Chapter Two : Death

Ari kept moving even when he felt his stomach growling because he hadn't had a meal before he left. With the wrench in hand, he checked the cars he passed by carefully.

The ever silent woods slowly started to make Ari jumpy as he hadn't come across a living thing despite having been walking for a while.

"Ah!" Looking at what he just stepped on, Ari felt his heart lurch. He stuck to the shadows of the tree line and didn't see the body lying on the ground face down with a few wounds dotting it's back.

"Urgh." Repressing the urge to yell aloud, Ari looked around and then let out a breath softly after nothing happened. He wasn't sure how the man died, but he knew that he was killed.

"Will I also end up like this?" Ari frowned as he looked into the distance, wishing that phone's and GPS satellites still worked.

Phones and nearly all electronic devices were rendered useless when The Devourers made contact with Earth. Now, humanity was beaten back to the times before electricity.

Pulling out a wrinkled paper, Ari looked at the young woman standing by his side in the picture and made up his mind to go and see if she was still alive.

Humans were in danger, but no one knew the objective driving The Devourers, only that they were dangerous and that you shouldn't ever encounter one.

Ari got so caught up in his thoughts he failed to notice two figures trailing behind him, each holding knives as they tried to move silently.

It wasn't until one of the men drew near him that he discovered that he was being followed. Unable to tell if they were friendly or not, he prepared for the worst.

"Damn, where is that brat?" Ari spoke out loud, increasing his pace as he moved towards a large tree ahead. Hearing him speak, the two men were less inclined to attack immediately after hearing he had a companion.

Seeing Ari move faster, they tried to increase their pace whilst keeping out of sight. Only when Ari walked around the tree and vanished did they realize they had been played.

"F*ck that kid tricked us!" One of the men emerged from the shadows and looked around trying to find some trace of Ari.

The other man circled the tree and looked up just in time to see a long wrench swinging towards his head. He couldn't even let out a shout as the wrench crashed into his head.

His head slammed into the tree after being smacked with the wrench and he crumpled to the floor unmoving, but Ari didn't look at him as he tried to ambush the other man as well.

Seeing the other man searching, Ari crept up behind him and raised the wrench, but just before he brought it down, the man turned and slashed with his knife.

Ari barely had time to react, jumping away, but he couldn't move fast enough. A sharp pain surged from a slash wound on his side with dark red blood running down from the injury.

"Who the hell are you?" Ari raised the wrench and swung to intercept the man's blade, but the man released the knife, caught it with his other hand and drove the blade into Ari's stomach.

Ari couldn't react and could only grit his teeth as he smashed the handle into the man's face, knocking him away.

The blade still protruded from his stomach, but Ari moved and smashed the wrench down again, knocking the man to the ground, followed by another smash.

Seeing the unconscious man on the ground, the adrenaline pumping through Ari's body ran out.

Ari couldn't remain on his feet and sank to his knees, hand covering the handle of the blade. Blood flowed from the wound and Ari had no clue how to stop it.

Trying to create a bandage, he ripped his shirt and covered the wound, but before he could do anything further, the world turned dark as he lost consciousness.

The man who had been knocked out before woke up with a painful headache. Groaning, he walked around the tree and saw Ari laying in a pool of his own blood with his partner lying on the ground not too far away.

Smiling viciously, he raised his knife to bring it down on Ari's unprotected throat when a force stopped him in his tracks, rendering him unable to move.

"This one is a Candidate." A soft voice spoke in perfect english as the speaker walked past the man frozen in his attacking posture and stopped at Ari's side.

The speaker was a woman who wore black body armor, looking no different from a human aside from her extreme beauty. Another man, also extremely handsome, walked over and inspected his body with faintly glowing red eyes.

"He's indeed compatible with the Devourer's Seed." The man rubbed his chain as he looked at the blood beneath Ari with a thoughtful look.

"His body is already in the process of dying. Stabilize his consciousness and let's head back." The woman looked at the man who nodded in response and lifted Ari from the ground with a single hand.

"As for you? Well, you're quite useless..." The woman turned to the man frozen in place and her glowing purple eyes glowed brighter.

Her perfect face split open and a gaping maw filled with razor sharp teeth appeared, making the man frozen in place tremble in fear.

The sound of flesh being torn and devoured sounded as blood splashed over the ground. A few moments later, the woman walked over, licking the bright red liquid on her lips.

"Transfer." The man looked at the woman and sighed, wondering why his Master was such a glutton, but he couldn't say anything as she could indeed do as she pleased.

A purple circle appeared, burning itself into the ground with mysterious symbols. A beam of light tore through the gloomy skies and engulfed them both with Ari in tow.