8 7. The Touch of Darkness

The two children huddled together behind the rock with the transporter. Bex was shaking like crazy as he could feel the bad things approaching. The closer they got the more violent his fear was.

"Stop shaking so much!" Scolded Albi.

"Shhhh they are coming." Whispered Bex.

"Stop trying to scare me!" Retorted Albi.

"I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to save us and keep us from being caught!"

After saying that they both heard a serious of footsteps followed by grunts and calls.

"Raiders!" Albi whispered with her eyes opening wide with terror.

She remembered the multiple times they came over the years. It had been a while but she remembered being huddled in a group with blaster rifles pointed at their faces. They knew if they moved they would be dead. They took almost everything. It was devastating to the village.

Marc and Deb practiced after that and when they were gathering them up the last time had shot from great a great distance killing two and wounding multiple others. They hadn't came back to the village since then.

Albi wondered if they watched for when her mom and dad left to attack the village. It seemed like the only thing that made sense. Most of the other family's were not nearly as good as shots and didn't even bother to buy a blaster.

As Albi had all of this running through her mind the first of the raiders started to walk by. They had a cart loaded with some food water barrels and other pieces that they could use.

While lumbering by Bex and Albi huddled together doing their best to stay as quiet as possible. Albi went as far as putting her hand over her mouth and Bex's. Bex let it happened and kept trying to force the hate for these people out of him. He could feel the anger inside each on and the satisfaction with what they had just done. It sickened him.

The seconds seemed to go by an hour at a time. Bex felt as if his heart was going to beat out of his chest. They sat in silence as the sand people walked by. Out of no where a hand came down and grabbed the back of Bex's shirt and hoisted him into the air.

"Bex!" Albi shouted

"Ahhhhhhh" she screamed as two raiders picked her up over the rock they were hiding behind.

Bex didn't know what to do. The raiders were a people everyone feared. They could sneak up on you and wipe out whole villages without anyone hardly knowing. When they did find out it would already be to late.

The raiders threw Bex and Albi down on the ground near the transport unit. They started digging through it pulling out anything and everything. While they started that two raiders pointed their blaster rifles right in Bex's and Albi's face. Bex could feel that hate and sick sense of pleasure rising in each of the raiders. They must have felt like they hit the jackpot between the village and the transport.

Bex looked around trying to gage as to how many raiders there were. He took a quick count. In total there were maybe 20 raiders all around them.

Albi leaned over to Bex and said "Dont do anything, if they take what they want the will leave us here and we won't... OOF"

One of the raiders had flipped his rifle and bashed Albi right in the side of the head, knocking her unconscious. Bex could see a small trickle of blood coming from her hairline.

"'Albi!" Bex shouted trying to scramble for her.

A sharp pain came into his side as a raider booted him in the ribs. The pain and the feelings the raiders were giving off fueled into Bex's hate for them even more.

And then the part Bex was fearing happened. Through the dust in his face and tears in his eyes he could see what the raiders had just pulled out of the back of the transporter.

His robot had been thrown to the side and they started picking through it. Being rough with is and ripping parts off here and there.

"That's my droid!" Bex yelled as another blow to his stomach hit.

He could feel the anger and hatred filling him begging him to be released. One of the raiders ripped the optical unit out of the droid.

"Stop!" Bex yelled followed by another kick.

One of the legs was ripped off of the droid.

"STOP!" Yelled bex feeling his anger hit the top.

As the boot was about to hit him in the stomach again bex raised his hand. He didn't remember trying to raise it. It was like it did it on its own or it was driven by the anger and hatred. Like they were taking control of him. Right as the boot would hit his stomach it stopped.

The raider seemed to try and force the boot forward but it only shook a little. With his hand still raised Bex began to rise off the ground lifting his other hand and letting the hate flow through every inch of him. He hated how good it felt.

"LET..GO...OF...MY..DROID." Bex said through gritted teeth.

The raiders began to grab their rifles and raise them at Bex witch made him even angrier. He knew he should be fighting this feeling of hatred that was driving him, but part of him wouldn't let him stop it, part of him always wanted to feel like this.

As they began to raise their rifles Bex reached out and grabbed them, no not exactly them but the connections they had to the strange patterns he could see. He started to pull those connection closer, and as he did they raiders started to float and move closer to each other. Some of them were pressed into one another. Eventually he could see all the connections and the absolute horridness of each of them close together. The raiders were all together floating trying to push away from one another. They were not able to lift their rifles due to the close proximity. Some even dropped them to push away only to be brought back together.

Bex thought about how they hurt him and Albi and tore his droid into even more pieces. How they were going to take it from him. Let that fuel the hatred along even further. He pushed and crushed those connections even closer. He wanted to try and squeeze them out of existence.

Tighter and tighter he squeezed. Harder and tighter and harder and tighter. As he did he could here an odd popping and gurgling sound. Eventually the connections started to lose the light that they carried and Bex was puzzled by this. When he looked up he immediately let the dull connections go and dropped to his knees and vomited everything he had in his stomach. For before him smacked the ground with a sicking thwap, was ,for lack of better words, a raider meatball, all red and brown with protruding bones and everything else that would usually be on the inside.

As Bex finished emptying his stomach of its contents, he crawled over to his sister who was moaning in pain and blacked out next to her.