Doomsday Pillars

"Mommy, daddy, I can finally be with you..."

Adam heard the words of the little kid.

KABBBOOOMMMMMM!!!!

The deafening roar of the explosion created a wave of air that flipped over the tank and blew Adam away. Bits and pieces of mangled meat rained down around the area as the militia looked at the scene with fear in their eyes, they couldn’t believe what they just saw.

Adam was lying on the ground and groaning, he was losing his consciousness, his eardrums were ringing and his body was burned. Clenching his fist, he thought it shouldn’t end here. Coughing he called out, "Jason! Romi! Nathan! Natalie! Misfits!!!"

Everything was a blur and the world was spinning. He tried to stand up, but the burns he received on his skin still gave the sensation of burning and caused Adam to stumble on the ground. He lifted his head to look at the surrounding, the remains of the misfits were all over the place, and the little kid was nowhere to be seen except for the kid’s shoes that’s on the side of the flipped tank.

The blast of the explosion caused the tank to be flipped over. Adam slowly crawled with his eyes half-opened towards the tank. As the ringing in his ears dies down, he heard footsteps coming from behind.

The group of militia had already surrendered. The moment they had seen the tank flip over, all hope they had was lost, some still had tried to run but it was all for naught. The mad people chased and killed the ones who ran, but captured the ones who lost their will.

Corpses of the misfits, militia, and the mad people littered the battlefield, some mad people were kicking the bodies of these ’infidels’ as they joyfully cheered. It was as if the tank was their altar, the people were their lamb, and the smoke rising from the tank was a sign of approval from their god.

"They have been purged! Hahaha."

"Our god is great! His justice prevails!"

Adam continued crawling straight to the tank and noticed the mad people that gathered around the tank. They opened the back door and dozens of people were pulled out from the tank and thrown to the ground when he heard a voice near him.

"There’s one alive here!"

Adam felt a hand grabbing onto him and was dragged away. He struggled, but he didn’t even had the strength to break free from the mad people. His eyes were set at the tank, all that really mattered to him was to see his friends if they’re alive right now.

"Pah!" Adam felt a fist drilled into his stomach as he slowly loses his consciousness. Before it faded, he heard were the words "More people alive here!" he tried to take one more glance and saw that the mad people were pulling out the bodies from the tank and then everything went black.

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At the village’s entrance, the swarm of endless mad people along with the pale men surrounded Axel and the special forces soldiers.

Their tight formation had proven effective as there were more mad people dead on the ground. But as time passed by, the special forces soldiers numbers slowly numbers dwindled and their formation was starting to lose its effectiveness. Until there only two from the dozen that were left.

Axel stood alongside his two brothers facing the pale men and mad people. With each slash of his two sabers, a head of an enemy got severed from their body.

As the battle continued, he received new wounds but the old cuts he received were no longer there! Looking closer, the new cuts were healing at a visible rate, he was apparently also the same as Daisy and Tommy, a Spirit Enhancer!

However, Axel might be a Spirit Enhancer, but that didn’t mean that his stamina was endless. He was breathing raggedly and his vision getting was blurry. He was already at his limits.

A pale man took notice of this and dashed forward as soon as he found an opportunity and stabbed Axel deep into his lungs. Axel wielded his sabers at the pale man who stabbed him, but the pale man jumped back and the sabers only slashed through the empty air.

"Lieutenant!" shouted one of the two special forces soldiers. He looked away for a moment and a pale man suddenly impaled his heart.

"!!!"

Axel summoned his last bit of strength and jumped to the sneaky pale man. The pale man’s head flew. The moment Axel landed and inhaled, the knife on his back touched his lungs, causing him to kneel down on one knee. Everytime he breathed, it felt like he was being stabbed all over again and again.

With Axel being unable to move, the last special forces also didn’t last long. Axel can only helplessly see his last comrade being impale from 3 sides... Axel look around and see all dozen corpses of his comrades, his loyal friends... with his current condition, its seem this will also be the end for him... looking at their corpses Axel slightly smile and whisper with his last energy...

"Don’t worry boys, I’ll be joining you all soon"

The pale man who stabbed Axel was ecstatic seeing him kneeling, only just one more blow was needed. He dashed forward once again, but was suddenly stopped by a foreign, eastern looking man.

"Stop. Don’t kill him," said the eastern looking man.

If Alex or Rico was here, they would definitely recognize this person! This man is Hafiz, the leader of Indonesian’s most notorious terrorist cell, the Heavenly Gate!

The old man, observing from the side, approached and bowed respectfully to Hafiz.

"This man recovers from his wounds at a visible rate. Do you see how the cuts he received close up easily? He’ll be a perfect lab rat for your experiments, don’t you think? Bring him to your lab and have fun with him," said Hafiz to the old man.

Smiling, the old man seemed to already have a few ideas on what to do. "Ahh, yes yes. He’ll be perfect for the new drugs and poisons I haven’t had the chance to test."

"As for the rest of the enemy in the village, round them all up."

The old man then nodded at the pale man who stabbed Axel and the pale man then struck Axel’s nape and Axel fell to the ground unconscious.

