Previously. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
[8]
Mark felt the vibrations long before the heavy footsteps entered the room. A gust of cold air hit his face. Footsteps thumping rhythmically. A familiar scent. A soldier. Just like Mark. Though he could see nothing, Mark felt the soldier coming nearer, calculating, analysing. The vibrations from his heavy boots stopped. Then a gunshot rang near Mark’s ear.
***
Anouk wheezed madly when she heard the gunshot upstairs. Then another, and another one. Sophie held the poor girl’s mouth shut. While Derek locked Anouk in his arms; the girl struggled to get out.
They heard the thumping of the Lightbreaker’s boots as he left their house. Derek wouldn’t let Anouk leave the basement for another 30 minutes.
“I’ll go first,” he said sternly. “I don’t want you to see it.”
“Dad, I see dead bodies every day,” Anouk, the youngest member of Derek’s Gravedigger crew stated. She had regained her calm, though Derek saw - she held back her tears bravely.
“This is different. He wasn’t some stranger. You took care of him.”
“Let dad go first, okay? We’ll follow close behind,” Sophie said, embracing Anouk’s shoulders. The girl nodded.
Derek crept upstairs. It was dead quiet. He heard gunshots in the distance; the Lightbreakers had spread out killing every living soul in the area.
Derek slowly entered the room where they kept Mark.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, while Anouk pushed by him like a small hurricane, ran into the room and hugged Mark tight. He was alive and intact. Anouk shook crying on his chest.
“A-nouk… A-nouk…” Mark stuttered quietly, and a smile rose on his face.
“He shouldn’t be alive. The Lightbreakers kill everybody…” Derek went to the window. He saw his neighbours lying in their yard dead. The Lightbreaker had obviously shot them from the window. Derek furrowed his brows. Why was Mark left alive?