The aftermath of the incident was something no one would have expected, when Moji and his brother were serving the scared customers and generating good will, the fight in the station had already taken the turn for the worse, out of 139 people in the station at the time that weren’t able to escape when the terrorist struck, only a handful of 62 survived the ordeal, the terrorist seemed suicidal and gave up their life while causing as much damage as they can.
Even though the city deployed the elite soldiers who have synthesized their abilities, they weren’t even able to complete their job correctly as can be seen from the huge amount of death and loss of 1 elite soldier and 4 normal soldiers who went into station.
This incident created a buzz in the media, the whole city had a restless night as there was no news from the mayor of the goal of the terrorist, maybe they may struck at night again and the normal people living in their home may be victim this time, during the whole time the city was on a complete lockdown, the customers were asked to stay in the restaurant by Moji’s father after knowing the severity of the situation.
At night when the whole restaurant has fallen silent, Moji sat in his room devoid of any fatigue as he read a novel based on the modern warfare which told the story of a soldier who went mad after 5 years of service to his country, the book generated a lot of controversy, and hence attracted the curiosity of Moji, what happened in the day was a windfall for his family business, though today they were at loss, but he thought it as an investment for the future.
Taking over the family business was his first priority, and as his brother has already joined the Awakening program from young age, Moji knows that his brother don’t want any part in it. SO any publicity was a welcome thing to Moji as this restaurant in the future will belong to him.
As for his younger sister, he never was fond of her due to her stupidity, although his older brother treated him bad, but he considered his brother the same kind of lifeform as him and never looked down on him, but his sister had a playful and bright personality, being the smallest in the family had its quirks, she is just 4 years younger than him but she never get herself involved with the family business.
Moji has thought of various ways to use his sister in ways to increase the popularity of his restaurant, every famous place has their own mascots, and her cute little figure can become instant popular among the populace.
“She is probably asleep by now.” The neighboring room of Moji belonged to his sister, which was a great cause of disturbance to Moji and his leisure life of books and surfing the net. His siter was overly energetic in the day, so when the night came she was the first one to close her eyes and be lost in the land of dreams, and this day has being heavy for everyone, the majority felt fatigue and slept early after securing the restaurant.
Moji remained steadfast due to his odd way of doing things and was awoke even though the time on the clock was 12:00am, he kept on taking small amount of caffeine in the form of soft drinks, which kept his eyes awake.
The night was devoid of any sound unlike any other nights, maybe due to his home being closed to the station was one of the reason.
The silence didn’t give him any eerie feeling, instead it gave him a peace of mind a serene state where his whole concentration can be focused on the book and book alone. Completely immersed in the book and getting lost in the war, he read saw a totally different world from somebody’s else perspective, he saw the world unlike any other, and felt elated to know another side of his own world, it was a bleak story which was not stew with senseless slaughter, but 90% of the story was based on the mental state of the victim of the war who began his life on a battlefield as a normal greenhorn fresh out of the academy.
*Dhum Dum!!
Moji’s forehead creased up, there was sound coming from his sister’s room.
“That annoying thing!!” The sound was heard for a little bit, but then it went all silent, his slight disturbance eliminated, Moji continued to read again, but just after a minute of his resuming to his activity another sound came.
*MMMmmhh!!
It was the muffled sound that came out of his sister’s mouth, he can identify the high pitched voice from kilometer away, and this sound came just a few meters away from him.
But this time he didn’t thought of it as an annoyance, instead he picked up a small knife from his room and hid it under his clothes. While looking out of the window for some time.
He soon got out of his room and left the door open as he always do, he moved in a natural way and looked toward his brother’s room. ’He’s asleep!!’
He thought if he should call his brother, but made his decision against it and he shouldn’t inform his parents too as the moment he went downstairs, something bad may happen to his sister, it’s better to just enter his sister’s room like he naturally do.
His first priority was to secure his sister and the rest can be dealt with after it was over.
