Everything was hurting. Her arms felt like jello while her head was throbbing in pain. She tried opening her eyes, but they were too heavy so all she “saw” was the darkness that surrounded her.

Again, she tried opening her eyes. This time, she saw something.

It was blurry, but something orange danced from left to right. Her eyes became strained for not blinking for some time, so she closed her eyes and opened them again just to see that the orange flames were burning.

Abruptly, the smell of smoke assaulted her nostrils to the point Sunset began to cough. Looking around the small bit she could muster with her head and eyes, she realized that she was upside-down.

Why was she …

“Sheriff?!” Came a voice from somewhere. Getting stronger and feeling her tiredness disappear, Sunset saw a headset floating there with the help of the cable connected to it.

Sunset then felt a surge of memories immerse into her, causing her to panic and try to reach for the headset so she could call for backup. Stretching as far as she could, she accidentally made the headset swing away from her but they then moved back and she was about to take them when a hand grabbed her arm tightly so it almost hurt and another hand grabbed the headset.

Sunset looked up to see the face of … Spike Seed. He looked at her through his sunglasses with no sign of contempt or hate. He regarded her with a look of understanding.

He glanced at the headset. The voice of the woman on the other end sounded hysterical and was sobbing begging for the sheriff to answer and let her know he was alive. Sunset bit back an insult and observed him carefully.

“Dispatch were clear here,” Sunset almost dropped her jaw. He mimicked the sheriff’s voice. It sounded exactly like the sheriff! She was about to demand that he put his hands up when he spoke to the dispatch again, this time, with his own voice.

“Dispatch we will begin the reaping,” Spike said like it was a normal daily occurrence.

Sunset didn’t believe that he’d receive a response at first. She wished he hadn’t.

“Yes, Father.” The woman was different. The woman sounded brainwashed.

Sunset realised what had happened. The dispatch was either a follower of Spike or she was also an expert mimic.

He turned to face her. He was standing on the ground while she was upside-down because of the crash. For the first time, she saw a twinge of anger rise out of him. He tilted his head to the side as if to study her.
“I told you God wouldn’t let you take me.” He didn’t sound arrogant. He spoke to her as if he was stating a fact that people learned from school. He pulled his head closer to her, so much so that Sunset could smell his breath. “No one is coming to save you.”

Just then, there was a sound coming from an engine outside. Spike turned and saw that it was his followers. He turned back to look at Sunset before he stepped out of the helicopter as if nothing abnormal or dangerous had happened.

Looking at where Spike had left, she weakly saw the outlines of three people. Cultists. They looked at their “Father” in relief while the cult leader reassured them he was okay by hugging them so that their foreheads were touching.

“My children,” He spoke softly as he climbed to the top of the truck his followers had come with. “We prepared for this moment; we were expecting it to happen any day of the month, week, year!”

Sunset momentarily felt fear nag in her stomach as Spike Seed spoke.

“But I knew what would happen,” She found her courage by looking at Spike. He was looking right at her. Not with hate. He looked at her as if he understood. Understood that she was there for something far greater than a mere promotion that everyone chases after. “I knew it would happen. But there was one thing I knew; we knew that they didn’t. God wouldn’t let them take me.”

Just then, Sunset both felt and heard how the others started to stir from their sleep. She snapped her attention back at them, feeling the adrenaline pump into her body with such force, she didn’t even feel the blood that was running down to her head.

“Now …” Spike said with a low quiet voice. Almost a whisper.

“BEGIN THE REAPING!!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, waking the others with no doubt.

In a blur, Sunset saw how one of the cultists turned on fire while one of them was grabbing … Twilight!

She threw herself as far forward as she could, grabbing onto Twilight’s boot but it was no use, the cultists were stronger than she anticipated. However, Twilight wasn’t the only one kidnapped by the cultists; the sheriff had been taken around the same time without her noticing.

The cultists stepped back with their victims and placed the two of them inside a van that had turned up out of nowhere. They were leaving the Agent and Sunset behind. That wasn’t a good sign.

