They too, were also perplexed when they tried to utilise their database to identify the man, as they came up with nothing. No missing person’s reports had been filed that matched his description and no government, social or public records could be found to identify him. Fingerprints, dental and physical records were completely useless.
It was if he didn’t exist.
Regardless, the hospital still had an obligation to treat the injured person and had done their best to repair his major injury, a crushed skull.
When the MP’s had enquired as to the cause of the victim’s injuries, the doctors had stated it had most likely come from a single blunt force trauma, possibly from a baseball bat or mallet of some kind that was smashed to the side of the man’s head with a great force.
Keen to investigate, the MP’s had returned to the scene of the crime to gather further information and had retrieved the apartment’s CCTV footage. They found the building’s CCTV in good working order, images were retrieved and the perpetrators identified.
Needing as much assistance as possible, the footage was later released over the national emergency broadcast system and a national alert put out requesting further information. The broadcast identified two men, both over six foot five, as highly dangerous criminals. The man who’d thrown the punch was a heavier set man and of Caucasian descent.
His accomplice was reported as a large black man in blue coveralls, who was wanted in connection with a robbery in Sydney the week before.
The nationwide alert went on to say that any information leading to capture could earn up to a million-dollar reward. It was a strange case indeed for the authorities to have no knowledge of the parties involved and no records to elude to whom they may’ve been.
All three men were a mystery.
Now, late at night, the victim of the event was fighting for his life in his hospital bed, kept alive by the marvels of modern medicine.
But his fate seemed sealed as he was not likely to wake again. He had a crushed skull, doctors had operated and repaired the damage with a metal plate, but they were not optimistic of a recovery, at best they estimated the patient would be brain damaged. At worst, the machines would need to be switched off and nature run its course.
The silence of the room was interrupted as two men entered and stood on either side of the bed, overlooking the victim in his state. The first man wore a business suit and the other wore a shawl covering his head, he also appeared to be sweating profusely, despite the cool temperature.
“This is the man you spoke of?”
“Yes, my lord, this is the one. He is the one to help you to become even greater than you are.”
The man beamed gleefully, enjoying the compliments. “You know Samuel, I was great already, a long time ago when I ruled these lands. I conquered the world and ruled from a great seat … until the fire came with them and ruined everything. But now, now that I am back I will become even greater, I will truly become a great god.”
“You are already mighty Lord Fahwad.”
“Only the Phoenicians blocked my rule back then, nobody can stop me from becoming a god again. As for the others, they are like I was, threads, so I will take them whilst they sleep.”
“We don’t know where they are.”
“There is one here, he walks the Earth free … I can feel him.”
“Who?”
“The pretty one.”
“Of course, Fahwad.”
“The others we will find soon …” his eyes beam gleefully.
“Yes my lord.”
“Now, what is his name?”
“He is called the Viper.”
“Samuel,” the man corrected him. “What is his real name?”
“Ah, not sure actually, Sousa something …”
“And is he the one we are looking for Samuel?”
“Yes, I think so. I saw it reported on the news that he was here, it must be him.”
“He also knows the Smith?”
“Yes. I believe they have met more than a few times.”
“He does not look very big.”
“No.”
“So why him?”
“You said you wanted someone tough, someone unrelenting, someone like you. He is the best we found, or, actually … she found.”
“Lucinda found him?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere in Africa, she was looking into something about her daughter and came across him working as a mercenary. She kept going on about him being the key to something.”
“Key to what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Huh, that is strange. I have never heard of him or this ‘key’.”
“Anyway, Lucinda got a hold of his thread and became somewhat fascinated with him, eventually recruiting him to protect the girl.”
“That girl needs no protecting.”
“Lucinda didn’t know that, actually I don’t think either of them knew.”
“I suspect she knows something, she is not a stupid woman.”
“No, I guess not. But she recruited Sousa to protect her for all those years, to watch over her from behind the scenes. He was dedicated and did the things nobody else would in order to protect her.”
“And so?”
“And you already know … He worked with Lucinda, protecting the girl until she needed him back here, then he became of use in other ways.”
“Such as?”
“He would kill without question.”
“Useful.”
“And he fears nothing, never backs down, relentless.”
“Also, useful.”
“He is as tough as they come Fahwad, although I fear he has one flaw.”
“What?”
“He has a very high disregard for authority and people with power, especially those with power over him. If not for Lucinda being stronger than he, I think he may have single handedly destroyed that facility on his own. He has a very large attitude problem.”
“He cannot measure himself against me, this will not be a problem. If he thinks he can threaten me then I will laugh it off, nobody on Earth can challenge my power.”
“You are right Fahwad, you are the great one.” Samuel bowed his head.
