Chapter Twenty Seven
My blood boiled as the blinding brightness fully enveloped me. The feelings I had hidden for so long finally blasted inside of every sinew in my body. Every injustice done to me, or anybody else I knew, flew through my brain as I watched my brother coughing up more blood. My mother leaving. My Dad’s sadness. My siblings’ frustrations. My own loneliness. Everything blurred into one until it rested on one final evil: the Inimicus.
The thought that my family were in danger was enough fuel to light whatever spark had been hidden away in the far recesses of my consciousness. The anger had taken over and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I felt my body convulse, as if I was having a fit. The man struggled to hold onto me as my chest heaved and my arms, legs and neck rocked around dramatically. I called the wind to me, I dragged it around me with every fibre in my body. The wind was mine, and mine alone to control. It would do as I commanded, and right now, I had to crush the Inimicus, starting with Valeska and her army.
I saw her walk slowly towards me, staring in shock as I writhed around uncontrollably. She shouted something at the soldier holding me, and he said something back, but I wasn’t paying attention to it. I was commanding the wind to assist me, focusing on that, and that alone. I suddenly stopped moving, as I felt every single molecule of air around me and in the entire vicinity. I could feel every single heartbeat ricochet through its owner’s flesh to make a tiny dent in the air, one which was fed back to me. I knew where everyone was, and I felt their presence. Most strongly, I felt Aura and Niyol, as if they were a part of me, and I called them to assist me. They both replied, but waited for further instructions. I wasn’t ready for their help yet.
I brought the air particles surrounding me inward, and then thrust them out. The man holding me may have had protection against the wind, but even he couldn’t deflect a minor explosion of energy. He shot back like an arrow leaving a bow, and smashed into the pier railings with a sickening splat. I felt no joy in harming him, but I had to defend my family. Valeska and the other guards were now running towards me, preparing to strike. But they would never get close enough to lay a finger on me.
I smiled as I looked up into the dark grey sky. I let the air churn as I dragged it downward. A small funnel was being created, and soon enough, it was falling towards us. It was growing rounder and larger in its descent, and pretty soon, the huge cyclone had almost reached the ground.
I looked back to Valeska and her soldiers as they stared in horror at the hurricane. She didn’t know I could do that. And neither did I. But I guess when you piss off the quiet one of the family, you have to pay the price for it. Didn’t she ever learn that it’s always the quiet ones who are the most dangerous?
I began to float, hover, through the air. I was only a few feet from the floor but it must have looked truly jaw dropping. Every single eye was on me now as I rose above them, calling the hurricane down. I felt their presences and locked onto them, using each impression they left in the space as a target. I was going to suck them all up, and dump them in the sea. Their suits couldn’t protect them from something like that now, could they?
I smiled as the large funnel hit the deck. I made sure to protectively coat the large buildings and structures in the vicinity, something that I could feel Aura assisting me with. I pulled Niyol into the air and held him there, floating as I was. He called the lightning down, into the hurricane, making it even deadlier. And Aura, whose captor had let her go, made it pour with rain. Water and electricity, in a giant twirling conductor, was not a good combination. Something that the Inimicus were about to discover.
I hovered the funnel of my hurricane over the soldier who had been holding Aura. He was instantly sucked up into it, and as the high speeds shredded his clothes, he was quickly soaked with rain, and a bolt of lightning did the rest. The other men and women who had been fighting us began to run, thinking that they could escape my behemoth. But they couldn’t, because I knew exactly where they were. I could feel their heartbeats.
More and more people were swiftly swallowed up by the hurricane. It was like a giant vaccum cleaner, which I was using to clean up the dirt that covered my floor. The sound of the soldiers screaming and shouting was dull and distant to me. I could barely hear a thing, since I was concentrating too hard on doing my job. I had to protect my family.
Within about a minute, almost all of the Inimicus warriors had been taken up into my vortex. But I had purposely saved the best until last. Valeska, who despite everything, was still trying to work her way towards me to kill me, suddenly found herself being greeted by the tail end of my hurricane. She fell onto the floor, trying her best to grab at the pier planks, but I kept them firmly rooted down so that she had nothing to hold onto. In an instant her beautifully shaped body was pulled upwards, and she was eaten alive by the twister, unable to do anything about it. Aura made it rain even harder, directing it onto Valeska. Together, the three of us used the wind currents to strip her down to her underwear, so that she was no longer protected against our attacks. She flailed and wailed and cried as she spun around and around within the whirlwind. But I let Niyol finish her off.
Even though he was mortally wounded, he summoned the strength within himself to fire multiple bolts of lightning down into the hurricane, directly at Valeska. She probably didn’t even realise what hit her, because in no time at all, there wasn’t much left of her. I didn’t enjoy watching her die, but she had pushed me into a corner. She had forced me to use every ounce of strength I had. She had made me conjure up all that I could in order to save my siblings.
I began to push the hurricane out into the water. No boats or planks of woods or anything were taken up into my monster. I didn’t allow them to be. This was not a force of mindless destruction. It had a singular aim: my own, and now that it had done what I willed it to, it had to die.
Once out in the distance, continuing to swirl over the ocean waves, I let it go. Almost instantly, it completely dissipated, and the sky began to clear. I could faintly see the outline of bodies falling out of the sky towards the water, but I turned my back on them. I couldn’t bear to watch.
The bright white light within me drained away, and suddenly I felt like myself again. I thought of all of the people, now dead. I thought of Valeska. I thought of the fact that I had taken the lives of so many people, and it made me sick. I burst into floods of tears, weeping bitterly at the thought of what I had done. Most of all, I was angry. Angry that Valeska had forced me to hurt people, when it never had to have happened that way at all. This whole thing could have been resolved peacefully.
“Sefarina!” Aura screamed. I looked up, rubbing my stinging raw eyeballs and sprinting towards the direction of the voice.
Niyol was lying on the floor, Aura perched over him. He was a ghastly shade of pale. There was blood everywhere. He clutched at his stomach, as did Aura, to put pressure on the wound.
“Get help!” she ordered me. I turned and began to sprint towards where I thought the Elementus Populas army was. They would help us. They had to. After what seemed like miles, but was possibly only metres, just as I turned a corner, I spotted Timothy. As I rushed towards him, I began to feel faint, but I continued to run.
“Niyol! He’s hurt, badly, please!” I didn’t finish. My feet twisted underneath my ankles, and I nosedived towards the floor. And then everything went black.
Ventus Page 27