"Sensus Divinitatis"

Written By: The Plotting Housewife

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sotsu and associated Parties. This work is written for pleasure not profit.

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Ghosts, Demons, Apocalypse, Major character death, blood, gore, violence

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5x6

Summary: It begins with a prophecy and ends with Judgement Day. What happens in between will determine the fate of the human race. The murders of the Gundam Pilots was only the catalyst. The beginning of the end.

" Sensus Divinitatis"

 

Chapter 7: June 23rd, AC 206, 9:34am

The titanium structure had been the only thing holding ESUNH up when the earthquake hit. Though earthquakes were not known for hitting this particular region of Europe, the complex had been built to withstand any kind of impact. It was peacetime, but that hadn't stopped the head of ESUN, Milton Cambridge, from building a facility that could hold up against any natural, or man-made disasters.

Sally stood on a grassy knoll outside the hospital, her eyes skimming over the building. It looked as though the damage was minimal. The patients and staff had been well-protected and most of the injuries were minor. When the power went out, the emergency generators kicked on, keeping crucial life support equipment running.

Sally pulled her phone out and checked for a signal. Nothing. She had to find a way to get in touch with Une. Hopefully, headquarters was still standing and her colleagues were okay. Her ears piqued as nervous chatter began to rise among the people gathered outside and shock rippled through the crowd as reports of Sanq's destruction began to spread. Sally's heart thudded against her rib cage, hearing the words no survivors. There were accounts that the earthquake had flattened the city and then a subsequent tsunami had washed what little was left out to sea. Adrenaline rushed through her veins, little bolts of electricity like miniature shock waves pulsed with every beat of her heart. Oh, shit. Relena was there. Sally had just spoken to her early that morning. 

She'd been in the underground levels when the quake hit. Driven by instinct, she'd ducked under a flight of steel stairs with other staff members to wait it out, not sure if they would survive, or be crushed under thousands of tons of metal. Bensen had been under the stairs with her. He'd seemed oddly calm and he watched her with an unreadable expression as the building shook and swayed above them. Once the rumbling had ceased, they carefully climbed the stairs to the outside.

The bystanders were now displaying various stages of shock and grief. People were screaming, crying, falling to their knees. Many were too stunned to react. Many had family in Sanq. Sally fought down a wave of nausea, also in shock. The voices around her became a distant echo, her vision tunneled and blurred around the edges, zeroing in on the grass under her feet. Her mind's need for self-preservation taking over. 

"It's a real shame." Bensen said, suddenly beside her. Sally jolted, reality swinging her back to awareness. She almost hadn't heard him. He didn't seem too torn up about it. 

It took a few attempts to clear the cobwebs out of her throat before she could respond. "There wasn't much love lost between you and Sanq anyway, was there?" She croaked, disgusted.

Bensen shrugged, unperturbed. 'Que sera sera.'

Sally wanted to ignore him, but his earlier comment was nagging in her head, going round and round in circles. It meant something and though she didn't want to know, she needed to. A voice deep inside whispering, You need to know. Something is very wrong here. 

She eyed him. 'What did you mean about miracles?'

'Hm?'

'Miracles. What you said about miracles and how I just might be surprised. What did you mean by that?'

His doll-like eyes were shiny. His tongue peeked out between cracked lips, swiping across them. He seemed excited and that didn't sit right with Sally. 'Do you believe in miracles, Dr. Po?'

'No.'

'No?'

'I'm a scientist, Dr. Bensen. I believe what I can see with my own eyes.'

'So you don't believe in God?'

She sighed, attempting to appear nonchalant. 'Why are we having this conversation?'

'What about the Devil?'

Sally glared and then looked away, clicking her tongue across the roof of her mouth. 'Now you're just being ridiculous.'

'Am I?'

'And obtuse. Again. With all due respect, Dr. Bensen, I'm really not in the mood for games.'