“I cannot do this alone, I cannot be great without help this time. I need him Samuel, just as I need you. Right now I need to find some fresh blood, he can do my work whilst I go to find it.”
“There is an island nearby you can go, to the north. There are many blacks there you can use to help rejuvenate.”
“Very well, we will see to him, then we can begin the next stage of our plan.”
Fahwad moved over to the patient and looked him over strangely, taking his time to place his hands over the area covered by the bandages. Without hesitation, he began unravelling the thick coating of dressing around the patient’s head. He didn’t flinch when blood started to show, nor did he stop when he removed the entire bandage and blood welled up, dripping from the wound to the side of the head.
“Who did this to him?” Fahwad stared at the wound.
“Another man. I do not know his name, but he is big.”
“Is he enhanced? Is he the one they call Iegar?”
“No, they call him by another name, Truck I think.”
“Truck?”
“He is very strong, also a soldier, he has been working with another group of people. I think he was their muscle.”
“He must have been, look at this.” He showed the open wound to Samuel, amazed that such great damage could be made by another man. “Samuel, we should have gone to this Truck, made him work for us … look at this wound!” Fahwad marvelled at it, fascinated.
Samuel though, cowered away from the images flashing across his eyes, repulsed by the sight of blood
gushing from the wound that’d been sealed with staples and a metal plate.
“Hmmm, he is much damaged.”
“Can you fix him?” Samuel asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“This is not a problem.” He cast off the question as if it was a challenge to his power. “I am Fahwad Achmenabad, there is nothing I cannot do, you imbecile.”
“Of course, Fahwad, your power is great!”
The man pushed his fingers, softly at first, into the wound on the side of the head. The Viper’s head had been fixed with a metal plate to replace the broken pieces of skull that Truck’s punch had inflicted and Fahwad played with it now, in between his fingers, trying to pry the plate loose.
There was no reaction from the Viper at first, but when Fahwad started pressing harder on the wound, his heart rate started to escalate rapidly on the monitor. Samuel cowered further backward in the small room, starting to panic from the commotion being created, but also afraid to challenge Fahwad, whom was clearly his superior. His back hit the wall with a soft thud and stood there, eyes averted.
Fahwad began tugging at the plate now, trying to pry the object from the Viper’s head. As he was doing so he cursed, stopped pulling at it and looked over at Samuel. “Stop this noise at once, turn off the machine! I cannot stand the noise.”
Samuel reacted straight away, moving from the wall to turn off the life support machines that were beeping loudly. Fahwad returned to the task of removing the metal plate, piece by piece removing the screws holding the plate in place. Before the plate was fully removed though, the Viper flat lined, his heart stopping because of the trauma inflicted upon him.
It did not deter Fahwad though, he tore the metal plate free and tossed it to the ground like a piece of rubbish, it clanged loudly on the floor as it bounced away.
Then the life support and its noises ceased suddenly, Samuel had found the master power and disconnected the machines. The silence was like music to Fahwad’s ears and he exhaled gleefully, “aaah that’s better!”
He rubbed his two hands together, now completely covered in blood, and returned to the body of the Viper. “Bring me a towel Samuel, and wipe my forehead.” he instructed Samuel, who did as he was told. “Make sure to keep me dry, I hate this sweat!”
“Yes my lord.”
Breathing in deeply, Fahwad placed both his hands over the Viper’s face and dug his fingers into whatever orifice they could find. He fingers pushed into nose, mouth and ear, until his palms were completely pressed up against the Viper’s face and squashed down to the bone.
Fahwad’s eyes were closed and he exhaled deeply and pressed down on the Viper’s face, making a gargled sound from the back of his throat as he exhaled. Once his breath was expelled, his fingers traversed and his hands pulled away from the Viper’s face.
He stood back and observed what he’d done, satisfied.
Just as he pulled his hands free of the Viper’s head, the door to the room was flung open by a crash cart, a nurse and doctor in tow. Both were alarmed when they noticed the two men in the room, especially the figure of Fahwad withdrawing from the patient with blood soaked hands.
The doctor was about to challenge them both when Fahwad raised his left hand, extended it towards the two of them and suspended it open palm in front of them like a stop sign. They both frowned momentarily before something seized them.
She fell first, her eyes rolling back into her head, the knees gave way and her body fell to the floor. And just as the doctor watched his nurse hit the ground, his eyes rolled back into his head, his knees gave way and he too fell to the floor, dead before he even hit the ground.
Both dead, instantly.
“Samuel?”
“Yes Fahwad?”
“Close the door.”
“My Lord.”
“And Samuel?”
“Yes Fahwad.”
“Lock it please.”
