Side Effects

26 - Two Ends Meet

Another gunshot fired, shooting down another policeman whose armour had failed him. With beady, concentrated eyes, Donnamira Klaus loaded her rifle once more and aimed straight for the head of another enemy.

As a bullet scraped past her shoulder, she took an equally unsuccessful shot back.

More enemies came flooding towards her barricade, and she knew that it was time for her comrades to evacuate. Ordering them to hold their fire, she gestured to their escape - the building in which Bree was being treated. The rebels obeyed these orders, and eventually alone, Donnamira rummaged her pocket for a deadly weapon that could have destroyed her entire squad if they would have stayed.

A larger-than-average grenade - created by Rhine's hands long before the idea of the revolution raised.

Throwing her arm back, she swung the deadly bomb over the barricade and far into the street, so that it perfectly landed in the midst of the attackers. As she did so she yelled,
"This is for our fallen!"

She killed for the man who saved her daughter. She fought for Bree's future. But most importantly, she had to stay true to what she and what the other rebels wanted most of all. That was why she had to be brutal.

Many had died by her and her organisation's commands - a few dead of her enemies was no larger thing to grieve. She hated this game - it was a sick situation she blamed herself to have caused - but she genuinely expected it from the very beginning, and continued face-on. It was the only thing to do. Otherwise, the people around her would never have had a chance at learning what Earth outside had become.

Without another second split, she ducked, detonating the bomb with a trigger inside her other pocket.

The result of a mighty boom burst her heart and eardrums like a firework. The deed was done. The gunfire stopped.

Cautiously, she peered over the barricade to the misty smoke ahead. It was not the guts that phased her - it was the fear of the unknown. The aftermath of the bomb was visioned as broken glass scattered on the ground, the lifeless fresh corpses on the pavement, the inferno that followed after the explosion.

Other than the low gust of the flames from afar, the city began a silence. A silence that felt more silent after the chaos that reigned each passing hour. All she heard was a bird's wings. She could have even heard a pin drop. Surely it was not over. Nothing was over just yet.

Donnamira heightened her stance to view more of what laid beyond. The sky was beginning to darken. The war was sleeping.

The young boys in the North of the city began their lookout which was to last all night long. The mercenaries in the East shared food and cigarettes as they settled from a long day of constant fatalities. The rebels in the West lay awake, lying on the cold ground of their safety zone, unable to sleep from what they have seen. The people of the South mourned their fallen, awaiting many more people to become victims the next day.

Each area hung in silence, unsure of what the next day would bring, but dreading the days all the same.

The fighters of the Centre watched through broken windows in anticipation, their breaths holding at the fate of the girl who rested, the stumps of where her feet used to be staying completely still.

No one wanted to fight through the night - and she respected that decision. The armed police, however, would not be so forgiving; and she knew that, also. What she could not foresee from the mist was what was next to come. Would it all end in victory or misery?