In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (24 page)

An
auditorium sits silent. Its occupants lie still in their beds and sleeping
bags, all huddling together, being as silent as possible, least they bring
attention to their safe haven.

The
only noise is the battle outside echoing in, but most of them have gotten used
to it. Because they are in the safe zone, so they must be safe right? They
don’t take a chance and stay as quiet as possible, as quiet as the dead.

A
knock at the door. Everyone stares at it, hoping whatever knocked was just a
rock. The door explodes open and smoke bellows in.

Everybody
screams and runs to the back wall, tripping over themselves, that door is the
only way out. Something walks into the door way, covered in smoke.

Its
shadow looks human. The people on the wall start to calm down. What could he
want? Maybe he’s here to help.

“Sorry,
kiddies, but I’m going to have to kill you all today,” the voice say in a
crackling tone. The man walks through the smoke. He comes in at seven feet
tall, has a bluish grey jump suit on and the unmistakable sickly green skin of
a Serephin.

It’s
an Alpha, an Alpha Eliite. Screams screech out as people run, trying to get
away from him. But there is nowhere to run. The alpha thrust out his arm, an
invisible force erupts out and rips into them.

Blood
spouts out of the mouths of the people who braced for it. There inside explode
out their orifices as they fall dead. Those who didn’t brace themselves limbs
go flying off their bodies. 

People
claw at the wall like rats strapped in a heated metal bucket. Fingers becoming
bloody as they try to claw their way to the just too high windows up on the
wall as people fall around them.

…

Blood
and guts pool around the alpha’s plain black shoes. He killed everyone there.
They have a lot more blood than he thought, he likes it.

He
digs into his pants and pulls out a woman’s severed hand. He pulls off the
remaining blue rubber like clothing off her hand. It was a chosen’s or a titans
which is what the Eliite call them. The hand has a bracelet under the material,
he touches it and types something.

He
holds his neck. “Hello!? Is this Serena!?” He says in a completely feminine
voice.

“Hello?”
Serena answered through the bracelet. The Alpha smiles.

…

Two
alphas stand on a rooftop near the air base. They peer over the edge of the six
story building at a group of four titans running toward the base.

“Are
those the ones we’re looking for?” One of them says. His name is Molotiz, he
has a slight bluish tint to his skin and he wears a green tonic.

“No,”
the other says.

He’s
Subac. He wears a red robe like suit. It was his idea, to color coordinate the
team and give each of them different colors, he always had an eye for fashion.
Plus it helps tell them apart from the humans, he doesn’t like how they’re so
much alike. It disgusts him.

“Let’s
see that’s Travis, Jake, Wilton, and
Nolto
. No
Lance,”
Sabuc
continues.

“You
said they would be here Subac, I’m getting quite bored.”

“Oh,
hush, they’re around here somewhere.” Subac looks around the air base, and then
the titan team running toward it. “How about we draw them out and have some fun
while we’re at it?”

Molotiz
smiles and nods. They disappear.

On
the ground, the team of chosen run through the unguarded air base gate in a
diamond formation. One in front, one behind and one on each side.

“I
can’t believe we lost. This is humiliating,” Jake says in front.

“We
didn’t lose, we’re just joining another group, nothing humiliating about it,”
Travis says in the back. “Hey, Wilton! How much farther do we have?” Travis
asks to Wilton on the left. Wilton wears one glove, his totem. He taps on it.

“I
don’t know? They’re not responding but they are around here somewhere.”

Suddenly
Subac appears in the middle of them, they halt and stare at him.

“Hello,
kittens, jump.”
Subac’s
arms light up as he spins.

“Shit!”
Travis yells. Energy swords appear in
Subac’s
hands.
Travis and Jake jump just in time, the swords skimming the bottom of their
shoes. The others aren’t as lucky. Molotiz flies toward Travis. Travis blocks
with his arms as Molotiz punches him hard.

On
contact Travis’s bones snap as Molotiz hit goes right through his arm. Travis
flies back and crashes into the ground.

“Fuck!”
He quickly get up, ignoring the pain. Jake lands next to him. Unharmed
.
Fucking shit
. His arms are broken.

He’s
other teammate’s top halves fall off and a gusher of blood spurts out. They
didn’t even know what was coming.

He
can feel himself start to heal, but it could take a while.

“Run.
I’ll keep them off bro,” Jake says.
The alphas
are in front of him. They smile at him.

“Jake
wait!” Travis yells. Jake flies toward them, Subac hurls at him. They’re about
to meet in the middle when—

A
bullet flies straight for Subac, he smiles and dodges it but—

Lance’s
leg connects with his face. Blood sprays from his face as he flies back. He
lands on his feet back next to Molotiz.

“Fucker.”

Lance’s
team runs up next to the other chosen.

“That’s
going to take a while to heal,” Molotiz tells him. Subac scowls at him. “Relax,
we’ve found what we’re coming for.” He points at Lance.

“We
are here for you, your team is the strongest on the battlefield and we’ve come
to eliminate you. What do you say to that?”

“I’m
honored but you chose the wrong team to mess with.” Lance braces himself and
lights up. He’s ready for anything. Molotiz gets into his battle stance.

“So
how do you want to do this?” Molotiz asks Subac. “I’ll take him and you take
the rest,” Subac says as he spits blood on the ground.

Molotiz
laughs. “I’m not going to do that, you take lance and the three others and I’ll
take the rest.”

“Don’t
think you can take them?” Subac says.

“I’m
not stupid, they have the potential to be as powerful as we are. They’re
stronger than they look and if I fight a stronger opponent and lose it was a
worthy death. But I prefer if that’s not today.”

