HiveComb

      This story was written for @F3nix's Finish the Fiction Story Contest - Week # 16. Each week, he posts a beginning script of a story, then asks that each participant finishes it off and posts it on their blog or in the comments. He rewards three of his favorite endings with shares in the Steem Basic Income program and splits the SBD payout with the honorable mentions. Grazie, F3nix, for this challenge!

      Thank you to @Dirge for this week's script. He's a writer who's in the process of editing his first sci-fi novel and the creator of the podcast series The Forlorn Realm. Prepare to stay a while once you give his blog or personal website a visit.

      Now, on to the story...

LER

>If Elissa was going to kill Cornel, this would be it. Isolated in a wood cabin in southeast Limousin, the cult leader went underground with only a handful of followers. The governments of Europe and the world ripped their countries apart in their search for Cornelius Smith, Grand Spiritual Leader of the cult, LER, or, Last Epiphanic Religion. Not only for orchestrating assassinations of public figures, torture or money laundering. Above all, they wanted answers.

Two days before, hundreds of LER followers gathered in major cities across the globe. At precisely seven o’clock at night, they doused themselves in gasoline and committed mass, self-immolation. The gruesome acts were broadcast live on television and social media. It was an act of existential defiance the world had never seen before.

Caught wholly unprepared, police attempted to intervene. They couldn't save a single one. For the moment the flames caught, the followers, to the last woman, disappeared. They left behind only the smell of gasoline.

Supernatural events are best left to imagination or nightmares. Now, the whole world had borne witness to something beyond its understanding.

Elissa got the word from her CIA handler.

Neutralize the target.

Could she? Even if she got past the others, there were questions. Questions that never should be spoken out loud, gnawing at her insides like a tumor with teeth.

They sat around the table, each of them armed with a forty-five at the hip per LER security-protocol. Cornelius relaxed, almost asleep, his long Jesus hair curling around his shoulders. O.M.’s arms folded like a meditating gorilla. Denis Labbat, a man Elissa’d never met, stared at the old wooden clock on the wall. He hadn’t moved, not even blinked since she’d entered the room. If his chest hadn’t heaved as evidence of his breathing, she’d assume the skeletal dark-haired Frenchman was dead. Margeux Blanc, LER’s Paris head, sat restless. Unable to stop her leg from shaking, the woman’s fingers rattled on the wooden table. She glanced at the clock, at Denis and Cornelius, then the windows and back to the clock. Elissa followed her gaze. Outside, the noon sun burned down the gorgeous French woodlands of Limousin.

Cornelius leaned forward. “Our five minutes of silence has reached its climax.” He said.

Denis gazed at the clock.

“What thoughts have you conceived in that time?” Cornelius asked. Elissa met his gaze. Cornel’s eyes were a radiant blue. “Margeux?” he said, not breaking his stare at Elissa. “What do you fear?”

“N-nothing,” Margeux replied. “I’m ready, Grand Spiritual Leader.”

“And you, O.M.?”

The bodyguard grunted.

“Denis?” he asked.

“Almost time.”

“And, you, Elissa? Are you prepared for the meeting?”

The clock struck noon.

The room went dark.

Elissa turned to the windows. Black. Sunless. A void.

Dennis, his bones rattling from his first movement, lit a candle.

Someone knocked at the door like a funeral drum.

“Elissa,” Cornelius said. “Why don’t you greet our visitor?”

I must be drugged, she thought. His eyes are red.

      Elissa's hand hesitated over the final bolt of the door, her mind telling her to leave the visitor on the other side. To take her chance now, before the situation became more untenable. Adding a possible fifth zealot to the room, an unknown, wasn't tactically smart.

      "Problem, Elissa?" Cornel's smooth voice questioned.

      Neither was having her back to a room of enemies. "No. My hand just slipped." She slid the bolt open and stepped back, pulling the door open. "Would you please come in?"

      From the dark of the porch stepped a blonde man, tan khaki's and green polo speckled with black flecks of grime. Pausing for a moment to look at Elissa, he then nodded and crossed the room, putting the steel case he was carrying down in front of Cornel. Keying in a code on the case's top, which slid open with a slight hiss, the man smiled. "It's done, Grand Leader."

      Margeux leaned forward, peering into the case as Cornelius stood and embraced the blonde man in a deep hug. "Well done, Gabin!" He turned to his other followers, eyes alight with fervor, "After today, we'll be blessed with more brothers and sisters. No longer will we toil in the darkness." His hand reached out, stroking the top of Margeux's head as she stared, transfixed on the contents of the case. "Beautiful, is it not?"

      The woman nodded, leg finally still, her eyes crimson pools shining in wonder, "Oh, yes!" Seeing this, Ellise stiffened, her back ramrod straight against the door. Her hand reached down, hoping the delight of the others would distract them from her drawing the weapon at her hip.

      "Today, we give new life to this world." Cornelius' voice preached. Eagerly, the other heads in the room nodded, enraptured by their leader, devoutly hanging on his every word. "Right now, our salvation, these waters of life," he gestured to the case, "are flowing to every home. As I have drunk and was reborn, five years ago in that cave, as you did when you put your faith in me, so shall millions more." His hand withdrew a vial from the case, its cyan contents swirling inside, as if alive. "And once they ascend from the energy of fire, then.."

      The echo of the gunshot rang through the room, halting Cornel's speech. His body fell forward, head slamming off the table before hitting the floor.

      Ellise's hand was swinging her gun to Denis when O.M. blindsided her with the butt of his weapon to her temple. White pain flashed, her hands opened involuntarily and she collapsed back, sliding down in a daze. Her stomach roiled wanting to spill out like the blood flowing from her head. Footsteps approached and she squirmed, attempting to escape. The heavy hands of O.M. held her in place. Her gaze raised to meet that of Cornelius, his face streaked with grime but otherwise completely unmarred.

      He ran his finger down along her jaw, tilting her head and nodding to O.M. Ellise's mouth was forced open and thick liquid oozed inside. She tried closing her throat, tried to spit, hoping to keep the slick stuff from working its way down inside. It didn't work. The liquid flowed slowly down, seeping its way inside.

      The grime on Cornel's face was moving, forming a pool on his cheek and sliding along his skin, journeying down his arm and up to his hand, making the appendage as black as the windows. Her eyes widened as she realized. Her mind skittered, the creatures in the liquid showing a truth that she'd not seen before.

      One. They were all one. They'd been one on the rock. Riding along as they hurtled through the emptiness. They'd been one in the pool. Dormant for millennia deep underground. They'd become one with the thief. Hiding in the cave, frightened until he drank. Until the heat from his body woke them. She could see it all. Remember it all. The fires weren't an end. They were an awakening. The final burst of energy needed to free them all from their trapped forms. As one, they'd travel again. Through the air, no more dormancy, alive.

      The weight of her brother's hands released her. She stood, her red eyes taking in all that they'd not been able to perceive before. The subtle tangs of gases in the air. The songs made from the millions throbbing around her. The beauty of her brethren, squirming black against the window. Soon, they'd fill the sky, the ground, the world.

      Soon, the world would be one.

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