AS he got close to his sister’s room he called out in an annoyed tone.” Meena! Stop causing ruckus at night.!!” Saying this he though. ‘Fuck!! FUCKK!!!!!!!’. But on the surface he acted naturally as he opened the door to his sister’s room before continuing with. ”People require slee…..”
Moji went silent, as his body shook. Though the room was dark, due to his sister being scared of dark, she still had a nightlight to help her sleep at night, this small night illuminated the horrific scene that Moji didn’t wanted to be true. Just as he thought there was a naked woman in the room, with blood pouring from all over her body, breathing was haggard and seemed that she can die at any moment, one of her hand held Meena’s face tightly so that she doesn’t make any sound her eyes were filled with tears and seemed pitiful enough to make Moji’s heart skip a beat, and all along a smoke like hand was aimed at Moji.
What scared him more was various smoke hands were working on the woman and patching her up, thought it was invisible in the dark, but the nightlight illuminated them from time to time as they moved all over her naked body And cleaned the blood and bandaged them.
“Make a sound and I will kill her!” Moji was shut silent.
‘An origin ability.’ He understood that the woman in front of him was not some regular thug, her body was bleeding with injuries of all kinds and for some reason black smoke was rising from it.
His blood pressure rose, the woman is not someone who can be dealt with even if everyone in this establishment fight her off, it doesn’t matter if she is injured or not.
“Go and bring some food…… and remember to not wake anyone else up.” As she said that her grasp over his sister tighten and a shrill faint or inaudible came from his sister’s mouth. It was a simple threat that worked wonders on him.
But he didn’t move instantly, his brain was calm but he needed to show some weakness in his resolve so he stayed at the door shivering and with his eyes opened wide.
‘It seems her healing factor is not working, those black gases may be the reason, though the wounds seem deep, they are only shallow………………….. those black gases are probably the reason for her current state.’ Moji needed to find something, he noticed the window was still opened and the empty street that followed his view.
‘Nothing!!’
“Don’t stand there!!” As soon as she finished a needle rushed pass Moji prickling his ear, it took time for him to understand, but he fell down on the ground in fear as his legs went week, but he didn’t dare ot make any sound as he forcibly held his own mouth close. “Go and bring me some food from your room, I can smell it from here.”
‘Is this bitch mad?? She is only dealing herself a hard hand.’ Moji understood that the woman was not the brightest of the fellow, her simple action of threatening a 14yr old may result him in screaming and waking everyone up.
Moji stood up, and scared at the woman with fear in his eyes, his feet wobbled a bit, but he still went toward his room to bring up his snacks and fruits.
‘Fuck!! This mad woman is wasting my time… …….!!shit!! I can only obey her for now and pray that she don’t harm that pipsqueak!!’ Moji didn’t hated anything more than people who came and disturb him when he was reading except his family. And from this incident he found something about himself too.
’Damn that bitch!! She dares to force me do things!!’
He didn’t like to be ordered around forcefully.
*****
The woman watched the boy go away from the room, Moji didn’t notice it but the woman was also scared, but her hair his away her face making it hard for Moji to understand her.
She was scared, the female soldier she fought against during the operation has ingrained a great fear inside her, the 3 superiors she came with were all either dead or captured, she remembered seeing one of them having his brain blown up close to her, as for the rest she don’t know as they blocked off that monster as she made her escape.
Their plans were successful, but it brought disaster on them too, they weren’t able to escape in time and get annihilated instantly.
“This was not supposed to happen.” She looked at the little girl who was crying next to her and making muffled sounds, the woman understood that the little girl will be traumatized by this for the rest of her life, but instead of pity, she felt angry not angry at the girl, but instead the girl’s heritage, her nationality.
She wanted to ease the pain of the girl by making her go to sleep for eternity, but for now she needed leverage to use the boy, at this dead night during the curfew, only that boy was awake, she selected the room beside his for a reason, and all seems to work good, the boy was attracted a bit earlier even before she tried to message him, but it didn’t matter as after he noticed her all went along her plan, though the boy seemed a bit too scared and couldn’t move after her request, so she made it so that he can move a little.
“These impure essence will take up to 3 more hours to fully go away and I can start my recovery by then.”
