Devilish: Xinmao

By Sinan Ozan Özel

Following a regretful bunch through a violent universe, Devilish: Xinmao is the first step into a new series. Already living in a traumatic world, four lost souls will witness a horror whispering madness through their memories.

 

"With each blow, her pupils shrunk and knuckles bled a little more. She didn't care who or what all the blood on her hands, face, clothes belonged to. The more she looked at the collapsed skull, the angrier she got, the tears flowing from her cheeks. She kept hitting it pointlessly with both of her hands. Until that moment when the sadness suppressed the fury that had enveloped her body. No matter how much savagery she contributed just now, she could never go back to this morning. She couldn't save someone she loved so dearly. This regret, which she couldn't help, would grow into a tumour in her heart until the young woman took her last breath."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sinan Ozan Özel
• Release date: Jan 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005999773

Sinan Ozan Özel

I'm a Linguist. I don't actively develop software. I used to work as a freelancer for video game developers, now I'm mostly interested in Linguistics & Cognitive Science.

Book preview

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book was Machine Translated with quite a bit of supervision, however with less quality assurance. Why this book was machine-translated is simple: I’m a Linguist and I specialise in parsable morphosyntax. You may take this as my way of teaching syntax to mimic semantics - which is impossible at this point. But, we do want to have nice things and nice things are better when shared with a wider audience.

However, if you feel like this isn’t your cup of tea, I sincerely understand. It’s your time, I have nothing but respect for it. Although, should you go on with this book and would like to point out the mistakes here and there. I actually have a dedicated GitHub page (*). Feel free to submit your issues there.

The Turkish version of this book is also free. I don’t really sell books, and I have two of them as of now. I published Clementi in 2016, an unnecessarily long, apocalyptic story. It had some form and style problems, and I didn’t want to make the same mistakes with the Devilish series. Hence, Devilish: Xinmao - the first act, if you will, of a longer story.

If you stick around in the long run, I promise to wrap this entire thing up and have these characters meet their eventual ends.

Thank you for even considering this book.

(*) www.github.com/snoazll/Seytani

MOONSHATTER

Poor thing was cowering at the edge of the column, watching the blood trickle down to the tip of her shoe. Amid the chaos across the foyer, she didn't want to look at the face of the corpse that piled up before her; It was as if her body could not handle the truth. Her pupils enlarged in their wide-open sockets, struggling to rationalise the horror they witnessed. The very blood that warmed the ground belonged to a familiar face - someone she loved. The scent of death in her eyes, her soul had long since left her body.

The teeth that were shattering her neck would not waste the fumes of its prey, but it wouldn’t be able to enjoy its meal comfortably in this rather annoying environment. There was a good deal of prey in this slaughterhouse, and it would be certainly wasteful if it were to make do with only one. With its huge eye sockets, sharp fangs, and human-like features, it looked like it had stepped out of a nightmare. A piece of meat was swaying back and forth between its crimson lips, as it looked up at the girl cowering at the foot of the columns. After spitting out the meat and wiping its lips, it was now slowly getting up and walking to savour the frightened face.

The thing that saved the poor woman from the shock she found herself in, was the creature, whose steps accelerated, opening its eyes and mouth as much as possible, and giving a scream that could only express horror in human tongues. Time slowed down, the young woman's heartbeat exceeded her expected limits. She was thinking of grabbing an object from her toolbox and protecting herself, but she knew it was too late. However, fortune would smile at her once more.

The blow of an axe that slashed through the creature's neck was the one thing that saved her from a certain death, and it was a familiar figure clutching the handle. Not even looking at the body of the beast she had slain, the woman with the axe was watching what was going on in the foyer - in fact, she was trying to gather herself, if only for a moment. Meanwhile, she caught the pensive gaze of the poor girl by the column.

Get up!

Still in shock, the young woman did not answer. The woman with the axe took another step towards the girl, but was prepared for another attack at any moment, and shouted again to save the poor girl.

I said, get up!

