NASIM

 

Friday January 10 - 2046 PST

Five days until Turbocharger activates

 

May the Most Beneficent have mercy on my soul, but I ran like a coward when that abomination began shrieking. It's inhuman voice stirred something within the most ancient depths of my humanity. It cried out in a long forgotten language, one which none of us understood. But it's meaning was clear.

An ancient evil had been awakened.

I knew in my soul that this was an enemy of humanity. I knew I had to run, but for several long moments I was paralyzed with fear where the evil being had knocked me to the floor. Had it not been for Abu and the long burst of fire from his AKS, the abomination surely would have cloven me in two with its blackened scythe. Though the shots did not injure the demon it had distracted it long enough for me to recover my wits and run.

Yet there was nowhere to run. All the doors to the opulent manor house had been automatically sealed by a security system. Most locked doors can be quite easily bypassed by a swift kick, but not these. They were reinforced and withstood such assaults. Abu died while trying to exit the way we had entered, trapped between unyielding doors and an unyielding spirit of death.

Like a swarm of flies the demon hovered over Abu's corpse. It was so thick I could not see through it and so I only knew of my brother's death because of his screams and blood spatters that adorned the thing's cruel weapon. As I shined my light onto the beast my belly grew cold. Its blade was indeed black with ichor, that much was certain. But what my mind had trouble reconciling was what it did with Abu's blood. The slick black liquid danced and waved at the warm blood and soon the red was all gone. Lapped up like a kitten with a saucer of milk.

And now there was yet another threat. Something else lurked in shadows. A fearsome monster had emerged from the statues by the door. Seemingly as a response to the arrival to the scythe-wielding nightmare summoned by my carelessness with the bloodstone around my neck. This new abomination circled in the darkness with heavy, plodding footfalls like those from an ox. It had cleanly removed Maroun's head from his body and now I feared it would be coming for mine next. Yet I felt that its focus was on the ghastly apparition with the scythe.

I turned to run though I knew all the doors were similarly locked. There was nowhere to run. My fate was sealed. But before I resigned myself to death I saw that several of the partygoers were now flooding out through an open door above. Someone had found a way to unlock it.

Praise be to Allah for showing me the way. I ran the length of the stairs taking them two at a time, knowing all the while the creature of nightmare was behind me. So I chose to give it something to occupy its attention. As I topped the stairs I aimed my Makarov at an infidel's thigh and fired. Then at another and shot her as well. They wailed and cried while grasping their injured legs but I did not care.

I was past them and through the unlocked door when their cries of agony ceased. Their fate was certain to me because the necklace at my throat began pulsing with brilliant red light again. It was drinking in their life energy as they passed into the afterlife.

But I was safe, for now. Running with the herd of fleeing infidels deeper into the depths of this palace.