The fire usually would calm her down. At least before she was …

Grabbing the seatbelt, she violently tried to take it off with little success and the fire was spreading so fast she couldn’t keep up with it anymore.

However, with a gamble of miracle, the seatbelt clicked and she was flung to the roof of the helicopter that was still upside-down

Glancing urgently towards where the Agent was once seated, she found him gone. Deciding that it would be best to stay alive, she rushed out to the other side where there was an opening that led to a forest

Like everything in life though, her luck came to an abrupt stop as she heard the cultists shout things that resembled; “She’s getting away!” and “Call for backup!”

The only thing she was lucky about in this situation was her endurance in running and the night that was caressing the world in her darkness, protecting her for a small amount of time from the cultists.

Running through the woods, Sunset kept hearing shouting from behind her and the occasional bullet that was fired either in her direction or somewhere else which frightened her of the possibility of dying. She was by no means scared of death, but what made her afraid was the fact that Twilight would be all alone in this fucked up place.

Sunset dodged a bullet that came from somewhere behind her and continued making her way over to a house, still running madly. The house was nothing impressive, it had four walls and a balcony of sorts made from wood and about two cultists who, at the moment, we're talking about something.

Sunset stopped dead in her track and looked around the area, seeing all the trees, bushes, grass, and leaves. It made her appreciate nature. The beautiful nature that nourishes the earth she has been walking on for the last few decades since she was born …

She had never bothered to appreciate nature before, not even overseas, but now, it was different. She appreciates it.

Suddenly, there was a sound of a bullet hitting the tree, not far from her position. In a haste, she crouched down by some nearby bushes while peeking through the leaves to see where the cultists were.

“I saw her run through here!” One of them shouted.

Sunset continued to peek through the bushes but most of the leaves blocked her vision.

“I need to get to the house,” Sunset thought.

When the cultists were out of view, the fire-haired girl made her move to the house in her crouched state to not make the other two cultists—who were still there—notice her.

Luckily, they didn’t.
Sunset looked at the back of the house for any doors but she found none, she did, however, find a window that was open for her to use.

Not wasting a second, she moved as quickly and quietly as she could to the window and glanced around to ensure no one was inside before she jumped in.

Inside the house, Sunset glanced from left to right, seeing different foods in cans as if the family or person here prepared for the final day. Standing up completely, she looked at the different items that lay around.

She saw some money, a magazine of sorts, and ammunition on the table. She grabbed it all and suddenly, she heard a sound coming from inside the house with one of the doors that must have been open.

Grabbing her pistol tightly, she made her way over to the room where she’d heard the noise. The house creaked from under her boots. She clenched her jaw in anticipation, her hands holding the weapon until her fingers turned white. Her eyes were bloodshot from all the running she did earlier, giving her a crazy look.

Looking through the door, she saw that there was a cultist that was doing something. He looked to have been rummaging through the different boxes. Just like the others, he had a wild beard with filthy clothes and skin.

Slowly, she made her way over to him, placing the gun in her holster.

She stopped breathing when she was right behind him. Like a wolf hunting, it’d prey, she pounced on him, stabbing him in the heart as he tried to call for help. She pulled the knife out from his heart and stabbed him multiple times before he fell silent and his body went numb.

Dropping him to the floor, Sunset grabbed a communication device so she could contact the Agent. Placing the device in her ear, she twisted and turned the device as much as possible until she heard his voice.

“Sunset?! Sunset?!” He asked frantically as he ran through the forest. That was at least what it sounded like.

“I’m here, where are you?” She asked calmly while looking back every few seconds to where the wood balcony was where she knew the two cultists were.

“I’m making my way to a house near a road, the lights are on I think,” Sunset wanted to pinch her nose in frustration. How would she know where that was?

“Could you elaborate?” She irritatedly asked.

