The Children of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (top novels to read .TXT) 📕

Er Mo Za blinked - she was gone. She looked around for any sign on the snow-ice surface - there was no indication of anyone or anything being present. When she turned around, however, she saw that the shuttle was already flying away.

- "What the hell is going on, stop and pick me back up! I'm going to die here in a few hours!," he scrambled like a madman, trying to seize the slim opportunity to get spotted and turn back.

The shuttle was rising inexorably. Until a sudden explosion followed. It all happened in an instant. Pieces of kevlarite and hyon fibre used for insulation flew apart. It was all over. The demons had won.

His eyes crossed and he clearly realized that he was going to die soon. He had a few hours left when he would attempt to decompress his suit himself and struggle thirstily for a breath of air. And that would be the end of him. Utterly inglorious. He looked around, at least he had the axe left. Puck and odd as it was there was a small amount of the Hermonad’s poison. He decided to look around and then if he couldn't find another way out, even if it was temporary, just drink it and be done with it. He looked around and sniffed everything - there was no hope - there was only debris. He realized with sadness that their plan to poison Kazuk Mon might not come true. And he picked up the obsidian glass, pouring it straight into the suit's cooling system pipes. Soon he felt the droplets on his tongue and began to lose consciousness. His testicles were going to burst - as if they were being squeezed by an iron vise. He felt the heat hit his skull and that was the end...

- "Hey, wake up," Zekaraya shook him. "Apparently this place is bad for all of us. Let's get out of here."

He looked around - there was no sign of anything he had seen. The shuttle was a whole-target and they were just taking off. Everyone was in a pretty cheerful mood. The stabilizers were on. And smoothly and surely they separated from the surface and began to gain altitude.

- "What the hell was going on?," he wondered.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: DEMONIC ILLUSION

It was soon explained to him that anyone who actually wished to learn the secret of the chapel was being daggered by the demons to hear their thoughts, and the visions were false and could eventually lead one to schizophrenia and a fatal end. Er Mo Za could barely maintain his life force because he had spent almost fifteen hours in a coma. It turned out that they found him passed out and all his ramblings about demons were looked down upon. This caused him to close in on himself and not share anything with anyone. He had seen Kasdeya, and they had convinced him otherwise! He had defied her, and had only received ridicule. He also realized something else - these weren’t his friends he'd known for nearly twenty years - something seemed to have wiped the memories from their minds like magic, leaving only the comfortable ones.

He decided he wasn't going to let things go like that - he was going to fight, whatever it cost him. To grasp at straws like a drowning man and get his chance to deal with his terrible hallucinations.

The pilots saw something on the viewfinder. Er Mo Za was somewhat amused - perhaps they were well aware of what was about to happen and were doing their best to show him right. A small black dot had appeared on the device. It kept getting bigger and bigger. Suddenly his skull exploded and his brain spattered the viewfinder.

The others were shocked - Durnyam just shook his head and rushed to administer first aid, though it was useless. It took them about a minute to come to their senses.

He was hopelessly dead, and even his scrotum had burst from the effects of the poison - he'd obviously ingested too much.

The others looked on horrified.

- "What's going on?," asked Durnyam, as if coming out of his reverie.

Then he glimpsed a strange electronic card at his feet. It clearly read "Hernando Torres, Second Platoon, Fourth Army".

- "This had to be some kind of joke, right?," Euron Vak almost bellowed, his eyes glazing over.

But the fact was a fact. Somewhere the old man's explanation seemed more acceptable to them.

After their eyes met, they went to the two pilots - they had aged considerably. On their faces could be read only sorrow and annoyance.

- "What ...," Durnyam cried, the words freezing on his tongue as Euron Vak attacked him.

Durnyam was also a tall and strong elite soldier, but the difference in category still had its say. Euron was at least twenty pounds heavier, and slowly began to gain the upper hand. Whatever frenzy had possessed him, one thing was absolutely certain - it was a life or death battle.

