When Kevin got there, he stared in horror at the sight of the burning houses. The entire houses there in the park were burning in flames.
Many people, women and children were all running and screaming in different direction while their houses burn. Some were coming out of their burning houses with fire burning behind their backs.
It was now coming back to him. The burning houses – the exact image he had seen in his dreams was happening in reality before him.
For a moment he didn’t know what was going on.
Am I dreaming again? He thought.
But then he saw Derik along with some group of men with him. They were throwing bottle explosives into their houses. Kevin was now convinced it wasn’t a dream. It was really happening.
Each house Derik threw the bottle went down in flames. He quickly ran to Derik and then stopped him from throwing any more explosives into the houses.
“What are you doing?” Kevin yelled at him.
“Remember the animal humans I told you about last night… the shape shifters. Most of them live down here. By burning down their houses, we are getting rid of them.”
Kevin turned around to look at the sight of building and people around who were screaming and crying. He saw a girl, a little older than Mirabel running around and screaming painfully with flame burning behind her back. She fell on the floor helplessly screaming painfully while the flames burnt behind her.
They watched the little girl burn to death.
Kevin felt his knee grew weak as he watched the poor innocent girl turn to ashes. Looking over at Derik in anger, he said. “Does this look like a threat to you?” Kevin gestured to the little girl that’d been burnt to death. “This little girl lost her live for something she knew nothing about…” Kevin glared at him.
Just then, Kevin’s eye fell on the bungalow which Mirabel lived with her mum. He watched the house go up in flame. Kevin quickly rushed into the building.
He saw the woman coughing helplessly on the floor.
“Where is Mirabel?” Kevin quickly asked.
She point to where Mirabel laid unconscious on the floor. Kevin quickly picked her up and grabbed the woman by her arm.
“Quick, we have to leave now. This building is going to come down anytime soon.” He carried them both outside far from the burning house.
Kevin dropped Mirabel carefully on the floor. The old woman coughed uncontrollably like she was going to choke while Kevin taps her gently on the back.
Kevin glared at Derik.
Derik was filled with regrets as he stood there watching the old lady sulk beside her unconscious daughter.
He immediately ordered the men with him to stop. Derik’s eye widened as he turned to look around the park to examine the extent of the damage they had caused. He saw the numerous numbers of innocent civilians that lay dead on the floor, their bodies burnt to ashes.
Many houses burned all around him. He felt a sudden heaviness in his heart when he realized the extent of the damages he’d caused.
“We need to rush them to the hospital now.” Kevin said angrily.
Dr. Frank escorted William into a big science laboratory. Frank wore a clinical mask over his face before he went in. He mandated William to use one of it too.
The laboratory was buzzing with activity. Many workers there were all moving about from one building into another wearing a long white overall and a similar mask to cover their nose.
“Right this way sir”
Frank led him straight ahead to a building that was labeled “special project.” He then slides a card through the door and then it slide opened with a beeping sound. Frank went right in and William followed behind swiftly. They got into a smaller room. They were two doctors tending to a lady lying still on the bed.
“I take it that this is Mrs. Eulich?” William whispered in Frank’s ear from behind.
“Yes” he answered “…and as you can see, we are keeping her under close medical observation.”
“Dr. Kent, Dr. Stone…” he called out the attention of the doctors examining her. “…please can we have some time alone with Dr. Eulich?”
At once, the two men packed up their things and left the room. Frank walked over to where the lady lay.
“Dr. Eulich, there is someone I would like you to meet…” he said helping her sit up straight on the bed. Frank then waved his hands over at Williams “this is Mr. William Martinez, president of threat control unit in this city. He’s been meaning to meet you”
Eulich stood up and then walked over to William with a greeted smile. She didn’t look as old as William had anticipated. She looked like she was in her late twenties.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you sir.” She took his hands and kissed it as a sign of respect. Then she said, “My name is…”
“I already know who you are--- Mrs. Eulich.” William cut her off with a smile.
“Frank had said so much about you and pretty much about some of the incredible things you can do. I came down here hoping to see for myself that everything he was telling me were true.”
Frank shook his head at Eulich as if signaling her. “Show him!”
“You might want to step back now, Mr. Martinez. The sight of a transformed shifter can be pretty scary.” Frank warned.
William took the warning and then moved back few paces away from her. As Eulich stood there, she folded her fingers into a fist and closed her eyes.
Suddenly, vain began to move visibly over her skin and fur-like hair began to sprout out of her skin. She let out a horrifying cry as her nails grew longer and teeth grew larger into fangs. Her face was completely covered in animal hairs. When she had open up her eyes, William startled back in fear at the deep color of her eyes. She was now a transformed animal.
“They never undergo a complete transformation process.” Frank explained “They can only shift their body composition to resemble that of an animal. And the most interestingly, they can heal themselves quickly after they have transformed”
William kept his distance. Eulich just stood there giving him a cold scary stare like she could see right into his soul. William asked sounding a bit shaken “do they speak when they have transformed?”
“Your heart just beat 78times in the last sixty seconds.” Eulich said in a deep masculine tone. “That’s faster than the normal heartbeat of 62 times per seconds which simply mean you are scared…”
Frank smiled at him “I guess that answers your question.”
“You can change back now, Doctor.” Frank gestured at Eulich.
She slowly turned human again. Her sharp claws grew back in and her fur-like hair disappeared.
“I’d leave you to rest now. There are some things I would like to discuss with Mr. Martinez outside.” Frank said leading William out. Eulich returned back to the bed and then lay down there. They both left the room and closed the door behind.
Derik moved recklessly towards them and a lady was chasing after him.
“Sire, wait... You can’t go in there.” she kept calling out to Derik while chasing him behind but he didn’t pay any attention to her. He just kept on walking recklessly towards William.
When Derik finally got to where they stood, the lady following him behind quickly apologized to Frank. “I am really sorry sire. I tried to stop him but he wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s okay, Catherina…” Frank said “you can go back now. I would take care of this.” the lady left.
“What is the meaning of all this?” Frank turned to look at Derik.
Derik looked terribly upset. He was visibly red in anger. “Do you know we destroyed several houses and burnt hundreds of innocent lives to ashes today and yet not a single shifter was among them? All because of wrong evaluation on your part” Derik glared at Frank.
“You watch how you speak…” William said “…or else.”
“…or else what?” Derik quickly interrupted “…you will fire me? Go ahead because am done with all this shit about the shifters.
” He turns to leave, then he stop to finish what he came to say.
“For years to come, people will continue to tell stories of how the citizens of burnout city were burnt to death by the very people who were supposed to protect them. My only regret is that I was the one who had executed that order to burn down their houses. Those little children scream will continue to hunt me till I die” Derik left without looking back.
Did he just have himself fired? William thought.
Kevin had made sure Mirabel and her mum were being treated properly before he left the hospital to go home.
He sat at the edge of his bed with his drawings all scattered around him. He began to recollect the event that had happened earlier.
The burning houses...
Am I now able to stare at future event? He wondered. Is somebody out there trying to tell me something?
Birds on the tree, a hand written note, a man screaming. What do this things all mean? Are this all events that’s I am soon going to witness just like the one with the one with the burning house?
The questions kept coming but no answer. He kept staring at all four pictures scattered on the ground before him to see if they were connected in some way.
Nothing…
Nothing came to his mind. He fell back and lay on the bed yelling in frustration.
As he laid there on the bed facing the ceiling, he closed his eye and kept on saying the same four words over and over again in his mind trying to find the connection between them.
Burning houses, Birds on the tree, a hand written note, a man screaming…
He was pulled out of his thought when he heard a buzzing sound. It was his phone ringing, he immediately recognized the number.
…Mirabel’s Mum? Kevin wondered why she saw calling. Did something bad happen?
Placing the phone gently to his ear, he heard the lady cry out. “A man wearing a mask just took my daughter from the hospital.”
The phone slip from his hand and scattered on the hard floor.
Kevin froze...
The man on mask?
The fear from long ago was now slowly coming back.
The masked man! …The very same figure that had kidnapped him from his house over a year ago.
CHAPTER SEVEN: BLACK BIRDS
Dr. Frank reached out to the door knob of William’s office to open it. Before he could reach it, the door slide open and William came hurrying out of his office.
“Sir, I’ve got the files on Mrs. Eulich medical report you’d asked for.” Frank said quickly running through the multiple documents he held in his hands searching for Eulich medical report.
“Good…” William said hurrying pass him. “leave it on my desk for me. I’ll go through it when I get back.”
“…and one more thing sir.” Frank quickly called out to him.
“What’s that?”
“The mayor…” frank said. “He has asked to see you.”
“We’ll have to reschedule that meeting until later in the day. I have to pick up my daughter from the hospital. She’s been waiting all day for me… and if I can’t make it back on time today then we’ll have to shift the meeting until tomorrow.” He then hurried out of the building.
Kevin sat to his bed, frozen, right after he got the call from Mirabel’s mum about her daughter’s kidnap.
A man wearing a mask just took my daughter from the hospital.
Her words kept echoing over again in his head.
He didn’t know what scared him the most at that moment. Was it the fear from losing Mirabel to this masked man, or was it the fear of the going through what he had suffered over a year ago?
The masked man had been the figure that’d began his troubles over a year ago. It was for this very reason he left fallout city and moved over to Burnout city with Cedric -to let go of the past, forgetting all that had happened and to evade being kidnapped again and forced to watch while someone he care about was being tortured horribly.
It was over an hour ago since he got the distress call from Mirabel’s mum about her daughter’s kidnap by a masked man. Kevin had wanted to go see her over at the hospital, but his body wasn’t obeying him. He couldn’t bring himself to get up from the bed.
Finally, he knew what he was most afraid of at the moment… being kidnapped again.
He felt like there is a masked man just waiting around a dark corner to kidnap him again.
Loud caws from outside the window immediately startled him. He saw several crows sitting on the oak tree just outside his window.
Adrenaline rushed through his whole body. A cold shiver went down his spine.
The birds from my dream…
He found himself staring into the red eyes of three black birds sitting on the tree just looking down at him. He started moving towards them. He stood over the window to look at them.
There was something about the way the crows looked at him. Their red colored eyes scared the hell out of Kevin as he looked up closely at them. Each bird had its gaze fixed on Kevin which scared him the more.
Suddenly, one of the crows let out a loud caw and then flew away, the rest followed. Kevin kept staring at the tree long after the black birds were gone. He was shaken by what had just happened.
The birds he had seen from his dreams had appeared to him the exact same way he’d seen them in his dreams.
He quickly turn around to take out the rest of the drawings from his drawer but then he bumped into something –no, someone.
Horror crept through him when he noticed the muscular figure standing before him. The drawings in his hands scattered on the floor.
He raised his head nervously to look at the face of the man standing before him.
T-Rex! The voices in his head spoke.
Kelvin quivered backward in fear.
T-Rex quickly grab him by the neck, he ran across the room and smashed Kevin’s head into the glass window. He pinned Kevin hard unto the wall and raised him off the floor.
“…my visit here is to make one point clear to you…” T-Rex’s voice sounded dangerously low “…there is no place you hide that I won’t find you.”
“What have I ever done to you?” Kevin cried out in a loud voice “why do you just leave me alone? What do you want from me?”
T-Rex brought his lips close to Kevin’s ear and then whispered in a low tone. “…to see you suffer.”
An ugly smirk appeared across his face.
T-Rex jumped out through the window leaving the room. Kevin dropped on the floor after T-Rex had left. He rubbed his neck struggling had to breath.
Kevin quickly noticed a little note lying on the floor beside him. He picked it up. It was a hand written note. He felt a familiar feeling holding the note. He looked over the note again.
Of course! It was the same note from his dream…
He examined the little note T-Rex had left in his room. His eye widened when he saw her name clearly spelt out on the note.
N-A-T-A-S-H-A.
For a second, he stood there processing what this meant but then, the tortured images of Loretta flashed through his mind. He felt his heartbeat intensified.
“No no no no no no no!–the hospital…” Kevin panicked.
He quickly took out his phone and dialed Kern’s number on it. “Hello Kern, I’ve figured out what those images from my dream meant. I need you to call the cops right now. T-Rex just showed up at the house and he left me a note –the same note from my dream.”
“What, did he hurt you?”
“I am fine, it is Natasha am worried about.”
“What do you mean?”
“The note…” Kevin yelled. “It had Natasha’s name written on it. T-Rex is going to kidnap Natasha from De-Laurel hospital just as he did with Loretta a year ago.”
There was a cold silence from kern for a long second, then he said, “I’d notify the cops right away…”
Kevin quickly dashed out of his room. He ran as fast as he could to the hospital. He knew he was going to
meet T-Rex at the hospital but that didn’t even matter to him. His fear of losing Natasha was greater than his fear for T-Rex at that moment.
Natasha was reading a book on her hospital bed to pass the time while waiting for her dad to come take her home.
She stared in frustrated at her watch. She was beginning to get upset at how long her dad was making her wait. She caught a glimpse of someone standing outside the door.
“Who’s there?” she asked inquisitively but she got no responds.
She placed a pen in between the book she was reading and then gently closed it. She felt like she was being watched.
“Hello?” she called out, nervously walking towards the door. “Dad? Is that you?”
Then she heard three consecutive loud knocks on the door. For a moment she was silent.
Dad doesn’t knock… She thought.
That’s not dad. She looked over the door.
She froze over where she stood, then she watched the door knob slowly turned and the door slide opened.
Derik stood there at the door.
“Derik!” She called out. She breathes a sigh of relief “for a second there I thought you were…”
Derik then walked in. “wait, did Dad sent you?” she asked.
“I no longer work for your dad.” he said sounding upset.
“Why?” she asked with a little tone of sadness in her voice. “Did something happen? Did dad fire you?”
“You dad did something terrible at work. He made a harsh decision that ended up killing hundreds of innocent women and children”
“What? My dad did that?”
“…he thought those people were shifters, but he was wrong. We ended up killing all those people all for nothing.” Derik said with a tone of regret in his voice.
“What are you talking about?” she tried to calm him down. “What are shifters?”
“They look like humans but they are not. They have the ability to shift shape themselves into animals.”
“Is that even possible?” she asked skeptically.
“I haven’t actually seen one transform before but I have a feeling I have interacted with one before.” Derik said just before he noticed T-Rex standing in the room with them.
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