Her body held enough potential energy to attain full recovery for more than 6 times during the time she ran away, but who knew all of that energy would be wasted on to contain those black gases and stop them from spreading, now she was hungry and fatigued as the black gases have even cut off her connection to the world, making it hard for her to accumulate energy, she can only use traditional ways to acquire energy, which was eating food.
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Moji picked up everything that was edible from his room, he even picked up the sour candy that he is used to eating while reading and wanted to pack them up in his bed sheet, but as he was already using it for an important purpose, he with a sour mouth used his favorite cloth painting that hung on his wall to do the deeds.
If the woman planned to leave right after getting food, as most of her injuries were patched up when he last saw her and her staying in one place would be disadvantageous to her. He even thought of hiding his phone inside some food that she won’t eat no matter what, but didn’t follow up with it as history being the witness, the end of all who tried to be a hero were not so good.
Reaching his sister’s room he slowly opened the door and found the woman fully clothed with her attire, she had patched the clothes up with scraps she got after shredding his sister’s clothes.
‘That’s what you get for being an annoying pipsqueak.’ Moji laughed internally at the state of his sister’s clothes, but maintained fake persona in front of the woman.
He didn’t dared to get close to the woman, instead he slowly placed the packed on the floor and pushed it toward her, but due to his wobbly hands, it didn’t reach her but she didn’t move from her place as one of her ghost hand shot out and grabbed the food.
Watching this from the side, he again get to witness that ghost hand but with light shining on it this time. The smoke hand had metallic luster as it shined like stars in the sky, but this glitter was small lived as the hand dragged the food with it towards the woman.
Though he didn’t questioned in the beginning, but now he understood why the woman didn’t use these hands to keep Meena’s mouth shut, those things wouldn’t have worked to stop the sound, but they would have killed her if the same amount of force was applied by them as the woman did with her hands.
“Go and sit in the corner.” Moji nodded instantly as he saw the bag opened and food fell over the floor, the woman was not going to leave, instead she planned to eat in this place. ‘This woman is a fool, it has already been more than 20mins from the time I heard her entering this room.’ Moji understood the reason why the curfew was forced upon this city, it was because of this smart Mistress who descended from Moron-ville.
The whole city is under high alert and this woman deemed the 1st floor of a restaurant worthy enough to hide for the whole night, the ground floor was filled with a lot of people, and she took hostage of a screaming little girl and used her to make his brother who was 14yr old to bring food for him, while just 15 steps away was the room of the most violent person in the household who hated to be disturbed during his sleep as it was hard to come by due to his morning routine of waking up on 5am. But from another point of view, she was holding the whole place in a hostage situation, even he himself was a kind of hostage.
Moji wanted to applaud at the genius woman who ate his snacks without stopping, but instead he just sat on the ground close to his sister’s bed as if to give her a peace of mind telling her that he was there.
His eyes remained on the woman who ate the food voraciously, she didn’t even tried to hide her face, which Moji thought pretty good, if she was not doing these bad deeds, she would have become a famous celebrity or just an escort if she were talentless.
‘But this just tells me that she don’t even consider us alive anymore.’ Her carefree attitude as she exposed her face while eating told that she was not going to let these 2 live, at least not let him live as his sister still haven’t seen her face.
His life was hanging by a thread and besides cursing his sister nothing came to his mind.
It had only been 7mins when the woman emptied the bag, the time it will take for all that food to become energy will probably be around 3 hours, her own battery was running out, but by the time the impure essence was cleansed, she will have obtained enough strength to close the wounds forcefully and then running away from this place would be easy as she only need to reach her contact in the city.
Still she needed to at least stay at this place for 3 hours, and she already had a hostage in the form of this small girl, the brother she was using didn’t serve any purpose anymore, instead he will be more harm to her alive than he would be when he died.
She looked with an indifferent look at Moji.
‘FUCK!! This bitch want to kill me first, damn!! Don’t she know to be thankful towards those who give you free food? I am never going to feed the hungry again.’