Durnyam looked around - there wasn't much he could use, plus they were flying into open space. However, he saw Er Mo Za's axe - he grabbed it and with a lunge, cracked his comrade's skull. The axe couldn't hit him well, as the visor's scarlet softened the blow somewhat, but it still split his cerebral cerebral cortex. He collapsed to the ground in hellish agony. Pieces of brain began to come out of the suit.

The pilots sensed that there was a tight squeeze in the transport bay and started babbling in their incomprehensible Ufurgan dialect. Durnyam was spattered with the blood that, due to the lack of gravity, had flown around. He looked like a crazed infant out of his mother's womb - a complete maniac. He decided to go calm the pilots down - they would have swallowed their tongues in fear as soon as they saw him - a true angel of death.

Durnyam gripped the axe like some viking - not that anyone in the distant future had heard of such wars.

- "Change course," he ordered them without an ounce of caring, "We're going directly to Izod Sin."

- "Ezos Minaro Veck," the pilots chanted.

- "Sakaro Di Vo Tun," replied Durnyam, rather nervously, and showed them the axe with his eyes.

The pilots needed no further explanation - they immediately turned into the arranged destination. They had gotten quite far from the asteroid and it was getting a bit difficult to turn back, but the pilots were old school and did a few clever tricks.

First, they turned off any stabilizers. They could have proved too dangerous an impact especially in the asteroid belt. They also took into account the possible miscalculation of coordinates that would get them into even more trouble.

Deep down, Durnyam knew he was already headed down a path from which there was no escape. He had to meet the demons in his mind - the monsters that were trying to rape his thoughts and turn him into a psychopath.

The way back to the asteroid was more than sad - it was full of the debris from the explosion and it was such a mess that there was nowhere more to go than that. Durnyam tied the two pilots into the shuttle's transport bay so they wouldn't accidentally take off without him. Then he stepped onto solid ground and realized a huge oversight. There was no one to bring them back to the capitol - it was cluttered, and Jessica's crushed corpse just stood grotesquely and completely harmless amidst all this brutal space chaos.

Durnyam felt the demonic breeze in his neck. It was hot as a hell furnace and the creature seemed to be only inviting him to one last deadly dance.

Something else flashed through his mind as well - he remembered that Hell was actually a state of the soul, not some real place.

Kasdeya laughed at him, but when he turned he saw nothing, for there was nothing either - it was utterly empty and deaf - as brutally dead as torn autumn emery blossoms.

Durnyam swung the axe, repeated, shuddered. The weapon whistled, but nothing happened. It just fought the air.

When he came to he saw his own reflection in Jessica's broken visor, and in her dark eyes he saw his own madness. Suddenly he slipped and the axe came crashing down on his own head.

Fortunately his helmet was a newer model than Euron's and that saved him, but the weapon jammed between the layers of composite material and the suit began to decompress rapidly. Durnyam was dying. He realised how bad a man he really was - he accepted his mistake and repEnted and then the evil demon retreated from him, scorched as by frost - he felt free, he breathed and could see the truth. "The pilots too will soon perish for lack of a way out!" he sadly stated moments before his consciousness faded completely. His lifeless body thudded right next to Jessica's and he was just a corpse. A very, very lonely corpse.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: ESCALATION

Things hadn't gone very smoothly on Zegandaria, and Detective Boss hadn't been able to find much evidence of the cult. They'd decided it was a complete waste of time to go here and there looking for all sorts of chaotic clues - it wasn't going to get them anywhere. Rarely had Boss felt at a standstill - he felt exactly that way now, though some members of his team would have lifted his spirits, it was too little consolation.

Mark and Sasia had gotten away and now Boss had missed out on so much.

The detective decided to make a shrewd and dangerous move - he'd just change his approach a little and the results wouldn't be long in coming.

Dawn was already showing over the surreal exterior of this Imgradon neighborhood as they left the establishment. Suddenly they were attacked by Rico's gang.

- "You must be dirty cops, aren’t you?," he hissed in a corrupted Imgradon dialect, as he obviously hadn't attended school regularly.

The young man was too arrogant and obviously someone needed to teach him a pretty good lesson so he could learn to respect others. Rento set about that task.

He clenched his fists and charged at him like an enraged dog. The young man, however, turned out to be a bony nut.

- "I'll kill you,