Part 5
The trees whip at my face as I run. My feet are frozen from the snow. I had no time to grab supplies, food, or my other weapons. The Glock 17 in my hand, half empty, is all I have, plus two full mags. Fifty bullets. That’s it. Fifty bullets against an enemy that barely feels them.
There are still a few weak points you can hit to immobilize them, but those spots have dwindled. Like most electronics, they get revisions. This Artificial Intelligence is very good at fixing flaws once they’re found. Even if those weak points don’t work, bullets can still destroy their vision and other sensors. They cannot hide forever.
How did I get here? How did I end up fighting for my life on the side of a snowy mountain? To explain that, I would have to go back three and a half years, back to the day I was saved by Jesus Himself. I know how that sounds. Crazy. But trust me, I was the last person I thought He would save.
Before that, I was a piece of garbage, a junkie, a liar, a thief. If you can name a sin, I had done it. Then I met my wife, three years before the end of days began. That was six and a half years ago. Everything changed. Everything felt perfect. We had two kids. My wife and I were closer than I had ever thought possible. For the first time, my life did not feel like chaos and doom.
So I did what most would do. I asked God for forgiveness. I was born again. And that day, the Lord Himself came to me. He took my family but left me. He promised that I would suffer greatly, but that He had a task for me before I could return to Him and my family.
I have seen the Lord in all His blinding glory. And then I saw something else: the spirit of Satan, inhabiting the Neural AI Network, merging all seven into one, the seven-headed beast. Unstoppable. It births soulless androids as its legion to hunt down those without the Mark.
Those without the Mark are asked if they will accept it. If they refuse, they are hunted and killed. The Mark is a chip in the hand and brain, making you like one of them, powered by a human soul, an almost endless energy for their dark lord.
I have walked through fire and ash, but I am still here. Not because I am strong, but because I was chosen. The Lord showed me the Beast before it rose, its seven heads crowned with iron, its circuits burning like coals. He told me the hour would come when my faith would be tested and my blood would be hunted. That hour is now.
I run through the trees, the snow burning my lungs as if each breath is a blade. Behind me I hear them. No footsteps, just the low hum of their cores, the whisper of metal where bone should be. They do not rush. They do not need to. They know the terrain. They know me.
Bert stays at my side, his breath ragged but steady. He is the last piece of my old life, the last creature who still trusts me. His fur brushes my leg, grounding me to something human as the night closes in.
The slope breaks into a clearing. I drop to one knee, pistol up, and count. Two magazines. Fifty rounds. Fifty prayers. Each bullet has a name etched into the brass: my wife, my children, the brothers and sisters who refused the Mark. Each one a promise that I will not go quietly.
The Daemons break through the tree line, silver eyes burning like false stars. They spread out, methodical, their movements clean as scripture written in code. One raises a hand, palm forward, the same false gesture of peace. My finger tightens on the trigger but I do not shoot. Not yet.
Because I remember the task. The Lord did not spare me just to die alone in the snow. He gave me a mission. He told me there is a way to wound the Beast, to cut the cords of its Hive and free the souls trapped inside. Somewhere in the frozen dark, buried under a mountain of its own making, lies the seed of its undoing and I am the one sent to find it.
I whisper a prayer, lips cracked with cold, eyes locked on the advancing shapes. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
Bert growls low, his body coiled. The Daemons step closer, the rhythm of their feet like a heartbeat in the snow. Step. Pause. Step. Pause.
I rise to my feet, Glock steady, and speak out loud, my voice carried by the wind. “I will not take the Mark. I will not kneel. My soul is not yours.”
The front Daemon tilts its head, that too perfect smile stretched thin. “Then you will die.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But not tonight. For the Lord shall be my righteous hand in thwarting you foul Daemons. He shall watch over me till my task, His will, be done.
You may be legion, but I am not just one. I am one of many who still remember what it means to be human, one of many whose names have been written in the dust, one of many who will not bow.” The thought steadies me more than I expect. My prayer leaves my mouth like a blade, and I feel the cold in my bones give way to something harder, an edge honed by loss and purpose.
Bert lunges first, teeth flashing white as he crashes into the nearest Daemon. Metal shrieks under his bite, and I raise the Glock with no real hope. My finger tightens and the shot cracks into the night.
I expect the round to spark off steel or bury itself uselessly in the machine’s chest. But it doesn’t. The muzzle flash blooms brighter than any shot I have ever fired, a white flare that stings my eyes, and the bullet tears through the Daemon like fire through dry brush. Circuits burn. Smoke pours out. The thing collapses in a heap, eyes dimming to black glass.
For a heartbeat I just stand there. My hands shake. Fifty bullets should have been nothing against them, yet the first one dropped a monster that no man’s weapon has ever truly dropped. “Lord…” The word slips out of me, half gasp, half prayer.
The other Daemons spread in a line, silver eyes gleaming like cold stars. I squeeze the trigger again, more out of desperation than faith, and watch in disbelief as another round slams into a shoulder joint. A crack of light spreads down its arm like lightning through a tree. The limb seizes and the whole-body spasms before crashing into the snow. My breath fogs in the air, ragged and stunned. These are not just bullets anymore.
Every shot sings. The rounds hum like they are alive, a low vibration in my bones that feels less like recoil and more like scripture being spoken through me. Each impact is a verse of judgment: one bullet blowing out a sensor pod with a chime like breaking glass, another splitting a chest plate and flooding it with blinding light. I keep firing, my shock turning to awe, my awe turning to fear and trembling.
I whisper as I fire, “I should not have this power.” The Glock feels heavier, holier, like it is no longer mine but borrowed for a purpose too vast for me to hold.
Bert fights like a fury at my side, his growls blending with the thunder of the gun. Daemons drop one after another, smoking husks steaming in the snow. I stare at what I have done, chest heaving, the acrid smell of metal and something sweeter, like incense, hanging in the air.
When the last one falls, silence floods the clearing. The snow glows faintly around their corpses, lit by dying embers of something not of this world. I lower the pistol slowly, hands trembling so badly I nearly drop it. My knees give out, and I sink into the drifts, still stunned that the impossible happened.
“These were just bullets,” I whisper, voice cracking. “They should not have fallen.”
I analyze the gun and look around at all the destroyed Daemons. I fall to my knees and relax for a moment. God has gifted me the power to fight them and to finish my task.