BREATH . OF . LIFE . ~ { ReGenisis Chronicles Book I }

Chapter Sixteen [Part 1/2]: The Moment It All Stopped

                      -Natalia Swan-

With a swing I took Daniels hand off at the wrist, he shrieked back for a second. Only to slash forward, the bone forming a jagged point and his skin pulling up around it. I dodged one hit, held my sword up to catch his blade then felt his new wrist dagger pierce sharply through my middle. Two slices to the same place in one day was enough to weaken it and make it slower to heal the second time around. This time it made blood sputter from my mouth.

He tipped me off balance where our swords were still clashed, my back hit the floor. He was about to take my head, but I swung my sword out, taking his foot at the ankle. He fell back, his ankle bone growing forward into another sharp point.

I pushed off of the ground, swinging straight for his neck. He still had grasp of his sword which he held up, blocking once again. I had my other hand held to my stomach where the muscles were spasming, fighting to pull back together. He lifted his stubbed leg up, going to kick me, I moved out of his way and slammed my sword back for his head, blocked again.

That's when I felt them, three bullets hitting me in the back, just as I made a final swing for Daniels head. I caught it, felt the sword dig through flesh, hitting bone, as the pain tore into me, in the same motion, I stumbled back, letting go of the blade that had made half the journey through the monster before me.

I could fight two of the bullets. But one had made a bull's-eye out of my heart. My legs gave out beneath me, the ground taking my body with a heavy thud that circled through my skull. My heart wrenching around the lead bullet within me.

"No..." I screamed, but it was a pathetic whisper, "I'm not, going, to..." My vision was becoming blurry. I should have been dead, if it weren't for the serum working against the way of nature. "I'm not..."

I watched as three Scavengers, who'd previously been locked up in the cellblocks, stormed passed me, picking up Daniels. Removing the blade from where it stopped his neck from stitching back together.

They'd gotten past the incompetent idiots behind me, or they'd killed them. They somehow finished the job Daniels had started at the access panel. A plain wall turned into an open mouth leading into a tunnel, a way out.

Body shaking, darkness blurring into a bright light behind my eyes, I lifted the gun I'd strapped under my skirt. Fighting to keep my aim steady and sent several shots after them. Before it dropped, with my arm, back to the puddle on the floor. Warm. Not comforting.

My heart gave up then, it stopped, and everything went... dead.