Chapter 7 - Vultures

Chapter 7. Vultures

"I will ask again, how do we get inside the wall?!" the monster yelled as the girls watched the electricity course through Bellona's lithe body. She arched, screamed and writhed with pain.

Ava's voice was hoarse from screaming at them to stop torture. The others were lined up beside her and screaming as well. She just wanted this nightmare to stop now and for them to let Bellona go.

Now ,how you may ask did they get

from being caged to tortured? Well it happened like this,exactly six hours earlier.

****

The truck's doors opened after a minute or so and out stepped four figures from all four sides. Others came out of the other vehicles and approached them at a steady pace. As everyone else squinted their eyes to see what had captured them, Zachleya started to pray,"Oh my Goddess Paige, please don't let me die here in vain."

Ava turned to see her clasp her hands in prayer as she looked up at the night sky.

Suddenly Ariel gasped,"What the fudgecakes are those things?! They look like mutated vultures. How sad."

Upon closer inspection, the features of those things stood out. They did look the mutated vultures,at least their faces did. They bottom half look female and they were wearing trench coats.

"I think those are the monsters that Paige fought against during the war," Bellona remarked as she studied them.

Rodna instantly fist bumped the sky with excitement, "Yes! I did get to see those monsters!"

Ava turned to her with an incredulous face,"Seriously! You choose this exact moment to celebrate your stupid discovery! "

Reina turned and started to smack her arms and head whilst yelling the insult, 'idoit', loudly.

"Ow,ow,ow! Hey! This is assault!" Rodna winced as Reina continued her assault. Zachleya, Ava and Ariel watched with blank faces.

"Do you think we should stop her?" Zachleya asked out loud as Reina's slaps grew more louder and painful.

Ariel pursed her lips,"No,let her. She's doing us all a favor!"

Rodna turned to them ,"Are you actually allowing this?!"

Ava nodded,"Yes, because you deserve everyone of those slaps."

Bellona whispered-yell at us,"Girls, get ready! They're going to release us."

"How do you know?"Ava asked.

"Because then it wouldn't be standing next to the tree that has the cage settings,"Bellona pointed out. True enough one of the vultures had moved to a huge tree that stood next to the cage.

Ava's mouth formed an 'O' as her reasoning sunk in. Their cage was slowly lowered onto the ground and the vultures closed in as it finally opened.

"Scatter!''

Without hesitation, everyone ran in different directions in between the openings they could see. Halfway across the forest, Rodna stopped to observe the vultures hurling towards them.

"How fascinating, their top halves look female but their faces are mutated. Would they have ten digits like us? What about their brains, would they be using both side or just one side?'' Rodna pondered quietly to herself as Ariel ran up to her to drag her away.

"Rodna, what the hell are you doing!" Ariel shrieked with anger whilst grabbing her left hand.

"Oh, I'm just fascinated by the vultures," Rodna replied with a smile.

Ariel's left eye twitched as she struggled to hold her back temper, "Seriously, at a time like this? Run!!"

Ariel then began to push her forward in an attempt to make her run. Stumbling a bit, Rodna pouted as she started to run again. The sight of her running reminded Ariel that she too was supposed to be running. She was about to run when suddenly she felt huge amount of pain run across her back till she lost consciousness.

Rodna glanced back to see one of the vultures electrocute Ariel and inject her," Ariel!"

As she slowed down and turned to watch her sister get hoisted up onto the shoulder of the vulture that captured her, a sharp pain pierced the back of her head. As she fell and landed on the ground, she could see a vulture kneel beside her to inject her. The last thing she saw was the leaves beside the vulture's boot.

Meanwhile, Ava and Reina managed to run to a huge tree near the wall and stopped. Panting slightly, Ava turned to Reina, who was leaning against the trunk of the tree," Reina, I want you climb.'

Reina frowned as tried to catch her breath," What? Has the cool air addled your brain?"

"Nutcase, I want to you to climb up this tree and somehow, I don't know how but, get over the wall and bring the army," Ava added as she proceeded to grab Reina and push her up the tree. The tree was old but still strong enough for Reina to hoist herself onto one of the branches.

She then stopped to look down at Ava who was keeping an eye out for the vultures," But what about my fear of heights? I can't climb, I might freeze up and get stuck!"

"Forget about your fear! Think of my face behind Vulture prison bars and keep climbing! Besides, you climbed a wall earlier and didn't get scared, how is this any different?!" Ava replied with a glare as she put her hands on her hips.

