Alive to Tell the Tale

"Just came back from retirement and the first thing you do is MAKE MORE MESS!?"

"Hey, Hadley, long time no see. I see that you are very energetic as well."

"Fuck off!"

Hadley, the loud one in the group, the laziest in the group, but she is the MVP in this group, the one who helps us in most desperate times. That's why I respect her the most. Her body figure is opposite of feminine, like her personality. She is well-built, but that is not enough to describe her, she is freaking jacked and her mana strength is off the limits.

"I don't care what you do anymore, Ahmad. Just wait in front of the laptop, the Head is about to talk.....fucker just have to do it."

And then, she stormed to her couch laying. Every stomp feels like this tower might fell. Given that the tower already looked like it would crush us any moment. Whereas, Sofia didn't even care about Hadley and went to do her own business.

The room was almost empty, dusty, rusty,and smells like coffee. Kinda feel like nostalgia. Speaking of coffee, I saw Amir, half-asleep, half-awake, beside the counter near the coffee maker. He always loves that. Let's tase him.

I slowly walked beside Amir, giving him a friendly-light-touch, full of electricity. That small tase of friendship, surely woke him up, looking like he almost face death, he almost chocked me.

"Ahmad?"

"Morning. And long time no see."

"Damn, 5 years later and you trying to kill me in my sleep? Its good to see you."

That sleepy-ness in his eyes disappeared, fixed his elbow-long hair, I could see some dandruff on the shoulder and gave me a short hug. I did not enjoy at all.

Shortly after, all of us went to sat down in front of the laptop. Amir opened Discord and joined the stage channel. I saw over 2.5 millions of people waiting for the head to talk. How many did they recruited in just 5 years? I must have missed something.

"Really? They are still using discord?"

"Government is too smart to check this. Why would they actually believed what some dudes from discord says? I tell you, it is a simple, yet effective way."

Discord is the only tool to communicate all Guardians all around the world. Except, of course like China and North Korean is banned from using it but there are other social media sites to cover it. Like Amir said, the Government or other outside people, won't believe whatever we say. Thanks to internet, I guess? In Malaysia there are over 200 members. But the thing that still bothers me the most is, there is still no Myanmar members even though it is not banned there. Not only on discord, they are not on every social media sites. And no one is talking about it. But there is or was one Burmese person. All of us know about that. He is the one who had enough power to end the previous war. Wonder if he is still alive?

"Hey, can I as—"

"The Head is live!"

Hadley jumped off the couch and stood behind us. Her eyes fixed on the screen with arms crossed. We all waited for the Head to talk. 5 minutes passed by, then it moved on to 10, then 20. Finally, in a deep voice, he spoke.

"Thank you for your patience. Current situation is not we used to think. The devils, they delivered something that most of us cannot comprehend. If you were recently attacked and survived, the Gods must have gifted you with blessing. Let me present all of you something."

He screen-shared all of us something, something disturbing, something that we don't anyone to happen. The videos he shared are caught in CCTV-quality and showed us what the new "devils" are made out of. Just like the one we just killed, they move fast and coordinately. In one of the videos, a small devil, single-handedly killed off a squad of Guardians one-by-one, without effort. It was way faster than I encountered.

How?

"These are the videos, that we were very fortunate to capture before it get on the hands of normal people. As you all saw, they are back and they are more stronger. I believe, that word alone is not enough to describe them. None of them survived to tell the tale but in Russia, two month ago, we found someone who survived the attack. As he stated, they were hunting and don't care about souls, they only wanted us dead. If you listening to this, I really hope you are alone. If you are not, please----se---p—r—te---"

What? The internet went out? The next thing I knew, the electricity is going mad, the lights going on and off, the laptop screen is flashing. And then, everything shutted down. All of us knew, a demon is near. Not just any demon, one very strong enough to even cut off electricity.

We kept quiet, looking at each other. Hadley, tapped us on the shoulder and pointed to the window beside us. A shadow stood beyond the glass. We are 50 feet above the ground.

Sofia, immediately summonded her bow and aim at the position where the actual demon might be without a mana arrow. That might trigger the demon. Amir summonded a long sword, and in a defense stance. Hadley, had a giant sword also in the same stance as Amir. I, too, have to do the same as the other. We slowly distanced from each other. We used core-detected magic and saw three tiny cores floating in the air. Hadley gave me a look to Sofia to keep that position and ordered me to check it. Why me?

I slowly approached the window by sticking close the wall. Heartbeat grew louder, breathing sounded lower as I begun to get closer to the window. Three-core demon, without any movement, it remained solid. But when I got a clear view of it, never once in my life, I really wished that I would rather suicide than killed by that thing. That humanoid, faceless, handless, feetless, pale-thin demon. By its white color, the community would refer them as fallen angels. But it was death itself.

I turned to others to tell what it was. But in a blink of an eye, chaos ensues.

The side of the tower was torn through. Revealing not one but three of those.

"RUN!"

When Hadley ordered us, all of us jumped out the window. We had to use air magic to keep us afloat but one of those demons bullet towards us. Using air magic, pushed Sofia and me to make enough distance to avoid it between us. Luckily, we landed safely.

I looked around and Amir and Hadley was nowhere to be seen. The sound of clashes were heard on the tower.

"They got Amir!" shouted Sofia. Her voice and hands trembled as she looked at the place where one of them took Amir.

"Hadley can look after herself, let's go!"

We slowly head towards the dark forest, looking for Amir and that demon. We casted light magic and make it circke around the surrounding area to make it bright and search any abnormal shadows. But we need to be careful. Those things can appear out of nowhere and more can come. Sofia aimed all the trees above and I have her surrounding. In a distance I saw what it appeared to be Amir. As we got closer, it wasn't him. That demon stood - or rather float in front of us.

We both locked our eyes at it, and from its forearm, shot out a sword-like figure. It slowly headed towards us. The more it got closer, the more intimidating it got. The demon feels larger, broader. It have no eyes but I know it is staring at me.

I want to run. I want to run.

The demon was in front of me, I couldn't move, speak, blink. I stared as death swing his scythe.