0007 Help and Petulance

It was a cold night, the sky was clear of clouds, and up there two moons can be seen, one bigger than the other, one next to the other, the closest one has a bluish hue and the farther one has a reddish hue, both posing with a full background of bright stars all around.

An old huge shed was destroyed in half, several products were overturned from all sides, such as rags, clothes, old clocks, oil lanterns and many others.

In the midst of the destruction, a twisted bus was lying outside the huge shed, next to it, an upside-down police car, bits of asphalt scattered everywhere, as well as exposed sewage polluting the air with the strong stench.

Amidst so many things, murmurs, cries and grunts, many people were lying on all sides, some wandering in the dark places using only the flashlights of their cell phones, the reflected light of the moons and a fire that started on one side of the shed, trying to explore the unknown.

"Sergeant Andrew, do you need help?".

"No Lucas...
... I'm just watching things here...
... And please, I got promoted yesterday, but you're my friend, just call me Andrew...
... Did anyone get any cell signal?"

"So far no one has a signal, and everyone I've encountered I've asked to save as much battery as possible...
... After all, we don't know how long we'll be lost here...".

"... Very well, let's check the signal every hour...
... You can come back to help, I'll join you soon...".

The bearded man was the highest-ranking policeman among all who were gathered during the conflict followed by the phenomenon.

At the moment he was on the edge of the phenomenon's mark, analyzing the causes or whatever, using a small flashlight from his pocket equipment to better illuminate the place.

"I saw people trying to run away from the phenomenon before it all went dark...
... A guy dropped a backpack while running...
... It shouldn't be far... What?".

Talking alone to help put ideas in the right place and get the best judgment, Andrew found the backpack he had seen fall before and to his surprise the once ordinary backpack was now stretched a meter longer than normal, with some parts torn.

"Shit!!".

Further on, he found something even worse, the backpack's owner's body was stretched for meters, like chewing gum, as were his clothes and belongings, the body was lying on the floor like a string of noodles, and blood oozed from several parts that were torn apart leaving pieces of flesh and organs exposed.

"What the fuck!".

He continued investigating the edge of the circle and the more he walked the more deformed bodies he found, some more than others, others with just a few limbs outstretched, it was like a sadistic horror movie, but it wasn't just the deformed bodies, rocks, walls, a lamppost and everything around.

Stopping at one point, for fear of crossing the circular mark and something similar happening to him, he searched for some nearby object, finding a piece of thin tube, and then threw it forward like a hunting spear that flew its way into the darkness of the night.

Searching with his flashlight he managed to find the tube stuck in the ground on the other side of the mark, the tube was whole and apparently nothing happened.

Taking a deep breath, he took a step beyond the mark on the floor and...

"Nothing?
Very good, at least one good news...".

He walked over to the tube and pulled it off the ground to take a closer look, really nothing unusual happened.

"Lucius! Lucius!
Get up man!".

Nearby, the exasperated scream of one of the brave young men he'd met not long ago who was running towards a body on the ground, was the other brave young man, the taller of the two.

^"Yeah, I remember he was shot during the ruckus...
... I need to see if he's still alive!"^

**************************************************

“Hey man!
Stop sleeping like a brick, stand up please...”.

Alex was pulling Lucius' arm who was lying on the floor all dirty and with his pale skin, away from him, Helena helped other people to get up off the ground, all of them had small injuries.

"Damn man, stop that, get up from there...".

Lucius remained motionless, and Alex began to cry beside him, the bearded policeman came to his side and patted him on the back in an attempt to comfort, but he didn't say anything and went to check on Lucius' body but stopped for a moment as he looked ahead.

Helena came to Alex's side and hugged him...

"Let's go...".

"No, man! We can't leave him here like this...".

"Alex, I met you two today, and I realized that you guys understand each other so well that with just one look, you know what the other is thinking...
... Would Lucius like to see you like this in such a situation?".

She tried to comfort Alex at the same time as she tried to get him out of the sadness, the place where they were was strange, the two moons in the sky made her uneasy, and there weren't many people there that she realized she could trust, in her mind, only Alex and the bearded cop's group deserved attention and trust.

Alex turned to look at her, and for a few seconds he wiped away his tears, as the two of them got up from the floor to look around, people started to gather in the shed, and they walked towards joining with the others.

^"Fuck man!
Why did you go like this?
How are we gonna change the world together if you're gone?
All right...
... I'll do it for us..."^.

Alex made a promise to himself as he finished drying his face, clenched his fists and assumed a serious expression, determined to move forward in the dream he shared with his deceased friend.

"Come on Helen...
Let's find out what happened...".

"And where are we...".

"Yes, and where are we...".

**************************************************

The bus was twisted, its rear was stretched in a curve upwards in a great arc and because of the imbalance it was topple on its side in a mess of iron and seat cushions scattered all over the place.

And there in the mess the skinny cop was being immobilozed down by another man, with one hand he was holding his mouth tightly to stop him from screaming for help, in a position where he was holding his arms from behind and pressing his body weight into the back of the officer lying face down on the floor.

