Fear of God (Trials of Strength Book 1) Read Online Free

stopped. Something itched in the back of my mind, something I
could do to answer one of the many questions I was faced with. I
made my way through the house, but only the downstairs, where the
most expensive things sat. Nothing was missing. I shivered as
confusion sent shooting pains across my skull.
    They weren’t
thieves.
    I hurried back to the
door and out onto the empty streets. All the houses were dark,
their occupants probably asleep, safe and sound in their beds. I
envied them, their unremarkable lives untouched, while mine was
being lit with fire. I could’ve sprinted around the doors screaming
for help, but the thought didn’t enter my mind. That probably saved
my life. I walked as fast as my legs would take me, stopping every
now and again for air. I had one goal, and I had to make
it.
    I turned onto Main
Street, and just when I thought I’d had enough surprises for a
lifetime, my ignorance kicked me in the teeth. The street was
chaos, a deserted hell. Cars lay empty, doors open and windows
smashed. Shops had been wrecked, their contents spilling into the
street and from some, the lights flickered. Rubbish littered the
pavements and roads; glass from windows coated the ground along
with something red and shiny. As if on cue, a black bin bag drifted
across my vision, like tumbleweed in an old western.
    I wanted to
scream, but it couldn’t be real, I refused to believe it. I started
to jog and ignored the agony in my head. My heart rattled painfully
and I almost threw up again. It was joke, a cruel, despicable joke.
The things that happened, they couldn’t happen, they couldn’t happen. Still, I
swallowed the scream that threatened to break free. If horror films
teach you anything, it’s never to scream.
    I turned the last corner
and the squat glass building came into view. Its light was like a
beacon of hope. The police could help, they would have the answers.
I walked up the ramp to the doors, pushed them open, and walked
from one nightmare to another.
    I fell to my
knees.
    The police station was
destroyed. Paper was sprawled everywhere and the glass barriers
separating officers from the general public had been shattered.
Phones hung off their hooks, explaining why I couldn’t get
through.
    The air felt thin, each
breath harder to take than the last. I was suffocating, I couldn’t
breathe. I drew in quick ragged breaths of air, desperate to
satisfy my gasping lungs. I couldn’t handle this. Not something
like this, everyone gone, the town near destroyed. The world I’d
come to take for granted was crumbling into my worst
nightmare.
    I ran back outside,
trying to quell the panic that threatened to reach dangerous
heights. I was vaguely aware of walking the streets, my feet taking
control and moving in any direction. I wanted to scream but part of
me was still afraid to. The town was so empty, so barren and dead.
I pushed open a set of doors, looked around for my bearings and
realised I’d travelled back to the place where my world first
started to crumble. I was back at the college.
    I travelled through the
hallways, finally setting myself to the task of finding my mobile.
Was there a number you could phone for this? There had to be, there
was a number for everything, right? But it wasn’t that easy, for
fate had different plans, and was desperate never to let me find
peace again. I turned into the open doorway to my class, and the
scream finally released itself from my throat.
    Blood, blood everywhere,
dark and red and filling the air with a repulsive smell that made
me gag. The cream walls of the class were caked in it, the floor
soaked with it, and the cause? Bodies, dozens of bodies lay around
the room, eyes wide and mouths open with long dead screams for
help. I could only stare at the carnage, sense told me to move,
run, get the hell away from the anarchy and back
outside.
    Then I saw
him.
    A man stood in the
epicentre of the destruction, as if the bloodshed radiated from
him, and then I realised: