Go Down Kicking (Legion of the Black)

The rising sun sent light creeping across the black expanse of desert, across the array of rebels in a stupor on scratchy sheets set upon the cold sand. Its heat infiltrated the chill gripping Erin's limbs and awakened in her the knowledge that her night of torture was over. Through the dark hours, every rustle in the wind had ignited a fresh sense of panic within her. But F.E.A.R had never met them.
With weighted eyelids, she made her way into the circle of sleep and bent next to a splayed figure with thick black hair concealing his sculpted face.
"Ricky? Ricky, get up." She shook his shoulder only to have him roll sluggishly onto his other side.
"Hey!" Erin scowled down at him and nudged his side with her foot. Reluctantly, Ricky's eyes fluttered open and as he pulled his hair from across his face, a look of realisation made its way onto his features.
"They didn't come." He observed, only to have Erin raise her eyebrows and shake her head.
"Oh really? I didn't notice." She stretched her arm down to Ricky and pulled him to his feet. She dropped his touch once he was steady and a smirk found itself playing over her lips.
"Seeing as I kept watch all night, you have to wake Savannah this morning."
Ricky's eyes widened and he stared at Erin in disbelief.
"You're evil!" He muttered and shifted his gaze to the shock of fiery hair protruding from tangled sheets. Erin made no attempt to hide her grin while stooping over the blonde girl curled up on her own mat near Ricky's.
"Annie, wake up now." She barely finished her words before Annie was sitting upright, her metallic eyes having hastily shot open. She relaxed her coiled muscles after realising it was not a looming shadow which had crept from the cell in her mind standing before her.
"Okay." She curtly responded and swiftly rose to her feet. Erin offered a flickering smile and, in sequence, alerted a wiry boy with sandy hair left far too long for any masculinity to remain in his appearance while Annie crossed the small camp to shake Tess back into day.
"Come on Oli, you can make yourself pretty later." Erin teased the long haired boy, who was currently tousling his locks into place.
"I think you mean prettier." Oli retorted quirkily and ruffled his hair one last time.
"Well you wake Alfie if you're feeling beautiful enough." Erin chuckled quietly and moved onto Cami's fragile frame, gently awakening her from the dreamland her imagination resided within.
Erin found Dylan already awake, sitting cross-legged between Ricky's abandoned sheets and those of another rebel named Tyler, who remained blissfully oblivious to the world.
"I'm sure you're happy to be alive, Dylan. Although surprised?" Erin cocked an eyebrow as she tore Tyler's rough sheets out of his sleep weakened grasp.
Dylan began to cough and looked in the opposite direction. His procrastination, however, was not required; Tyler's un-eloquent cries of protest at being disturbed rescued him.
"Come on and shut up, you baby!" Erin said in amusement and threw Tyler's sheets back at him in the form of a crumpled ball as the boy rose.
"I'm older than you!" He exclaimed and caught his sheets before dropping them onto the ground once more.
Erin raised her hands in mock surrender as she responded,
"Ouch."
Tyler's features lit into a wide smile and he combed a hand through his short black spikes, unable to come up with an adequate reply.
Turning her back to the pair, Erin saw that Oli had pulled Alfie from his sleep and was sitting with the elder boy, silent and smiling as Alfie spoke. Only a short distance outside the camp, Tess' bold blue hair let Erin know she was also awake and now clawing for water. That only left Savannah.
Lazily, Erin's gaze travelled to where the girl was curled tightly in on herself, her sheet huddled inside the curve of her body. Her eyes were screwed forcefully closed as if opening them would diminish her power. Ricky was shaking her violently, an exasperated look etched onto his face. Erin chuckled softly at Savannah's cries of protest as they mingled with Ricky's curses.
"He seems to be having a bit of trouble, don't you think?" Tyler slung an arm easily over Erin's shoulders as he joined her in watching the morning battle.
"Don't bother rolling your sheets yet." Erin said in an amused tone, "We might be here a while yet."
