-- Devin PoV --
On the battlefield, a surprise attack is a common thing. There are a lot of cases when my enemies send a suicide attack at night. As a soldier, I trained myself to react with my instinct first and think later when the surprise attack happened, because you will need every little time you have to save yourself.
I honed my instinct for almost five years to face unexpected situations like a surprise attack. So when a scream is coming from the other room, the room where we place the black robe man, I instinctively duck for cover. I didn't have to worry for Andra and Sara, because Andra is also trained in this kind of situation and he is closer to Sara, so he will definitely protect her.
And a few seconds after the scream, our home exploded. A tremendous boom shook the building, shattered the wall, leveling our home to the ground just in a blink.
'Cosma! Nina! Mama!' My mind is screaming, begging for me to move quickly to find them. After looking around and seeing Andra is safe with a pale Sara in his hand, I gritted my teeth and run at him.
"Andra! Checked the man's room! I will look after the twins and Mama!" I didn't wait for his answer and already run to the kitchen.
The kitchen itself is a mess. The wall has already shattered leaving the room with nothing but dust. I don't need to find the twins and Mama, because I can hear Cosma's scream and Nina's cry clearly.
Then, I saw the worst scene that I could ever imagine. The twins are screaming in the hand of Mama, whose lower body is crushed under the fallen pillar, and the back of her neck is bleeding furiously.
She seems to try to talk to the twins, but by the look of her condition, I can guess her throat is injured badly. I ran quickly and move the pillar that crushed Mama's body. The moment the twins saw me, Nina screams at me, begging for me to help Mama.
"Devin! Mama… Mama cannot speak!! Please help her! I- "
"Ni…na… cosma…." The whisper from Mama suddenly makes Nina's scream stop, and we both look at Mama. Her eyes dimmed slowly, but her smile is still the same, gentle and full of love. The same smile that greeted me when I was here for the first time.
"Be a good girl for your brother, nee.." Her smile makes the twins sob harder. They didn't dare to cry loudly because they realize this will probably be Mama's last time.
"Don't worry..... I.... I will meet your father.... Soon..."
This is the first time I hear Mama sound so weak. I can feel my throat closing up, a single tear rolled down my cheek. I can feel a hand shaking on my shoulder, and when I look behind me, Andra who is carrying Sara on his back is also holding down his tears. Mama looks at us and smiles.
"Protect our family..... Okay?"
We nodded firmly. She smiles once again and started to close her eyes. The trace of life is fading slowly from her eyes. She looked at us and gives us a sign to come closer. After all four of us come closer to her, she whispered weakly,
"love… you….." With that last whisper, her breath is fading slowly, until I cannot feel it anymore. Despite all of the messy bleeding on her body, she looks very peaceful with a smile on her face, as if she just falling asleep. However, the same cannot be said for us.
The twins sobbed harder as Mama closed her eyes. I clenched my fist with tears keep rolling down from my eyes. Andra squeezed my shoulder tightly, and I don't need to look at his face to know that he is also crying.
Unfortunately, we don't have a moment for grieving. We can hear a police siren from afar, probably to investigate the explosion. By the look on Andra's face, I know he also realizes that we need to leave the building quickly. If the police know our condition, they will probably send us to the military, and that will be the worst possible scenario in the future.
The problem is, we don't have a place for us to go without the government's notice. I gritted my teeth, thinking of the decision that we have to take. Andra, however, has already thought about what we have to do and asks.
"What do you think about the portal?" I widened my eyes and take a glance at Sara who didn't even talk from the start. by the look on her pale face, I know she knows something important and didn't tell us about it, but I will let it slide for now.
"Do you think it is wise?"
If Andra wants to leave with the portal, we will expose the existence of 'Blessing of Magus' to Sara. While she looks trustworthy, we still don't know a lot of things. We don't know the value of the book itself, so it will be quite a risk to show the book to people who have knowledge about it without having a backup needed.
"Do you have a better idea? If we don't move now, the police will be here within a minute." I shut my eyes, trying to calm my breath.
"Okay. We can do that. Cosma, Nina, this is a red alert. Go grab your emergency stuff and come back here within a minute. We will leave right after that. Do you understand?"
Red alert is the code that Father made for us when he was alive. If someone raises the alert, a battle will be coming, and we need to gather and evacuate ourselves quickly. Father created it for us when Moskva held a lot of battles in the past, in case the battle happened near Khimki. The twins know about it, so they wiped their tears and nodded without asking a question.