Moji displayed the concerned older brother look, as he held onto the bed on which his sister was held hostage, and looked scared due to the assailant in the room, but he didn’t displayed the extreme fear a person would show in the face of death.
Moji wanted her to know that he was oblivious of the fact that death was near, he didn’t even flinch when the woman stealthily picked up a pen and needle that was strewed around her, but instead seem too focused on his sister to even care.
‘Brat!! Say your last good-bye to your sister.!’ Her eyes shined with maliciousness, as the 2 objects flew through the air like sword, aimed at the vital points on Moji’s body the neck and the heart.
‘Curse you bitch!! I you die the death of a pig.’ Moji genuinely wanted to applaud at this woman, this woman had at least some intelligence. She ordered him to sit down so that he couldn’t move from the place nor duck if she wanted to kill him for some reason, now the only option for him was to tilt his head, but it wouldn’t work as the swords like things will still stab him in the neck and heart. The sword like pen that was aimed at the neck arrived first, so with no choice left, he used both his hands as shield.
*Thuk
It didn’t work, the pen penetrated through his hand and stuck his neck, though it was dark the woman can hear a scream coming from Moji’s mouth, but due to the destruction of wind pipe, it was inaudible as all the air from his lungs escaped through the hole. The last one which was the needle soon followed and stabbed Moji in the heart simultaneously, making his body fall on the floor as his breathing stagnated.
“Too easy!!”
The little girl squirmed in pain, her expression twisted to that of extreme horror, as she saw the lifeless body of her brother fell on the floor.
She cursed herself for being useless.
Though this brother of her treated her like a thin air and always seemed annoyed with her, but she knew that he cared for her in his own way.
Her eyes soon recovered, tilting her head away from her dead brother, she tried to look at the woman with extreme hatred in her eyes, but her head was forcibly placed back in its place.
“Listen girl!! Don’t make me do the same thing again!! I will only stay here for 3 more hours and you have to behave during that time otherwise there are other people in this place too.”
The anger of Meena didn’t disappear, but she calmed down a bit on account for her other family members.
Seeing her words work wonders, the woman just sat on the floor while her hand held onto the little Meena. ‘Just 3 more hours and I can escape this hellhole.’
She reminiscent about her childhood, and the day she was recruited.
It was not a life she was proud of, but she will make a name for herself in the oncoming years. Her dreams were big.
As she was lost in all of this something happened that startled the whole block of the restaurant.
A bulky muscle bound figure jump straight at the room in which Meena was held hostage, the figure held feminine features, but donned a black military uniform, with 2 giant battle-knife on her back she crashed into the room without any concern through the window, the woman had short hair and looked to be the same age as Moji’s father.
The whole block woke up after hearing the sound, the first to wake up was Moji’s older brother, from whose mouth came mind bending obscenities unheard of in the human world. But he came to conclusion and instantly ran toward the sound, which to his horror came from his little sister’s room.
Moji’s parents too ran upstairs with most of the guest running out of the restaurant out of concern of their life, they were not like the ones living in that building and also didn’t had someone close to them on that floor.
The woman that held Meena hostage was thrown toward the dead body of Moji, she didn’t sustain any injuries but her eyes were filled with horror when her eyes fell on the person that was lifting up a giant knife from her back, various images of the previous battle came to her mind, how her superiors sacrificed themselves so that she can escape.
Before the soldier can make a move, a glittering ghost like hand moved toward Meena so as to grab her leg and use her as a shield.
But instantly to her horror, the girl whose mind was still blank of the event suddenly disappeared from her view. Her eyes shook.’ Where did she go?’
Then to her surprise she saw that the girl has fallen down on the other side of the bed, someone had pulled away the bed-sheet along with Meena away from her. Her eyes bounced all over the room before finding a hand latched onto the bed-sheet.
The hand belonged to the boy thought to be killed by her previously, she got a look at the boy and saw that there was no blood on his chest, but his neck held only a shallow wound.
He was smiling while looking at her.
‘Mocking me?’
