Passing empty abandoned houses, I started to realize the school where Jerome had converted into haven was formerly quite far from a proper city. Growing up in a city, it was surprising to me. There weren't many trees but we had to walk on an abandoned road for what felt like ages. An open road I'm guessing because it was easier to identify threats from far. I had learned that much from Haven.
My feet were already starting to hurt as we made our way into the town. I wanted to stop and rest my legs. They wobbled on the ground, struggling to keep me upright. I could barely feel my hands as they were weary from the cold. I couldn't tell the date because I didn't have any way of doing so but I could tell the year was ending because of the weather. We were definitely around the ember month.
"We stop here—" We didn't wait for Ahmed to finish his sentence before I let my legs knock and fall straight to the floor with exhaustion. I raise my head to see everyone looking at me except Bola who was pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.
"We find a place to camp. We can't stay here in the open."
Dragging myself to my feet, groaning at the thought of more walking, I follow our small group to an abandoned house whose door was busted into. The inside was torn apart. The walls had holes driven into them from bullets off the barrel of a gun. It didn't seem like destruction was caused by a Dominant but the hands of men driven by fear, desperation. The windows didn't do much with the cold peaking in through the broken glass. The group tried to make do of the disaster in front of them but didn't do much difference. Squatting on the floor with my arms wrapped around my legs, I survey the room a little more.
That's when I start to notice the remnants of a family made of a mother, father and three children, a baby with the cutest smile, and twin teenage boys whose smile was obviously forced. The pictures on the ground, fallen from the broken frames it was housed in, showed a happy family. A family who looked for happiness and seemed to have found it, until it was cruelly taken from them by the creatures of the mayhem.
"Are you scared?"
I turned to look at her squatting beside me. She rubbed her hands together trying to take comfort in what little warmth it brought her. It was the first time I saw her showing any signs she felt the Harmattan cold. And it was the first time I noticed the bruises on her knuckles. It had healed for the most part of it but the little scars were still there and she seemed to be subconsciously trying to cover it up.
"Small. It would be one kin if I wasn't scared of stealing a blood thirsty beast's young." She scuffs at my reply eyes pinned on the surroundings.
"What happened to your hands?" She hides the bruises from my eyes of scrutiny at the sound of my question.
"I was in the army what'd you think?" She was blunt but she wasn't far from the truth.
"Fair point"
"I've had to do things almost as worse as this through time. Some not as dangerous but more scarring." She raises her sweater up to reveal a red long line scar painted in red thick as a rod. It took everything in me to not reach out and touch it. Sensing my shear curiosity, she closes it up before I did anything stupid or made it obvious to everyone else around.
"My parents died when I was barely old enough to know my own name. So my uncle and aunty took me in. When I got older, my uncle would beat me for his pleasure when his wife wasn't around. It was a weird fetish he had."
"What's a fetish?"
"It's weird cravings to put it mildly. But one day, as I got older, I wouldn't let him beat me. He wasn't so pleased with it. He tried to hit me, I fought back this time, he tripped and fell in the process breaking his neck."
I wasn't expecting that but I didn't show her how much what she was saying had shaken me. I didn't want her to stop. This was the most vulnerable she has been… ever. Her face played out every emotion she was feeling. More emotions than she was used to showing. It was hard for her, I could tell, but she didn't stop.
"My aunt threw me out. Called me a witch, laid all the curses on God's green earth, some up till this very day I haven't heard from any other persons mouth. I was alone ever since, fighting and pushing my way through every obstacle life threw at me. I never let anyone hurt me like that ever again."
She raised her head to look me in the eyes, making me retreat a little, cowering from the awkwardness.
"I'll never let anything happen to you. You shouldn't be afraid."
She lets her head rest on the wall closing her eyes. It was new side of Bola she just exposed to me and I did not love it but I didn't hate it either. It explained why she was so hostile and suspicious of Nurse Grace to a certain extent. But not completely. As the darkness seeped through into the parlor, I let myself go, preparing for what was to come.
The jabbing head ache jerked me up from my dream. Stunned, I turn around to see everyone preparing to leave. Bola, who was already up, stretched an arm out to lift me up. I grab the arm and I'm immediately pulled up to my feet. The jabbing pain hits my head again forcing me to grab it like a basketball. I squeeze my hands on my skull, trying to reach the epicenter of the pain. It stopped immediately as it had come.
"Are you okay?" Bola asks with concern embedded in her voice. She gently places her hand on my shoulder trying to assess what was bothering me, but I just wave her concerns off.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. Why is everyone up—"
It's then I heard it. The ripping sound tearing through our ears. It was the sound of a Dominant crying out in pain. It was uncommon to my ears. I was used to the sound of its blood thirst rage, it's scream of joy when it saw another human flesh to devour, its roar of absolution, as the apex predator, a shriek of madness, draining every bit of insanity out of the cup of the human consciousness. But I wasn't used to this wail that blocked my ears.
"It's been on for a while now and its only getting more intense. We need to move." Bola's words brought me back to my senses. I straightened my back and nodded with affirmation. Following the group, with Ahmed in front and Bola in front of me, we make our way out of the broken home, literally and figuratively.