'No games, Dr. Po. I'm just curious what you believe.'

'Why?'

Bensen's shoulder lifted in a casual shrug, but his eyes looked hungry. 'Because you're an exceptionally intelligent woman and I'd reckon a rather tough nut to crack.'

She took a step back. 'Are you hitting on me?'

Bensen threw his head back and laughed, sounding genuinely merry. Sally looked around nervously, slightly mortified. 'Oh goodness, no, Dr. Po. I just want to know what makes my enemies tick.' The gleam in his eyes seemed to shimmer and ignite. 

'I thought you said we weren't enemies.'

Bensen's demeanor took a sudden one eighty. The mirth dropped like a lead weight. His lip curled over his teeth, hissing out a snarl. It was quiet, but the sound seemed to bounce off the walls of her skull and make her brain hurt. He stepped closer. Sally shook her head as the world around her seemed to narrow and disappear, as if sucked into a vaccum. The cries of pain and sorrow faded and in its place, a deafening tinnitus. She shook her head again, harshly, trying to jar her senses, rubbing her fingers over her ears. She found herself standing in a dark void. The people gone, the hospital gone. Everything, gone. 

The fuck?

Bensen was suddenly right in front of her face. His skin was so ghastly pale, it appeared gray, wrinkles dramatically prominent, and shiny with moisture. His eyes seemed alight with a yellowish, green fire, pupils no longer visible, the lids around them dissolving. His lips vanished as his mouth turned up in a mockery of a grin. Three rows of pointy, razor-sharp teeth glinted in a nonexistent light.

When he spoke again, the two top rows of teeth lifted up in an upside down crescent. A forked tongue slithered out, black like cancer, pinging off a barbed canine. 

Bensen's voice took on a frightening timbre, his vocal cords seemed to expand and develop new chambers. It vibrated past his maw in an eerie tri-tone of tenor, baritone, and base. 'Oh, we are, Dr. Po. We most definitely are. You and your fellow humans have no idea what you're up against. This is far far bigger than your puny little minds could ever conceive.'

Sally was frozen. Terror kept her limbs immobile. Her chest felt encased in ice. It was cold. She was cold. 'Who are you?'

'I'm everything and I am nothing.  I'm every nightmare and terrible thing that's ever happened to you. I am the void, the emptiness you fear, deep within your pathetic, mortal hearts. I will put you at the top of the world. I will fulfill your every desire. And then I will pull you down into the abyss and leave you with nothing but yourself. And I will do it, just to hear you scream. I will feed off your terror like the finest vino and I'll keep coming back until there's nothing left but your broken little shell."

Sally tried to swallow, but couldn't. Her mouth was burning and parched. A fleeting thought whispered across her mind. 'Did you kill my friends? The pilots?'

Eyelids that she'd thought dissipated slowly lowered beneath folds of waxy skin. 'Why don't you see for yourself.'

A gnarled hand reached out, lightning quick, clawed fingers grasping Sally's forearm with inhuman strength and her bones creaked under the pressure. The skin was icy cold, seeping through her clothing. Electricity sparked at the point of contact and Sally's vision tilted violently and shifted. Glimpses of darkened windows and a linoleum floor flashed behind her eyes. A stove. A teapot. A hand reaching for a mug. The sound of a door closing echoed in her ears.

'Duo, do you want some of this tea?' Sally immediately recognized the nasally voice as being Heero's. She watched, frozen and helpless, voiceless, as a dark figure appeared, faceless, formless. Only a vague shape with arms and legs. At the end of one arm was a long blade. She had no time to react as the blade rose into the air, the beginning of an exclamation on the Japanese man's lips, then there was a whoosh as the blade came down, time and time again, so quickly, it was over almost before it began.