"Noted." He replied laughingly,
"Do, however, gather everyone up to have a drink." Erin finished and slipped out of Tyler's hold before making her way to where Tess knelt in the sand.
"Hey." Tess said cheerily as Erin sat cross-legged opposite her and the hole she was digging.
"Hey." Erin responded with a nod of her head and rapidly began to scratch sand which was falling back down away from the edge of the hole.
"Sun is nearly all the way up." Tess stated, wiping her overgrown bangs away from her tanned forehead and rocking back on her heels.
"Yes." Erin said bemusedly.
Slowly, Tess met her gaze and broke into a burst of giggles, even convincing Erin to join in for a while. Together, the pair were able to coax the rare water from its underground stream just as the rest of the rebels, save for Ricky and Savannah, arrived to drink.
"Alfie, you're the only one with a bottle, get some water for Ricky and sleeping beauty." Erin instructed and waited until the ebony haired boy had put the stopper back in the bottle before she refreshed her dry throat with the grainy water, ignoring the tug Tyler gave her hair in passing.
Finally, it was only her and Tess perching by the now drained well again. Dylan lingered no more than four paces away, half-turned towards them as if he were waiting to speak; but he walked back to the camp when Erin threw him a questioning glance.
"He's been at an awful loss for words recently" She said to Tess, who laughed and pulled her long blue ponytail over her shoulder.
"I know, you should be proud." She winked, "You're the only one who can do that to him."
Erin rolled her eyes and got to her feet, brushing the sand from her legs. Tess mimicked her actions and they stepped back into the circle of worn sheets that made their camp, within which Ricky was by now yelling at Savannah, who only bothered responding with grunts. Her sheets were crumpled at Ricky's feet but still the girl managed to faze in and out of sleep.
As Tess once more made her way over to Annie, Erin tilted her head back to study the sky. It was still burning a collision of red and orange washing into pink. The sun had not risen entirely yet.
"Dylan!" Ricky's whinging yell caused Erin to snap back into reality.
"Help me pick her up or something!"
"I didn't say you could have help." Erin's eyes glimmered as she spoke and looked at Dylan, stopping him in his tracks. He hesitated, eyes flickering between Ricky's face and Erin's.
"Sorry dude." His plain expression faltered into a brief grin as he shrugged and turned away from Ricky, who cocked his head and sent an imploring gaze to Erin.
She was fast to put her back to him. Smirking, Erin crossed to her untouched sheets and formed them back into a rolled cylinder. Observing her actions, Dylan soon passed on instructions and the rest of the camp followed suit.
The sun was steadily pushing away the fire of sunrise to fill the sky with clear blue, hinting at full daybreak. This was when Erin decided they really needed to make a move. She strolled to Savannah's curled form and, standing next to a begrudging Ricky, said:
"Savannah, if you don't get up we won't make it to the oasis and you won't be able to get food."
After a small moment of hesitation, Savannah's eyes opened and she looked up at Erin. Barely within another pause, Savannah was stood up and stretching.
"Morning Ricky." She said, struggling to bite back laughter.
"Damn you both." Ricky responded and stomped away to gather up his sheets.
As Savannah was doing the same, Alfie approached and offered her a drink from the bottle he held. She accepted gratefully and swallowed a large gulp of the unfiltered water.
"Thanks." She handed back the bottle and bent down to finish rolling her bed. Meanwhile, Alfie was presenting Ricky with the same bottle.
Erin grabbed her sheets and slung them rolled onto her back. By the time dawn had ended, everyone was eventually ready to be on their way.
"Olay listen up losers!" Erin called out with mocking enthusiasm and all eyes turned onto her.
"Just all follow me, we're heading north-east into the oasis. Don't lose sight of anyone."
They all nodded, already aware of protocol.
The group moved forward, Erin always slightly ahead, comfortable in her own company.
The rhythmic tread of their feet upon the barren land raised gently swirling clouds of bright sand, which danced only until they could once more settle.
Somewhere on the rebels' right flank, Oli and Alfie for once were in silence.
