Poison City

“Where are you?” A female whisper came in the dark, weeping, croaking and breaking her voice.

“What the fuck?” The leader of the pursuers took out his flashlight and tried to light up the area around him. But the same flashlight that could usually reach five or six car lanes away could now only light up a few steps’ distance in a narrow line, outside of this very immediate range everything was still dark.

“Boss - I think we need to go. ” One of the pursuers said with a trembling voice: “Somethings now right here.”

“It’s completely dark out there! It’s completely dark out there!” Another pursuer freaked and tried to run downstairs: “Oh my god! This is happening! This is happening!”

“Shut up! Don’t panic, you fucking moron!” The leader tried to call this pursuer, but this henchman of his already made it out of the staircase, and gone were his cries for help and his terrified whining.

“Boss?” The only other pursuer remaining by the leader’s side asked, his voice was shaking beyond his control, he had more words but they were stuck in his throat. He had to swallow a few times before he could finally get a half complete sentence out: “What - what should we - ”

“Calm down! ” The leader raised his voice: “It’s just the lights. Let’s get outta here.”

“Where - where is he?” The same female voice crept in again, this time seeming from different corners around them.

“Help me! Help me!” Just this moment, the voice of the pursuer who ran away earlier came back - it was from behind the leader and the other man. “Where the fuck am I !? Oh god! Where the fuck am I!?”

Aside from the leader, the other two pursuers screamed and bumped into the walls behind them. And within a mere moment, both of them had their guns pointed at each other. The man who ran away had the shotgun, while the man who stayed by the leader’s side had the pistol.

“Wait! WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE!” The leader tried to calm the two men down.

But he was too late. For in a moment of panic, both of them squeezed their triggers. The man who held a shotgun blasted his shot. The pellets covered a dangerously wide arc in this narrow staircase. The man with a pistol instantly lost most of his left chest from the majority of the pellets. The leader’s right arm was grazed and he fell to the side. And the man wielding a pistol fired two shots before his gun jammed. The man with a shotgun was thus struck, in the right chest and in the abdomen.

“God dammit! God dammit!” The leader cursed and cried out, trying to hold his right arm and stop the bleeding. But that was until he saw the face of a pale woman, with bloodshot eyes, no nose and a mouthful of bloody teeth.

Pain radiated from his chest and his abdomen. He looked down and touched where he hurt. Blood was left on the finger. Yet, the other henchman of his was already dead, killed by the police captain, he should have had only one man by his side just now.

The darkness faded. Two more bodies were left in the staircase.

The pale face of the woman remained. A long wound slashed across her face. This was no mere flesh wound. It cut through her entire head, separating the top part of her head from the lower half, across her nose. With any swift movement, her upper head would drift, only corrected by dark smoke pulling the halves together.

“Please - please.” A few breaths remained in Captain Ko. His Qi halted his profuse bleeding, only for a moment and for his wife to manifest: “Don’t - don’t fall further. There’s - there’s no more hope for me. There just might be - for - you.” His eyes dimmed. His Qi stopped circulating, and his bleeding finally took the toll on him.

A deafening scream exploded from the house. The men outside guarding the entrances were instantly paralyzed. It was not just the surprise factor, it was not just fear. It was a bone-chilling hold on their entire bodies. They wanted to move, they wanted to speak with each other. But they could not even lift a finger or utter a sound. All they could do was shallow breathing and moving their eyes.

“Where are you?” “Where are you?” “Where are you?” Countless voices came pouring out of the house, along with waves and waves of dark smoke, inside of which countless hands with red fingernails could be seen.

The men screamed on the inside. Panic and horror shook their bodies. But in a short moment’s time, they were swallowed by the smoke, and pulled into invisible pockets and holes where they would not be seen ever again.

A painful cry shocked the entire neighborhood. Electric sparks shot out of the light posts, the wires and the electric substation. A blood rainbow appeared high up in the sky. Many unsightly, creepy shadows manifested in different corners of the community. But before they could do anything, streams of dark smoke shot at them and devoured them. After a brief moment, even the entire blood rainbow was swallowed whole.

The blood rainbow dissipated after a few short moments, and the dark smoke rose up into the sky, taking the shape of a cloud, and began floating north - the direction where the energy aura suppressing the cloud's power was coming from.

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Jonathan

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