“There … there’s a hill with a house close by, I see two cultists—”

“Nevermind, I know where I need to go.” Sunset interrupted with a huff and ignored the rest of the man’s ramblings in her ear.

Turning towards the two cultists, she crouched and made her way to the door and mentally prepared herself for the bullets to fly. Grabbing her gun, she slowly stood up and aimed it at one of them.

The resounding bullet firing alerted the other cultist as he watched his comrades’ brain get splattered on the ground. He looked towards where Sunset stood and pulled up his weapon. Before he could even aim, however, he was gunned down by Sunset.

The firing of her weapon no doubt caught the attention of the other cultists. She would have to run towards the house as quick as possible.

Holding the gun close to her, she walked out of the house and glanced around her surroundings. The trees felt awfully close to her, making her stomach churn to the point where she felt like vomiting.

Turning away from the haunting trees, she looked forward and saw the house below the hill with its lights turned off. Either there was a cultist that got to the agent or the agent turned off the lights to not be spotted by any cultists passing by.

She started to run towards the house, not caring if the cultists spotted her. She had one goal; leave Hope County and return with an army.

Coming down the hill, she was more than happy that she had built such endurance over the years. But it did feel like an eternity had passed, wondering if she would be shot at any second or if the cultists were mocking her in some way.

But when she reached the house, she felt the tension in her body rise tenfold as she didn’t know who was inside the house. She heard how “The Father” had faked the sheriff’s voice, what is the possibility that they didn’t do it again?

The thought made her hold the weapon tighter.

She looked for a way inside and saw that there was a door that was slightly ajar. Heart beating faster by the second, she made her way inside. Her eyes moved to the left and right without moving her head even an inch.

When she was going to pass by the fridge located in the kitchen, she was attacked.

She tried to fire her weapon but it was smacked out of her hands by the unknown cultist in the house, she brought her fists forward trying to land a punch on him but her hands were caught by the perpetrator. When she looked up, she saw the face of the Agent, she felt his grip loosen as he began to recognise her. Then when he finally let go, he stumbled back.

“Sunset?” He rhetorically asked. “Oh God, sorry I thought-”

“It’s okay, you had the appropriate reaction,” She said, breathing heavily from the struggle the two had seconds ago.

The Agent wanted to argue but shut the notion down when he saw Sunset’s face giving him a pointed look. Instead, he turned around and grabbed two assault rifles from his hiding place. He handed one to Sunset and gave her ammunition.

When Sunset saw the picture of the Seeds’ she felt her anger spike and accidentally let out a wolf-like growl. When the Agent turned and saw the photo hanging on the wall, he hit it with his right fist, making the photo frame break apart and fall to the floor.

“Fucking crazy lunatics!” He said with clear emotion on his face and voice.

Sunset walked over to him and shook him out of his rage. “Hey, they will not get away with this, we get back home we will contact the army and they’ll help us deal with this.”

When let his anger go, he registered what Sunset had said and looked at the fire-haired girl as if she had grown a second head.

“W … we can’t contact the army!” He said walking away from her to glance out one of the three windows.

“And why’s that?” She asked calmly. She’d been lying if she said she wasn’t intrigued by this turn of events.

“How will we look in the eyes of the public?!” He angrily turned to her. “They’ll think we cannot do anything for them, the army is there to protect the people but agents like us are also here to protect them, what can we do if we can’t even bring down a citizen of this country to face justice?!”

Sunset briefly wondered if she should kill him right then and there. She understood what he was trying to get across but how else should they do it then?

“And how will the army look if they cannot protect the citizens of their country when they do not try to take down a cult that is a terrorist-level threat that has an entire county?”

The Agent flinched at the cold tone. Nonetheless, he wouldn’t fall for it.

“No, Sunset, we will not contact the army, we will have to do this ourselves.”

She was about to argue when both of them heard tires stop right outside the house with voices following suit. Without thinking, both of them ran for cover before the enemy could begin the gunfight that was about to take place.

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait, hope you enjoy.