Summary
Dreadful…
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Chapter
Skye woke up in the early afternoon, the following day, around 1.30 p.m.
The day before had been tremendously stressing for her, but also exiting.
That mysterious Grand Dark Protector really got under her skin and she vaguely remembered some dreams she had during the night about him, in which she managed to take away his mask and he was…
She didn't want to think about that, right now!
She was hungry and she decided she would take a look in the fridge and in the dresser to see what there was.
Wonderful!
There was all the necessary for pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon!
Those were among the few things she was able to cook, by the way…
So she prepared a fantastic brunch and enjoyed it like she didn't for a long time.
She wondered when her mysterious guest would return… and what would happen then…
After eating and cleaning the kitchen, she took a look around the flat.
She already had opened the bathroom, bedroom and dining room windows, and then she noticed there was also a French window that looked onto a small terrace.
So she decided to enjoy the open air far from any camera and opened it.
It was a beautiful day, full of sun, and she remained a little overlooking from the terrace. There was another terrace just next to hers and she discovered a little girl peeping at her from there.
"Hi!" Skye greeted.
The little girl remained silent and serious, and then walked inside.
After a while, a woman, probably the mother, came out and greeted Skye, who politely returned the greetings.
Then the woman began asking a lot of questions, such as about who she was, where she came from, what she was doing here…
She was very curious and insistent, indeed!
After a little while, Skye fled back inside, because she felt almost assaulted!
What a strange behavior!
Were all the people in this town so careless about respecting other's privacy?
Nonetheless she turned on the television, to see some news.
Everything seemed more or less normal.
Nobody was talking about the meningitis epidemic any more, like it never occurred. But she knew that it was only a cover: large parts of the population were infected and that produced different effects, from depression to antisocial behavior, from rage to violence.
The world deeply changed from what it was one year ago.
The only places that seemed to have remained untouched were the small isolated places, like the village in which she spent the last couple of months…
Had she lost something, remaining isolated for so much time?
The behavior of that woman was so strange…
She felt uncomfortable, and wished her mysterious savior would come back soon.
In the evening Skye prepared some fruits and ate them, then she got a quick shower and went to bed.
She waited a lot for sleep to arrive, and once she fell asleep she was disturbed by nightmares of little serious girls and tremendously insistent and intrusive mothers.
But in the middle of the night Skye began feeling more and more like suffocating, like asphyxiating, until she woke up with a start, panting and sweating.
And the show that loomed before her eyes was even more terrible than her nightmares!
Her whole room was filled with people staring at her: there was the woman of the terrace with her daughter, sitting next to her in bed; there were people at her feet, people at her side, people all over the floor, people on the threshold of the door, people in the dining room, that was the only place of all the flat where the light was on.
Her whole apartment was crammed with people!
They began to say, all together, again and again:
"A force beyond your comprehension is coming for you.
You have something we want.
And you will die giving it to us".
She was petrified by terror: those words were exactly what Thomas Nash said about her almost three years ago!
Those exact words had been the reason why Ward killed Nash…
She didn't know what to do.
She tried to get up, but six hands grabbed her and prevented her from moving.
She thought of generating an earthquake, but she couldn't kill so many people, that were probably innocent.
She thought of using shockwaves, but was scared to wound or seriously hurt someone.
When she was starting to despair, she felt the air becoming hot… like Sahara hot… a heat beyond any tolerance… and it was increasing…
She started sweating profusely, and so did all the others: everybody started panting, and after a few minutes they became unstable on their legs.
Someone started fainting, but the heat didn't cease; instead it kept increasing!
Oh, God, what was happening?
She felt like she was in an oven and she felt suffocating, even if she was hyperventilating!
She was on the verge of passing out, when she saw him coming inside of the room, walking between the fainted bodies collapsed on the ground and dodging the ones that still managed to keep upright.
He himself was hot like hell (in both senses)!
It seemed he was the origin of that heat, because, when he scooped her up, all his body was scorching! And the mask, too, irradiated heat like it was a red-hot piece of iron!
But she hadn't time to think about that, because she felt his strong arms easily lifting her pajamas wrapped body and him quickly exiting the flat, descending the stairs and running outside.
Oh, there she could breathe again!
She almost had a heatstroke!
He reached a SUV, put her in the passenger seat and climbed on the driver seat. Then he ignited the engine and drove away at full speed, lights off and full moon and stars in the sky to illuminate their way, as usual.
After a while she asked him:
"What the hell happened in your apartment?
How did all that people manage to enter in it?
I had been careful to close the security door!"
"I think someone climbed on the terrace from the one nearby, forced the French door and then opened the security door for the others to enter."
"Yes, but they behaved like a mass of zombies, deprived of individual personality, all saying the same horrible thing!"
"I know.
I heard what they were saying…
I'm afraid they are somehow all mentally controlled…"
"But… how?"
"You know that over three billion people have been infected by a strange form of meningitis…"
Skye gasped:
"Three billion?"
"Over three billion.
Of course you don't know anything about that: authorities and media are under control, too, and they aren't divulgating the truth.
The infection has stopped: it cannot spread anymore.
But the people infected have this form of meningitis.
For now, no one cared so much about that, because the Army, the Security Forces, Shield thought that the situation was easily manageable.
But, actually, cases like tonight – where larger or smaller groups of people join forces together, as if driven by an invisible force, by a common goal, or for many other different reasons – are occurring more and more frequently.
The situation is falling out of hand.
I think that someone is controlling them…"
But they had suddenly to stop talking, because something big exploded in front of them and he had to dodge a huge hole in the street.
A war helicopter had tried to bombard them!
And it didn't stop: they had just the time to jump from the SUV to avoid exploding with it!
Suddenly the dark sky became bright like the sunshine.
They were surrounded by an exceptional deployment of military forces: SUVs, helicopters, motorcycles, men armed to the teeth pointing guns against them, intimating to put their hands behind their backs and kneel down.
He didn't waste time: he jumped on Skye covering her with his body before Skye heard someone shooting at them.
She wanted to sprint and fly away, but he was holding her with an exceptional strength, so she couldn't move.
But then she felt again that incredible heat beside her, coming from him, and saw with one eye that flames were erupting from his back, and shoulders, and hands, and head….
They were incredibly bright, something unbearable to the sight, so she had to shut her eyes. And she could see the light even through her eyelids, so she turned her head against the earth to protect her sight.
She heard many screams and many orders of retreat shouted in a hurry.
She was sure she was going to die burned up, but the flames strangely didn't touch her: it was like the Grand Dark Protector was shielding her from them.
After some time everything became quiet.
She felt him getting up from her and shaking her with his hands on her shoulders.
"Skye!
Skye!
How are you?
Are you still alive?
Skye!" he yelled with that low metallic voice.
"Ok!
I'm ok!
Stop shouting: you're splitting my eardrums!"
She got up too and took a look around.
Everything was melted down: motorcycles, guns, helicopters, SUVs were barely distinguishable in that liquid mess.
No man was around: they all escaped far from that tremendous arson.
Everything was now surrounded in darkness and only the moonlight allowed them to see something.
"Quick! Let's go!" he said.
And only then she noticed that he was almost completely naked… except for the mask and for a thin pair of metal wire mesh pants.
And she could have recognized that back, that torso, those abs and arms everywhere…
She had dreamed to caress, and lick, and bite, and scratch them too many times for forgetting them…