When the young woman regained consciousness, she first recognized her boss, shouting at her. Then the dead creature lying in front of her, by her friend. The one she had come here only fifteen minutes ago, she was just right behind her. She took one last breath, then briefly scanned her surroundings and got to her feet, picking up the huge wrench and a screwdriver from the toolbox. With a wrench in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, she watched the crimson creatures as they were busy tearing the living ones apart around the lobby.

Stay near me. her boss ordered.

The few who had been able to defend themselves with whatever sharp or heavy objects they could get their hands on were already attacking the creatures that were busy eating the less fortunate ones.

One of them was a man, just dropped the chair leg he was defending himself with, and had been pinned to a column, so to speak, by two creatures. Though he was still in a relatively better side of fortune as he was holding the creatures by their throats. The man's arms and face were strewn with fingernails and teeth marks, bleeding, however insignificant they may be. It was clear that he had no intention of giving up. He grabbed the throat of one of these creatures and kicked it, his back against the structure, and started to punch the other one in the face. His hatred filled his eyes with a furious red scent, as if he was lost in bloodlust. Although, this haste was to ensure that he would be ready for the other, recovering, creature.

The creature, which had been struck repeatedly on the skull, began to stagger when the man, tired of punching, kicked it, causing it to slide on the floor. Not knowing how to act towards the other creature, his eyes were fixed on the chair leg on the ground, but before he could make the move to regain the weapon, the creature that was running at him had already received an axe blow to its back. Seeing the woman with the axe, the man quickly picked up the chair leg from the floor and turned his attention to the creature on his other side, only to realise that she wasn’t alone.

Fresh out of shock, the young woman was flattening the creature’s skull with her wrench, silently making sure that her prey wasn’t going back up. After she was done, she knew that she needed no recollection, and as she shattered the creature’s face, she turned her attention to the two people behind her.

Boss. the man called, a little more relaxed.

Omar. said the woman with the axe, shaking her head, and looked out of the corner of her eye at the other woman, who was gasping;

What is your name? the boss asked as she and Omar set up a solid shoulder wall.

Things on the other side of the foyer didn't seem to be getting any better, and from the far side of the building, more creatures were creeping in through the wide-open door. The young woman could see nothing but more blood and chaos outside the windows, yet she was aware that there were piled up carcasses of the creatures as well as the number of people falling dead. How had her mind got to this point? Why did the creature she just killed seem like a simple obstacle now?

Ayla. replied the young woman;

Maintenance.

The creatures that entered the entrance, albeit sporadically, through the main door were scattering in the directions where their fellows were absent, to scan the huge ground floor. This confirmed that there was an intraspecies competition, a rivalry, but the people who had just survived the first wave were now being shred to bits.

Well, Omar and Ayla, it's clear we're not going out that door. Which of you came down from the upper floors? asked the woman with the axe.

I'm coming from the parking lot. replied Omar;

This shit started after I got off the elevator.

I was just walking in with my coffee in my hand, I don't know what's going on upstairs, but those things are obviously going up

Ayla’s reply proved that she hadn’t gone completely crazy and was trying to gather herself. There was only one way to escape, and although all three were aware of it, they could not take their eyes off the horror they faced, watching two different species struggling for their lives. Because it was starting to become clear that the creatures were killing not for food, but to hunt. They weren’t devouring each piece that they had bitten, but happily running after others being hunted, celebrating the hunt, feasting.

Meanwhile, the woman with the axe pointed to the stairs just behind them. Realising what his boss was trying to tell, Omar looked into Ayla’s eyes, who was a bit further than them, and asked her to come with them with a small hand gesture. Still processing this new world, Ayla agreed to follow the woman and her aide, running to the stars, watching their backs.

They agreed, for some reason, that they wouldn’t attempt to use the elevator. The woman with the axe, standing right across the door to the emergency stairs, glanced at Omar, who was preparing to open the door - then at Ayla, who was leaning against the concrete block between the elevators and the stairway door, on the other side of the door. She seemed to be holding the wrench without shaking. It was hard to tell whether the young woman was nervous or not. Why hadn't she seen this girl before? Maintenance, was it? So she was working with Daniel's group.

What if the door opened outwards? Would it make any difference? So why was it opening inwards? When met with Omar's eyes, they were able to communicate without saying a word, by an unnamed familiarity. Although the man didn’t have any weapons in his hand, he was at the entrance to the foyer, fists clenched, minding the threat behind them. A slight node by the woman with the axe was all that it took to do what needed to be done.