With the gaze of his deep brown eyes, Alfie drank in their barren surroundings while Oli watched his tanned face with a quaint smile resting over his lips.
"What?" Alfie suddenly became aware that he was being observed.
"Nothing." Was the answer Oli gave him, along with a blush as he glanced away.
Alfie grinned and flicked Oli's arm playfully, "Why were you staring at me?"
Rolling his eyes, Oli returned his gaze to Alfie. "I was just wondering what you were thinking about." He settled on as a response.
Alfie hesitated, using his tongue to play with his glinting lip ring.
"Do you ever miss what we had before this? Family?" His eyes were anxious as Oli sighed and looked briefly away, tousling his blonde hair.
"Well, my parents pretty much disowned me when they found out I was gay so I'm used to it, but I guess it's an entirely different situation for you."
"Oh god I'm so sorry, I forgot!" Alfie chewed on his lip and rested a hand on Oli's shoulder, rejuvenating his blush.
"No, don't worry." Oli smiled honestly honestly up at Alfie. "I'm just sorry you had to lose your family so brutally." His gaze brushed over Alfie's lower lip, lost in the way he pulled it with his teeth.
Alfie couldn't find suitable words to reply, but instead squeezed Oli's shoulder before launching back into their normal useless joking.
While their laughter picked up, Dylan quickened his pace slightly to catch up with Erin.
"Hey." He said once he had fallen into step beside her.
Erin broke her eyes away from their wasteland trail and smiled softly at Dylan. "Hi."
Dylan returned the smile before setting his eyes on the vivid sand and kicking a small stone across the ground.
"So, what's going to happen at the oasis?" He found his voice again in form of a question.
"What do you mean?" Erin laughed, "We're going to replenish food and water stocks, getting food from the people who live there."
She shot Dylan a funny look, as if the query were irrational.
"Can we trust them though? You've only spoken to them once before and they must have some allegiance with F.E.A.R if they're letting them stay there."
Erin pushed a strand of dark blonde hair behind her ear and sighed.
"They live there only because they aren't declared enemies of the state, but that just means they don't wear black, have bodily modifications and are all either straight or closeted. They stay there in terror, else they would be living in the cities."
Dylan nodded slowly and narrowed his eyes to try and see through the heat haze forming around them. The temperature was rising with the sun, stifling all life below in its choking blanket of heat.
"Prepare to be burnt." Erin muttered. If she could ever use sunscreen again, she would be forever grateful. She fiddled with her sheets for a while but managed to pull the bundle over her head, casting some shade onto her face.
"Yay, hats!" Savannah yelled from somewhere behind them, gaining laughs from everyone as they copied Erin's actions.
Dylan fought with himself in silence, trying to come up with some topic of conversation. He eventually settled on something he knew meant a lot to them both - music.
"When was the last time you heard a proper song?" He asked with one eyebrow raised.
"I don't know." Came her response, after a slight pause. "But it's such a beautiful thing that they can't really take it." She kicked up a flurry of sand before carrying on. "Every lyric, every note, every riff - they're all still in here." She tapped over her heart and the side of her head. "One day those people: Vic, Kellin, Austin, Gerard, Chris, Tyler, they'll all sing to me again. But until then this is all I have."
"Yeah, I can't wait until that time." Dylan smirked dryly and chuckled. "In the future I'll be blaring Metallica from the rooftops and no bloody shadow can stop me."
As Erin had estimated, the sun was glowing white overhead when the oasis came into sight of the sun-beaten rebels.
"Food!" Cheered Savannah, throwing her arms around Erin from behind.
"Get off!" Erin removed Savannah from her waist, laughing good-naturedly. "You act like a five year old."
Savannah shrugged contentedly and bent to pick up her sheets, which had fallen as she'd launched herself forward.
Within half an hour, the rebels had entered the shelter of the oasis and were able to remove their comic sun protection from their heads. Rich green leaves interlocked their slender shapes overhead, casting mottled shadows onto the stretching plants on the ground.
