The Beginning of the End

A showdown between a group of well trained criminals and the countries most feared elite team can only end in death.

Not for the first time, the streets of RoyalRich were deserted with no soul for as far as the eye could see. Not because it was ghost town, but because at night, the monsters came out to play. And no, not monsters like zombies or werewolves. Us. Humans are the scariest monsters in the world, and evil patiently waits in every single one of us.
     But on a night watched over with a full moon, the city of RoyalRich would be changed forever.
     The noise of an engine roared through the empty streets. A black SUV truck pulled up at the side of the road, and it waited patiently. After a short while, its back doors opened and three men wearing balaclava’s with silenced machine guns at arms-length exited, rushing up a set of beautiful stone stairs.
     A thick, secure wooden door rested at the top of the stone stairs with writing engraved into it. It read: RoyalRich City Bank. Oh, s**t, are they doing what we think they’re doing?
     But the men rushed to their right and around to the back of the building. They rushed up metal, spiral staircases and stood on the roof of this tall building.
     The leader of the three was called Wilson. Nothing much was known about him because as you can see, he was a criminal, and somebody who was very good at hiding their true identity. The other two members were named Smith and Rev. They both had no previous history and they couldn’t be traced by the police - making these three the most deadliest thugs in the city.
     Wilson began by placing a roped device around the lone skylight which sat on the roof of the bank. The team of three hid behind a stone pillar as Wilson pressed down on the detonator. But there was no loud explosion, no sparks flying - no noise. Just the skylight shattering into a million pieces... holy s**t.
     Rev dropped rope down through the now open skylight and secured it to the stone pillow.
     ‘Time?’ Smith asked.
     ‘Five minutes.’ Wilson replied whilst checking his watch.
     ‘Let’s do this.’ Rev added, as they each fast roped down through the skylight.
     Automatic lights filled up the room like a bright light fills a movie with life. Rev and Smith quickly moved to disable the security cameras in the room. Wilson headed towards the wooden door of the bank. He removed two devices from the rucksack he was carrying and placed them on either side of the door.
     Red lines shot out from the two devices and crossed each other, making an X. They hover for a moment before turning invisible.
     Wilson then turned and headed back to his two team members.
     ‘The devices are in the place, the building is secure...’ Wilson explained, ‘We hit the vault and collect our payment.’
      ‘Do you hear that?’ Rev asked, as he froze with fear and couldn’t move.
      But Smith couldn’t hear anything. He looked at Smith, shaking his head in disapproval.
      ‘You’re being paranoid, again.’ Smith added, ‘I don’t hear a thing.’
      Wilson took one single glance at Rev, who had a look of apprehension within his eyes.
      ‘What do you hear?’ Wilson whispered, looking around the room at the eerie, empty bank.  
      ‘You can’t hear it?’ Replied Rev, as a faint sound began to accelerate rapidly. It continued to grow louder until an explosion took off a set of doors at the opposite side of the room.
      The hearts of Wilson, Rev and Smith were in their mouths as three heavily armed soldiers barge into the room with Kevlar on their chests.  
      ‘Stay where you are,’ the captain known as Ghost shouted, ‘we have this place completely surrounded!’
       Six men had their guns pointed at each other and the tension continued to build. But Wilson pulled the trigger on his gun and the bullet missed Ghost’s head by just mere inches. They each ducked for cover to hide from the ricochetting bullets.
       Meanwhile, outside of the bank, police, SWAT and helicopters surrounded the bank. More than fifty guns pointed at the doors of the bank, each waiting patiently. Each hoping that deep down, they will each be able to fire their guns.
       But inside the bank, Wilson and his team battled off with Ghost and his team of highly trained soldiers.
       These soldiers weren’t just ordinary. They were part of the country’s most elite force known as the Shadows.
       ‘HQ, this is Ghost. Hostiles are armed and dangerous, I repeat, they are armed and dangerous. Do we have the green light to shoot?’
       ‘Negative, Ghost.’ Replied HQ after a short pause, ‘Hostiles are in possession of the information we require. They’re to be captured alive, HQ out.’  
       ‘S**t!’ Shouted Ghost as he removed his communications unit from his ear.
       His teammate who was known as Shade, turned to Ghost.
       ‘It’s three of them against the entire RoyalRich police force.’ He explained in a reassuring voice, ‘They aren’t getting away with this.
       ‘You’re right.’ Ghost replied, reassured.
       Bullets continued to fire past the heads of the Shadows as they tried to plan their next move. The third teammate edged his way over. This is Soul.
       ‘Let’s take these a******s down.’ Soul said, matter-of-fact.
       ‘You’re both going to flank in separate directions,’ Ghost began to explain. ‘I’ll get their attention and when you get into position, release the flashbomb. We end this s**t tonight!’
       And on that note, they each followed their orders. Shade moved right, staying as low as possible, and Soul headed left. Ghost stood up, he fired a few bullets and ducked back for cover.
       ‘Wilson, give yourself up. This is over!’ Yelled Ghost, raising his voice to get their adversaries attention.
       The bullets stopped flying. There was the first bit of silence since the shooting began. Wilson paused, he was panic-stricken. He didn’t know what to do, but since the Shadows knew his identity, he removed his balaclava.
       ‘Come in with us,’ Ghost continued, ‘tell us who you gave the Atom to. You don’t want to be responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people.’
       Wilson stepped forward. He lowered his machine gun as if he was giving up.
       ‘If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in this line of work,’ Wilson replied, ‘is that there are no innocent people.