Yes! Moji was mocking her, mocking her stupidity to not check if he was really alive or not, mocking her for all the stupid things she did the moment he met her.
“You fool!” He wanted to say, but he felt his body lift up by her ghostly hands and place right in front of her.
“FUCK!!” A drip of blood trickled from his neck again but this time black smoke came from his wound. His eyes caught up with the situation and saw that the bulky woman had just stopped her Knife on time, otherwise his neck would have been severed away from his body.
“MEENA!! MEENAAAAA!!!” Oslow came running toward the room, but stopped right before he can reach the room as a huge knife tore through 2 walls and obstructed his path with a heavy authoritative voice following with it.” Clear out the building, this place is not safe.” The woman said as she took away the knife away from Moji’s throat gently so as to not damage it any further, When did she threw that knife he didn’t know, but for now he needed to pacify his brother.
“Brother Meena is alright. You go tend to mother.” His voice a bit shaky and hoarse due to the continued damage dealt to his neck, but he still said this much.
“Moji?”
Oslow didn’t wasted any more time, he went and before his parents can reach the 1st floor, he steered them away saying that his siblings were already on the street waiting for them.
“Listen to me you gorilla, just let me go… I don’t want to be here anymore.“
“Can’t do that!!”
The soldier shook her head in denial. Her voice held indifference, this indifference carried over to Moji and he knew that the bulky woman actually didn’t give a damn about his life. But was just following orders.
If the woman deemed saving his life may become a chore, she will slash that machete right through his body to kill that stupid woman behind him.
Before he knew it his body came a bit closer to the woman behind her and touched together, he can feel her bodily warmth, even her scared heart didn’t hid from him.
‘Using me as a body shield?’
“Are you blind?” She grabbed onto Moji’s hair and showed his face in full view to the Soldier, Moji wanted to curse again, but refrained from doing so for the time being it is.
“This boy is still young!! You wouldn’t want him to die right?”
“No! you are right, him dying will be a stain to my record, so I am asking you leave the boy and die instantly, or kill that boy and I will torture you myself.”
“Brot…!!” Meena was still dazed as she lifted her head, but when she saw her brother alive her eyes displayed delight, but it instantly filled up with worry as she saw that her brother was now hostage, before she can even shout , the bulky soldier looked at her and said.
“Shut Up!! Your brother will be safe, just stay there.” Meena went silent.
“DO you want this boy to live or not? Just let me go, I won’t come here back.” The woman followed right after the soldier gave Meena assurance. It was her way of saying.” if you want to keep your promise, let me go.”
“I have already given you a choice, just select one of the 2, as these are the only 2 ways I ca think off.” The woman had her back against a wall, while this building had already been emptied, the last 3 people just exited this building too.
She thought of various scenarios to counter this situation, but all of them wanted time to carry out and they were not something an individual can accomplish, and the woman in front of her also didn’t seems to be of kind that would wait around.
The woman’s grasp on the Moji’s head tightened as blood flowed from his scalp.
’Enough is enough!!!’
Though Moji’s hand were still held by the woman, he still somehow managed to reach the knife that he hid the first time he heard her arrival, the knife was small, but it was enough, his actions were invisible to the woman as her vision was obstructed Moji’s body. But for someone who was standing in front of him, it was as visible as moon during the dark knight.
The knife penetrated the woman in her stomach, even the clothes didn’t prove any resistance, as the anger felt by Moji was surmountable.
He stabbed right into her appendix, though this injury will not be harmful to her in the long run, but for immediate reaction it was the best place, as the pain would be unbearable.
And as he thought, the woman squirmed in pain and her body shuddered while her grip on Moji loosened a bit.
‘This boy is good!’ Before Moji has kicked himself away from the woman, the Bulky woman had already threw an attack at the woman, but much to Moji’s surprise, as his body fell on the floor he felt something touching his back while ripping away his shirt.
2 limbs flew into air as Moji fell on the floor and getting doused by warm red blood, he didn’t notice it, but the bulky woman had already moved to incapacitate the woman by throwing her body down and shouting.
“SITUATION IN CONTROL.”