Silence Falls

Hastily against the soldiers who were now bombarding their shielded campsite amongst a ring of boulders, Hermanni used devastating hand gestures again so that the destructive pointed knife from one of soldier's belt shot out from its sheath and stabbed itself into the man’s head for attempting to strangle Natasha to the ground.

With a fearful gasp, Natasha managed to nudge his dead weight corpse off of her when she felt his grip loosen on her neck then clambered away from him. The man was lifeless and his blood...his blood was now all over her clothes. Holy shit, was all she thought as her hands trembled with what she preferred was red paint. Alarmed by a pale hand reaching down to support her, Natasha's heart stopped. Time remarkably seemed to stop at such a pivotal time. Gandering up through her long dark lashes, she met the awaiting green and blue eyes of Hermanni and mystically got taken away to another world that seemed much safer than where they presently were. Impatiently, Hermanni snatched her hand and launched her up into his arms with her face harbored against his chest. Using one hand behind her back, he assisted Cris and Connor to overpower the last of the soldiers as unobtrusively as he could. Natasha fastened to him, her face pressing against his chest for comfort she hadn’t felt in so long, her eyes wedged shut from the peril surrounding them.

Controlling that same lone hunting knife, Hermanni slew four soldiers precisely how a caterpillar would gobble a red juicy apple in fast motion. The fine weapon penetrated and departed an individual body several times through several aimless angles before pursuing it’s next victim to repeat the same sequence. Before anyone knew it, all the soldiers dropped onto the ground coated in blood. Cris and Connor stood with their backs together, unbelievably confounded as to how they were able to take down that many men without ANY weapons and attained this amount of blood for it. It wasn't possible, rather impossible! Everything that’s happened to them...people that they’ve crossed paths with...things they were surrounded by...the whole fucking world was all of a sudden full of impossibilities that just kept expanding around them.
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“Alright, can anyone of you FUCKING geniuses tell me, WHAT in the fucking hell just happen here!?” Bam yelled, flinging a large branch into the already cold fire place with all his might as his red face red twinkled with a layer of sweat.

Otep sat inaudibly with her back against an ancient algae layered tree, her arms braced on her knees as her eyes drilled into the soggy dirt beneath their feet. Bert paced back and forth on the other side of the campfire, clasping fistful of his long greasy hair while working to catch his breath as well as relieve his racing mind. What took place a few minutes ago had prompted a consolidation of unease and bewilderment stewing in their minds. On the ground to their left laid the three reasons they were bearing through this mishap. They were the bodies of three once everyday kids transformed insane by the boundless bouts of pills siphoned into them requested by the laws of a religiously demented town who sentenced life imprisoned underground. Now, they were forever damned to term the swamp their final resting place. Bert, Bam and Otep had no choice but to kill them with their bare hands and whatever else mother nature had exhibited in her swamp that they could use as weapons.

“WELL!?” Bam impatiently snarled at Bert, expecting answers he couldn’t analyze himself. “I AIN’T GOT ALL DAY HERE!”

“What the fuck do you want us to say, Bam!? That we just murdered people!? That we had to defend ourselves!? That this feels completely different than when we were driven to kill the guards and anyone else in that damn underground prison? Cause it sure as hell does! There is no justification for what we just did here so don’t look at me for answers!” Bert yelled, stomping over to Bam to cram him into a small bush behind him.

Otep watched Bam grapple out of the bush on his own, growling vile language as usual until he got back way out again to accost Bert. “No, you dickweed! I wanna know why the hell they didn't fucking kill us when they had the fucking chance back in the facility parking lot and in the swamps instead of NOW!” Bam jabbed Bert from behind as soon as his back was turned, inducing him to tumble over towards the ground onto his stomach.

Abruptly taken aback, Bert idly turned himself over and sat up with a perplexed look on his face, muddling Bam on why he wasn't pissed anymore at him. “Wait, what did you just say? When have they ever tried to kill you guys in the parking lot?”

Getting back on her feet, Otep hiked towards them to join in, holding back her own shock that he wasn't thrashing Bam into the ground for shoving him off his feet. “It was when we were hot wiring the van to get us out of the swamps.” Opening her mouth, she shared their concise rendezvous with the other escape patients. “Those other kids that broke out of the facility after us came flooding out of the front doors like a sea of frightened rats. They sighted us soon after, and instead of hacking us to slivers like they did those soldiers, they just flew by us like we were invisible. They didn't harm us, they didn't do a damn thing, just dashed into the woods like we weren’t an enemy.”

Bert weighed on this for a minute in peace before investigating this case that he hadn’t been privy to. At the time, meeting his father, the man who sentenced them all was an imperative affair. “Are you positive they noticed you guys? Are you confident they were even patients like us and not someone else?”

“We saw them as plainly as we’re looking at your ugly mug right now!” Bam upheld, hinting at Bert’s face with a hand flung his way. “And yes, they were the same exact patients we’d been crashing with down in that facility just as they were the same as the three people we just now murdered!”

“Well...they're mentally insane people. They don't have goals for why they do the things they do.” Bert muttered to himself uncertainly as he sat there consulting with himself. “They're just....crazy. Just crazy.”

Otep nodded in accord. It is possible that they were just insane people that made impetuous choices without thinking first. Maybe that's why they were assaulted this time, and not twice before this. You can't really foresee what an irrational disturbed patient would do in a position like this, she pondered to herself as she tapped a finger to her chin.

“Yeah...I uh, I guess you could be right about that actually.” Bam muttered aloud, surprising both Bert and Otep that he would actually agree with them on something. But Bam was being genuine! But not only genuine, he was also impatiently craving to get back to camp again. He was getting less fueled up to create feuds with anyone because that would only triple the time they were already depleting out here in the swamp when they could be intact at their campsite. “Look, can we go back now? I'm getting tired of all this crazy shit that no one can find any motive for anymore. We were safer back with the others just minding our own business to begin with.”

“We can’t go back just yet, there is still much more we have to search to be sure it’s safe out there for us to keep moving forward.” Bert reminded him, standing back up and sweeping himself off of bits of moss and wet dirt.

“How much fucking further!?” Bam contended in grievance, careering his arms outwards towards their broad surroundings. “Until we encompass the whole damn swamp?”

“No, you idiot!” Otep snapped, narrowing her eyes on him for being so apathetic and whiny all at the same time. It was crucial they had to keep going, and how he couldn't see that fact was beyond her. “We're just gonna go a little further ahead then go straight back to camp, that's all!”

“Fuck me!” Bam blasphemed, kicking the ground as he lumbered behind Bert and Otep who had already stepped past a grand array of trees to venture on for further danger.