Arc 1 - Chapter 8: The Hopeless Walk

He laid beneath sand.

His eyes closed, he had no choice but to rest along the burning grain, nestling him like a long lost bed. Swallowing up his legs, feet, chest, even his face; his skin pinched relentlessly under the infinite sauna.

Entirely submerged in this bath of sand, even the smell of death began crawling up to him. Like if the devil was whispering into his ear…

“It’s not time.”

Almost inaudible, he couldn’t perch to the meek.

“Stop resting.”

Unable to open his eyes, he felt like he was drowning by his own bed. Sand caressing every layer of skin he was born with, even the whispers alongst his ear faded.

Unable to fight back, he let his body loosen with the infinite grains.

“Wake up.”

He was too deep. Like the dead inside of a casket, there was no means to pull him out from it. As if he was about to shut his eyes off forever—

A female voice boomed alongst both his ears.

“Live for me!”

He opened his eyes.

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Cold water stung his eyes. Wrinkling and freezing his eyelids, then followed the burning sensation from his chest, as he inhaled a chunk of river water. Allowing it to molest his nostrils and throat, he flailed his arms and legs outward.

His chin barely above water, he ignored the jolts of pain flustering every nerve in his body.

—Please … make it.

Coughing out trapped water from his lungs, he spewed it to trade the harsh air around him. Breathing rapidly, he moved his arms and legs to reach the river bank, with hope he’ll make it.

The closer he reached, the more his body shriveled and ached. Stopping himself would only lead him to his end, no doubt about it. Even with every tendon of his muscles ripping each other apart…

—Come on … make it …

He wanted to nap, he wanted to sleep, maybe he just wanted—

Luke shook his head. Flailing his body like a runaway fish, he wide-eyed at the riverbank in front of him.

Like a eureka, his entire body loosened like a deflated balloon upon reaching the river bank. Crawling his way along the muddied dirt, he was dripping head to toe with the murky water. Shivering, he laid flat on his chest, spreading out his arms and legs while pushing a gasped breath in.

—I did it…

He continued to lay, not bothering to look around his surroundings—

Leaves and bushes rustled meters away from him.

Looking up while keeping his chest flat, he had his eyes pinned to the direction of the rustling. Hoping it was just the pet bears, wolves, lions, or tigers that escaped from their owners, Luke tucked his breath into his throat. The more the leaves rustled, the more Luke shivered from the chilling water.

But there was no pet. Out of the bushes, a creature stomped out, its smell resembling that of rotting milk. Ghostly pale, eye sockets replaced with black tar, no nose…

—Oh no…

His face paled.

—It’s the same type of creature.

Unlike before, he was on his own.

Luckily for him, the creature couldn’t sense Luke’s presence.

As Luke got up, the soreness of his body began eating him up again. Clenching his teeth, not a single groan or moan trailed from his throat, as he kept his widened eyes at the sniffling creature.

Standing on two of his feet, he glanced down to find a pebble right by him, making him bent calmly to pick it up. Holding the pebble with two fingers, he flung it somewhere that wasn’t near him.

—Just hope it relies on hearing.

The pebble hitting the bark of a tree, a little thump noise scattered the air. Startled, it walked to where the noise came from, despite it having no ears whatsoever.

—I gotta get out of here…

Luke hobbled out of the riverbank, while keeping his distance away from the sniffling creature. As the thought of how long a walk he would trail, he looked over to the remnants of the old city he called home.

Remnants even he couldn’t recognize.

Most of the buildings were wiped off the face of Terra. While the others remained, all of them resembled cookies drowning in milk, their stone walls crumbling with every gust of wind flowing past it. Combined with the air temperature, the wind that blew against his face, parched and wrinkled his face tenfold. So parched, he couldn’t alleviate it with sweat.

Above the hellish sight, yellow dust and orange smoke circled heaven above. If Luke remained inside that city any longer, breathing would’ve been impossible.

And then he glanced down at the flowing river, seeing nothing but corpses of the damned relaxing in the water. Babies, toddlers, children, teens, adults, elders, brothers, sisters, cousins, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandpas, grandmas; all tattered the water a crimson red.

Luke remained silent as the atrocity of reality, his way of life—

Gone…

A tear strolled down the left side of Luke’s face, as the city where he lived his whole life for 12 years … was just gone…

Friends, family … everything was gone …

By just looking at the sight in front of him, it sucked all hope out from his dwindling spirit. But by averting his head away, he gazed to the west, as he remembered…

[Live for me!]

He walked.

He doesn’t know how long, he won’t know how, but he’ll reach the west. In the midst of chaos, in the embers of it, he walked forth to whatever outcome bestowed upon him.