Subac
nods in agreement. “You three against me.” Subac points to Lance, Ryan, and
Ming. “The rest against him.”

Molotiz
and Subac step about ten feet apart.

“Are
you okay with this?” Lawrence asks Lance.

“Yes.
Are you? The other guy is out of commission.” 

“I
got the fucker,” Lawrence says. They step away and to their separate sides. The
Alphas smile.

…

Julio
and Reese walk out of the building they crashed into. Julio holds Reese up,
walking farther out, he’s able to stand on his own. They walk down a deserted
road.  It’s not really deserted it’s just that everybody is dead in the
streets.

Would
this have happened to Julio if he didn’t have his powers?
It would
. He
feels sorry for the ones who didn’t have some otherworldly help. He’s one of
the lucky ones.

“We’re
are we going now?” Reese asks.

“We’re
going back to the air base so we can regroup with my team. We have a better
chance in numbers.”

Reese
looks around at the dead soldiers in the streets and the emptiness of the sky.

“It
looks like we already lost, we should run while we can.”

“We
can’t really, we need to regroup and then we can go from there.”

“Maybe
you should listen to him,” A voice says down the street. Two Alphas appear
street. How the hell did he not see them? “And run while you can.”

One
of them zooms toward him incredibly fast. Julio puts up his arm to brace but
the alpha disappears only a couple of feet in front of him.

“What?”

“To
your left,” A voice says from his left. He looks to his left. Nothing! He hears
something to his right. He turns to block—

“Shi—“

He’s
hit from the right by the alpha. He hurls into a building sending the wall down
around him.

The
alphas look at the rubble. “Dammit, why the fuck did we get the easy
assignment? Sending the two of us for one fucking person,” one of them says.
He’s
Boul
, he’s dressed in a black tunic, and the
other is
Panatil
, dressed in purple.

“This
is overkill, maybe we got on Kabus’s bad side. I don’t believe this guy killed
three of our forsaken,”
Panatil
says with his hands
in his pockets. He sighs. “Subac and Molotiz get to have all the fun.”

Under
the rubble Julio sits up. His arms are broken.
Fuck
. He closes his eyes
and concentrates. His arms glow and the bones start to painfully pop back in
place. He shutters at the pain, this is necessary. He’s going to kill those
fuckers. His ring dings. His arms are completely healed.

Thank
god Jahum showed him how to do this. He taps his ring. A power level projects
on it. It drops from 70% to 60%. It took him a tenth of his power to heal this
quickly himself. He needs to end this fast.

Outside,
the Alphas continue to talk to each other. “Go check to see if he’s actually
dead.”
Panatil
tells Boul.
Boul
takes one step forward before he stops. Somebody whistles to his right.
Boul
turns and looks at Reese, standing there with a
shotgun. Reese shoots his legs.

The
force trips
Boul
and Julio appears over him. Julio
swings, his fist lights up and he sends it into
Boul’s
skull and smashes it into the concrete. There’s a loud crash as Julio’s fist
rips through his face and into the ground creating a crater.

Panatil
stands a few feet away. He lets a
grin. Julio removes his fist from the crater and wipes the brain off on
Boul’s
tonic. He jumps back next to Reese. “That’s the
problem with you Eliite fuckers, you always think less of others until we beat
your faces in.” Julio looks at Reese’s gun.

“Where’d
you get the shotgun?”

“Borrowed
off some dead man in the street. I figured he wouldn’t need it anymore, I was
always a shotgun kind of guy,” Reese said.

“I’m
going to need you to run away for real this time. You can’t take him.” The
shotgun shells didn’t even pierce the Alpha’s skin, it just tripped him.

“But—“

“Just
go, man. I got this.”

Reese
nods and runs down the street.

“Now
this is what I’ve been waiting for.”
Panatil
lights
up and floats up into the sky as twenty thin blue shields appear around him.
“Welcome to my crystal castle.”

…

An
auditorium door lies open, a puddle of blood pools out of it. Outside, Serena,
Wilker and Noata run up to the door. Serena’s foot plops down in the pool of
blood.

She
yelps.

“Are
you sure this is where the distress signal came from?” Wilker asks. Serena
freezes. Wilker looks to the ground. Blood. Coming from under the doors.

“Serena…”Noata
mutters.

“Y…yes,
it came from here.”

Wilker
walks past her, carefully stepping through blood. “Well, whoever activated
their beacon isn’t here anymore.”

The
auditorium is covered in blood, guts are splattered on the walls. There’s an
ocean of blood on the floor with limbs poking out like sinking ships in a sea
of red.

A
mass of bloody bodies five feet high is piled up in the left corner of the
auditorium. Wilker grimaces.

“Oh
god.” Serena runs and hurls outside.

“Come
on, Wilker, let’s leave,” Noata says. His face turns white.

“No,
we need to search for survivors,” Wilker states.

“There
are no survivors here, Thomas.”

An
alpha hovers above them near the rafters. He glances to his right. There’s
movement in the bloody mass in the corner. He swings out his hand and an
invisible force rockets at the mass. The mass explodes in a bloody mist. Wilker
and Noata jump back as the mess rains over them.

Wilker
saw the force, he think he understands it now. He thinks he can do it. One of
their many abilities is to create energy, but with the invisible force they’re
doing it at a telescopic level. In this universe Energy can be created or
destroyed, the universe is made of dark energy, energy literally surrounds
every being in the universe. The alpha manipulates the energy at a precise
atomic level. When he thrown the force he can shrink them to an extremely small
level to pass through matter and expand them as they pass. Or if they want a
blunt force they can keep them expanded and smash it atom to atom. A force blast.