Infernal Realms

Chapter 2

I scrambled on my hands and knees foward, panting harshly. I felt the flat earth under me make a sickening crack and I let out a surprised squeak. I scrambled foward, flailing upwards, making my fingers grab what they could. I went face first into the base of a mountain. I didn't care what it was, but I began climbing it. Falling through the Earth's crust wasn't on my bucket list. I climbed higher and higher. Foot over hand and so on. I was more worried about how loud the gunshots were very close to me, stray bullets ricocheting off of the rock wall I clung to. I didn't dare turn to look back or even down. I just focused on up. Above me seemed to be a lip just wide enough for me to pull myself upon. I scrambled upwards, still panting. I stood fully. My hair line was pouring sweat down my forehead. I looked down at the inside of my hands and they were blistered and bleeding. I looked at the back of them and they were red and raw. It looked like I just got done punching a cement wall. I suddenly heard a loud body shaking explosion. I instantly fell to my knees and covered my head for the blast wasn't far from me. I pulled my head from the dirt, shaking clumps of dirt and rocks from my hair and eyes. Just and dirt rose around me in a cloud. That blast was not far at all. I looked up, bright white and grey clouds just overhead. I looked behind me and I let my jaw drop. The scene before me was something I'd never seen. Behind me was a literal battlefield. In a forrest clearing. Grown men in officers uniforms were attacking kids, women, and men not in uniform. I watched people with masks and in rugged armor and clothing sprint towards thousands of neatly formed machines and officers. The non officer's screams of anger and frustration could be heard even from my view point. But it wasn't just people with masks. There were old men in army uniforms. There were women in spikes and weilding what seemed to be flame throwers from the blue and orange flames escaping the mouths' of their waeapons. I'd never seen one before that. Only in video games and that was before the Cleansing. There were inmates welding auto matic weapons and covered in odd red markings. Anyone not a robot or cop was in red paint, actually. I looked past my wrists and up my arms. I also had red criss cross markings and unfamiliar swirls and inscriptions I couldn't recognize across my collar bones and all down my arms. I looked up watching holes appear from the ground. As if... Cracks were appearing from the core itself and I watched more people funnel upwards onto the battle ground. They all had red markings, too. Majority got closer and I stared hard, identifying what looked like... Horns on their heads? I looked up and watched the sky suddenly turn black. Everything suddenly was silent. No gunshots. No screams. Just the sound of deep and terrible growls rising louder from above us all. I watched the largest lightning bolts I'd ever seen come from the clouds and literally take up the entire sky it seemed. I watched it give form to large eyes and turn into the form of a... Person? As it was being formed clearer and clearer I heard someone scream in horror from below the being, "Where is the vessel!? Where is she!?"

Vessel? The fuck is a vessel?

I woke to loud explosions illuminating the room and trembling the entire structure inside out. My eyes snapped open and dust and dirt from whatever floors above sprinkled around me and onto the floors from how hard the building shook. I blinked away the sleep and dragged myself to the window that happened to show the city not far in the distance ahead. I eyed the darkened grey skies overhead suddenly burst into orange and yellow colors, I stared wide in awe. I'd never seen such colors come from the skies. It was like something out of a fairytale. I then I watched aircrafts that were foreign to my knowledge open fire to the rooftops of some buildings. Suddenly, more appeared like a swarm of wasps, bullets flying and bombs tearing through the outer city buildings. Old buildings I'd learned their histories on as a child. I scanned more of the city, my stomach twisting. This wasn't good. I saw quite a few buildings being swarmed by more of those things. They were apartment buildings that held most of the low income in the city. I watched one get destroyed near the base, then topple over from the sudden weight shift. I felt my heart drop and let out a sob as tears welled up and streamed down my cheeks. Sirens screamed in the distance and people screamed. I covered my mouth as I head more screams of shock from the distance as the building crumbled into the pavement. I knew kids and entire families that lived in that building. What the fuck was going on? Who was targeting the city? And who would even okay this type of shit?