Conflict

Chapter 5

conflict

         The guards holding onto Ashley pulled her to the back of the room away from the platform. Everything was moving really fast and it was very loud. The walls where shaking and lights where flickering.

        “Down here quick,” the guard yelled as he pushed Ashley towards the stair steps. The sound in his voice was that of fear.

        She rushed down the steps followed by the two guards. When Ashley got close to the bottom steps there was a large crash. The wall beside her crumbled inward revealing a large monster on the other side. Ashley couldn't see this creature that well but it was big, and had the shape of a man. It's muscles where huge. One guard started shooting at it while the other ran towards Ashley. The monster ran towards the guard unaffected by the gun fire. It grabbed the man but Ashley was dragged off into the distance before she could see what happened to him.

        The guard was holding onto her very tight, pulling her down the hallway. They passed many guards with guns drawn and at the ready. There where even white boxes scattered around the hallways.

        “What is going on,” Ashley screamed at the guard pulling her down the hallway.

        “You need to get back to your room, you'll be safe there.”

        They turned a corner and to their surprise a man was standing in the way. He lifted up his glasses and a blue light came out of his eyes launching down the hallway right at them. The guard grabbed Ashley and threw her back around the corner. The blue light went right by the two of them and right through the wall next to them. The guard stood there shooting his gun at the man with laser eyes and lasers kept firing back at him.

        Ashley grabbed the guards arm trying to get his attention. She was staring at a swarm of human like creatures crawling on the walls coming right towards them. “Sir, Sir,” she yelled, but her screams where drowned out by the explosions and screams of others. She remembered the hallway they came down was full of guards, but these wall crawling monsters got through them all. A sudden laser blast tossed the guard and Ashley a little distance from the wall that protected them.

        Tumbling down to the ground Ashley and the guard saw the creatures all around them. Then they both saw the ceiling above them as they continued falling through the floor. They crashed through a table breaking many things and hurting themselves in the process. She was shocked that they where alive, and even more shocked when she saw a perfect ceiling without any holes.

        “Come on, we need to get you to your room, the living quarters are the most protected part of the building.” He shouted as he grabbed her arm and pulled her up. The roof started crumbling apart. A giant hole was torn out of the ceiling and the wall crawling monsters came flooding into the room. They ran out the door with his gun blasting behind him. They took a left but saw a bunch of gun fire and smoke coming form that direction so he dragged Ashley right instead.

        As they ran by the doorway they exited the guard shot at a couple of the monsters coming through the doorway. One monster grabbed onto Ashley's other arm. She looked back to see what had her and saw into the creatures eyes for one moment. It's eyes where human, and in pain. Staring into it's eyes was cut short by the guard shooting this creature's arm off.

        They continued running, it was hard to avoid the chaos. They had to cross bodies laying in the halls, white boxes everywhere, and walls or either burning or no longer there. They turned one more corner and there stood a man staring right at them. This man had large metal arms, and half of his face was metal too. He smiled then ran straight for the two. The guard threw Ashley behind him and grabbed a small glowing orb from his pocket. He threw this orb at the man and a light filled the room. Ashley was blinded for seconds but when she was able to see again the guard had a hold of her. They where running down the hall again but there was no longer a large man with metallic arms, instead there was a white box in his place.

        As she was being rushed by the box she stared intently at it. Slowly it started to have a blue glow and she was able to see the metal armed man fighting inside of the box, much like she did earlier in the day. Then she was pulled around another corner, but they stopped instantly. The entire side of the wall was missing. They were looking outside, but not at the beautiful scenery of the woods. Instead there was a giant war between monsters and humans. It was hard to see for sure what was really going on because of the smoke filling the battlefield. There were gun shots everywhere, and screams coming from all around.

        The guard tried to pull her back the other way but she stood there to defiant to move. She stared at this strange world. Suddenly she lost her grasp of what was happening around her. This couldn't be real. There are no such things as monsters.

        “Come on, Ashley! We need to go!” The guard yelled as he threw another orb at something turning the same corner they did. The orb glowed bright and all that was left was another white box. “The box can't hold him, they're only designed for new lifers, so we need to go!” He grabbed Ashley and pulled her really hard this time, she had no choice other then to go with him.

