As the crowd ran in panic, one of the deputies tasked with crowd control began to shoot into the mass of running compound residents.
Akilah watched as the people she had spent so much time around began to drop randomly like flies. One second they were running in terror, the next they were lifeless, their blood painting the hallway walls.
Taro, who was pushed down the same hallway by chance, looked around for his brother while trying to keep the attention off of him.
"Damn it. Where could he have gone?!" Taro thought to himself as he looked over the panicked parade of death. He caught the purple hair of Akilah, who he was relieved to see.
"Good. Maybe we'll be able to regroup with everyone else." He thought.
Taro saw the deputy's aim stray more and more towards Akilah's direction. He pushed through the crowd to get to her before the deputy could recognize Akilah as one of their targets.
On his way to her, he started to panic.
Shot. Drop. Shot. Drop.
The repeated sounds of gunshots and bodies dropping only exacerbated Taro's panicked state.
Akilah resisted the push of the crowd, scanning for any familiar faces. She was unable to recognize the pitch black hair of Taro.
The deputy scanned over the crowd, doubling back to a specific still dot of purple.
"Purple hair. This must be one of the rebels Officer 1060 talked about." The deputy thought.
He smiled at the thought of taking revenge on one of the dissenters who killed his fellow deputies in the shopping district altercation. He took aim, and…
Shot.
He saw the dot of purple disappear. He grinned to himself in a small gesture of victory.
In the gigantic storage room of the kitchen, Taro and Akilah lay on the floor, breathing heavily from the adrenaline of the crowd.
The door to the storage room closed on its own from the momentum of the crowd.
"Thanks." Akilah's eyes widened as she realized how close she was to death.
"Yeah." Taro sat up and tried to think over the situation they were in. He still couldn't think clearly thanks to the panic of the last five minutes.
"How are we going to find the others?" Taro asked Akilah, who was still laid on her back staring at the ceiling.
"I… I don't know just yet." Akilah hated to admit it, but she didn't want to keep Taro running on false hope.
"You'll meet your companions soon, don't worry my children." A voice came from the opposite side of the dark room.
"Who…" Taro was about to ask in surprise, but caught himself. He didn't even want to know who was speaking.
Akilah and Taro both got to their feet, staring into the darkness, trying to make out the source of the voice.
A golden light appeared in the shape of a ring. The very top and bottom of the ring seemed to be obstructed by a figure standing in front of it.
"Who's there?!" Taro yelled into the darkness, pushing past his fear.
"A messenger of the divine." The kids could see the figure's arms raise slightly to both sides, covering a little more of the light coming from the golden ring.
The figure was tall, in fact, he was lanky to a creepily extreme amount. The kids could see long strands of hair, which seemed to be black.
Suddenly, the figure gasped, scaring the kids into jumping back a step.
"Yes, heavenly father. It seems your friends have met my brother. His predatory instincts will not let them live, sadly. But do not fret, for our savior will guide them into the afterlife, after they are punished for their sins of heresy." The figure's hands moved theatrically with each sentence he spoke, as though he was in a Shakespeare play.
"What is with all of this god BULLSHIT?!" Taro started to get angry at the thought that he might be talking about Kai.
"Oh, you lost soul. You've not read the Book Of Silence? I would have thought it was mandatory in primary schools." The figure shook his head.
"Me and Kai never went to a real school. We've been at the compound for as long as we can remember…" Taro thought to himself.
"The Book Of Silence, the official religious doctrine of the United Nations…" Akilah thought out loud in hopes she could give Taro a hint about the matter.
"That's right. I am a messenger of the one and only… What was that?" The figure seemed to tilt his head upwards.
"Yes… Alright… I will send them to you right away." The figure raised his arms to each side.
Taro looked around the room for a couple seconds, finally finding a light switch. He switched it on.
The two teens stared in shock as the figure watched their movements through shut eyes.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" Taro felt chills run down his spine as he observed the mysterious golden ring, which seemed to float behind the Officer, defying all laws of physics.
"Divine hymn." The figure spoke.
The sound of a loud choir suddenly filled the room, getting louder with each passing millisecond. The voices of the choir screamed, sobbed, sang, and worshipped all at once. It was chaotic awe in its most primal form.
The two teens fell to their knees in excruciating pain.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" Akilah put her hands over her ears, but the choir just got louder.
Taro felt the drip of blood dripping out of his ears and onto the hands that tried to cover them.
"MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!" Akilah pleaded to the Officer, who raised his vision to the ceiling once again.
"YES! Heavenly father, grant me the honor of wearing the auricular stigmata!" The Officer seemed to be crying with joy as his ears bled profusely.
"He's being affected too?" Akilah's instincts began to kick in as her curiosity tried to find a way to explain and overcome the enemy in front of her.
She channeled her Mode. What she didn't plan for was the fact that all of her senses are one thousand times sensitive in her intellectual state, including hearing.
Akilah's scream cut through the choir like a blade, snapping Taro's attention to her.
"Hey! Look at me! Just think! I'll try to stop the noise." Taro yelled over the noise as Akilah nodded.
