Chapter 9

・Blurred Judgement in the Face of Death・

The bottles of medication rattled with the house as Benji shot up in his chair to the explosion outside.

“I told ya stay still.” muttered the old lady.

“That must be the cult going after Athena, what else would it be?” thought Benji. “I really have to go; how long will this take?”

“5 minutes… You can watch the clock.” said the old lady, shooting Benji an odd glance as she sewed the slit in his shoulder “Awfully eager for someone who lost their arm yesterday…” she groaned.

* * *

The energy began to fade behind Alisa as she ducked into an alleyway for cover.

“Why’s he not firing? I’m out of range; he doesn’t want to miss? What did he say before, something about that being his last one? So, he’s scared to miss it? Then this fights on pause, I’ll come back later for my win.”

“Ummm, Athena?” Mumbled Mae.

“Uh, oh right.” said Alisa dropping Mae to the ground.

“It’s Alisa by the way not Athena, were you not listening earlier?”

“What are you talking about? Where are we going, we need to get to Kole.”

“Kole?”

“Athena, look at me.” Mae stared at Alisa through her bubbly eyes.

Alisa squinted at Mae, “Ah, I can’t see shit.”

“We need to go get Kole or Benji like you said.”

“Benji?”

“That kid from the wolves when I was only half in control.” Thought Alisa.

“That kid is alive?” she asked.

The muscles in Mae’s face all slackened at once as her mouth dropped open.

“You mean you don’t know? You had us almost die to go get someone you didn’t even know was alive? Athena-“

“Okay, you’re clearly not getting it.” Said Alisa standing up only to freeze, her attention snapped to her left, “Fuck…” she muttered.

“What now? Athena are you okay?”

“We’ll be surrounded, those two I just fought and then the two now approaching from the woods. This is not good. I might have to kill her.” thought Alisa, “Or I go for that…” She turned her attention to the wave of energy pulsing from within the forest. “It’s letting off more than before, whoever that is must have noticed me. I guess this works out, let’s hope she’s compatible.”

“Okay, come with me.” Said Alisa as she began to walk off.

“Where are we going?” Asked Mae.

“Just come with me.” They walked through the alleyways between the buildings and eventually towards the forest.

“Athena, I wanna talk to you.”

“This bitch isn’t getting it; I’ll just go along with her shit for now.”

“Mhm?”

“Are we running now? I mean, I don’t mind but oh, also, I wanted to thank you for pushing me out the way earlier.”

“Yeah? No problem.”

“I just wanted to ask though, maybe I’m seeing things, I think perhaps I’m losing it a little, but I could have sworn I saw you-“ Mae paused. “Your body get…”

Alisa stopped and turned. “You were just seeing things.”

“Oh…” Mae fiddled with her hair, “Is that so?”

Alisa turned and continued, “Those two changed directions and are coming straight for us now, do all these people have sensing abilities? None of them seem strong enough to use sensing techniques so it must be abilities.”

“Athena, Kole will be okay right? We’re going out into the woods because there’s someone out here who can help us right?”

“Yeah, that’s right, there’s someone in these woods who I’m going to collect.” Alisa turned her focus back onto the two approaching cultists, “If I start running, they’ll just start running too, plus I might trip and lose more blood if I do that.”

“That’s a relief…” Mae sighed. “You really help put me at ease… Athena, I’m not going to die too, right?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s a relief.” Mae’s words stumbled into a robotic laugh, “I’ve always thought about how deserving I was of life for as long as I can remember. One thing after another, that feeling kept multiplying. Seeing people give their life for yours can do more harm than good. A lot of times I wished I could have just died for the sake of someone else but, then that person has to live with the same feelings that torture me today.”

“The hell are you fuckin’ talking about?” Said Alisa as she peered over her shoulder to Mae.

“Uh, I- um don’t know.”

“God, this chick; she’s lucky she’s pretty or I wouldn’t have even considered using her for this.”