Reina shook her head," We had ladders, never mind that. What about you?"

They both then turned to their left at what sounded like running feet.

"I'll lead them away! Just keep climbing!" Ava whisper-yelled as she turned and ran away from the tree in the opposite direction of the sound.

Reina whimpered slightly as she quickly began to climb. Ava ran whist paused to glance behind her once in a while. So far she had managed to gain some distance but unfortunately her luck had run out.

Without the aid of lights, Ava didn't see a tree trunk that had fallen across her path. She tripped over it and in the process, sprained her left ankle as she stumbled onto the ground.

"Holy Braven! That hurt!" Ava cursed as she turned onto her back and reached down her foot with a huff," You have got to be joking. In all of my years of proper balance and grace, I chose this night to trip and bust up my foot!"

As she tried to stand up, two vultures eventually caught up with her and one of them approached her slowly with a syringe in hand.

Ava raised both her hands up," You can win this round. Next time is another story."

One of the vultures then knocked her on her head to render her unconscious so the other would inject her.

Zachleya was running past when she saw Ava's capture which then provoked her to run faster. Thinking that her running was slowing down the vulture behind her, she laughed only to hear a grunt behind her. Coming to a halt, Zachleya turned to see Bellona standing over a knocked out vulture with a lump of wood in hand.

Bellona glared at her," Were you playing a game with it or running away? Honestly, it's not a snake!"

Zachleya shrugged," It was working."

Maybe to her but Bellona could see that her running in a circle was only exhausting her and allowing the vulture to simply wait to capture her.

"No, it wasn't psycho . You're lucky I was tailing you otherwise it would have caught you."

Zachleya huffed and was about to shot back her own witty remark when a vulture hit Bellona in the head to knock her out. With a shriek, Zachleya turned and fled only to have a vulture hit her across her chest from behind a tree, knocking the air right out of her chest.

A minute later she was fully sedated, along with her four other sisters. They were all carried over to one of the trucks and tossed into it harshly. They all giggled and pocked each other as the truck started up and move.

Reina was hanging on top of the tree and peered down silently as truck started to move closer to her.

Zachleya was giggling hysterically from where Rodna was slapping her face when she caught sight of Reina up in the tree.

She stood up slowly and pointed at her," Hey look, it's Reina."

Ariel gasped and waved at her," Hi, Reina! it's us! What are you doing up in that tree?"

Ava, Rodna and Bellona started to wave up at her as well with delirious smiles. The truck came to abrupt stop as the vultures jumped out of the truck to look up to see Reina face palm herself.

"I'm going to kill those harpies if we ever get out of this alive," Reina muttered angrily as two of the vultures started climb up the tree.

With no-where to go, Reina broke off a branch and stood on to separate branches that provided her with proper footing.

"Alright, let's see what you uglies are made of," Reina said as she swung the stick at one of the vulture's head, only to have it grab the stick and yank it away from her. Unfortunately, she was still holding onto it so she was flung forward and off the branches.

Stumbling awkwardly, Reina fell overboard and down the tree until her foot got caught in one of the branches of the tree.

Cursing loudly as the pain of her foot got to her, she didn't see a vulture come up underneath her and injected her.

Thus all six girls were captured and loaded into the truck. Not long after the truck began to move, one by one the girls started to pass out.

..................

When Ava finally woke up, she saw Bellona strapped to a chair in front of her. On each side, the other girls had their hands chained up and their feet chained together as well. On the far left was Ariel, then Zachleya, Ava, Rodna and finally Reina.

Turning slightly, Ava could see that the room had two vultures on each side watching them. The rooms windows were blocked out with floor boards and the only source of light was a single lightbulb in the center of the room.

"W-what's going on?" Ariel croaked as one of the vultures moved to stand in front of Bellona with its back towards us.

"Now that your friends are awake, we begin,'' the vulture said as he held up remote. It had a sort of distorted voice that sounded deep and loud.

Reina sucked in a hash breath," It spoke."

Ariel rolled her eyes weakly as the vulture circled Bellona, who glared at it, and finally stopped behind her seat and bent down to her ear," Tell me how to get into the wall and I might just let you survive the rest of the night."

"I don't know how," Bellona bit out.

They all shifted around as the vulture shook it's head slightly," Shame."

The next thing they knew, the chair started to make a buzzing sound before electricity coursed through Bellona.

A series of shouts' Bellona' or 'Bell' flew out from them as they all stuggled against their chains.