       And Wilson quickly fired his machine gun, sending twenty bullets into the counter Ghost hid behind.
       To the right, Shade pushed forward. He placed his hand inside of his Kevlar vest to remove something but that was a bad move.
       His gun was moved down as he placed his hand into the vest, leaving himself vulnerable. Debris fell to the ground and smashed loudly onto the floor.
       Smith was the only person who heard this as Wilson and Rev were preoccupied. He turned to see the vulnerable Shade, panicking. It was as if time itself froze and the heartbeats of Smith and Shade could be heard.
       Before Shade could react, Smith had open fired and bullets sprayed against his Kevlar, all being blocked. But one bullet pierced his jugular. Shade dropped to the floor, dead instantly.
       Soul watched in horror. His wide-eyed face turned red with rage. He gripped his gun tightly, jumped from behind the counter he hid, and began to fire at Smith. Multiple bullets hit him in the head, ending his thug career, killing him dead.
       Soul was too blood drunk for Smith that he hadn’t noticed Wilson and Rev pointing their machine guns at him, and by the time he had noticed, it was too late.
       They released what seemed like the fury of God onto Soul, and even his Kevlar couldn’t help. A bullet pierced his armor, hitting his heart. Soul clutched his chest as the life slowly slipped from his red-eyed, raging eyes.
       There was complete horror in the bank. Ghost witnessed the murders of his two partners. He placed his communications unit back into his ear.
       ‘We have officers down...’ Ghost yelled in frustration, ‘I repeat, we have officers down. All units, converge on the bank.
       Outside the bank, all police units and SWAT moved toward the bank in perfect formation. Their guns were pointed, their fingers were on their triggers. It’s show time.
       But as two police officers appeared through the crowd with a battering ram, they had no idea what was going to happen. The battering ram did its job and smashed open the bank doors. Wilson could be seen, he stared at the officers outside the bank but took no notice as if he knew something.
       Multiple officers attempted to enter the bank but the two devices Wilson had placed prior to the showdown activated. Red lines shot across the officers and they were each cut up into tiny pieces. Their body parts slopped to the ground.  
       ‘The bank is booby trapped,’ yelled SWAT, ‘all units fall back!’
       Wilson continued to watch as the officers retreating. Both him and Rev chuckled as they knew there was no way of them getting inside.
       Ghost knew he was alone. Years of memories flooded through his head within seconds before they were drowned out by the voice of HQ.
       ‘The bank has been booby trapped, SWAT has fell back. Get yourself out of there, now!’
       All Ghost could think about was getting revenge on his fallen comrades, and putting an end to what seemed like a lifetime of war.
       He fired a few shots around the corner and waited. Wilson and Rev returned fire and this is when Ghost knew he had to move position. The sound of gunfire drowned out the noise of fallen debris as Ghost moved away and toward the body of Shade.
       An item was removed from the Kevlar vest and a pin was pulled. Is he going to kill everybody? Himself included?
       The item was thrown and it landed next to Wilson and Revs feet. Time counted down and there was an explosion. Not the usual kind, but a flash explosion. Wilson and Rev were blinded by a flash grenade.  
       Ghost then rushed towards them both, jumping over the counter and kicking Wilson in the chest. He was put to the floor instantly.
       Rev lay on the floor, his eyes watered by the flash bang. Ghost stood over him.
       ‘Where is it?’ He screamed. ‘Where the hell is it?’
       Rev didn’t reply. He instead looked up with a smug smile on his face. But his smile soon vanished as Ghost fired a bullet into his leg. Rev clutched the bullet wound, he screamed out in agony.
       ‘I only need one of you alive,’ Ghost whispered in a scary yet calm voice. ‘The first one to talk gets to stay alive, how does that sound?’
       But before another word could be spat out, Wilson had risen from the ground and began to throw powerful blows to Ghosts head. But they weren’t powerful enough to stop him as Ghost pushed Wilson against the wall, lacing into his stomach - cracking a rib whilst doing it.
       With his last ounce of strength, Wilson managed to push away from the wall and attempted to throw more punches but was soon overcome.
       Ghost kicked Wilson back against the doors of the bank and there was a look in Wilson’s eyes of pure trepidation. The red lines appeared and he was cut into little slops of human meat.
       ‘Yeah, rest in pieces, you son of a b***h.’ Wilson screamed in sarcasm. He turned back to Rev who tried crawling away. Ghost just had to follow the trail of blood.
       ‘Tell me, where at the brothers targeting?’ Ghost asked in his out of breath voice with a hint of desperation.
       ‘You have lost your leverage, soldier.’ Replied Rev, letting out painful laughs. ‘You’ve kept the wrong man alive, I ain’t telling you s**t. You can’t stop this, you can’t stop the inevitable.’
       Ghost went to his communications unit, ‘Wilson is down, I repeat, Wilson is down. I have one survivor in custody. I’m bringing him in for interrogation.’
       ‘Copy that’, HQ replied. ‘ETA for chopper is --’
There was then silence. All communication had been taken offline, and the electricity in the bank shut down into complete darkness.
       In the city of RoyalRich, people had already exited their homes and entered the streets with flashlights as the entire city fell into darkness. A rumbling noise caught the attention of everybody and all eyes fell to the sky.
       Ghost approached the open doors of the bank and looked up at the sky, right towards an object which began to fall fast. It hits one of two skyscrapers in the distance.
       Boom! A point of light had fired into a nuclear blast, and wind, dust and light passed through the city, destroying everything in its path. The mushroom cloud rose high above the city.
       The cloud of smoke had reached the bank. Everybody was killed instantly.