Pulling the door with all his might, Omar kept his fist back as far as he needed to land a powerful blow, supporting the woman who was more than ready to halve whatever came through that door. However, the stairs were empty. No blood, no creatures, nothing. Not even a scream could be heard. Even if it was necessary to read this situation well, these three didn’t have the time to do so. Waiting for them to go in and after looking back at the nightmare for a bit, Omar went through the door, to the stairwell and closed the door behind them, the screams with it. Stairs descended to the gardens between the buildings, just before ending up in the car park, and ascending through the upper floors to the rooftop.

Rooftop. the woman with the axe ordered, looking up and down the stairwell.

Boss?

I don’t understand?

She did wait for a reaction from them, perhaps an outburst, but she also felt that she had to explain herself;

We don’t know what’s out there, how things are. They just popped up all over the place. So going out blind would be suicide.

Their woeful thoughts could be read from their faces; worrisome, exhausted. The woman with the axe knew she had to convince them not to do anything hastily and make sure they all had a chance of surviving this. She was still the same person, albeit with different priorities than before - so she had more to say;

We need to go up on the roof and see how badly the city is hurt, and if you're going to call someone,  that’s the best place to do so.

She was right. No, it was her, not Omar or Ayla, she was the one that knew she was right. She could read it on Omar's face, too, but she was still getting used to Ayla. The young woman's nod had already given certainty what the trio would do. Satisfied with the situation, the woman slowly walked to the head of the stairs and looked up, as if there was a sound she wanted to hear or a scene she wanted to witness. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to part with her axe, but because she felt responsible that she stepped forward and began to climb the steps one by one, as quietly as she could.

They couldn't hear anything but the echoes of their own footsteps, and the only thing they trusted besides their own were the motion sensor lights by the floor. What idiot would put those by emergency exits? Although the woman knew the answer to this question very well, she strangely swirled that it assured both advantages and disadvantages. Others, too, could see the light on any floor they were passing through. However, even though they had passed two floors, there was no open door, not a small sound coming from outside, or an angry creature pursuing them.

Was everyone else dead? Of course, they must have been hiding. Maybe everyone else had the same idea and reached the roof. Every time she was passing by an exit to the floor, she thought she was holding her axe looser than she should, so she would tighten her grip even more. She then thought that if she held on, so tightly, she wouldn't be able to manoeuvre well enough, especially when on these stairs. Worse yet, she had to wipe her sweaty hands on her clothes quite often now. She wished she had her handkerchief on her or those powders that mountain climbers use. Was that really powder? She was certain of one thing: Whichever of these doors would open, whatever came out of one of these doors, it would split in half by an axe blow to its shoulder.

Ayla did not feel as competent and efficient as the woman with the axe, confidently climbing the stairs - or like the man, confused but still cautiously watching their back, whom she thought was an office boy of some sorts. Still, her mind was occupied by the fact that she just fell on all fours. What if this woman wasn't there? Then... It would’ve been over, wouldn’t it? They were just having their drinks and chatting five minutes ago. Not with them, of course, with her. Her neck was... Has she ever seen these two up close before? Were they even trustworthy people? Especially that woman. What was her name, again?

Boss.

I know, Omar. I know. Let's see what the hell is going on, then we’ll be on our way.

The woman looked at Omar in a friendly manner, keeping the slightly uneasy expression mixed with blood on her face.

I'm sure they're alright.

First, a scream broke out, then another. One corresponded to meaning in their minds relative to the other. Moreover, the light was coming from twice above it. All three paused as the stomping continued, but the woman with the axe kept climbing, without further delay, keeping it as silent as possible. Her caution didn’t let her raise her axe above her head, as she was slowly ascending the last stairs to the other end of the scream.

A corpse piled against the wall, its foot was holding the floor exit open, yet no creature in sight - nor could it be heard. Seeing no other lights were activated, the woman with the axe took a closer look at the neck of the corpse. It was bitten off, clawing on the shoulder and the chest. The creature had killed this poor thing on the spot