- -
- -
- -
THE STRANGER
For months on end they moved, the soldiers in the forefront of a mass caravan that stretched over a mile long. They crossed the plains, the mountains and thousands of villages along the way.
Many of these small villages too, were treated by the soldiers in the forefront with as much disdain as they had Idanya. They would rape and kill, capture and enslave and then leave the town burning in their wake, all in the name of their god.
After his capture by the soldiers, the stranger had been entrusted to the slavers, men who dealt in human flesh, who formed part of the caravan that followed. The stranger noticed the slavers took only one kind of person in their camps.
They traded only in black skinned people.
At first there were only a few of them in the slaver’s camps, but as the months wore on the number of captives grew, the slavers capturing more as they progressed onwards. By the time they’d come to the outskirts of Atlantis their number was well over a hundred.
The stranger was a part of this group, a group of slaves.
Despite the fact these men had been captured and rendered as slaves they were well treated by their captors. Food, water and shelter was provided, little discipline was forced upon them and any ailments they had were treated accordingly.
The slaves often wondered why they were treated thus, as most had heard stories of true slave conditions, with some being former slaves elsewhere. But they’d also heard the rumours about the man who called himself God in Atlantis and why he needed a mass amount of slaves.
On many an occasion, especially as they camped by night, the stranger would speak with his fellow captives, who had come to know him by another name, the Smith.
The Smith was asked many times about whom he was and where he’d come from, but his past he did not know, for he could not remember it. He said all he could remember was awaking in the fire and finding a man burning alive. “Blacksmith … see as seen.”
He retold the tale of the village of Idanya and could speak of things he’d seen there, but his memory prior to this failed and his purpose had been lost. He knew he was on a journey to meet the one called Fahwad, but couldn’t recall why exactly.
The other men in the slave camp told their stories, similar ones to that of the stranger. How soldiers had come to the village and captured them in the name of this Fahwad.
One of the men told tales about Fahwad being a giant god, who consumed the blood of the black men in order to sustain his own life. And that this was why they were captured, to be consumed by him.
They agreed this was most likely the reason for their good treatment; care for the things you consume, lest they become inconsumable.
They arrived in the capital soon enough and the slaves were taken through the city, to a place under the main citadel. They were inspected first and if suitable, were then hoarded inside a small dark room, with no windows and poor ventilation.
Their treatment in the caravan had been bearable, but here was a different story. The room was packed full of black people, hot steaming and sweating in the darkness. There was no water, no food and no place to defecate. Because of the lack of ventilation the air had a stench about it, one that filled the nostrils and threatened to choke the life out of you.
Despite the room being full of slaves it was eerily silent, only the odd sound of a person shuffling their feet penetrated the stillness. As the stranger and his compatriots were herded inside the others shied away, the bright light stinging their eyes.
Before the entrance door closed, the stranger noticed only one other door in the room, towards the back. Within moments he noticed everyone keeping as much distance from it as possible, as if they were scared to be anywhere near it.
The second day at midday he understood why, as that door opened and four men were selected randomly and led through it. Once they were through the small door was slam
med shut again.
The four never returned.
The stranger, upon seeing the same precession over a couple of days, decided this was his next course of action, that door seemingly the only other way out of the dungeon. The people were being hoarded in one entrance and exiting another, never to return.
Despite pleas from other men to stay away, one day the stranger walked right up to the door and stood waiting in front of it, hoping to ensure he would be the next to go.
Surely enough, the next day he was selected, along with three others, to be led through to another chamber. They stood in silence, until one by one they were led up a staircase into another room, a room with a very peculiar smell.
Here they stood waiting, foul stench unknown, reason unknown.
The stranger felt it first, only he didn’t react. But a warm gust of steamy air flooded into the room, the other men’s bodies went rigid as they too felt it. Slowly, strangely, another feeling began taking hold over the men in the room.
Fear.
It was a strange thing to witness, for it was only the four of them in the room. But a noticeable change in the environment was felt, almost as if they could sense some sort of impending doom.
Voices could be heard, followed by footsteps. The three other men began shaking where they stood, fear of the unknown becoming unbearable for them. They felt like animals in the night, ones who could sense they were being watched from afar by a predator but didn’t know where the danger was coming from.
An animal can sense danger and the three men could sense it now.
One man could contain himself no longer, his bowels evacuated themselves and spilled all over the floor.
“Not fear, fear … what fear want,” the stranger calls out softly in the dark, attempting to placate the three quivering men.
But his words have no effect and soon all three men in the room have evacuated themselves, fear causing their involuntary release. Even though they are upright, they shake violently, barely able to stand inside the small chamber.
The stranger knows why it smells in the room now.
Recalling Destiny Page 40