The Society Pt. 01

The moon was dimmed by the thick fixture of leaves that shuttered above us, leaving only the soft street lights and the bright stream of the car's headlights to illuminate the street before us.

Although it wasn't a full moon, my blood nonetheless felt heavy, my heart rate unsteady and quickened.

I continually cast a nervous glance to the line of vehicles behind us, all diligently following the lead car in our transit towards the Washington facility.

I grip the steering wheel to ease the anxiety pulsing heartily in my throat.

"Everything alright?"

I heard my sister say from the passenger seat. Her brown eyes were casted to a sharp black in the shadows that enveloped the car interior.

I attempt to cover my apprehension with a smile.

She immediately sees through the mask.

"You're worried. Everything is going as planned, lieutenant. We are making a smooth transit."

She spoke softly, finicking with the thin strands of her hair.

The vehicle continued down the abandoned road, my eyes unconsciously drifting towards the darkness of the forest that lay around us.

I couldn't shake this lingering foreboding that pulsed with my heartbeat. That took the shape of any inexplicable or monstrous thing that waited draped in the shadows only yards away.

I suck in a weak breath. I needed to concentrate on the task ahead. The Therians, after years of ignorance of the enemy's proceedings, have finally located the base of operations for the Night Blades. This transit should be used as preparation towards the battle that could finally free my people. Not to wallow in the artificial apprehension the moon's wicked gaze conjured.

My grip on the steering wheel slackens, and I heard Liv utter a chuckle, and I once again glance at her through the dim light casted from the radio LEDs.

"Finally relaxing are we?"

She said, sensing my emotions with her fine tuned instincts that accommodated her Therian abilities.

For the first time in the few hours of driving, I smile.

And then I hear a sinister crack behind us. It seemed to shake the vehicle we sat in.

"What the fuck was that?"

Liv muttered. We glare through the back windows, not halting the vehicle.

Suddenly static filled the car, and the radio our transit team used came to a searing life.

"Commander there's oncoming fire-"

Another crack, and the voice was drowned into static.

I pick up my mouth piece, panic thrumming in my pulse, the look of terror in my sister's gaze only increasing the fear that was taking my body.

"This is the lieutenant, what is the threat quantity- I repeat, what is the threat quantity?"

I slam the acceleration on the car to the floor. There was no way of knowing in the forest that surrounds us, where they are firing from. More cracks were registered, more explosions that rippled the air.

Suddenly, from behind us, the night was casted with hot orange light as the vehicle behind us exploded with that sinister crack, that rang in my attuned ears.

"There's so much incoming fire, we can't find a direct source-"

Shouted a woman's voice on the radio, before the sounds of shearing metal screamed behind us and silenced her.

Liz looks towards me.

I plead the car to speed up, the general's words loud in my skull: Nonetheless of the casualties. You must continue to your destination. Is that clear?

"Jason- how are we going to-"

Our own car erupts into a brilliance of flame.

My sister and I are thrusted forward. I felt the world revolve as our vehicle turned over. The roof of our vehicle slams unapologetically into the concrete.

The seat belt claws and digs into my shoulder blade and waist.

The radio and utilities are uprooted from their stored positions shift through the air in a frenzy, until the car halts its slide by entering the ditch.

Smoke lay thickly over the car's interior. My blood rushes to my head, and my hands blindly claw at my seat belt that still held me like a parent clutching a child.

My sensitive ears rung. I cough, feeling a headache pulse at the side of my skull, where I must have slammed it into the window to my side.

I manage to unclip the seat belt, and my body heavily hits the roof of the vehicle.

From the outside, slightly muffled from the ringing in my ears: yelling, gunshots, explosions.

I look over to my sister, through the layer of smoke. She lay on the roof of the car (she had managed out of her seatbelt), a sinister line of blood pulsed from her hairline and down the side of her face.

With my legs, I shatter the driver's-side window, spreading wicked flakes of glass loudly over the concrete and grass.

"C'mon Liz!"

I yell hoarsely, and one by one we crawl from the smoking vehicle.

I straighten myself, cringing at a pain in my arm, realizing I had unconsciously cut my left arm deeply with the glass that jutted from the car's broken window.

I glare around, through the dark that was lit with the spreading of vehicle fires, a massive orange coat of light that leapt onto the trees and bark of the forest.

I see men and women, suited with body armor, emerging from the forest, holding weapons up, firing at the incoming Therians. I see blurs of color as men and women with the bodies of humans but the features and power of animals fire and attack the Night Blades. Wolves, bears, lions, striding out into the darkness.

From deeper in the forest, more missiles were launched, a mere streak in the night air until they explode at the feet of the Therians. I turn to see the horrified, angry expression of Liz.

"We need to help them!"

She screamed over the noise. Her body pulsed as she began to transform into her Therian form, her skin thickening and sprouting short brown hair, her specialized clothing expanding as she assumed the form of a humanoid bull.

From yards away, Night Blade soldiers were beginning to notice us, and point their weapons.

Liz was bounding towards the soldiers, abandoning our General's instruction.

I attempt to follow her.

"Liz! No-"

Before I could finish, the streak of a missile narrowly smooths past me, and explodes the vehicle behind me.

Something forcibly bashes against my skull, and the world blurs into an incomprehensible haze of grey and silence. I'm thrown off my feet, heat spreading over my body. I scream as shards of metal and glass pierce my back. I land on the concrete, skidding to a painful halt on my chest.

My bloodied hands attempt to grasp at the ground. I will myself to get up, my muscles spasming, trying to focus on the world that was nothing but red and blackness.

I manage to get to my knees, and my surroundings slightly focus.

Yards away, the beastial form of my sister lay in the ditch across the street littered with metal, broken earth and concrete.

Three men in the black suits quickly take her by the arms.

Through the ringing, I can almost hear my sister scream, as she fights against them. I can almost hear her as they begin to drag her away into the forest.

"Jason! HELP!"

My body trembled. All around, I see the bodies of my people, blood strewn over the concrete, fire grinning in the almost black liquid.

And through the haze of terror, and panic, I manage to my feet and retreat into the blackness of the forest, unable to feel the pain in my legs as I strided out. Away from the screaming, the explosions, the gunfire.

I didn't feel myself transforming as I went. My body thickening, stretching against my clothing.

I ran, the words of my sister echoing in my head even as the horrific red light faded, leaving the only illumination that milky moonlight through the tattered patterns of the leaves.

Even as the gunfire and screams fade in the distance.