She watched as the mug fell to the floor and shattered, tea splashing. Blood quickly joined it, spilling in abundance and Sally's legs gave out. She hit the tiled floor, shock rendering her paralyzed. More blinding flashes, and there was a living room. A brown suede sofa, wood floors, a red rug, and a man with long hair, tied back in a braid. She saw another figure, vague as the first, somewhat translucent. A long chain, wrapped around Duo's throat. His hands scrabbled desperately, finding no purchase. Legs kicked and spasmed. As the life drained from his blue eyes, they shifted in Sally's direction and recognition seemed to flicker across them before they rolled towards the ceiling, his body collapsing as death took hold. Sally couldn't breathe. Had Duo seen her?

In the moments that followed, mercurial sequences that simultaneously seemed as if time had stopped, she was forced to witness the deaths of the other three pilots. 

There was a bedroom, a bed. Soft, blond hair stuck out over the top of the covers in curly tufts. The bedding was lowered by unseen hands and Quatre rolled over sleepily. A third shadow, or was it the same one, standing over him. A long knife in its undefined hand, coming down in rapid succession. Sally watched, overcome with horror, as the blade sunk into the blond's chest, his abdomen. She could see the blood splatter the headboard behind him and spray the walls. She watched, her useless hands clenched, as he choked, his airway filling with blood and his desperate fight to breathe as he began to suffocate. She shut her eyes in a futile attempt to block out the gurgling sounds, trying to pull her mind away. To escape, but she seemed hopelessly trapped. 

Bensen, or the inhuman creature he was, gripped her numb skin harder. He knew she was trying to retreat. Her bones rubbed together painfully, on the verge of snapping. 

Tears streaked down her face, dripping from her chin. No. Please. No more!

But Bensen was determined that she see this through to the end. He hissed in her face, the sibilation snakelike, his tongue brushed against her skin, scalding hot, dry, and scratchy. More strobing and then another living room. A long green runner on the floor and a tall brown haired man. Unease written across his face, as if he knew something was wrong. Sally screamed at him, told him to leave, get out. Run! But Trowa couldn't hear her. A long metal pipe lifted behind his head and came down with a speed and force that no human could ever match. Over and over again, even when Trowa had stopped moving. There was a sickening crunch, loud in the otherwise silent house, and Sally bent at the waist and vomited. 

A final flash and a hallway, walls of white and a tile floor. Photos and artifacts lined the walls. Images of a long dead Chinese family and replicas of ancient weaponry. A man with black hair, the tight ponytail gone. It fell loosely around his shoulders, the texture similar to silk. Swords were lifted from their mounts by opaque, fingerless hands. Wufei's sharp cry bounced off the walls and then the distinct shiiink sound of steel hitting home. Wufei was driven against the wall with so much force, the picture frames and katanas rattled and shook, then clattered to the floor, glass shards flying in every direction. Two blades were thrust through the Chinese man's shoulders, effectively pinning him to the wall. Wufei screamed in pain as two more blades were raised and aimed towards his legs. Two more and his torso was impaled. He coughed, blood dripping from his mouth, his hair in his face. He raised his chin in defiance, prepared to die with honor as the final blade was pointed at his head, and thrust in. 

Sally choked, her body convulsing, eyes rolling back as she seemed to float in the darkness and then fall, finally landing hard on a solid surface. The world as she knew it suddenly crashed back around her like a wave, knocking her onto her back. The crushing grip was gone and instead faces hovered over hers wearing diverse expressions of concern and fear. Lips moved, asking if she was okay and sound gradually came back, voices loud and disorienting.

She felt the grass beneath her back and the cool air on her skin and she took a breath, finally able to breathe again. Her eyes frantically darted around for Bensen, but she couldn't see him anywhere. Instead, good samaritans fussed over her, lie down, be still, help is on the way.

Her brain, overwhelmed with shock, began to shut down. Her thoughts beginning to slip together nonsensically. A final realization, faint, but relevant, reminded her that she was outside a hospital. 

Her head dropped back down to the grass as Sally lost consciousness. 

 

~ * ~

Chapter 8

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