one seemed to hear me, “shut up! I need to concentrate” I yelled. Their voices fell away to mere whispers. I took a deep breath in and flexed my outstretched fingers.

“Shoot it again!” yelled shot-gun Jeff.

“How the fuck did that thing just appear?” yelled back sniper Jeff. He was sweating and scared.

“Who cares, just shoot it again!”

“This is fucked up man do you think they’re inside?”

“Let’s just get the fuck out of here!”

“Yeah screw this shit it’s creeping me out.”

Sniper Jeff disappeared inside his window. I flexed my fingers again and exhaled. The barrier churned, allowing rays of light to penetrate its cocoon. The boys were huddled together in the centre around their dead friend. All wide eyed, all looking around in fear. I could feel Manoel’s gaze on me as I closed my eyes and let out a powerful scream.

The darkness rushed out of my mouth, out of my pores and out of the palms of my hands. It connected with the energy of the force-field and distributed itself around its circumference. I opened my eyes and imagined my dragon launching itself into flight.

A supersonic boom resonated around us as the darkness sped through the surrounding streets. Shot-gun Jeff was the first to be consumed in its path, followed by the other Jeff and finally sniper Jeff who was just about to exit an already disintegrating building.

The darkness had spread so fast that I couldn’t even see its edges and I didn’t care. I could feel my whole body pulsating with power, the asphalt beneath my feat had melted and I stood on the Earth’s warm flesh and conducted her wrath with all of my being.

A bell sounded in the back of my mind. It was a familiar sound, which made me pause. It tinkled again and again and suddenly my consciousness was flying down one of the paths that my darkness had taken until it was at its end and facing Sebastian. His face was clear in my mind.

“Stop” it mouthed silently as the bell continued to sound. I clenched my hands into fists and let out a shriek of pain as I summoned the Mother’s vengeance back to me. Even in this state of utter power I could remember how close I had come to destroying our group the last time I relinquished control. Sebastian was too far away to help me, but my darkness was on his heels and I had to be the one to restrain it.

I let out another primal roar and brought my hands to my chest, physically pushing the darkness back inside me. It came rushing back like a sledgehammer, each segment of misty darkness slammed into me with such force that it made my knees buckle underneath me. As the final pieces slithered back into my pores I let out a cry of relief and dropped onto all fours.

I wretched onto the ground and by body heaved in response to the physical onslaught it had been put through. I knew that any second now I would pass out as my body shut down. This wasn’t a matter of replenishing my power with the Mother’s; I could do that instantly as I was connected to her right now. It was her power’s effect on my mortal body that had me doubled over in pain. I had never once considered my body to be weak after I had absorbed the Earth’s vengeance. I had never once thought that it could damage me. It was logical now that I was experiencing the pain. How could a mortal body contain and withstand such power? It couldn’t.

I tried to hold onto my consciousness, but it stubbornly slipped away until all that was left was nothingness.

She had wished for things to happen differently, better.

She had waited so very long in order to make herself heard, but it seemed that her voice was not strong enough. Her warriors were faltering in their paths, unsure of the destiny she had bestowed upon them. Their mortal minds rebelled against the nature she had imbued them with—the nature of destruction. All the humans ever did was destroy and kill and harm. Why they should now hesitate when they had the power to destroy all was beyond her.

 She breathed a deep sigh of regret, it swept through the fields and the trees making every wayward leaf and every outstretched blade of grass sway.

She had picked her soldiers for their sympathy towards her, their love and it was this very compassion that stood in the way of her vengeance.

 Her brother’s messengers were felling her at every step. Each warrior’s death was like a stab to her heart. They carried her emotions inside them, they breathed her own life and losing them was saddening her.

She came upon a river. Its water’s glistened in the sunlight. They were all intertwined; nothing was as beautiful when it stood alone. She had thought that by ridding her body of the pestilence she would restore balance and life, but any sort of extinction was harmful to the fabric of life itself.

 Mankind had driven countless creatures and life forms to extinction, but when it was their turn to face the bottomless pit of non-existence they struggled against their fate, or at least the fate that she had imagined for them.

She looked up towards the stars. She had never seen Fate before; she drifted from second to minute to eons to days leaving traces of her intensions to be picked up by some humans, but never by the Mother. It must be because there were so many different fates to be dealt out to all the billions upon billions of humans born throughout the ages. Fate must grow tired, she might need respite every few centuries or so, but she would never want to be cheated of her purpose.

The end of mankind meant a considerable decline in fates.

She sighed once more.

If only the humans had continued to treat her body with care and respect. She would never have had all this pain and hate in her soul. It would never have overflowed. Death would not have rejoiced so, at seeing so many people crumble.