The Chosen Few

The Chosen Few is about a cult led by Nomec and has origns from the Aztecs. Nomec\'s goal is world domination, and it is edging ever closer. The followers gain strength through the energy of those they kill and torture, but more will be explained as the story progresses.

Origins: I first had an idea for a story while playing Hitman: Silent Assassin, where a level is set in a hospital. an image kept coming to me, and I kept thinking how I would love to put it into a story, with the scene the game inspired in the opening chapter. I gradually constructed a story around it which enriched the opening and explained it, and had so much potential. In fact, I felt I couldn\'t do the story justice, so I left it for some time. I kept thinking about it so began to write it and flesh out some characters.

Please bear in mind that the first third of the opening chapter is quite slow. This bears little relation to the rest of the chapter, but is necessary for pace reasons. Enjoy!

This story means a lot to me so reviews are appreciated.

This story contains swearing, graphic violence, and sexual content (eventually). Don\'t read if you\'ll be offended.
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Ross Townsend looked away from his computer monitor then pulled back his sleeve so he could see his watch. The watch showed the time to be 10:51, illuminated by the digital display’s green backlight. The sudden brightness against the dark room startled him, as he’d begun to fall asleep. 10:51. Shit. He quickly turned off his computer, carefully tucked his chair under the desk and yawned. Despite an urge to go to sleep, he walked out of the room and into the men’s toilets. He splashed water on his face, and looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was starting to grey around his temples, and he had bloodshot eyes and slight stubble, due to the sleepless nights he’d had of late. Still, his body was in great shape, and, in spite of his greying hair, his muscular build and posture hid his true age well.

Feeling refreshed, he left the toilets and headed for the main entrance. He’d been working at Robson & Still, the advertising company, for twenty-five years now, and it hadn’t exactly gone the way he’d hoped. When he had started, his head was filled with fantasies of him racing up the corporate food chain, becoming the youngest partner in the firm. However, it was not meant to be. After five years of hard work he’d been promoted sideways, which had entitled him to slight increase in pay, but a larger increase in responsibility. Since then, however, he hadn’t received any other accolade for the immense effort he’d put into his work. On the other hand, about a dozen of his colleagues had been promoted ahead of him, even though they took no pride in their work, and most were hardly ever on time. Though he enjoyed his job, sometimes it really wore him down.

As he walked through the building, his footsteps echoing around the rooms, he felt a sense of unease. There was no real reason for it; it was just that, because of the call he had received several nights ago, most things seemed to set him on edge, which might explain those sleepless nights. The call had come earlier in the week, and once he put the receiver down, he felt like he was going to be sick. He was told to go to the hospital on Friday that week. The rest of the phone call he could barely remember, and the message had yet to sink in. He had never liked hospitals, but hoped all would go well tonight and he would have no reason to have an aversion to them in future. He just prayed that his fears were wrong; there would be no complications, and he would go on to live a long, happy life. It wasn’t that he was afraid of dying, far from it. Nevertheless, he would rather not die if he could help it, there were so many things he had yet to do, and if all went well at the hospital tonight, he would do them. Every last one. The sense of unease he now felt was because of the lack of people in the building. Normally when he arrived, there would already be the receptionists there, and several people who had deadlines to meet or meetings to prepare for. Now there was no one there except him and Ed, who worked with him, and stayed late almost every night, yet somehow always missed deadlines. However, it was just him there now and it felt unusual to be going through the rooms, which were usually a hive of activity.

He finally made it to the front doors, pressed, and held down the intercom button.
‘Hello?’ He said uncertainly into the intercom.
‘Yeah?’ Came the reply. ‘What d’you want?’
‘Uh… I’m ready to leave.’ Ross replied. Ever since a rival firm had stolen their big campaign idea from them and made millions from it, security had been tight. All staff had been given cards for identification, which they would need to have scanned before the doors opened in the morning. The number of security guards had also increased, and anyone leaving after normal work hours had to be let out by the guards because the doors were locked at about 6:30 each day.

