Victus calmly walked over thousands of dead bodies that were ripe with decay from the slaughter that took place on the California plateau. We stayed distant as the smell was too strong for us to make it even ten yards into the circumference of the battlefield. Victus was looking for a particular man who led these people to their deaths in the name of astronomical justice, but they never had a chance. The drones slaughtered them where they stood, the causalities of war from a two-party system. A two-headed monster. Vying for power and control using the people as bait in their plans of domination and their never-ending thirst for blood.
After three-quarters of the population were taken by an event the governments have called the “paralyzed abduction” from an alien species unknown to mankind, chaos ensued.
These glowing spheres, orbs entered our airspace undetected all around the planet and sent out some sort of shock wave that froze all life on the planet to a motionless state but still coherent. In a split second, a bright flash engulfed the planet and the people were gone…disappeared…vanished. Entire families. Mother and child were taken from father. Husband taken from wife. All children under 15 years of age across the planet were gone. Those who were asleep woke up to more than half of the people in their neighborhood missing.
Religious and scientific propaganda or theories were silenced and manipulated as the government’s secret intelligence agencies exposed it as a depopulation “act of war” by an unknown species.
The world was still controlled by the corrupt. They explained that the abduction was by a nefarious alien race and anyone who questioned it would come under suspicion for treason, usually a death sentence. Demonic anomalies would rise in the open out of man and war would continue.
It did unite the world to start a unified military to pull all resources into developing a plan to counter this unknown alien force that they claimed invaded. The world was full of restless civilians who were hateful, angry, jealous, greedy, sinister, emotionless, and vengeful. It was hard to contain as people formed their own militias or organized crime syndicates to take territories of cities and land. The smell of decay was everywhere.
Three months before the paralyzed abduction happened. My daughter was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer. She was only six. The horrible news crushed my wife as I took it as a challenge, that I would not let my daughter be defeated by a disease. I had to be strong as any father would feel knowing that his youngest would go through hell before she would even see her seventh birthday. I was a street hustler with no legitimate job, so I had no medical insurance. At a young age, I was taken off the streets by a group of men who had no allegiance to the structure of a civilized society. The only moral action they displayed was their love for their own. That was all that mattered. Everyone else who was not a part of their family was expendable. This is how I grew up. Surrounded by wolves.
I knew I would have to pull off a big score to pay for the proper treatments my daughter would need in the days to come. My wife thought I was an independent contractor for building and material inspections. My kids were too young to know what I did for a living. My hustle was engulfed in deception, extortion, thievery, and murder. I never pulled the trigger on a man who did not deserve it but I always thought one day another might be thinking the same thing if I happen to have my head filled with lead. I would not say I was like Robin Hood because some of the gangsters I robbed and murdered had children like I had, who only knew the love of a father or mother, not the monster they were to the world. Plus, all my monetary gains went only to my family.
As my daughter began her cancer treatments, I lined up a big score that would take care of the financial debt I was about to be in. One of my fixers gave me some intel on a man and a woman. I presume husband and wife. The dual was running a fraudulent insurance scam on some elderly people and in their safe was about 100 grand.
Quietly, these people were putting on a front as a legit insurance company but cashing in at the expense of the elderly. I worked diligently on recon, execution, and recovery operations as I knew that the security system they had if tripped would have the police breathing down my neck in seconds, considering the high-end neighborhood they resided in. I was a master at disarming security systems. When you train as a kid in a particular field of work and it’s all you know…by the time you become an adult, you are a perfectionist. Their alarm system was a two-man job and I couldn’t afford to cut somebody in. I needed as much money as I could get my hands on.
There was only one solution to this problem which would put me on a fast timeframe of execution.
I would have to knock the power out in the neighborhood along with the backup generator they had. I quickly make my way to their bedroom. Wake the man from his slumber and use him to bait the woman into opening the safe for me. I figured it would come as a shock to them as they have been doing this con for some time and have become comfortable. This is according to my fixers’ analysis. I would be their wake-up call.
It was the night of my score and before I left my house I read a fairytale to my daughter at bedtime. It was one of her favorites about a princess trapped in a castle tower and a prince coming to slay the dragon that guarded the tower to save the princess. It was sorta fitting to me as I felt a similar connection to the story I just read to her. Me being the prince. My daughter is the princess and cancer is the dragon.
I kissed her on the head and told her to get some sleep because in the morning I would have a big surprise for her. I also walked into my son’s room who was thirteen. He fell asleep with his gaming device in his hand. I kissed him on his forehead and tucked him in.