As their procession came closer to the oasis' centre, Erin grew increasingly tense. A cacophony of noises whipped through the spiky tree trunks and oasis birds flew away in swarms, but Erin was becoming sure they weren't making all the noise.
Just when they were on the cusp of the clearing, Erin glimpsed the looming shape of a F.E.A.R shadow. Cold clenching in her stomach, she whipped around to alert the rebels. But before words could leave her lips, the shadow made a start towards them and Erin was pulled backwards into the coarse plant life.
"Quiet." came a growl in her ear as all nine rebels trampled in after her and away from the shadow infested clearing.
Erin twisted around and shook herself free from her attacker. In shock, she registered a young man - perhaps only a couple of years older than herself, crouching against a bush in the damp soil. Part of his black hair was shaven, but the rest fell over his elevated cheekbones on the right of his face. He watched her questioningly with bright blue eyes.
"Who are you?" Erin hissed and gave a hand signal for all the rebels to duck down.
"Andy, I'm on your side. F.E.A.R are here, we need to get as many people out as we can, we have a proper camp to go to."
Erin bit her lip in consideration and let her eyes run over the boy. He definitely didn't look like a F.E.A.R accomplice; with tattoos intricately decorating his thin frame, clustered especially on his left arm, and piercings residing in his lip, nose and ear he looked like the kind of person condemned by them instead.
Erin nodded and he turned to creep to the clearing's edge, where he sighed.
"All we can do is run in there."
"Then let's go." Erin said as she poised next to him. Without further words, the eleven broke into the clearing, trying to convince themselves there were only people behind the horned masks.
Contact was immediate, shadows whirled towards them with their heavy, emblem bearing weapons slicing the air. Erin dodged swiftly beneath one and spun to launch a powerful kick into the black robed figure, sending it back from impact. A punch landing squarely on its flailing form, thrown by the newly found renegade, sent it into retreat.
Screams and wails echoed in the air as people scrambled away from the snatching clutches of F.E.A.R, all trying to keep freedom for a few extra seconds.
As Annie forced back the gold staff of a shadow, she saw a group of black clad men herding panicked people out of the clearing in a chain. She shoved the metal staff with more determination, flinging it into the shadow and dashed away call,
"Erin!"
Who pivoted out of reach of another shadow to catch Annie's gaze. She nodded hastily when she saw where Annie pointed and ran to a cluster of shaking people fleeing with children by the hand. She pushed them in the right direction, staying behind them to usher them onwards as another rebel she didn't know leapt in to cover her back.
"Skye!" A startling scream arose from a brown haired girl in the group Erin guided, she struggled to break the ranks, reaching out with tears streaming down her face.
"You can't go back!" Erin said and grabbed the girl's arm, fighting to constrain her.
"No, Skye!" The girl's voice was breaking, cracking with every syllable.
A rebel with two black streaks adorning his left cheek rushed forwards and grabbed the girl's arms, hustling her yelling form away. As the others stumbled into safe arms, Erin spun around to find the cause of the girl's distress.
She was too late to see the crying face of a blonde child being dragged away.
Standing now at the battle's outskirts, Erin desperately tried to pick out the faces of her rebels amongst all the unfamiliar rejects and shadows. She had time to discern eight faces before leaping back into the combat, striving to push F.E.A.R back.
At this point there were more rebels than shadows, but still the outcasts were having blood torn from their skin by the strong staffs weilded by their enemies. There were bodies lying strewn on the ground, never to get back up.
All there was in Erin's mind was screaming silence. Everything was blocked out by pure determination as she locked into another attack. She was too numb to feel the slash along the back of her calf or the bruise taking shape on her jaw. It took a while after all the shadows had fled for her senses to flood back to her.
She surveyed the destructive scene in horror, every tribal house was lying in ruins, blood staining the mud.
Erin walked slowly forward, making eye contact with a panting Savannah, seeing Annie, Tess, Dylan leaning with a grimace against a palm tree, Ricky applying pressure to a bleeding lip, Oli fussing over Alfie's struck shoulder, Cami limping towards her... no Tyler.