A couple of minutes later, all squad leaders of the army and militia were captured. The squad leaders were then forced to stand in line. The first person in the line was then dragged in front of Hafiz and the old man. One of the mad people were holding him down and made him kneel. He raised his head and his face was flowing with tears as he tried to beg to let him live. He broke free and held onto the white robe of the old man.

"Don’t touch our holy priest with your dirty hands, infidel!" one of the mad people kicked him in the guts as he flew a few meters away.

He was then forced to stand up and he felt a cold sharp object touched his neck. Suddenly, he saw the world spinning. Then the world became still as he felt the wet soil, he then saw a body without a head falling to the ground. It took him a second to realize that it was his body. He died.

The rest of the squad leaders realized that they were gonna get executed and all tried to run. But the pale men were quick to react as the squad leaders were immediately recaptured. One by one, they saw their comrades heads roll on the ground. Some struggled, some begged, some kept their mouths shut and faced their deaths with pride.

Captain Yonas was the last in line to be executed. Trembling, he was brought in front of the old man and Hafiz when he suddenly cried out, "I-I believe! I-I will follow the one true god!"

The old man showed his pearly white teeth, he was not expecting Captain Yonas to break at the last moment. "Hahaha! Interesting... I’ll let you live."

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An hour later, Adam woke up. He tried to move, but he couldn’t, he then noticed there were ropes on his body preventing him from moving, but the heavy feeling of his limbs was not there anymore. It seemed like the poison had disappeared while he was unconscious.

Looking at his surroundings, hundreds of people were also tied up, and thousands of mad people were praising and chanting while the pale men were in the middle kneeling and praying solemnly.

One of the pale men suddenly shook uncontrollably and spat out blood as he dropped to the ground, still spasming. Soon afterwards, the other pale men have the same reactions and laid flat on the ground just like that. It seemed like it was the aftereffect of what they had consumed from the bowl. It brought out their amazing power, but at the cost of their life.

The thousands of mad people ignored them as they continued praying and chanting.

Adam searched around and finally found his comrades. Jason, Romi and the siblings were alive, as well as about a dozen of misfits were sitting not far from him. He then sighed a breath of relief.

The praying and chanting soon stopped and the mad people pulled the ropes attached to the captured survivors as they began to travel. Walking for hours, they passed one of the major cities in the south of west java named Sukabumi, or rather what’s left of it as it was now a ghost city.

An hour later, they finally reached a port city called Pulau Ratu, it’s located in the south west most of Java. And they were brought to the dock area of the city.

The dock area still has a lot of ships with trailers sitting on top of them. Broken crates were just lying around everywhere and barrels with woods were on the standby. In one corner of the dock area, there was a mountain of corpses emitting a stomach-churning smell.

"Bastards! These people are inhumane!!!" shouted of the army soldiers.

"Quiet, infidel!" the mad citizen struck the man with a club and died. Seeing this, no one even uttered a word for the rest of the trip.

They soon arrived in front of a once luxurious hotel near the dock area, but now it looked like a rundown building and the face of the hotel was smeared with all kinds of stains. It was there where they stopped.

The 200 survivors stood in the middle, sandwiched in between the hotel and the thousands of mad people as the ropes that tied them were cut by some of the mad people.

Adam and the misfits found each other and thought of their situation.

"What are they planning?" asked one of the misfits.

"I have no idea. But the way they look at us. It’s giving me the creeps," replied one of the misfits.

The misfits saw Captain Yonas among the group of the pale men being watched over, but Lieutenant Axel was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly, the thousands of mad people cheered at the top of their lungs when Hafiz and the old man accompanied by a few pale men walked up the makeshift stage in front of the hotel. Hafiz raised his hand and all of the thousands of mad people turned quiet, he then declared, "The judgment day has already come. We are the people left behind, the chosen people," he then looked at Adam and the survivors, "our merciful god has given you people a chance to repent. This is your last chance. You need to prove ourselves to our lord. You need to choose sides."

Adam feels something weird when he heard the man... the feeling is very hard to describe.. Its seems like the foreign man word able to reach deep into his mind.

When the man stops his speech, suddenly a group of people arrived in front of the makeshift platform. Adam and the rest recognized some of the faces in this new group.

"They... They are from the third division..."

The people from the third division saw the other group and recognized them as well. The two groups ran to each other and hugged the people they knew. These people served in the army, some were even friends and neighbors from Jakarta.

Adam saw a person approaching him and heard her called out to him, "Adam!" It was Melissa, one of his classmates whose mother was a politician. She was captured along with the third division. "Jason is here too, but where is Daisy?" Melissa placed her hands on her mouth, "Wait, don’t tell me she’s—"

"She escaped," Adam said.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Melissa looked sternly at Adam and grabbed his shoulders, "Adam, you need to listen to me. For you to survive, you need to listen to whatever the eastern looking man says."

The foreign eastern man deviously smiled, he ordered his people to give the survivors they captured to drop some weapons on the ground and the people from third division walked to the side. "As I was saying earlier, you need to choose sides. Prove that you’re on the side of our merciful god. Each of you must kill one of your comrades with your own hands!"

"!!!"