The Mantis Equilibrium - Book Two - 25. Chapter 25 - Dozi

Dozi ran through the Shifton streets away from the violence in Gate Town. She abandoned the battle as soon as the fighting began. Her pulse raced, and her breathing was shallow. Tears streamed down her cheeks from the shock of it all. She did not want to die.

“Fucking Messiahs,” she growled between her panting breaths.

At the start of the chaos, a giant chunk of masonry soared through the air and smashed into a man who was standing beside Dozi, crushing him like an insect. Speckles of his blood now decorated her shoes with their gory hue.

In the distance, she could still hear the confrontation. The screams and cries of the injured and dying rang out, punctuated by the strange sounds that accompanied each unique energy fired from the different Shifts who were involved in the battle.

Dozi did not know where she was running. The mystic’s house was closest and she headed there, even though more than anything, she wanted to be safe in her secret basement home.

A crowd of people who were also fleeing the battle came barreling out from another street.

Dozi ducked down an alley to avoid drawing attention to herself, and she looked back to see if they were running from an immediate threat.

A horrible, axe-wielding, brute of a man came charging behind them. He swung his weapon down on one person, cutting them from neck to navel, and the mutilated body opened like some sort of twisted flower. The dead man’s head lolled to one side and the corpse slumped to the pavement. The Messiah then swept his axe up like a volcano erupting. His huge curved blade gouged into a woman’s torso, and her entire body lifted into the air. Her chest ruptured, and her ribs burst forth from the gash. She was dead before her body hit the ground.

Dozi was horrified, but she could not peel her eyes away from the violence.

Suddenly, a gigantic woman stepped out from a side street behind the Messiah. She grabbed the man by his head, and he tried to swing his weapon at her, but she snatched it from him. The axe looked like a toy in her huge hand. The giantess roared at him, thrust his weapon into his chest, and she twisted it in his flesh. Then the giantess pulled on his head and ripped it from his body. His spine remained attached to his skull, and the massive woman used it like a whip. She slashed with his empowered spine at the other Messiahs, and it bit into their flesh.

Expecting to be unharmed by mere chunks of bone, two Messiah women charged the enormous Biological Shift, but her makeshift weapon caught one of them and then the other. The spine ripped into them and tore huge chunks from their torsos. They both screamed in agony that they could not have possibly imagined.

In the alleyway, Dozi was overwhelmed by everything she witnessed, and she vomited hard onto the pavement. Her head was spinning, but as the violence moved away from her hiding place, she pushed herself onwards and finally came to the mystic’s house. The door was locked, but she snuck around the back and sat alone while she tried to gain composure of herself. Her eyes were still streaming with tears

Dozi did not know how long she sat alone, but she was far enough away from the battle that she could no longer hear it. With the sunrise slowly illuminating the world, there was a knock on the front door. Dozi got up and crept back around the house.

“Ilya!” she cried out when she saw who it was. Dozi ran up to her, and they wrapped their arms around each other. “Are you okay?!”

“The fighting is over,” Ilya replied. She whispered. “It was terrible. Are you by yourself? Have you seen Tchama or Lahari or anyone?”

“No, I’m the only one here,” Dozi replied. “I’ve been hiding out in the back this whole time. Once people started dying, I just ran.”

“You made the right decision,” Ilya responded. “There are apparently still some lone Messiahs roaming the streets, so a bunch of Shifts and people are out looking for them.”

The shrieking of a nearby woman then pierced the quiet of the early morning.

“Help me! Help!” and her voice screamed in pain.

“Is that?” Dozi asked, and she and Ilya raced in the direction of the cries.

“Please, no. Please, no,” Ilya started repeating to herself.

A chilly drizzle began to fall on the city, as the two women rounded the corner, and their worst fears in that moment turned out to be true★