A Savage Life

I could only view the angered soldiers as they aimed their guns (and I saw too) mainly at, drum roll please, me. Why is it ALWAYS me? Guess that’s the way the Devil intended it to be. And so, here I am, bleeding out of my ankle as Sabine blindly hauls me down the town’s metal sidewalks in hopes to reach the door in time to miss Death as I screamed profanities at him and the soldiers.

I swear, if I make it out of here alive, I’m considering my options on staying with Sabine. I don’t think I can anymore, I have too much at stake to die because of his quirks and his little violent maniac sprees that possess him every time we turn around. On the other hand, I have too much to lose to just go out there without a guide to help me and die by eating some poisonous berry or get turned into some mutant’s dinner. So I need Sabine, but I don’t. Decisions, decisions. So many to make. Which one would look great on me? “Man killed by berry?” Or, “Man killed by idiot friend?” Either way, I was either going to die, or was going to go home, and hope fate allows me-WOAH!

Sabine attempted to throw me over a rail, smashing my body, and the injured ankle, into the railing itself, and, instead of going over the rail, I only wind up ragdolling onto the floor. I gasp and shudder from the pain, almost as if I was drowning, and weakly get up. As soon as I stand up, Sabine body slams into me, and we fall over the ledge, but not before we wreak the forcefield.

You got it! We broke an indestructible force field. And do you want to know what that feels like? Well you can breathe a sigh of relief because breaking one feels like a punch from a really muscular man, who really knows how to hit. In their words, it stings, but there is nothing to calculate how much terror is swimming into me from being tackled by My Pet Loon and falling down a twenty-story drop.

I started praying to God that I would live, and He answered my prayers by having Sabine hold onto the ledge and grab me by the hem of my shirt. Oh thank you God! I will live! I will live! Take that Indiana Jones! And even better news, Sabine held onto me as the soldiers and priests ran right by us. Right by us! Right by us I tell you! Oh Sabine, you may be a danger-attracting fool, but you are one heck of a lifesaver!

Then Sabine wisely waited a few minutes in order to make sure our coast was clear. Thank God he had half a brain to figure that out. If that would’ve been me, I probably would’ve threw Sabine over the ledge, then leaped over said ledge, and made a mad dash with Sabine on my shoulders. That would’ve gotten me killed as Sabine must’ve somehow knew about the way the soldiers would react next.

The soldiers, muttering curses, just started shooting bullets wantonly as priests grabbed their holy water, sprayed it everywhere, and started to chant a prayer in Latin. Huh, never thought I’d hear Latin ever again. And talking about those soldiers. Highly trained my rear-end! Stop shooting bullets randomly, interrogating little kids, and cussing like sailors every time your bullet ricochets and hits you! Seriously, what kind of soldiers do this kind of stuff? Oh yeah, and by the way, I got to look too. Sabine let me grab an upper ledge, and I climbed, with an injured leg, and grabbed a lower rail and watched the chaos ensue.

It became even more chaotic when the- wait who was that guy? She was an amber haired woman, with a slender body, nice, young-looking face, and wearing a nineties style business outfit. Her wavy hair was in a loose ponytail, and equipped with what looks to be a 22 gauge shotgun in one hand and a .44 magnum pistol in the other.

When the soldiers and priests saw her, they all saluted, going, “Mrs. Reynoltz.” They all did, all except for one, who was too busy holding up a woman to even notice. Mrs. Reynoltz disposed of him quickly, and wordlessly, with her shotgun. She looked at the other soldiers, looking her on, and asked, “Anybody else wants to join your comrade in Heck?”

This woman had a stern voice, for a youth, and in only ten seconds did I learn that this woman was a force to be reckoned with. I look at Sabine, who looks at me with a look cross between hate and fear. He knew this woman, and from one look in his eye, you could tell that he and Mrs. Reynoltz were not the best of friends.

Was this his daughter he was talking about? Was she a scientist? And the most obvious, she was a feared authoritan figure, but why the daughter to violent, eccentric Sabine? And why wasn’t this woman here to begin with? She looks like a reasonable young-ohp never mind.

I gasp as a soldier falls dead before me, his open eyes gazing at me as he loses his last breath.

