Silence Falls

Blue and green eyes snapped open with apprehension, blinking several times just to be absolute he sensed what his senses had detected. Hermanni had been standing on the roof, basking in the dark night and all that it had to provide in reticence before a female’s scream disabled his tranquility.

Hearing the cry of a human rooted within the swamps during the day or night wasn’t anything new to him, it came with having a godlike sense of hearing. These soldiers in the swamps were still locating meager groups of liberated patients trekking the area and each one had screamed their last scream upon encountering them.

However, this scream was not like their screams. This scream was much closer than the rest and had clutched his heart in a foreboding grip. Why was this?

Hermanni already knew that Otep and Bert weren’t in bed with the others. In fact, he knew they weren’t present within the mall. He was also aware they hadn’t run away when they departed so in respect of this he tried to stay out of their affairs and not use his powers to infringe like Otep had inhibited him from doing so in the past.

Still, Hermanni was terrified to acknowledge who let out that scream into the night just now. Sadly for him, he couldn’t dwell in perpetual denial. Without utilizing his gift of sight, he knew that the person was someone that he loved dearly.

Hermanni was also becoming aware that tonight was going to transform everything and it would be triggered by the scores of racing hearts thumping in the night that were there to take his family away. His eyes began to glow as more than forty covert soldiers bustled towards the parking lot from the black swamps, encompassing the mall with the motive of breaking in and shooting whatever living creature they discovered.

Lives would be extinguished tonight.

My family is being threatened by these miscreants, Hermanni weighed as he began to decipher the situation, and they think I will let them take what is mine without casualties of their own?

Hoisting himself up onto the ledge of the roof, Hermanni gazed down below at the men in camo armor taking their positions near the entrance of the mall. “No, I will not let them hurt my family.” Without qualm, Hermanni stepped off the ledge of the colossal structure and plummeted downwards until he landed impeccably on his feet in the overgrown parking lot, chunks of concrete disintegrating beneath his feet and flying into the air around him. The men in close proximity to him were swept off their feet and onto their backs by the quake rippling the asphalt parking lot like a series of ocean waves.

Spooked, the other soldier’s plunged out of the way from his landing site as if a bomb detonated there, and then whirled the small flashlights atop their military weapons around to target the beam of light towards whatever landed in front of them while they were fixated on skulking up to the main entrance of the mall. Standing in the center of a shallow crater of jagged concrete was a slender young man with long black hair that fell just past his shoulders, pale milky skin and a striking face that even made the most seasoned soldiers falter.

Their first reaction seemed to be stupefied until one of the Privates by the name of Jaymes Laurence deduced that this peculiar kid had to have literally fallen from either the sky or the roof of the mall, and didn’t so much as suffer a fractured bone from it. No human could survive from such elevated heights like that unless they were otherworldly!

Wait a minute, Jaymes thought to himself, reports have been buzzing around that the elite squads were searching the swamps for some being that was supernatural. Could this kid be...he had to be!

"V-V! SUBJECT V!" Jaymes hollered hysterically seconds before he began firing at the threat, nevermind the orders from his superiors. Startling the other rookie soldiers around him, they too pulled their triggers at the boy.

For the next few minutes, bullets scattered in that one spot until a high ranked officer demanded them to halt. “CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE, NOW, GODDAMNIT!”

Everyone heeded his decree at once, and then waited for the smoke to clear before scouring for what was left of the corpse they annihilated. Hissed curses echoed throughout the squads as the site where their target should have been lying lifeless was vacant. There was no trace of him anywhere.

“Where the fuck did he go?!” One soldier barked from the rear, his palms perspiring in his gloves. All of a sudden, the sound of the asphalt splitting from behind him made his heart reel in his chest.

The squads collectively twisted around, and watched in a petrified state as the legendary Subject V plucked what used to be a stop sign straight out of the ground with child-like ease, a hefty portion of concrete clinging to the end of the metal pole. Nobody dared to breath, each lost in complete awestruck at the extraordinary strength this ethereal boy displayed.

“FIRE, MEN! FIRE!” A voice roared from what was now the rear of the squads.

Abnormal blue and green eyes glowed at them, aiding in knocking the soldiers out of their reverie so they could execute their next order. The bullets went off in unison, and Subject V’s pole started rotating simultaneously, ricocheting the bullets away from him and right back towards the soldiers instead. Conveniently, he wiped out the first line of soldiers in one fell swoop.

“CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!” A superior demanded of his men.

The soldiers complied then gaped in bereavement at the bullet-ridden corpses of their brothers in arms. The group that was now down to 30 men were dazed on what to say or do. They shot thousands of bullets at the kid and not one of them had reached their target, instead they massacred their brothers that were on the front line.

Subject V smiled at their forlorn faces. “My turn.”

Swinging the pole behind his back, Subject V charged at the men as they promptly reloaded their guns and began to fire at him again. Soldiers were either launched left or right as the end with the large lump of concrete collided straight into their torsos, mashing their chest cavities into pieces. The pole whirled without mercy and with such ease and force that it swiftly took down the biggest and heavily armed soldiers like rag dolls until they all were strewn on the dewy grass choking on their own blood. Subject V listened to the gurgle of the blood filling their injured lungs, the asphyxiation that came along with drowning, and the hushed cries of never returning home to their loved ones again. A few seconds passed and the battle to live had subsided, engulfed by the live orchestra of frogs and crickets in the swamps.

From a distance, Subject V picked up the amplifying sounds of tires advancing over a dirt road and the voices of the reinforcement coming his way. Planting his shoes firmly to the ground, and with the pole pressed against his back in wait for more bloodshed, Subject V welcomed the blazing lights of the incoming military Humvees containing his next wave of candidates.

But what Subject V did not know at the moment, was that another team was currently making their way into the mall through that very same tunnel Otep and Bert had crawled out of.