All seemed quiet in the still night’s air as a lone figure walked slowly along his regular route on his employer’s estate. Large floodlights mounted high upon the walls of the large home at its center sporadically broke the darkness that covered the grounds as a moonless sky hung above.
Dressed rather well for the role, this well-paid guard wore what looked like an expensive suit, though he carried a small weapon of some kind quite visible in both his hands. Curiously one might wonder why he also wore what appeared to be dark sunglasses, but these were more robust then their original purpose called for, granting him low-light visibility in their compact size.
In the end this made little difference though, as just moments after he passed by a low hedge, several loud snaps sounded out almost as one in the night, and half his chest turned into a gaping chasm. Moving faster then his eye could follow, he never got to see the three bolts of green energy that had lashed out at him at the speed of light, turning flesh and bone into steam and ash with equal ease. Toppling to the ground his death was mercifully quick, for it was far from painless, as around the gaping wound his flesh burned and his blood boiled.
On the other side of the house a colleague was not so fortunate in his death, here this guard found a long, slightly curved blade thrust into his lower back as a gloved hand clamped down over his mouth. At nearly the same moment as it went in, the blade was given an almost vicious twist and a silent scream tried to escape through his covered mouth.
Slowly his body was lowered to the ground after the life left him by the lightly armoured figure that had come up from behind. Kneeled for just a moment, this killer wiped the blood off their blade on the fallen man’s clothes before returning it to its proper sheath and shifting an odd looking carbine hanging on his back by a tactical sling around to his front. As the figure rose and began moving towards the house, it made several quick gestures with its left hand before returning it to the vertical foregrip on its weapon.
A short distance away, within a darkened room of the large house, a small child woke suddenly, still screaming in terror at the images and feelings that clung to the edges of her now conscious mind. A mere eight years old, she was a budding telepath, not yet used to her growing abilities, and for the first time she had felt the painful deaths of seven people in close proximity.
Called already by screams while she still slept, the child’s mother darted into the room, just catching the switch to the lights in her haste, bathing the room in a soft warm glow. Reaching the bed in record time, mother embraced daughter, cooing softly that all was well and she was safe, all the while the younger rambled incoherently in an attempt to put into words what she’d just seen.
Out in the hall, the father grumbled quietly to himself as he staggered out of a washroom still half asleep, frustrated not with his daughter waking him, but that her talents were causing her such grief. A recently developing gift, this was not the first time she’d woken afraid of what she’d seen in her dreams, but it was the first time she’d done so screaming so loudly as to wake everyone in the house; or so was his opinion.
Turning down the dimly lit hall towards his daughter’s room, he stopped in his tracks as he caught sight of several darkly clad and strangely hazy figures moving swiftly up from the other direction with weapons at the ready. Confusing them in his haze for his own employees reacting to his daughter’s screams, a placating utterance died on his tongue before even the first syllable could leave it, as it and the better part of his head suffered the same fate as the first guard’s chest, sending his body crumpling to the floor with a thud.
Back in the daughter’s room, the young girl had almost calmed down with the help of her mother, but with a strong connection to her father, she felt his pain and passing even while awake, and screamed for him suddenly, reaching out towards the hall as she did, startling her mother terribly. Following her daughter’s reach, the mother looked up at the door just in time to see four dark figures assault into the room one behind the other, first right then left, then repeated by the trailing two.
Faring only slightly better then her husband, the mother managed to get the word, “What,” out before her throat and part of her chest ceased to be, causing her body to slump down off the bed and onto the floor.
Undeterred by the child’s renewed screaming at the nightmare that had followed her into consciousness, two of the faceless figures shifted their weapons behind their backs and moved quickly towards her without pause. Panicking, her mind barely registered the fact that here in the low light their uniforms, armour and tactical vests seemed to shift in darker colour palettes in an attempt to blend them into the background, making it harder to focus on them and serving to heighten her terror; the fact that she could not sense their presence at all even this close was completely lost to her.
In a desperate bid to escape, the child attempted to dart between the two figures and over the end of her bed, but they were faster and caught her by her arms, pinning her face down. Something cold pressed up against the side of her neck a moment later, causing her to cease her struggle and fall silent as a dreamless sleep overtook her mind almost instantly.
This unfortunate child was not the only gifted individual to disappear off this quiet little world on this night, but she was the only one of high profile with such carnage left behind, others simply vanished, and some were never missed at all. With nothing but the far from unique effects of an unknown directed energy weapon and no clear ties with other crimes, authorities were left baffled as to the why this was done, let alone by whom.
The worst was over for them however, as those responsible had their prizes from this world, and would soon shift their attention elsewhere for more.