My oldest daughter was spending the night at a friend’s house. I sent my usual goodnight text to her. I told her not to be up late and to immediately call me if something went wrong. The last goodnight kiss would be to my wife. I knew she would be in the kitchen, disgruntled that I had to do work late, once again. I walked into the kitchen and told her before you say it we need every dollar we can get! This project I got contracted to do will favor our needs. She got up after letting go of the frustration on her face and embraced me with a hug and a kiss. Little did I know. It would be the last.
I arrived at my destination. So far everything was going to plan. The neighborhood was quiet and the couple I was about to rob was in bed. I put what I call a disruptor bomb at the central nerve towers that distributed electricity to the place I was about to infiltrate. Also, I disconnected their generator. As my timed disrupter bomb did its job in knocking out the power in the neighborhood, I made my way into their house and up to the second floor. Not even a whisper as my movements fell on deaf ears as they were fast asleep. I heard them snoring like two hogs that were living high off the land they stole. I slowly open their bedroom door.
I made my way to the side of the bed the man was sleeping on. I slowly put my calibrated silencer to his temple and nudged him, not sporadically, but enough to where it would feel like his wife was trying to wake him. He opens his eyes and instantly knows the predicament he is in. His wife is still asleep snoring. I usher him to his feet and then to his knees execution-style as my silencer is pointed directly at the back of his skull. I employ him to wake his wife up as he grabs her foot and shakes it. She awakes in a panic, almost a scream. He tells her to be quiet. Good boy. I told his wife that nobody had to die tonight. You know what I came for. Just do the right thing and give me what I want. She had agreed that death wasn’t worth the price of the money they had in the safe, considering that they could recoup it back in a month of conning the old.
As she was getting the safe open, an unexpected twist happened. A car pulled into the driveway. Who is that? I demanded! The wife responded with a shaky voice, “It’s our niece who is staying with us for the summer.”
How could I have missed this? Was it by chance when I did countless hours of recon she happened to not be there?
As she was putting the money in the bag my heart began to race. I heard some sort of flick…on something that sounded like a flashlight being turned on. And then her footsteps approached the stairs that led up to the second-floor hallway. I knew there were two other rooms further down past the one I was in. She had to be staying in one of them. She would see the situation at hand as she passed the first bedroom I was in as I left the dam door wide open. There were only two reactions she would have. Either she would panic and run, in which I would have to kill the couple, grab the money and chase her or she would freeze and understand the severity of the situation. I knew the latter was a long shot. This was looking bad, but I have been in worse circumstances than this. I usually don’t sweat on jobs like this unless I know there is a chance an innocent could die. Bad timing kid.
The wife pleaded, “Please, don’t do this!” The husband braced for an unknown decision to be made by me. All heartbeats in the bedroom seemed to be aligned in heightened fear of this particular unknown. I couldn’t debate this in my head any longer. I had to be concise. I knew I had to pull the trigger on the husband and then the wife a second before she turned the flashlight she was holding in the direction of the room we were in. And then something I can’t explain happened…
A second before I went to squeeze the trigger and the niece turned to look into the bedroom, a bright light permeated and blinded me. It was this yellowish glow that surrounded me. I couldn’t pull the trigger. I was frozen in place. It was like a flash bomb went off and had a delayed effect of maybe 5 seconds and just disappeared. The crazy thing was that so was the niece. She just vanished in a blink of an eye. It felt like something released me from the frozen state I was in, with the couple I was robbing. I didn’t know what the hell just happened, but I grabbed the bag of money and bolted the hell out of there. I didn’t want to dwell on it. It was late and I scored. I didn’t think much of it as it seemed strange. There was nobody on the roads as I made my way back into the city.
I must have been hallucinating or something. The thought kept creeping back into my mind. Something felt off. I couldn’t let it go. I tried to wrap my mind around it but repeatedly kept reminding myself that I had just pulled off the score I needed. My daughter needed it. I put on the radio to take my mind off this aura of weirdness only to hear static on each channel I tried, so I turned it off and just thought about seeing my daughter smile after all the pain she would go through. We could get through this together…my family.
I pulled into the parking structure that’s attached to our building as a woman in the parking lot was shouting and screaming. I thought it was a little late for the crazies to be out in this part of New York. She was wearing a nightgown as she came towards me. I heard what she was saying. Something like… Where is she?? Where is who? She made eye contact with me and of course, came running at me, asking me if I had seen her daughter. “Have you seen my daughter? I just checked on her in her room and she is not there,” she said with shortness of breath.
