The Hunt For Black Lilith

Flames burst from all angles, and searing explosions almost completely filled the military bases. Soldiers coughed as they pursued their primary target in poorly ventilated vehicles. Burning ash irritated the brigade's eyes. Ignited vapors grazed the skin of fatigued sentinels as sweat saturated their clothes. Amber streaks of gunfire seemed to fill the whole atmosphere.
The burning rubble of overused tires inundated the nostrils of every person in the area. Muscles were so sore and exhausted; the mere weight of one’s appendages felt like concrete blocks suspended from their joints. The tanks, gunfire, and bombs were pointlessly fired at a seemingly invincible target. A thin, tall muscular figure was ahead of the brigade by twenty feet. The silhouette of the figure was the only thing that could be readily observed with the naked eye at fractions of a second.
The hellacious temperatures outside of the tank would cause others to suffocate, burn, and perish within seconds, but this figure maneuvered through flaming clouds, shrapnel, and bullets with the ease of breathing. The figure’s enhanced sense of smell enabled it to calculate how many people were in pursuit by the individual molecules emanating from their bodies. The figure propelled itself two stories into the air within one-hundredth of a second before a vehicle's tire nearly grazed the its leg. Thin amber streaks saturated air for one minute without any indication the target had been struck; however, flashes of a second revealed profuse bleeding from the abdominals of some of the soldiers.

Soldiers suddenly fell from their vehicles and screamed until they startled birds from thirty feet away. The battalion, which began with a company of five hundred soldiers, had now been reduced to one hundred and fifty. A few soldiers staggered from their vehicles with crimson trails behind them to take their final steps. One soldier grunted, stretched, and yelled as he moved along the ground upon his abdomen. He collapsed with his nose grazing the black, leather boot of the target he was shooting at mere minutes ago. He glanced up at the figure with tears streaming from his pink, watery eyes, but he looked down to see dark-red fluid flowing rapidly from his chest.

He fell in the dirt and lost consciousness, forever. The ominous figure closed its eyes and received pulsating images of irregular oval structures contracting at regular rhythmic intervals. Elastic tubes surrounded each of the individual formations with crimson fluid flowing at different speeds and intervals throughout anatomical structures. The figure confirmed with its eyes what was already known from previous experiences. Its molecularly enhanced senses perceived a small group of soldiers moving into the perimeter.

Shells fell rapidly from rifles aimed at the figure without a single strike to the target. The figure moved so quickly; it perceived the ammunition as steel pebbles floating in the air. The anomaly could easily see the bright yet subtle explosions resulting from the pins striking chambers containing the powder, resulting in the projectiles being launched from the barrel. A metallic flash glinted in one of the soldier's eyes before his head rolled like a soccer ball along the ground. Other troops quickly rushed into the area to find the recently torn, crimson-stained corpses of their counterparts lying lifelessly on the ground. They scattered throughout the perimeter only to find more disfigured, eviscerated, and nearly hallow, uniformed bodies. Tanks, jeeps, and cargo trucks surrounded as men dressed in camouflage uniforms held long, black rifles with peeled eyes roaming throughout the perimeter.