Panic was a snake. It crept slowly over her before knotting around her every fibre.
"Have you seen Tyler?" She asked, resting her hands on Cami's small shoulders and steadying her.
"Not since earlier." Cami answered, her eyes becoming fearful.
The snake tightened its hold.
Erin frantically searched the clearing with her eyes, she could see Andy helping others up with four men around his age and a scattering of other faces... then she found Tyler.
Immediately, Erin left Cami and approached Tyler, falling to her knees by his side.
Hot, intense surges of pain flowed through his veins as blood left them. His black hair was plastered to his sweaty forehead and his body writhed with tense muscles as he tried to find a position which would reduce the agony.
"Erin." He whimpered as she took hold of his clammy hand and he dug his nails into her skin.
"I'm here." Erin held back a choking cry as she pulled an abandoned, trodden down sheet from the ground, her own having been dislodged, and screwed it into a ball, pressing it into the pool of blood seeping from the gape in Tyler's stomach.
His body contracted and his teeth clenched in pain, fresh tears mixing with those already on his face.
"Erin, it won't work." He gasped and held his eyes shut.
Erin shook her head and applied some more pressure, watching the crimson spiral as it soaked into the fabric.
"Tyler, Tyler oh my god... please." Savannah's words were gushed out amongst her tears as she knelt next to Erin, her hand clasped in that of a sobbing Cami.
Erin turned the bunched up sheet so that a cleaner part was in contact with the wound. His nails cut deeper into Erin's hand as if it was his only link to life. Still holding on.
One by one, Dylan, Annie, Alfie, Oli, Tess and Ricky all joined them to sit around Tyler. Tessa and Oli wept freely, the others were ashen with shock. But they all hurt, the knife of seeing someone you love dying cut deep.
"I'm glad I could be with you all for this moment." Tyler whispered as he opened his eyes and his dilating gaze trailed over each face, appearing watery through his tears. All of their hands rested somewhere on him, letting him know they were there. He smiled faintly but was cut off by a ghastly convulsion of pain. He turned his head to the side, wincing, green eyes closing, his grip weakening.
"No, no, no." Erin murmured feebly, clutching his hand tight and willing to feel the pressure of his nails again. There was nothing but slack as Tyler's eyes shut completely.
They knew. As if a part of themselves had gone, they knew Tyler had. In silence, they sat with their hearts desperately aching for his impossible return.
After a short eternity, the group unwillingly rose to their feet and every one of them clung to someone else. Even Dylan and Ricky clasped each-other. It was only Erin who turned away on her own, her tears leaving dry salt around her glassy eyes.
"I'm sorry." A strikingly deep voice emerged from Andy, ridden with deep meaning as he came to stand opposite Erin. Tentatively, he raised a hand and brushed away sorrow's residue from beneath Erin's eyes. She did not find the energy to stop him.
"We only came for food." Were the only words she managed to utter as Andy's hand came to rest at his side again.
The four other rebels Erin had seen earlier came to stand behind Andy, he introduced them in his husky voice, gesturing to each of them individually.
"This is CC, Jake, Jinxx and Ashley. We're leading a larger rebellion and were moving to another campsite when we passed the commotion."
Erin nodded subtly, her eyes focused on the rest rebel to be introduced: Ashley. Or rather, she watched the young woman who lay limp in his tattooed arms; her long wavy hair cascading from a head holding closed eyes.
"Is she alive?" Erin asked hoarsely.
"Yeah, just passed out." Ashley's voice rang smooth and self-assured.
Erin snapped her eyes back up and took a shaky breath in.
"I'm Erin. There were ten of us here." She addressed all five of them before sending a fleeting glance to Tyler's motionless body.
"You can come back with us, other than the lifeless and Ash's girl, we have everyone out now and can carry on." Andy spoke in a sombre tone, layered with regret.
Erin pursed her lips and nodded once more before almost inaudibly saying, "Let's salvage what we can."
She traipsed with leaden steps away through the midst of destruction.

Notes