Free Extinction by Daleen Viljoen

blood
seeped through his shirt. The convoy was under attack. It could be the
Scavengers or the rebels and I didn’t intend to stay and find out. Emily’s
screams tore through the inside of the truck. I took her by the shoulders and
forced her to look at me.
    “Run!” 
    This was our chance to escape. I threw open the door
and landed on all fours on the sand. I could see Emily doing the same. Ignoring
the pain slamming through my joints, I scrambled to my feet and staggered
across the sand, heading towards the nearest dune. My head pounded with every
breath I took and I choked on the thick smoke coming from the burning vehicle. 
    The metal bands on my wrists started to vibrate and
hum, before penetrating pain shot through my body, paralyzing me. One of the soldiers
had the device that activated the Vandelrizi torture device. I screamed in
frustration and agony as my body hit the sand. My arms and legs convulsed while
my back arched and I felt the numbness setting in. A few more moments of this
and I wouldn’t be able to use my arms and legs for hours.
    “Think you can run away from me, princess?” Benson
towered over me with the hated black device snugly in his hand. His lips
twitched sadistically as he watched my body spasm and contorts in pain. 
    He took immense pleasure in my suffering. He let go
off the button and the pain lessened leaving me too weak to move. He grabbed the
back of my shirt in his fist and dragged me back to the truck. All around us I
could hear shouts and gunfire, but Benson looked totally unaware that the
soldiers were busy fighting a full out war against their attackers. His only
focus was me. He dropped me at the truck, removing his gun from the holster on
his hip and pressed the tip of the barrel against my skull.
    “I think I’ll finish it now. Why wait for a trial? Let’s
have some fun now.” He smirked viciously at me and his finger curled around the
trigger.
    “Why do you hate me so much?” I managed to croak.  He
glared at me, his grey eyes filled with hatred.
    “You disgust me. You are like vermin infesting this planet
with your humanity. We’re superior to you.” I gulped. He actually thought in
his warped mind he was one of the Vandelrizi. He didn’t see himself as human
anymore. He was even more deluded than I realized. Did they brainwash him?
    “You’re human! Don’t you get it? The Vandelrizi are
going to kill us all – you included.”  The look he gave me told me I was
wasting my breath on arguing with him. His eyes shone with insanity. I braced
myself as I waited for him to pull the trigger. At least it would be quick and
I would be spared from a slow and painful death at the hands of the Vandelrizi.
    One moment Benson was next to me and the next he was
ripped from his feet in a flash of lightning. A second later his body smacked
next to me in the sand with his open eyes staring lifelessly at me. His head
was bent at an unnatural angle, his neck was broken.
    The scream that erupted from my mouth sounded more
like a broken howl. Chai, dressed all in black, stood a few feet away from us. His
legs were spread wide in the sand with his fists balled at his side. His face
was like granite, cold and unyielding as he glared at Benson’s lifeless body. I’ve
never seen so much anger compacted in one body. I didn’t know if I was looking
at an angel or a devil.   
    A soldier jumped him from behind and curled an arm
around his neck, trying to choke him, but Chai reached behind him with one arm
and threw the guard straight over the truck as if he weighed nothing. The
soldier hit the sand with a thump on the other side and groaned. Two more
Palasium soldiers circled Chai and he moved unbelievably fast, sidestepping the
first and plunged a knife in the second guard’s chest. The soldier’s jaw went
slack and blood trickled from his lips before toppling over face first in the
sand. Chai moved in a blur and snapped the first soldier’s neck as if it was
nothing more than