“It is burning, the city is burning!” boars a woman who is just as the same as the crowd trying to push themselves into the underground ways. Teary eyes blistering against the heat and flaming skins finding no solace by the shrieking shadow of a bridge shuddering above them. It creaks, moaning and groaning like those who are already burning. Before the snap of a metal wire is heard and crumbling, spalling before bouldering on the human ants.
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Meanwhile, Rookie has found his way through just in time before the metals and stones block the tunnel. A bloody pool creeps after him and he knows not to look behind. For the defiance in his eyes speaks no tears, lips not bitten and brows not upturned. He pushes on, slowly feeling the cold blanketing him and he never realized he feels so relieved by feeling cold.”Anyone there?” He calls–panting from his five kilometer run. He is not a runner nor an athlete, but he is proud with how his legs managed to run so far that no light could be seen. Only the crackling of the city above and the crumbling and crashing echo throughout the pipe works.
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“Hello?” Much less certain with a voice that anxiously searches far but the tunnel only seems to go straight…
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“Over here–”
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Someone’s whisper breaks the crackling darkness, over to the left that travels for the right? Where did it come from and Rookie can only ask again, louder this time.
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“Shhh!” the urgent hush, leads Rookie for the left before feeling himself tugged and a hand against his lips.
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“Mmm—h!”
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“Shh, boy.” An older man’s voice clears through, and his face flickers by a flame of rapid clicking. Cautious old eyes frightened by whatever is on the left and right before leaning in and mouthing his lips wide and clear, “There are monsters”
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Smart and knowing, Rookie follows the old man’s silent words, with a face full of questions. “What monsters?”
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The old man stands, ignoring the boy before pressing his bell ear against the rotten pipe walls. Easily recognizing a crackling groan that has been haunting him ever since last week when his region of the city burned. He gestures to the boy to stand up before slowly opening a cooler filled with ice cubes. One goes in his mouth while another to his new friend that does not hesitate to obey everything he wants him to do. Then, he points at where Rookie had been running from before mouthing, “Escape”
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But, the tunnel there has already been blocked off. Which the boy urgently poke at old hips that made the man shiver.
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This situation is already dire as is and the boy adds with his arms forming an X, mouthing “Bridge” as well.
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Both left and right, left which he thought would still be safer, now shuddering him to defeatedly kneel in frustration. He let his angered fingers scratch bloody marks on his scalp. Left and right are dangerous. Monsters would have most likely flooded the right with it being new, and the right—a dozen of others of them rottenly lay wasted.
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Looking at the defeated old man sinks the boy’s brave heart. But his face is once again defiant, along with a clenching fist. There is no way he is giving up. No way, is he letting this old man remind him of his friend who burned hugging his knees. Reaching out with an open palm, there is only one way forward, and he uses chin to gesture which direction, “Right”
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Hesitant to grab hold and rightfully nod, the old man looks at the boy as if he is seeing his own reflection. Life may have burned his path but the boy is still pure and bright. There is still hope and he does not belong to live in the pipes. The boy entered today so there is no call for spending days waiting as if the city and the monsters would stop scorching. He nods, rightfully so as he takes the boy’s hand.
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Right is where they cautiously walk. Hearing the sound of groaning and moaning ashes. Would lead to screaming and the old man valiantly sacrificing himself for the boy.
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Rookie climbs up a ladder as he hears the sound of ash spawns at his tail. Out of the 12 ice cubes he placed in his mouth, three remain to sting his fingers more than what he expects the burnt manhole to sear. But it is cold to the touch, and Rookie comes out of the tunnel seeing the toppled charcoal buildings and roads. He looks up, seeing the dark sky, a crimson ember rain falls on him as the heavens–city of the faithful, burn ablaze.
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