        Once they got passed the box a winged man came flying into the room. “Second wave begin,” the winged man yelled out. And with that the hole in the wall started flooding with winged men.

        The guard and Ashley jumped down a hole in the floor and ended up in some sort of store. “Come on,” he picked her back up and started running out of the room. In his hand he had a white orb. “If anything happens and we can't get to safety you need to take this and smash it on your head!” The guard said to Ashley as he gave her the orb. “It'll keep you safe.”

        They kept running down hallway after hallway but the entire building was crawling with monsters. The walls where either destroyed or on fire. Injured humans and monsters where scattered across the floor and white boxes where everywhere.

        “We're here, now do the floor trick,” the guard said to Ashley.

        She looked at him with tired eyes and asked, “what floor trick?”

        “Falling through the floor, come on, we need to go two floors down,” he told her, but her reply was an expression that meant complete confusion. She didn't know what floor trick this man was talking about. “Let's go I could hear them coming.”

        Ashley just stood there staring at him confused. She had no idea that she fell through the platform earlier, it formed correctly, but she fell through it anyway. And she also didn't realize that it was her who saved their lives when the wall crawling monsters came for them. But the guard did know it was her, he understood her powers and what was going on in this building. He knew why monsters would attack this place, he knew why people get stuffed in side boxes. And he also had to know what Trulife is.

        “I can't fall through floors,” she stuttered a little unsure of her answer.

        “Just concentrate,” the guard replied as winged men came into the room. He knew she wasn't going to do it, so he yelled out to her, “ the cube! Use it now!”

         She stared at him while he shot at the creatures entering the room. Grabbing the orb in her hand she noticed how the glow shined through her fingers. She took one last look at the chaos of gun fire then slammed the orb against her forehead. Everything went bright for a moment, she was inside of the box. She looked out through the wall and saw the guard also slamming himself in the head with an orb. They where both stuck now inside of the little white boxes.

        After a few minutes the floor holding them up fell through to the other side. They crashed to the floor. A few moments later Ashley saw a winged lady tell someone to collect the white boxes. A large man with metal arms came by and picked up her box and the box that contained the guard. The boxes where carried to a hole in the wall where another man took them to a small vehicle on the ground. Once inside Ashley was no longer able to see.

        It seemed like hours until light filled the room again. Ashley never wondered why she was able to see out of the box when she couldn't see out of the first one. She had no clue about where she could be at this time. It seemed to be a room filled with all the white boxes they took from the Trulife building. Slowly they activated each one and released the person the box held inside.

        The one directing the opening of the boxes was an older lady with glasses that hung from her nose. She seemed so gentle helping people crawl out of the boxes. A lot of children came out of the boxes, and so did some of the monsters. She would gently hold the hand of anything crawling out regardless of how grotesque they may be.

        Finally came to the box Ashley was sitting in. “It's OK to come out now,” she said. So Ashley pushed up on the lid and it melted away around her. The older lady held out her hand to help Ashley out of the box. “Welcome to freedom,” she said as she helped her out. Ashley was pointed towards a group of children talking to an average sized man.

        As she walked off towards the group Ashley noticed the guard coming out of another box. She watched as the older lady called someone over from the distance. A large man came walking shaking the whole room with every step. He towered over everyone in the room. His skin was rough like rock and he wore no clothes. The guard sat there scared, and the large man reached down and lifted the guard by his head.

        “No!” Ashley ran towards the guard and punched the large man in the leg. It was as if she punched a brick, her hand was bleeding from scrapes. She kept punching him until the old lady told him to drop the guard.

        “Why would you fight for this thing?” the old lady said to Ashley.

        “He's human, we all deserve to live,” was Ashley's reply. She slowly stepped back scared of this woman.

        “Fine take them both to the back, I'll see her when we're done here,” the old lady sternly said to Ashley. With that command the stone like man grabbed them both and hauled them out of the room.

        The stone man threw them both in to a dark room with stone walls and a pile of hay in the corner. With a grunt the large man left the room.