Taro got up onto his feet.
"FUCK YOU!" Taro charged Officer 1168, who diverted his attention from the ceiling and onto the boy.
This whole time, Officer 1168 kept his eyes shut.
Taro swung a left hook at 1168, who swiftly dodged it.
"Who is this guy?!" Taro thought. How could he have dodged his fist with his eyes closed?
"You fail to impress our savior. I have put my full faith into the heavenly father. All I feel in every waking second of my life is love, admiration, and fear towards our lord. In return, he grants me strength beyond your comprehension. Bow to the divine." Officer 1168 swung low, punching Taro in the gut.
Taro was lifted into the air by the fist, knocking all of the wind out of his lungs. He gasped, collapsing to his knees. Akilah's eyes went wide.
"He puts every single emotion he feels into a feeling that directly connects to his Mode, no wonder he's so threatening. What… What can I do?!" Akilah thought to herself.
She looked the Officer up and down.
"Is he levitating?!" Akilah began to feel her heart sink in her chest as the weight of impending defeat began to fill her mind.
Taro took a few seconds to get his breath back, before bursting upwards in hopes to surprise the Officer.
Taro went for an uppercut to the chin. He channeled his Mode, hoping to get a good first hit in.
"That won't do." Officer 1168 dodged the blow once again.
"I can't think. It's too loud." Akilah thought to herself. The choir had kept a steady volume ever since Taro began his attack.
Akilah hesitated before deciding on a decision.
"I don't care how much it hurts. I'm going to see how we can defeat him." Akilah activated her Mode, immediately wincing at the unbearable pain in her ears.
She covered them with her hands as she tried to focus on the visuals of the room.
She could see a heavy amount of Spirit radiating from the golden ring behind the Officer, which followed him around the room like a permanent backlight.
All of the Spirit Akilah could detect still looked like blurs of heat, as it looked when she had just acquired her powers.
"*Damn it! Damn it all! Such a fucking amateur. You're going to be the death of your friend. FOCUS, AKILAH! FOCUS HARDER!" Akilah rambled to herself inside her head as she tried to channel even more Spirit into her brain. As she felt her extremities weaken from a lack of Spirit flow, she knew that wouldn't be the answer.
She grew frustrated as she continued to try to numb herself to the pain in her ears. She cursed the part of her brain processing hearing.
"Wait…" Akilah thought back to a book she had borrowed from Milo.
"Different parts of the brain are responsible for responding to different stimuli. For example, The occipital lobe handles vision, the temporal lobe processes hearing and smell, the parietal lobe interprets touch, taste, and pain, and the cerebellum is crucial for balance." The book's quotes ran through her head.
"And… The occipital lobe is…" Akilah remembered that the occipital lobe was in the back of the brain as she tried to visualize the general location.
She closed her eyes as she tried to channel the Spirit that she had channeled to other parts of the brain to the occipital lobe.
Akilah wasn't sure if she could do it. It took a lot out of her to channel her Spirit into a general location like her brain.
After a few seconds, the pain in her ears began to return to a level that was akin to the pain that she had felt before activating her Mode.
She opened her eyes to a shocking sight.
The room exploded with color. She was able to see the faint signatures of the crowd from yards away, but she was even more shocked at what she could see right in front of her.
She saw every vein of Spirit surging through 1168 and Taro like molten glass. When Taro channeled his Mode, his fists burned brighter with Spirit.
To her glee, she could also see where Officer 1168 was channeling his Spirit.
"His eyes! Go for his eyes!" Akilah yelled at Taro.
"Alright!" Taro smiled as he got the exclamation he was waiting for, now just to find a way around his defense.
"That sinner will be a thorn in my side." Officer 1168 seemed to look at Akilah, although Taro couldn't know for sure since his eyes were still shut.
"Divine blade." A glowing yellow sword appeared in 1168's hand. He quickly threw it across the room, heading straight for the head of Akilah.
"Is this where I die? Please… Fate… Make sure my friends make it out." Akilah tried to dodge the blade, but her lack of physical training seemed to be the death of her. She closed her eyes as she accepted her fate.
After a second or two of feeling no pain, Akilah opened her eyes. They widened at the sight above her.
"You're important to my brother, you're gonna have to make it outta here alive." Taro looked down at Akilah as blood began to pool inside his mouth. The blade pierced Taro in the side of his abdomen. He didn't know if it had hit anything vital, but he didn't care at that moment.
He smiled at her. It was the same half-grin Kai wore when he joked about how little he thought of himself. For a split second, Akilah saw them both in him.
"You've made me see how good it feels to live for a friend… Thank you… Kai." Taro thought of his brother to try to ease the pain in his lower back.
"Just… Just give me a second." Taro fell onto Akilah, who tried to keep him up. He went limp in her arms as the golden blade stuck out of his black t-shirt.
"TARO WAKE UP!" Akilah screamed with all her might as tears began to swell behind her glasses.
Akilah's scream echoed through the kitchen, but it was drowned out by the divine choir.