After a while the security guard arrived, and reluctantly opened the door. He looked tired and pissed off to have been woken from a good sleep. Ross was going to apologise and thank the guard, but checked himself. He was only asking the guard to do his job, for Christ’s sake. He made his way to his car, got in, and set off towards the hospital. The journey was unremarkable, but, as he neared his destination, he pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car in order to marvel at the night sky, the vastness of space. He had seldom taken the time to appreciate such things in the past, if ever, but he felt that he wanted to before it was too late.

He got back into his car, and after what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, he arrived at the hospital. He drove into the car park, turned the engine off, and collected his thoughts. He had faith, and hoped it was sufficient enough, so that He, the almighty, would deem his existence significant enough that he would live on, no matter what the complications he may find at the hospital.

He calmly strolled towards the front of the hospital. Once inside, he notified the receptionist of his presence and sat down on one of the cheap looking, plastic chairs which lined the corridor. After a while, he began to drift off.
‘Mr Townsend? Are you Mr Townsend?’

He looked up. A doctor stood in front of him in his white lab coat. His face looked tired, yet kind, and Ross instantly felt at ease by the doctor’s friendly demeanour. The doctor began to walk down the corridor.

‘Follow me, we can talk in my office.’ The doctor said quickly. Ross pushed himself off the chair and hurried after the doctor.
Once in the office, the doctor asked Ross to shut the door behind him, and he complied, and then sat down. The doctor sat on the other side of the desk, facing Ross. Sweat began to trickle down Ross’s head. His palms became sweaty, and he rubbed them together, as he often did when he was nervous.

‘We looked at your samples and CAT scans, and the results show that you don’t have cancer, just an abnormal growth, which can easily be removed.’
Ross sighed, looking as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. As he did so, the doctor smiled sympathetically. He never liked to tell a patient bad news; in fact, he despised it, and at several points in his career had considered quitting his job, so badly did it affect him. Watching a patient’s face as they found that their life span was so much longer than they’d previously been led to believe, seeing the relief and gratitude on their faces, it made it all seem worthwhile. He stood up and helped Mr Townsend to his feet.
Before the doctor opened the door, Ross spoke.

‘Doctor?’

The doctor turned around to face Ross, who was looking at him fixedly. Ross placed his hands on either side of the doctor’s head.

‘I can’t thank you enough, doctor. Thank you.’ He muttered, and then snapped the doctor’s neck. The doctor fell to the floor gracelessly, his head landing on the wall on his way down, which twisted it round even further. He lay motionless on the floor, his eyes and mouth wide open, but showing no signs of life or movement. Ross stood over the doctor’s body.
‘Thank you.’

Several minutes later Ross quickly left the office, dressed in the doctor’s pristine white lab coat, as well as the doctor’s other clothes. The good doctor’s semi-naked body had been hidden in his cupboard, just in case someone went looking for him, which would certainly spoil Ross’s plans. He didn’t want to be stopped now he had gone this far. He walked calmly along the corridor, towards the surgery.

Before he went into the surgery, he covered his face with a surgical mask that he had brought with him. With the other surgical clothing on, he would be unrecognisable, and hopefully no one would notice the slight difference in height and build between him and the surgeon who had been scheduled to carry out the surgery. Before he entered the surgery, he put on the protective headgear and surgical gown, which he somehow managed to tie up at the back, took a deep breath, and walked in.

The doctors in the room were all dressed in their protective clothing, but the nurses had their faces left uncovered. He slowly walked over to the body on the operating table, and looked at him. As he was doing so, one of the nurses, the more attractive of the two, informed him about the patient and the operation he required. Fortunately for Ross, he had studied Biology in school and college, so had a pretty good idea about what he was being told. If he hadn’t, then he would have quickly been found to be an impostor, as he would cut in the wrong place, or just look blankly at the nurse as she informed him. From what little Biology he remembered, he ascertained that the problem this patient had was some kind of tumour or infection or something in his left kidney. He picked up a scalpel from the tray next to the operating table and leaned over the body. He made a small incision in the general region where he remembered the left kidney to be, and then asked the nearest doctor to hold back the flap of skin so he see better what he was cutting.

