Chapter Five
Divine Intervention?
A delicate rain descends, veiling the morning sun behind a tapestry of clouds. The cold frigid air dances with the trees, and a gentle breeze whispers through the leaves, creating a serene atmosphere. The tranquil beauty of nature on full display. However, its calming aura is shattered by the tumultuous echoes of chaos that relentlessly pursued Sarah through the dense Alaskan wilderness.
The sound of whizzing bullets litter the air. Breaking branches, crunching twigs and leaves add to the chaotic atmosphere that Sarah has found herself in. Sarah slides and weaves through the dense forest, hearing the sound of wood popping as the trees shield her from her attackers. Branches whip against her arms and face, leaving sting marks, But Sarah does not dare slow down. Even as she gasps for air and with the raw sound of her heart pounding in her ears, She knows she needs to put as much distance between herself and those men as possible.
Sarah pushes herself beyond her limits, watching the gap between her and her pursuers grow larger and larger. However, just as things started to look up in her eyes, she breaks out of nature's embrace. Her black leather boots fall upon soft white sands of a beach and her heart sinks. Sarah collapses to her hands and knees, exhausted and gasping for air. Her body trembling with exhaustion, and adrenaline coursing through her veins. The waves crash against the beach, the rhythmic sound providing a temporary distraction from the chaos that pursues her. Sarah takes deep breaths, attempting to calm herself and regain her composure. She scans the vast expanse of the shoreline, searching for any signs of civilization or means of escape.
To her dismay, there is nothing but endless stretches of sand and the oceans superficially boundless deep blues that expand to the horizon. Panic begins to set in and her mind races, contemplating her next move. She knows she can't stay here, but the angry screams of enraged men begin to fill the air and Sarah realises she has come to the end.
Or so she believed.
Sarah however, was not going to go down without a fight! No matter how slim the chances of fighting her way out of this alive, She would grab hold of those odds as her life literally depended on them. With renewed determination, Sarah rises to her feet, her legs trembling with fear, every ounce of will told her to continue running. Despite that, She stood strong and quickly darted behind a tree that lined the beach.
Sarah takes in a deep breath, calming her nerves. Her senses heighten as she focuses on the sound of approaching footsteps within the forest. The footsteps grow louder, closer echoing through the trees. Sarah grips the handle of her pistol tightly, still feeling it was inadequate against the heavily armoured men that rapidly approached. She reaches within her coat pocket, liberating her hands as she ‘holsters’ her gun within her inner pocket. Sarah presses her back up against the tough bark, blending into the shadows. She then gets low to the ground, poised and ready as the first figure emerges from the dense foliage.
Time comes to a stall, Sarah's eyes widen, her pupils dilate, as she feels a surge of adrenaline rush through her body. With every second feeling like hours, Sarah bolts, getting as low to the ground as possible as she targets the man's legs for a perfectly executed sweep.
Tick.
Sarah completely flips the man flat on his back and wasting zero motion, she elegantly turns to face the ground below, striking the man dead in the neck. The quick strike causes the man to let go of his weapon as he covers his throat with both hands in pure agony.
Tock.
Sarah takes hold of the man's rifle as the second man emerges from the forest.
Tick.
With her newly attained rifle, Sarah lines her sights directly at the man who emerged from the forest and had a look of pure fear on his face. Sarah pulls the trigger shooting the man square in the chest. The man's armour saved his life, however, with the high calibre rifle Sarah now wielded, it was not enough to leave the man unscathed. The impact makes the man fall to his knees leaving him gasping for air.
Tock.
The third man emerges and doesn't waste a single moment to charge Sarah down.
Tick.
In an instant the man is mere centimetres for Sarah, attempting to tackle her to the ground. However, with Sarah's slender frame, she easily outmanoeuvred the man, getting underneath him and striking him with a brutal upper-cut, with the point of her rifle. A look of pure rage envelops Sarah's face as she lets out a primal scream fully determined to put an end to this man's life, and pulls the trigger.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Tock.
But nothing happens, all Sarah heard was the empty click of the barrel as the man falls to the floor. The rifle was out of ammunition.
Tick.
With three men down, only one remained. Sarah knew the slavic man she had first encountered in the forest would be her biggest threat yet. The nameless man knew far more than he led on. Sarah quickly scans her surroundings and her eyes widen as she sees her foe drop to his knees, and right behind him was the slavic brute she had first encountered in the forest. She sees the big brute winding up a strike, and Sarah wastes no time in attempting to out manoeuvre him. She steps to the side, planning a counter of her own, but the man was all to ready for it this time around. With a smug grin on his face, the man mirrors Sarah's movement, getting low to the ground just as she did and striking her in the abdomen with a brutal blow.