"Shhhhi shhi shhi shi...
... Keep quiet, it won't take long...".

"... Uhmm... Uhmm...".

"Shhi shhi shi...
... Yes I know you remember me...
... After all, you ruined my family...
... Destroyed several families from the periphery...".

Terror took over the policeman lying on the ground immobilized, he didn't have enough strength to try to get rid of the man on top of him, and now with a gun pointed at his face, he couldn't take it anymore, he started crying.

"... Look it...
... When my son cried in front of you, you had fun...
... My child...
... You made me watch him die...
... Você tirou ele de mim...".

"... Uhmmmm...".

"Okay, okay...
... I won't be long, I've waited eight years for the chance to meet you again...
... And who knew I'd find you with your friends cornered today outside my new house...
... Come on...
... Let me enjoy your suffering...".

Tossing the gun to the side, the man pulled out a knife that was wrapped in a band around his ankle, and then stabbed the thin man in the eye, then stabbed the other eye, stabbed one ear, and so continued stabbing the man piece by piece.

"... Uhmm!! ... Uhmmmm!!!
...".

**************************************************

Andrew, who waited for the two to leave, realized by the conversation and reaction of this Alex that his friend had died, so he just quickly checked his heartbeat and went towards what he had seen earlier.

Behind some rubble, the body of one of Henry's followers, the blond guy, lay on the floor, there was almost nothing left of his head, just a mess of blood and brains splattered, and beside his body, a bloodstained rebar and bits of skin and blond hair stuck together.

^"What happened here?
This is different from the other bodies I've seen...
... He really was beaten to death..."^.

Remembering the young man who hit the blond cop's gun with the rebar, looking at the rebar next to the body, and behind him the body of the young man shot, everything was adding up to a scene that was built in his mind.

^"If this young man did it in the midst of that chaos even though he was wounded on the verge of death...
... I'm afraid of what could happen if he was well and alive..."^.

"Henry son of a bitch! I'll kill you!".

Andrew stood up and looked in the direction of the yelled curse.

The scream overcame the cries and murmurs, one of his colleagues found Henry lying with a large piece of wall lying on top of him, making it impossible for him to leave, having his attention drawn, the bearded man hurried over to the spot where other officers were gathering after helping a few people along the way.

"Get him out of there...".

"But Andrew, what if he and his partners cause conflict again??".

"Just cuff him, one of your own is already dead back there...
... Another one is over there drooling over a woman, and the last one hasn't shown up yet...".

Andrew replied to his friend, pointing respectively to a body not far from them and then to the couple looking for wounds in each other, or something like that, he forced himself to believe.

"We don't know where we are or what's going on...
... Better keep getting everyone together in that shed...
... There must be almost a hundred people spread out counting the dead, it's going to be hard for just us to take care of them all...".

"Hey! Who's there?".

And once again, something else caught his attention that possibly he would have to deal with and resolve.

**************************************************

The bus driver who had just used one of the boxes to sit on, was startled by some desperate murmurs behind the boxes and screamed in fright. 

Then he saw some strangely dressed teenagers lying on the floor with their hands and legs tied, and their mouths covered.

Hiding at the end, the old drunk was undressing one of the tied up girls as he grabbed her breasts, squeezing them tightly.

"Hey!
What are you doing with the girl over there?!".

"Shut up, they'll hear you...
... Look, there's a girl left, no need to make a fuss...
... Or are you one of those who prefer boys, also... Aarh!".

One of the policemen who was nearby went towards them and pulled the old man by the head throwing him among the rubble of the fallen wooden roof, looking coldly at the old man who tried to curse loudly, but seeing that the man in front of him was a policeman, he lowered his head and was muttering to himself.

"Rapist son of a bitch!
Hold still, I'll be back soon and deal with you...
... Run away and I'll be happy to unload my revolver on you...".

The policeman was a thin black man, hair completely shaved, his expression was one of pure hatred looking at the old man who looked away and was quiet.

The bus driver wasted no time and ran to help the girl get dressed, the girl looked at him with a look of gratitude in response.

The policeman had already returned, went towards them and took the cloth from the mouth of one of them, but he didn't understand the language of the teenager who spoke in a desperate and fast way, he then tried to calm him down and managed to recognize the language, the teenager spoke the English language, at least that's what it seemed.

"Can you understand what they are saying?".

Despite English being an International language, he couldn't speak the language, so he looked at the driver behind him helping the girl up, who shook her head in a negative way in response.

Realizing that the driver was afraid of him, probably because of Henry's group, he sighed and decided to untie them all with the driver's help, and then he would hope that one of the people gathered nearby could understand what the young people were saying.

"You can call me Harris, what's your name?".

"Peter sir, call me Peter.".

Policiman Harris was one of the policiman in Andrew's group, and now with the confusion, he was committed to helping relentlessly, so he was happy to have the help of a man of good character like driver Peter by his side.

The untied young hugged each other and followed Harris and Peter to the center of the shed, but soon fell into despair looking in a certain direction.

It was the direction the old drunk was sitting on the piles of wood.