As the doctor walked towards him, Ross spun the scalpel round in his hand, so that the small blade pointed upwards. When he leaned next to Ross to assist him, Ross swung his arm backwards, slamming the scalpel deep into the surgeon’s eye. The surgeon stumbled backwards; gore dripping from the wound as he tried to prise the scalpel out. The other surgeon and the older nurse stood almost completely still, paralysed by fear. The remaining nurse quickly came to her senses and ran towards the door. Ross ripped off the surgical gown, reached deep into his lab coat, and pulled out a silenced pistol. He quickly aimed at her, then fired. A fine red spray of blood resulted from the bullet’s impact, while brain and small fragments of skull erupted from her forehead and splattered on the wall in front of her as the bullet forced its way through her head and burst out through the other side. Her body collapsed to the floor, then Ross focussed his attention on the remaining three.

The surgeon he had first assaulted was now curled up in the foetal position on the floor, having gone into shock. The two remaining people were still standing, too afraid to move. The doctor had a trail of urine running down his leg. Ross walked over to them, raising the scalpel menacingly as he did so.

When the surgeon awoke thirteen minutes later, it took him awhile to remember where he was, and what had transpired for him to be there. The scalpel was still lodged in his eye, but he was too afraid of the pain to attempt to pull it out. He suddenly recoiled in shock. In front of him was his arm. The arm was cleanly cut off at the shoulder, almost completely covered in blood, the fingers had balled into a fist, probably from the pain, but he didn’t remember anything. He looked round. Next to the first was his other arm, in the same condition. He groaned. The surgeon who went mad and stabbed him must have given him a general anaesthetic before he performed the operation because the pain was slowly coming back, and it was unbearable. It would also explain why he didn’t remember anything. He looked around the surgery, unsuccessfully trying to see if his colleagues had been spared. All he saw were mutilated bodied with horrified expressions on their faces. Then he saw the body of the other surgeon, with blood and urine surrounding it. He was on his back, a faint red light pulsing from within his chest. He pushed himself towards the body with his legs, and then managed to turn himself over. He could see the light more clearly now, and could hear a faint beep every second or so. A green wire was sticking out of his chest. All around the body were internal organs. The surgeon could see a heart, a kidney and both lungs on the floor around the deceased. Next to the kidney was a note. He pushed himself over towards it. It read:
‘Inside your colleague is a bomb. The only way to defuse it is to cut the green wire.’

To the left of the note was a pair of wire cutters. He tried to pick them up, in spite of his amputations, but failed. He then tried to pick them up in his teeth, and eventually succeeded. He could taste blood. He edged his way on top of the body. It was laborious work, as the body was surrounded by various body fluids, and he found it hard for his feet to grip the floor. Finally, he climbed on top, and saw the bomb counting down.
0:23
Frantic, he tried to cut the wire with the wire cutters, but they fell out of his mouth and into a crevice between the bomb and the body’s skin.
0:16
He was too far away to break the wire with his teeth, so he hurriedly pushed himself closer, but just as it was almost within his reach,
0:09
he slipped on the blood and watched helplessly as the distance between himself and the wire grew.
He wept uncontrollably as the bomb slowly counted down to
0:00


The explosion roared through the hospital, destroying anything and anyone unfortunate enough to be in its way. The explosion killed indiscriminately, hundreds of people losing their lives in the inferno. Although there were only a few staff at the hospital, due to the late hour, the patients had not gone home to see their loved ones, and most were sleeping soundly, and were unaware what was happening as their bodies were obliterated in the intense force and heat.

Ross was walking away from the hospital when the bomb went off, and didn’t even glance behind when he heard the blast and the area surrounding area was lit up by the explosion. Nor did he flinch when debris landed right next to him. He was preoccupied. When the explosion began, Ross’s back arched suddenly and his head flew back, his mouth wide, as if a powerful electric shock went racing through his body. Once the explosion stopped, he relaxed, and continued to stroll to his car, as if the force that had had such an effect on him, that it had imbued him with a power that gave him a new inner strength and self-assurance, as his walk to the car became a confident swagger.

The power he felt made him want to run a marathon, swim across the Atlantic, anything to display the energy and invulnerability he could feel all the way to the core of his being. He could sense the change that had come over him since the explosion, and he liked it. Nonetheless, he had a job to fulfil. He was driving for about two hours till he arrived at his destination.
*****
Explosion reported at Bastington hospital at 12:57. All nearby emergency services to the scene immediately.
*****