“Now who else refuses to tell me why they were running around this place and wasting bullets on walls like feral animals set out of their containment?” Mrs. Reynoltz asked as she walked to and fro from soldier to soldier, cocking her pistol threateningly.

I heard a couple of priests gulp, and she pointed her shotgun and pistol at the priests like it was a reflex.

“What was that?” she demanded sternly.

The priest gulped and stuttered out, “Th-the Outsiders.”

Mrs. Reynoltz raised an eyebrow and questioned, “What Outsiders?”

The priest didn’t answer her, and needless to say, she killed him. Harsh, even for a violent slaver, I mean sergeant.

“What Outsiders?” the young woman screeched.

The frightened men only trembled silently. Then Mrs. Reynoltz lost her temper and just started letting off bullets into soldiers, priests, civilians alike. Not even the children are safe, as one mother found out. She laid there, clutching both of her sons as Mrs. Reynoltz cocked her shotgun, aimed it at her head, and asked, “Tell me where the Outsiders are?” The woman only gave her an evil look. “So be it.” Mrs. Reynoltz said in a cold voice, repaying the woman’s glare with shot to the face, and rewarding her sons with the same fate

“I can’t watch this anymore.” Sabine sighed to himself, shaking his head.

Then he looked at me and growled in a serious tone, “Stay here.”

“Wait? What are you doing?” I ask in a stern whisper.

Sabine never answered, instead he climbed up over the rail, grabbing Mrs. Reynoltz’s attention. “Sabine.” she hissed casually, almost as if she wasn’t surprised that he was there. Yep that confirms it, these two know each other.

“Now is that any way to address your father, Sadie?” Sabine asked in a semi-friendly tone.

“Father?” Sadie scoffed. “Ha. You’re nothing more but a feral child. An experiment who should’ve been disposed of a long time ago.”

Experiment? Wait? What? Then I feel my sweaty palms slip. Oh great, a moment to learn and I’m going to have to spend it wrapping my arms around the railing and praying that nobody notices that guard rails don’t have red arms and hands. As I do this, I continue to listen:

“Sweetheart, that was over 25 years ago, three years before you were born, you must know the hist-” Sabine was cut off by a gunshot. I sure hope it wasn’t him.

“The history. Nobody even cares or remembers when the Radiation Leak of 3054 caused babies to become mutated abominations in their mother’s womb and people like YOU were created to fill in the role of those children.” Sadie growled.

“We weren’t created to fill in the role, we were created to make sure YOU and your species would survive, with added bonuses.” Sabine tried to explain.

“My species!” Sadie shouted out like a temperamental child. “Daddy I’m only a byproduct of you.” Sheesh kid aren’t we all. “I’m only half human, you’re just some science experiment. You have no human genomes. You were just a breeding cow made out of two men’s alleles. None of your alleles belong to you or me. I have three fathers. Do you know how that feels?”

“Sweetheart, you know that your mother and I explained it to you, way before you-” Sabine cut himself off. Matricide anybody?

“Oh that,” Sadie replied to Sabine’s sentence cutoff with a sadistic smile. “Is getting ready to become your fate as well.”

Sabine just looked at his daughter longingly as she cocked the trigger on her shotgun, licked her lips and said, “I’m gonna enjoy this” as she pointed her gun at Sabine. Sabine breathed, closed his eyes, and awaited death.

Then suddenly I get this bright idea to haul myself over the railing with a pant, earning an, “Another One!” shout from ol’ Sadie Reynoltz, the daughter of a science experiment that never told me he was a science experiment/breeding cow and now I’m in BIG trouble.

I lay on the floor panting and letting the blood pound through my arms. I hope I never have to hang that long again. I sigh once more, but stop as I hear five guns click at my head. I move my eyes to the side and look, and lo and behold, Sabine is in Sadie’s custody, and I am being held hostage by the priests.

Wow, imagine that. Welcome to the future where even the priests will turn on you if they have to. Also, where was their guns to begin with? The first thing I remember them doing was nodding their heads and going, “Bless you,” as if it was my Baptism Day. I sigh, feeling death draw near. I sigh once more as I hear a gunshot sucker punch my ears and cause me to flinch as I.....live?