I told the lady to call the police. She said she tried and could not get through. I told her I would look out for her daughter. She proceeded to move on in the parking structure, calling out for her daughter. I thought nothing of it. She looked like a drug user, it was none of my business.
I got to the elevator, hit the button, and sat there. It never came, which was unusual so I proceeded up the stairs. I was about eight stories up and was exhausted from the night I just had. Going up these stairs was kind of rough. I was looking forward to getting in bed next to my beautiful wife. I got to our door and walked in quietly. I didn’t want to wake anyone so I went to my daughter’s room just to peek in to check on her. I cracked the door. She wasn’t in her bed. I thought it typical, she was probably sleeping in our bed as usual. I took off my gear and washed up in the hallway bathroom and then proceeded to my bedroom.
At the moment, I felt invincible knowing I just secured the money for my daughter’s treatments. I opened the door slowly. I didn’t want to wake them so I opened the door gingerly. There was nobody in the bed. I shouted out my wife’s name, Sara. Sara? I went to our bathroom, but again no one was there. I ran across to my older daughter’s room knowing she was at a friend’s house, but maybe for some reason, they were in there. It was empty. I rushed to my son’s room and he was also gone.
Hello? I shouted! Where are you? To no response. I went to my phone in a panic and called my wife’s phone. It rang and rang and rang. Faintly, I could hear it. It was coming from our bedroom…
I quickly called my oldest daughter, thinking she contacted my wife and my wife went to pick her up and took the kids with her. Maybe she didn’t want to bother me at work. My oldest daughter’s phone rang until it went to voice mail.
I thought I was having a bad dream. I went to the sink in the kitchen as I wrestled with the idea that they were kidnapped. I have crossed a lot of horrible people and this could be their revenge, but there were no signs of struggle and there would have been a message left for me… What the fuck is going on?
I paced back and forth and finally decided to call the police for the first time in my life. Nobody answered the 911 call. Strange. I glanced out my window after hearing scattered noises and voices in the street. It was almost dawn. What the fuck was going on? And there was a bunch of people on the street? At this time?
Some looked confused and some looked enraged but overall nobody seemed to know what the fuck was happening. I ran down the stairs to the street and started asking people, “Have you seen my family… Have you seen this family?” I pulled a picture out of them and then realized the lady I saw 20 minutes ago was asking the same question.
I walked the streets endlessly confused. The reports started coming out for those left behind, that my family and a chunk of the population were abducted by some unknown alien entity. Get the fuck out of here! Are they real?? I continued walking the streets as the meltdown of society began to take form. The government had no answers and stated they couldn’t track the alien species that had done this. They were working on a resolution. I wandered about the city for days…weeks as it was being set on fire. I searched for an answer but never got it. It felt like it was every man for himself as each month went by. I drifted. I had no direction. There was the church where I ended up at. I just wanted an answer. Finally, they gave me one.
I am what they call in certain religious factions an unforgiven. I fell astray a long time ago. Only to suffer the loss of my family being taken as my misdeeds kept me on Earth. In grieving the loss of my wife and kids and feeling like this was my fault, I took an elevator ride to the top of the Empire State Building and jumped.
I only did what I had to do to survive. I wanted to keep my family safe, fed…a life without pain. I lived my life for them! I may have been a monster to this world but my family knew me as a loving father and a loyal husband. I thought, without them, what was the point of living anymore?
As I was free-falling to reach my destination from the top of the skyscraper to the cement below where I would splatter like a watermelon, I had one thought and spoke to the picture of my family I had in my hand as I was falling. “I love you!” I closed my eyes right before impact, but that never came.
I opened my eyes to see a woman who looked like my wife standing behind me. I was now back on the edge of the building that I had just jumped from. I was confused. Did I die? I stared at her with delusion and utter shock. She spoke. She said her name was Victus and that my purpose was not fulfilled yet. I thought, what kind of madness was this?
Angrily, I turned back around and tried to jump again, but I couldn’t. It was like some type of forcefield was not letting me go over the edge. She patiently stood there as I fought tooth and nail with all my might to leap to my death but to no avail. After exerting all my energy, I gave up, stepped off the edge, and fell to my knees pleading to God to let me die. God didn’t respond. Victus then came over and put her hand on my shoulder. I felt an energy surge. A sensation, a feeling of redemption overwhelmed my every thought. I arose to my feet as my depleted energy from fighting that force that kept me from jumping was renewed.
This woman… This woman who looked like my Sara… I was in the presence of something not from this Earth. Victus then spoke in a language that I shouldn’t have understood. It was Ancient Latin. She said, “Nemo Sine Vitio Est.”
