"Kelly, get up!"
She stirred.
"Kelly, you need to get up now!" the man shook her again, this time with more urgency.
She stirred again, rising up from the depths of an uneasy sleep, a sleep full of dreams and nightmares and hopes, all the while wondering why his voice was still so loud and clear even though she knew he was still far, far away,
"Kelly! You need to get up and get dressed NOW!" this time the shaking snapped her out of her slumber and into a state of complete and total alertness, someone was in her room, there was probably more than one person, and even though the voice speaking to her sounded like him, she had no idea who it could be.
It couldn't be him, he was still in Texas, still doing his work with Dallas Police and the Embassy, he couldn't have gotten to her that quickly. So she reacted.
She threw an elbow towards the sound of the voice as hard as she could, hoping to connect with whoever it was and buy herself enough time to slip past him and into the hallway, where her family would surely be waiting to help her.
The elbow connected solidly and she heard someone grunt, and felt hands grasp at her wrists, and this time the voice said,
"Kelly, open you goddamned eyes! It's ME." And she did so, she was lost as far as she knew, nothing could save her from what she thought was coming.
Kelly opened her eyes and saw him, his face, though covered in green and brown paint, was still his, the voice was his, the eyes were his, and she saw where she had hit him, just below his left eye, there was a smudge where her elbow had connected, it would have been a solid blow that would have stunned anyone in any other situation, but not this man, not this time.
Something was wrong, and she knew it.
"What's going on Erwin?" she could feel the fear slowly drifting in to her mind, the thought that something must be terribly wrong for him to be there, dressed in his uniform, with a rifle slung across his chest.
She could feel the heat from his weapon coming off towards her, she could smell the gunpowder and copper eminating from all around her. She must have been in a deep, dark sleep to have not heard the gunfire, because it was recent as far as she could tell.
"There's been a problem. We're here to pick you up and take you to the consulate in Spokane. You need to get dressed right now. I don't have time to explain fully just yet."
With that, Erwin whirled around and started shouting orders to the men who were in the room, there were five of them, all dressed the same as Erwin, in camouflage, all carrying wicked-looking weapons that looked freshly used. The biggest one still had a slight red glow eminating from its barrel in the early morning light filtering through her tiny bedroom window.
Erwin turned back to her and said with no hesitation,
"Listen to me from here on out. Do as I say, and if I am killed, do as the others say. They are under my orders to keep you safe. Get dressed and grab whatever you need that you can carry in a backpack or something."
His voice was only lightly accented, and it shifted in and out. Years of speaking English had taken its toll on that mans voice and mannerisms.
"What do I need to bring?" Kelly asked, still sitting dazed and upright from the shock of seeing the man she loved so close so suddenly.
"I don't know. Bring essentials, toiletries and the like. Only what you yourself can carry. We need to be prepared to move on foot if we have to." Erwin paused for a moment and then added,
"Dress comfortably, but don't wear anything that can be used as a handle." with that, Erwin turned on his heel and left the room, closing the door behind him. Kelly didn't hear the sound of his footfalls going up the steps, so he must have been waiting in the stairway outside her doorway.
Kelly was slugglish in her movements, she got up slowly and hesitantly, afraid Erwin might burst back in and catch her in her pjs, or even worse, naked as she changed. Though she doubted that he would do that intentionally.
Still, she took a few moments to think about what she had to wear, and decided that her best bet would be casual clothes, a black hoodie with black jeans and her skate shoes, with a white undershirt and her PE clothes from when she was in school as undergarments. She then casted a glance around her room and began to assess what she would take with her, and how she would carry it.
It was eerily silent outside. Normally she could hear the sounds of cars driving by, birds chirping, and kids talking on their way to school. However none of that was present. The only sounds were the crackling of radios, and some mutterings going on that she could barely hear, let alone understand.
The silence shattered all too quickly, all too suddenly and violently. There was a burst of gunfire from right outside her window, and then screams, she heard shouts and more shots as feet flew by, and suddenly, a horror emerged, and time seemed to slow to a crawl.
The face was blank, vapid as a dead mans, but the eyes were full of...something. Malice, hatred. Pure, unadulterated hate. Hate that had no reason, just rage. His mouth was frothing, and his hands were bloody and covered in bits of something, she couldn't tell what it was.
He scrambled and clawed at her, trying to get in through the small window he had chosen as his method of entry. There was no sound, but soon Kelly could hear it, an unholy roaring, a screaming like a man on fire, someone in pain but without a release.
Time still moved slowly as the man clawed his way in through the window, just barely fitting through the opening. He landed on her bed, hid head hitting the footboard as he came down. A sickening crack was all she heard over the last remnants of the screaming, and the mans head began to split, blood pulsing from the split in his skull quickly and powerfully.
The man slowly pulled himself up and seemed dazed, almost peaceable again, Kelly prepared to defend herself with everything she had as the man looked about and again locked his crazy, hate-filled eyes on her.
Then, an ear-splitting roar came from next to her, and the man began to simply disintegrate. Puffs of pink, splashes of gore, and limbs detatching themselves was what she saw, and finally, the mans head became nothing more than hunk of meat, and Kelly returned to herself, her ears ringing, eyes wide, and voice unable to work.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kelly saw Erwin step into view. All she could hear was the ringing, but she knew what he was saying, and the question coming out of his mouth was simple,
"Are you hurt?"
Kelly shook her head and stared, because something in that mans face was changed, something was different. She noticed it finally, after a few long seconds of staring, with Erwin simply staring back, his eyes having gone from a pale green to an icy blue.
Those eyes, so full of color and life normally, were empty now. Emptier than a deep winters sky.
Kelly had finally seen the killing face, or rather, the killing eyes, of the man she loved.
She was shaken.
Erwin simply laid his weapon across his chest and put a hand on her back, and his other hand over her hands, which were crossed over her chest, and he sat her down right there. In front of the blood, the gore, the still twitching pile of human debris that was most likely trying to kill her moments earlier. Kelly was too tired, too shocked to resist.
Erwin handed her one of his canteens, and went to work selecting what she might bring with her, occasionally holding something up for her to see, and waiting to see if she nodded or shook her head. It took only five minutes for Erwin to complete the selection for her and pack it into a bag she picked. Kelly though, sipping her water and glancing back towards the dead body that lay in her room, felt as though it was taking forever.
She was scared, and she wanted to leave this slaughterhouse that had been her room not five minutes earlier. Kelly tried to stand, but couldn't. Her legs were jelly, the adrenaline from the last few minutes having run its course, now leaving her without the ability to move, much less speak. Erwin saw this, slung her pack over his shoulder and knelt down, gently picking Kelly up and cradling her as if they had just been married and were crossing over the threshold.
Kelly wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head as far into Erwin's chest as she could, and she began to cry silently. Erwin hadn't carried her more than a few steps up before the combination of fear, shock, exhaustion, and adrenaline caused Kelly to drift off, as much as she didn't want to. Kelly fell asleep, and didn't dream at all.