MICHAEL AND MATTHEW WALKED AHEAD and noticed the boys were falling back in the grimy water. "Please keep up and walk faster," Michael heard their grumbles in response in the dark. He could not see the boys in the translucent milieu — and so he called out again ...

"There should be 37 of us — is everyone here — check now?"

Someone hollered in enthusiasm...

"Michael, guess what? Doran is not here."

Peter instantly snarled out — thinking of the oddball and contravene troublemaker ...

"That stupid, crazy Protestant! Now he is getting us all in trouble if Mother Superior finds out that he is not with us."

None of the naïve monks knew that their priesthood pedagogue — Mother Superior and the many other sisters who had raised them up since childhood, were at that moment to be extirpated, by the enforcers at the Convent.

Matthew questioned as he loomed closer to the leader. "Do we go back to find him, Michael?" Michael turned to the monk-boys nearby...

"No, he will not leave the Convent, come let's go."

Matthew was baffled before he spoke up again...

"But how can we abandon a lost lamb — he is one of us, Michael."

Michael knew that the gullible Matthew had made some sense — and as a leader, he should go back and search for Doran — it was the Christian thing that they were taught to do. His perception on the aberrant Doran had altered for the better since the episode on that day of Sister Lisa' Marie's stroke attack — ever since then, Michael had then instructed his clique to be more tolerant and lenient towards Doran — even though he did not fit in like the rest of them. But, most of the other monks in the orphanage were still judgmental, and they still disliked Doran for many reasons that usually transgressed into trouble in the peaceable abbey.

"Matthew, as long as the bed-ridden Sister Lisa Marie is out there in the Convent, Doran will not leave this place. Come — let's go now."

Michael then felt ashamed after saying that — while he kept on leading them ahead into the dark waterlogged passage. He wished he could be more like Doran, who was willing to lay his life down in the path of danger, by standing up and protecting those he loved.

He now understood why Sister Lisa had always referred to him as special for his unknown qualities — those little-known attributes were now emerging, during the present test of vulnerability...

Michael began to recognize that Doran, who in his own enigmatic ways, was a greater leader than himself, and the rest of the other 36 monks put together — who were all down in the sewer, taking the cowards' path at the risk of being captured.

*

In a small room, the ill-fated Sister Lisa Marie laid flat on her bed. A Black nun, Sister Anita was beside the wan and emaciated nun who was suffering from a stroke. Sister Anita was nervously reciting her rosary — while the pounding sound of the battering-ram on the Convent front door was heard trashing from below...

The Black nun was reciting words of prayers aloud, but her mind was in the direction of dread — in comparison to Sister Lisa's quiet prayers on the bed, which were a composed mental felicity — in her preparation to meet her Lord soon in heaven...

*

Doran hid in the bushes, in the compound yard behind the Cathedral — with his two cudgel sticks in hand. His shaven head was tricking in sweat. He spied upon a muscular Elite-force cop with a metal tank strapped to her back — using the flame-thrower concoct to torch possible furtive holes, where any Intersexuals might play hide-and-seek with her...

He had decided earlier not to follow the boys, and he hid away.

The monk-boy could also pick up the trashing noises of the Cathedral front door, being rammed behind him. He must get pass the flame-thrower in the open ground — to get to the Convent, and reach out to Sister Lisa Marie at the nunnery.

But now, he was in two minds — with the danger of Sister Sarah and the other nuns who were in, after setting his fellow monks-brothers to escape into the sewer. He had to attempt something swiftly now, and help those nuns, who were trapped inside the Cathedral — before proceeding to rescue Sister Lisa Marie.

The turkeys in the caged coop were clucking aloud to the lurking danger, like guard dogs. Doran eyed an axe that was protruding on a tree stump nearby...

It was a good weapon to have now because he had been practising on it for some time during his chores — the tossing axe would work well to make his attack work because the enemies were carrying firearms — unlike his wooden cudgels were now ineffective, unless at close range.

Doran prayed while he hid — interceding invocations to all the saints and angels for protection...

He had seen the statutes of angels in the Cathedral with swords and spears, fighting the evil serpent — but, he could not recall any of the divine patrons with an axe — he would whole-heartedly intercede, if there was such one providential angel that subsisted in the history of the church annals, that was armed with an axe — may that one, protect him now, for what he was about to attempt next...

*

The smashed facade Cathedral door swung open, at the final ram...

Two Elite-cops stepped inside pointing their rifles. They trained their weapons at the altar ahead, where they heard voices — sighting the three nuns who were kneeling at the altar, on the carpet that concealed the trap door beneath. Their transfixed eyes were looking up at the huge crucifix above — and the three women in black habits recited the Apostle's Creed while rolling their holy rosary beads in their fingertips...

"Our Father in Heaven — Holy be Thy Name — Thy Kingdom Come — Thy Will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven..."

The two uniforms e-SWAT soldiers stepped up, to the altar while guardedly checking the surrounding — for any hiding or lurking shemales.

*

The heavy door buckled open — and Elite-force Commander Petersburg and her team of four stepped into the orphanage house.

"Search every corner — they are hiding somewhere here!"

Less than a minute apart, Agent Agatha Wolfe slipped on her gas-mask when the Convent heavy door also broke in half from the hinges as it fell. They all strode into their incursion — and the team was confronted by six nuns who were also wearing gas-masks — they charged on forward with wooden sticks to attack them...

The troops shot them with rifles, which were fitted with silencers on the nozzles.

Some nuns slumped down dead, but some others lie wounded...

Wolfe ambled from behind the strike team's path. She had earlier before the mission, had snorted some cocaine and her senses were sharpened. She saw a dying nun on the ground, gasping her last breath, Wolfe sadistically shot the woman in the face with her silencer fitted pistol...

Wolfe was enjoying the recollection of her Desert-Storm tour on duty-days. This special-detail was just like her pre-Medusa heydays in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marines — where after tossing in a grenade back then — she went in, and shot the fallen, maimed Muslims rebels in their faces...

It gave her the exhilaration to have the control — to plunder their last breath of life.