Tock.
The man had intentionally led Sarah on again, and Sarah kept falling in the palm of his hands.
The clocks of time resume and Sarah is once again left gasping for air as she collapses on to the sandy beach shore.
The imposing figure that stood over Sarah began laughing, kicking sand into Sarah’s face as she tried pulling herself together.
“Clever little girl.” The man spoke out. “Lying about explosives in bag, but stupid enough to think you could take me.” The man kneeled down, pulling Sarah up by the hair to meet her in the eye.
“C4 cant be set off by a bullet, you fucking dumbass.” Sarah was out of breath and still recovering from the blow she had taken in the stomach. However, that did not deter Sarah in getting what few jabs she could, even if they were only verbal. “You sound dumber than you look.” she went on, chuckling at her own words while writhing in pain.
The man’s demeanour immediately shifts, getting angry at Sarah and carelessly tosses her by the hair, back down to the beach.
“Who the hell do you think you are? Talking to me like that!?” The man says standing over Sarah. Sarah however, simply laughs, coughing as she speaks.
“Seriously?” Sarah say’s as she begins to get back on her feet. “You’re the one stalking me, I should be the one asking you who the hell you are.” Sarah says, seeing all the men she had just taken down slowly get back up. A dreaded weight begins to form in her throat and Sarah was certain that this is where her life would come to an end.
All the men that were previously on the ground began to approach Sarah, but then, the slavic man up front held them back. The man then begins to subtly laugh before speaking up.
“I’m sorry, I seem to have forgotten manners. My name is Andrei, Andrei Volgarad. And it’ll be my honour to make sure you draw your last breath, Miss Emerson.”
Sarah’s eyes quickly widened with the revelation that this man, Andrei, knew her last name. However they just as quickly as the shock took over, she just as quickly relaxed. At this point in time, it really didn’t matter who this man was or how he knew her.
“So you are my stalker, I should have known you’d be a dork.” Sarah says all whilst laughing through her sentence. “ It’Ll bE My HoNouR tO MakE SuRE YoU drAW YouR LAsT BreaTH.” She completely mocks Andrei, copying the man's accent with a sarcastic tone. Sarah then looks up at the clouded sky and she lets out a long exaggerated sigh. “Seriously, who talks like that…”
Andrei gets visibly agitated as he begins to try and intimidate Sarah. “You can laugh all you want. This is where you die. It’s a shame after all I…”
Sarah completely ignores Andrei, who is going off on a stereotypical villain monologue, and instead focuses her attention to the vaste wonders that lay above her.
When Sarah first found out she would be going to Alaska for a job, she was estaticed. Sarah had always wanted to lay her eyes up upon the glorious night sky, without the pesky light pollution that plagued the darkness back home. Unfortunately Sarah never got to see it, as the day she landed the sky was already covered in a thick layer of grey. Sarah had hoped the weather would clear, but even until now the sky remained a gloomy grey. If only She could have seen the night sky in all its beauty at least once in her life. Sarah would have been happy.
Suddenly, as if her prayers had been answered, the clouds above flash in an absolutely beautiful array of cosmic colours. The other worldly display of Blues and Purples dancing within the clouds above, looking like a cosmic nebula. Andrei and his men having no idea on what was going on above their own heads, as they were too busy yelling their heads off at a woman who wasn’t even listening. And thus, Sarah was the only one that noticed the clouds beginning to dance within themselves. The clouds moved in a way that was not natural, seemingly condensing into a single point.
“run...”
A look of pure dread enveloped Sarah’s face as she felt a sudden urge to flee, as if the very air around her began to fill with an overwhelming and unexplainable aura. The look on Sarah's face caught Andrei’s attention as his curiosity causes him to look up at the sky and his men follow his lead. Sarah however wastes no time as she dives to the floor for cover whilst the rest of the men stare up at what they assumed to be a normal cloudy sky. And then, in an instant, a sudden bursting light comes crashing from the sky above, the Sun’s life giving light temporarily blinding and disorienting the men.
The sudden grunts of the men cause Sarah to look up, noticing the sudden change of scenery she found herself in. The white sands seemingly shined with the sunlight, and the foliage of the trees fully displayed their powerful greens, vibrantly contrasting the skies' beautiful blue hue. Sarah looks back up only to see the clouds dissipating, and in their place, a falling child, frantically waving her arms and legs as she yells unintelligible words.
Sarah stands completely dumbfounded as the child, in brown rags, is mere metres above her head. Sarah stared directly into Her otherworldly glowing silver eyes only to hear the little girl yell out.
“OH SHIT!”
When everything then cut to black…