8 years ago.
Mori sat slumped in the wheelchair, bones wrapped in blankets like a body prepared for burial. Mr. N pushed him through a field of pale white flowers.
Mori's face was one of regret and grief. His injuries had debilitated him. His eyes held no hope.
Mr. N, however, smiled. His locs waved in the wind. His eyes were dark, dead. But his face was the opposite. Alive. Alert.
Mr. N spoke casually, telling stories of his missions, how quickly he was rising in the ranks of the President's army.
"And I was in my homeland. And man, the conversations were great. We started talking about religion, of course. My favorite."
He leaned closer to Mori's ear.
"And that's when I realized something."
"You know who my favorite group of people is?"
Mori said nothing.
"Atheists."
A pause.
"Because how can someone exist and not believe in the devil?"
"Regardless of social status, that level of ignorance should be illegal."
Another pause.
"So I convinced them."
"All of them."
"The entire village. I showed them hell."
…
Mr. N wiped his eyes as he laughed.
He laughed repeatedly as he pushed Mori back and forth in the wheelchair.
He kept repeating the same joke.
The hospital was abandoned. Empty.
But he kept pushing. He kept speaking.
Over and over and over and over and over again.
Until finally.
Finally.
Mori, in the wheelchair, chuckled.
Not out of amusement.
But madness.
Chapter 19. A Battle Between Two Elite Guards (1)
10 minutes later, disaster struck.
Written in blood, the walls still wept. Seven names carved deep in sleep. Calexsis hummed, his breath now thin. Chanlet's eyes stared, glazed within.
Lloyd lay twisted, arrows blooming from his body like flowers.
No, 80. No, 190.
Arrows grew from his body like towers.
Osprey's song still echoed through the gloom. The wind remembered, soft yet sly. It hummed the tune of "who" and "why."
No blade was drawn. No scream was spared. Just silence, sweet and well prepared.
For somewhere far, far away, an entire unit fell in disarray.
Mori, keen and bright, wasn't even smart enough to see their fight.
The hunter smiled.
And turned away.
Closing in, he walked further into the fray.
As we change perspectives.
MUDDY WASTELAND outside the destroyed restaurant, SHENANDOAH VALLEY, VIRGINIA, WITH MORI
Mori held his hand to his ear, listening through the microphones he had placed around the area.
He heard nothing.
Zinn panicked."Did we lose him?"
He slammed his fist against the twisted frame of the car, mud splashing as he spoke into his broken phone.
Zinn yelled into the communicator, furious."Where the hell is our tracker? Calexsis! Get the fuck over here!"
He cut himself off, uncomfortably wiping dirt from his face as he splashed through the mud beside Mori, who remained unfazed.
They walked slowly.
Mori, almost amused, slicked back his hair."No need to panic. He's coming back."
Zinn frowned."What, is he stupid? Why would he take us two versus one when he ran away earlier?"
Mori whistled in excitement as his earpiece picked up something roughly 1.2 kilometers away.
He turned his head slightly, eyes locking south."You're right. He won't take us on two versus one."
A whistling shriek cut through the air.
A projectile tore through Zinn's skull, exiting in a burst of bone and blood before lodging itself into the concrete beneath the mud with a thunderous crack.
Zinn dropped.
Like a puppet with no strings.
Mori didn't flinch.
He watched the scene with cold admiration.
"Dead center. Right through the ocular cavity… pierced the brain stem. Clean."
A pause.
"Hot damn."
Another arrow struck the ground near Mori, and a communication device was attached to it.
He stepped back slightly as it activated.
Osprey's voice came through.
"This is your last chance, old friend. Don't let me do this."
There was hesitation in his voice.
Just a little.