We moved fast, almost running, to the origin of the numbing shriek. After every numbing shriek came a pounding ache in my head, but I wouldn't let it show. It was even worse than it was at the camp. But it seemed I was the only one favored enough to feel this head cracking pain as everyone else just moved with complete ease. No sign of turmoil.
We moved as silently as a rabbit hopping. We had been trained to move with stealth. Stealth so good we could quite possibly move in the midst of dominants without being detected. But at the pace we were moving, it felt almost impossible. I let my eyes adjust to the dark of the night, straining my eyes to get a good look at the environs we ran through. But it did little to no good. I just focused my attention on the very dimly illuminated figure of Bola ahead of me by the moon.
After what felt like an hour or more, we start to slow down. We approach a partially broken down fence by the road. We perch down by it surveying the perimeter. We were very close. I could feel it. I could hear it. Its heavy breathing wasn't hard to miss. It winced in pain and only then did I realize how close we were.
I raised my head to see what was over the fence. Through glimmer of light I could see its scale reflect light off of it. Its four heavy tails swept the ground scratching and digging the surface, reacting to the shear untamed pain it felt inside. Its back arched painfully up as it let out another scream into the air. After its scream came a wince that almost made me feel sorry for it. Almost. It falls to the ground with exhaustion.
Its breath was short and heavy, panting in the cold of the night. Its groans rose turmoil of affection in my heart, my brain fighting the thought that this beast was capable of feeling anything other than blood rage joy rides.
I could see something being passed from the front of the group. Bola lays it on my hand while putting hers on. Before I could get a good look of what was given to me, I see figures run into the dark from the damaged fence we were perched under and then those figures disappear into the said dark. I feel a nudge on my arm forcing my sweaty palms to let go of the night vision goggles I hadn't noticed earlier on my arm. I grab the goggles off the ground and put it on.
The green silhouette layer it put everything in let me see things much clearer now. I could see the environment much better but it wasn't much different from what I had seen everywhere I had gone. Rubble and dirt with ornamented blood stains to tie it all together. But I could see Bola face now, also wearing the night vision goggles, and her expression on it. She tilted her head as if to ask if I was okay. I nodded to put her mind at ease, but seeing a Dominant again so up-close after such a long time brought back to life memories I had buried so deep in my mind.
My body shivered and my hands were sweaty even in the cold night as the memories clawed its way to the surface of my mind. My breath became shorter and shorter as images of my father carrying me on his back like a chariot and running through a crowd of people filled with terror flashed before my eyes again. I couldn't afford to be absent minded at this time. Shaking my head furiously, I try to focus on the many gestures Ahmed was making with his hands will still crouched by the fence in a position we could all see him. Gestures that, to many would look like absolute gibberish, but to trained soldiers, residents of Haven, and certain coded language enthusiasts, it would make perfect sense.
He had instructed us to make our move on the dominant, prompting me to sneak a look at it. It wasn't far from what I felt. It was clearly in pain, spread out on a sandy football field with two net-less goal posts positioned on both parts of the field. The only thing dividing us from it was the fence, road in-between the fence and the road, and a gutter dug by the road.
I groaned in pain again and this time I felt it somewhere in my head that I cannot place. I grab my head in pain, praying for the pain to stop. And then it clicked like a missing puzzle. The offspring we came to steal. It was still in it! It was giving birth. How could it have passed me? That was why the terrible migraines ripped through my head.
I position myself getting ready for what was to come. It was ready. The dominant rose its tails once more into the air with its back arched and its abdomen pushed in. It let out one loud scream that pushed me back from the fence but I didn't falter. Standing firm, I let the head ache ripping open my skull wash over me. I wasn't going to let anything make me digress. Its scream only seemed to be affecting me so strongly and it worried me. But that was trouble for another day.
My eyes widened within my night goggles as I saw what crept out of the mouth of the Dominant. First came its tails of three moving with the slightest of motions. Next came its hind legs with the mother pushing it out with a regurgitating sound that tightened my throat with disgust.
The body of the little infant Dominant slithered out of the mouth of the mother Dominant slowly before dropping to the floor with a splotch sound.
As soon as the baby hits the floor, it lets out breathes of relief and exasperation. It was exhausted from the stress of delivery. The most disgusting delivery my eyes had ever seen. The slime the infant Dominant had slithered with out of the dominants still hung on its mouth as it slowly tries to regain its strength. Its legs quivered with tired as it fought to stand. It slowly lets down its tongue to lick of the slime from the infant dominant mouth and nostril to give way for it to breathe. The little numbing shriek hit my heart like a bullet. I could almost feel the compassion it felt for its young and it troubled me. The instinctive act of protection and care for its young no matter what came for it swept through my body. Why could I feel what that thing was sensing including… joy?
The thin air was slice through almost immediately, halting me in my thoughts. A shot flew through the air and sank into the neck of the mother Dominant. Its shriek ripped the quiet night open for disasters. Like a call for war, Ahmed ran out of hiding with a war cry of his own.
It was time.