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(Kalemonath 20, 56 / 6:45PM)

Three weeks later.

His body wanted to shut down. Starving, dehydrated, he was on the brink of collapse. If Luke decided to take a break, he might never be able to move again.

—I’m close to the Kepputhan border…

Living off of contaminated water, and unable to bite an ounce of food for a week, his feet blistered and scorned from his shoes. His body odor pungent, it felt as if an invisible cloud of green gas followed him.

His black shirt and pants were tattered with dirt and mud, his skin plastered in it too. Making it seem he crawled out of a muddy hole, his hair was tangled with leaves and sticks, his fingernail coated with mud stick inside them.

—Got to … make it …

Luke rubbed his stomach with his right hand, hearing it growl and scowl at him like a dog-human. Tightening his body, he began to count, letting his mind wander while he walked.

—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10…

From one to ten, he counted. Over and over again, the cycle repeated to vanquish his insanity with numbers.

1, 2, 3, 4.

5, 6, 7.

8, 9, 10.

Each line indicating a part, like a milestone of a perceptive ballad, he honed. Counting again and again, his eyes narrowed the landscape in front of him, a landscape in which he was surrounded by green thick trees.

Barely limping with one foot, the tip of his shoe dragged on the dirt.

The rustling of leaves can be heard.

Upon instinct, Luke placed himself in the back of a tree, dozens of feet away from the noise. Keeping his beating heart still, he swallowed no saliva whatsoever in his mouth, as he peeked his head out from the corner. Luke noticed…

—No, please no … no more …

Similar to the creature he avoided three weeks prior, and similar to the creature he was attacked during the invasion, it still had that same ghostly pale skin as the others. With no rocks or pebbles below or next to him, and not keeping any in his pockets, how will Luke dodge around it?

—Unfortunately for him, his luck ran a little dry—

“Save Us!”

It honed onto him like a hellhound. Sprinting toward Luke with excessive velocity, it caught Luke so off guard, it sprang his blistered feet into motion. The events in motion happening so fast, Luke recalled not moving an atom of his bony muscles. So why?

—I didn’t make any sound!

Fear took hold of Luke, and for the first time in several days, he pushed his body to sprint. Using all of his excess and storage stamina, he pushed everything within his body, whipping every muscle, bone, organ, and skin to flow along with his command. The creature wasn’t fast enough, but it had its eyes locked on Luke. If he couldn’t shake off the creature in time …

—Please push! Please push! Someone! Anyone!

His heart pounded irregularly, followed by his head stressing out a pulsating migraine. Wanting to bash his head onto a piece of rock, or bark, or anything hard, he kept pushing.

Until he tripped, with the tip of his shoe colliding itself onto a rock. Slamming onto the dirt, every command and order he gave his body suddenly rebelled. His body glued to the ground, he looked up at the sprinting creature…

“NO!!”

He punctured out a shrilling yell, a yell filled with betrayal he had with his body. As if the world had started to spin, his eyes loosened the flow with what’s real and what’s hallucination.

The creature, setting its stance for a pounce, let its eyes feast upon—

—A gunstorm of bullets jagged the air—

Barely able to see, Luke took notice of chunks of tar and flesh sweeping out from the creature. Its body being dented with new incoming bullet holes, his ears rang with tinnitus. The creature staggering, it stumbled onto the ground, its eyes narrowing at the soldier blocking its dinner.

Seeing the shooter, it was a man—no, a shark-human? Luke couldn’t tell, but it looked like the man was holding a heavy-weight machine gun.

Clearly angry, the creature stood up, baring its fangs as it reaped with joy. Lunging forth to the soldier, it ignored the exhausted Luke to settle itself with a larger dinner—

The monster stopped. As if it had itself stuck in a trap, it tried to squirm its legs, but …

“Hey handsome!”

It was a bright light surrounding the creature, a light taking the form of a rope which enclosed its waist. A woman, who gripped her rope with her two hands, loosened her right foot while keeping her left glued.

Rapidly, she began to spin her body, leaving the creature to go along with her circular motion. Spinning and spinning, the creature had garnered enough momentum for the woman’s trick. Letting go of the rope, the creature…

Cartoonishly flew away to the east, the inertia sending him to the heavens. A gust of jaw-dropping wind bursting through the trees, it swayed and dwindled, leaving the cloudy sky to slowly open free.

—Thank God…

His eyelids softly lowered, leading him to see nothing but black. Drifting off from reality, the last thing his ears perked up were from the shark-human and the woman.

“Really Gwen? That move?”

“But it’s funny! You should have some more fun, it won’t kill you …”

“Whatever. Hey Gwen, check that boy out.”

—I’m saved…

He fell asleep.