Onsläut
Prologue
by Lady Tora
"I'm the blood washing across the crucified.
Yeah, so few are chosen, I do not die!"
Alice Cooper ~ Hands of Death
Humans existed for hundreds of years amongst each other, wallowing in the filth of their own humanity. Greed arises, hate compels, and the killing mind awakens to herd out the sheep.
Killers, beast of their own sake destroying their own kind with their cruelly shaped hands. Death compels them to do so, a ticking clock in the back of the mind about to chime then next fallen victim. Over and over, the mind ticks on and on, the beast lives on; devouring the lambs, flaxen wool covered in blood of the fallen and tears of the hopeless.
Now the beast is hunted as game with beasts of higher designs. Bred on the smell of blood and hunt down the hunters as their own game. A tedious hell as the trees shake with winds of the beast's feet, cold chills as Death laughs in their faces and the cold steel of claw rips through the belly. No hope for the beast as their own kind takes them down; they don't smell tears or prayer, but the retribution for the sheep. The wolf taking down the wolf, jaws opened wide with blood stained mouth as it howls the song of destruction taking down its victim... sheep in wolf's clothing.
A beast escapes to regain his memory of being one not of killer of killers, but a simple human. Time edges as he looks on but is watched by his own.
~
The air was cold and icy as the winds picked up the distant howling of coyotes and the ever present whispering of nocturnal animals as they feed on the night. A flash of the moon shows for a split second the form of a killer of killers. The trees shook with 01's weight as he jumped from limb from limb, grasping the branch with the claws from his gauntlet. His steel mask hid his breath from the cold and his face from his prey but not hiding the bushy hair that matched his surroundings. The blood scent kept him hot on the prisoner's trail.
Prisoner charged with the rape of three women and the deaths of two his sentence to be on the hunting grounds of the Onsläut. Blood demons, trained in dealing death to those who dealt death on the outside. No hope for the man as he was being hunted.
The shadows in the trees made him jump and shake as he as apologized and begged for his life. Nothing heard him. His breath hung around his head in the cold air as he scrambled through the woods from tree to tree, looking for protection from the hunter.
But hope is not for the hopeless.
The blood scent was strong, overpowered with fear and the stench of hell spawn. The definite reek of evil and perversion that all criminals possessed. A sickening smell of sex and blood making 01 want to kill him quickly so the air would sweeten again. He flexed the metal claws with his fingers incased. An evil grin spread on his face behind the steel mesh mask, catching the wandering moon's glint on his ice blue eyes.
The prisoner looked up to see something looking down at him, crouched comfortably in the yew tree's limb.
"C'mon man. You got to believe me! I'm innocent! I hurt no girls!" He backed up as 01 jumped down from his perch. The whites of 01's eyes glowed as he lifted the gauntlet closer to his face, stretching the claws out for the man to see. His crying fell deafly on the Onsläut's ears, he tried to picture the tortured victims crying for help, scratching at the air trying to be let free only to have the man laughing, knife in hand as he sodomized the innocent creatures and slid the blade down the soft flesh bringing a sacrifice of life flow to his evil soul.
The lambs...
Trying to run, the prisoner tripped on a root slamming his head against a low tree trunk the blood welled up and ebbed into his eyes. Smile on the hunter's face as he approached closer and bound towards the fallen helpless man, extending his claws further as he was at the babbling creatures feet. The blood scent was raging now. The need to see the red river flow from the still beating heart, the pleasure in the destruction, the taste of death. The Onsläut thrusted his claws into the prisoners chest, ripping and cracking the heavy rib cage protecting the tender organs. His intestines spilt onto the ground as he pierced the night air with his voice. Human need to survive began to heighten as he grabbed a stick from the ground. 01's attention was diverted as he stuck his head inside the bleeding cavern, tearing away at the flesh and muscle he didn't see the pointed object hovering about his head.
The wood struck into the left blue eye causing sparks to burn the extruding piece having him howl in anger. He never experienced a prisoner causing him damage, especially with such a cruelly made weapon. Wrenching the stick from his eye, the electric flare up caused the claws to cut his mask off exposing his face and cutting deeply from his scalp. Finally finished with his struggle, 01 ripped out the wooden tool exposing the gaping hole in his eye. The prisoner struggled only to find his organs layered like a blanket around is body. His throat was raw from screaming as the Onsläut snarled and grabbed his neck, twisting it as his anger grew. Eye burning still with slight sparking created the devilish aura even more as he strangled the man, taking pleasure in the last breath as it escaped into the air. The twisting grimace turning red, then blue; eyes rolling back showing only the whites tinged with red of popping veins. 01 placed his free hand on the prisoner's shoulder and pushed down, ripping the head off the mutilated body. Black brew flooded his feet as he breathed in the ripened stench of death. He dropped the head down on the mossy ground and covered his still sparking eye. Taking off the gauntlet, the hunter reached his eye, pulling on it to remove from the socket and disconnect the cord torn from the battle with the intruding stick and reattached it to a secondary wire.
"I need a visual repair." He sat down on the stumped corpse and began to open up the robotic eye's casing and removing the damaged image recorder. The tiny chip was broken in half imputing only black and white. With his half extend claw he flipped it out, causing a wave to flow over him.
Reaching out with his hand he felt something warm embracing him. "You okay? Heero-san?" The girls face was soft with bright violet eyes, blonde hairs sweeping across those haunting eyes. Her voice so familiar, so soft and happy.
As quickly as the vision appeared it was gone. The warmth, the eyes, gone. "Hee... ro?" Placing the eye back, 01 got up off the body looking around like a lost child, holding his hands up looking closely to the gauntlets covering his hands.
The sun began to peak around the trees showing him the world that he was in and the bloody mass at his feet. Looking around he saw the large looming building to his right. An alarm went off as he picked up the broken microchip on the leave littered ground. Grabbing the mask 01 ran off looking for his way out of the Onsläut grounds trying to figure out what he was and what he is now.
~
The room was dark except for a row of computers lighting the operator's faces. "Sir, Prisoner 9976 has been confirmed dead. Sentence complete but no sign of 01."
Walking towards the screen, "Give me a visual contact." Treize leaned in closer, moving his glasses further up his nose.
"Contact broken sir, the port to the nerve connectors is damaged. I can't even track him."
"Then send 02, can't have him loose. Just hope for your job's sake he didn't escape. Bad enough the government breaths down our necks for housing so many prisoners but to loose one of the Onsläuts would have the entire country on red alert." Readjusting his posture, he began to walk out as a detail worker paged in.
"01 confirmed, not on the grounds. I repeat, 01 not in the vicinity. Full red alert!"
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