Mae hopped forward and took Alisa’s hand, “Athena, earlier when you were fighting, your arm was sliced off, right?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

“Then, why is it healed now?”

Alisa kept walking in silence.

“You’re a demon, aren’t you? One of the scary ones.”

Alisa sighed, “That’s right, I’m what humans call Vocem’s. I’m the last one alive though.”

Mae trembled to a stop, her hand slid from Alisa’s, “T- Then you know about the farms…”

Alisa shot around to Mae, “How do you know- Oh, humans probably made them common knowledge after blowing them all up, huh?”

“What-” It was as if someone begun to strangle her mid-speech, her throat tightened as she failed to even finish the word properly.

“Hm? Why that reaction?”

“What do you mean, after blowing them all up?”

“Blame that Nate guy, he’s the one who killed all of us. We were just using you for manual labour until one of our demons were killed and we’d use you as a revival vessel.”

“So, the humans at the camps?”

“Yeah, they were killed, I guess humans were scared in case the people in the camps would all suddenly transform into demons. They never really understood how our revival techniques worked.”

Mae dropped to the floor in tears, “So, they’re all dead?”

Leaves rustled in the distance, “We walked too slow, they’re here already.” muttered Alisa as she turned to the two cultists who emerged from the bushes. The same green cowled outfits as Drey and Hugh.

“What to do… They probably won’t kill her if I run then come back. Getting a good look, neither are as strong as that guy from before, I don’t think they’d catch me as long as I don’t trip. Well, guess I’ll take a gamble then.” Alisa shot into the forest, her eyes darted around from blurred smudge to blurred smudge, making out obstacles based on their colour – ‘dense brown line across the floor? Probably a branch: jump.’

The pulsing energy grew stronger as Alisa approached, a fowl, dense energy that felt poisoning to even be in the presence of. Just as she reached the site it emanated from a shiver ran down her spine as the rapid sound of footsteps growing nearer made her lose her footing. She smacked into the ground; leaves fluttered into the air as she skid on her back. The cultist slashed his blade into Alisa’s leg before she could pull it away.

“Ayie!” she yelped, backflipping over herself and onto her feet, healing her wound as she did so.

“This isn’t good, if I die, I’m genuinely screwed… This guy is stronger than I thought, it’s not some dog shit sensing ability. How’d he catch me? No, I need to calm down, he’s not following up with an attack, he must be scared.”

Alisa surveyed her surroundings, “there was two, right? Ah, only this guy was able to catch up, I don’t sense the other one. That’s good for me then, I’ll try fuck with him a bit.”

“Hey, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you doing anything?” Teased Alisa, “Don’t tell me you’re scared?”

“How can you say that after barking like a little chihuahua just a second ago.”

“Aaah, so that’s how it is?” Alisa’s face grew tense.

“Ima kill this guy, I think.”

* * *

“Excuse me, Miss?” asked the other cultist as Mae sat in shambled on the cold forest floor. She tilted her head with a whimper.

“Did the demon lady hurt you?” he asked with a handsome grin. “Don’t worry, you’re in good hands now, my brother doesn’t lose. He’ll take care of the demon.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” sniffled Mae.

“Of course not, not unless I’m ordered to by my brother and my brother wont unless he is order by Miss Vides.”

“Oh… Okay.”

“We’ll wait here until my brother’s done, okay?”

“mmh… is he going to kill her?”

“Well, he was ordered not to. But he was ordered to kill anyone who knows of the demon’s existence by Miss Vides, she arrived 20 minutes ago, so my brother has been a little thrilled.”

“W- what? He was ordered to what?”

“To kill anyone who knows she was a demon. So, you.”

“Why would you tell me that?”

The man paused for a moment before his smile that was once charming now brought with it a sinister sense of dread along with his words, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

A single tear slid down Mae’s cheek, “Is it really okay, for things to keep going like this?”