"Good. We will meet again in a minute. Go!" The twins run into the ruin of their room. I turned my attention to Andra and ask,
"Are you ready?" He nodded. "Yeah, I have collected all of my important stuff here." He showed me his bag.
"Good. I will be the one who carries Mama's body."
"Okay."
"What happened to the black robe man?" Andra's face turned dark at the mention of the man.
"Dead. From what I can guess, it looks like a suicidal bomb."
After a few seconds, I can see the twins with their bags coming. There is still a trace of tears in their eyes, but they know they could not cry right now, not when I raised the red alert.
"Okay, I know this will raise a lot of questions, but we need to move fast right now, so save your questions later, okay? Andra and I will explain it to you when we reach a safe place." I talked to the twins. They just nodded without answering my plead, so I turned again to Andra.
"We are ready. Do it now."
He nodded and took a book out of his bag. The twins just look at Andra confusingly, but Sara seems to recognize what the book is. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. But before she can speak anything, Andra has already placed his hand at the back of the book and said,
"Open Portal"
And suddenly, a door appeared in front of us. I am glad that the book didn't absorb us like the first time. While the twins look confused, Sara gapes her mouth at the door that just appeared out of nothing. It seems she just confirmed her suspicion about the book itself.
"We don't have a lot of time, let's go."
Andra opened the door, and we can see the forest that we visited yesterday. However, unlike yesterday, we can hear thunder rumbling from afar. The sky turned into an ugly grey, and the wind is blowing furiously. Andra realized what is going on and said to me in a panic tone.
"A huge storm is coming here. Devin, we need to move fast."
While we didn't make any exploration the last time we were here, fortunately, the only place we visited last night turned out to be a decent one for us to stay at this night.
"Yesterday's cave?" Andra nodded and turned his attention to the twins.
"Listen, we need to move fast right now. It will be at least 15 minutes walk. Do you think you can hold it until we arrived at our destination?" The twins look at each other and nodded.
"Um. You can count on us."
They look very determined. I nodded at them, appreciating their determination.
"Good. If you are tired, you can call me anytime. I will help you carry your bag, okay?"
"Um, thank you."
We moved pretty fast with me in the front, with me still carrying Mama's body in my back and scanning every corner of my eyes to find if there are hidden dangerous traps or not. Andra did the same from behind, carrying Sara in the back and scanning the area. Fortunately, the inhabitant of the forest seems to think like us, hiding from the coming storm. We didn't meet any problems and arrived earlier than we thought, only a 10-minute walk.
However, right after we entered the cave, I can hear a falling sound from behind me, with the twins shouting at the same time,
"ANDRA!!"
When I look behind me, the twins are already surrounding Andra and Sara. Andra is collapsed, sweating furiously, and his breath is abnormally heavy. I hurriedly come to him and checked his body.
"His body temperature is very high. We need to cool him down. Cosma, there is an emergency medic inside your bag. Took it out and give it to me. Nina, I need a bottle of water. Now!" They moved pretty quickly, unloading their bag and giving me what I said before.
After giving Andra a heat-regulating supplement and cool water, I sighed and looked around.
Andra and I have already checked the cave last night. Besides the room Cosma and Nina will take, there are one more restroom, a small kitchen, and a simple meeting room. A decent one for a cave in the middle of the forest. Honestly, I would think this cave is a stopover place if not for the torture room on the left side.
"I will be the one who looks after Andra. There is a room on the right side of the cave, you both can take a rest there. Just, don't go to the room on the left side. You can ask me anything after you take a rest, okay?"
They just nodded, and by the look of their tired eyes, I think they deserved some time to sleep. It is a hard day for us, with Mama dead and our home destroyed. After the twins disappeared from my eyes, I turned my attention to the source of our problem, Sara.
Honestly, I regret the time we choose to act like some sort of hero and saved her, knowing what the problem she bought to us was. However, the past could not be changed, so I have to live with it.
"Okay, I don't care if you are tired or still injured. I know you have the information that we needed, and I will make you spill it out willingly or not. So, how do you want to do it?" However, her answer is something that I am not expecting. She just replied to my threat with a blank face,
"Your brother, Andra, he only has four days to live before he dies."