EPISODE 3 - PART 3

- UNDERGROUND -

[BLACK]

.

Something on Kat’s bag starts to move and the fluffy ball jumps out, but she grabs it midway.

“What he’s doing?” Oskar asks confused in the background.

Fenik’s opened the blockade door and he’s outside.

“I don’t know…” Ray answers.

The fluffy ball fights to run. “What’s happening with you?” Kat tries to calm it, but there’s no use.

It’s desperate.

On a jump, it slips through her fingers, flying on the air and escaping from one more attempt of Kat’s hands to encage him. When it touches the floor, he goes forward as fast as he can, almost like a missile in speed, going to the bunker’s entrance and vanishing from sight.

“Damn it!” Kat whispers.

“What happened?” Zack asks Ray, but she can only stare outside.

Fenik’s standing near one of the giant fruits on one of the oversized trees sprouts with green vines all over it.

These aren’t just fruits, they are eggs.

He turns back, looking at the glass where the majority of the platoon is standing, watching him.

‘Retreat and regroup.’ He recites in his mind like a prompt command as he speeds up the pace toward the entrance, but before his third step, the noise of something being torn from behind makes his head turn, but it was too late.

The pain spreads all over his right leg, a dark-grey covered in new-born scales throughout his entire skin had just propelled its body with its long tail and craved two sting-crab front limbs right into Fenik’s calf.

Then, it bites with a spider-like mouth right in the middle of its both stings, making a second quick wave of agony.

On a single sweeping blow, Fenik’s knife pierces in the middle of the creature’s body. It falls out with a shrill grunt.

Fenik tries to continue walking, with pain and anger in his eyes, his leg started to become numb and bleed way more than it should. He takes out a spray can, using it on the wound, as he drags the leg forward, it burns.

“Are you alright?” Ray supports him to walk.

Her voice is muffled and distorted, Fenik’s entire vision is wavy and desaturated.

“Hold on, we are going inside.”

“What happened?”

“Close it!”

Their voices start to be unrecognizable as the world starts to turn.

“Look at me! Fenik! Look at me!”

He tries to focus, the image is all fuzzy, but he knows that the one in front of him is Tamara.

“Shit, you shouldn’t use the medical can like that, it can affect your blood veins!”

Fenik understands her words, but not their meaning anymore.

Everyone starts to argue as Tamara tries to stop the bleeding. People get out of vision, then they come back, time looks to accelerate and to deaccelerate on each heartbeat.

Why did I go outside again? It was like something was calling me…

Those four black eyes gaze at him from inside the fruit. They start to knock on your front door, and you need to answer it.

“Stay with me, alright?”

He can feel his body being dragged, but Fenik doesn’t want to obey that order, every fiber of his being is screaming.

GET THE FUCKING UP FENIK.

His body and mind are heavy, managing only a spasm on his index finger.

I KNEW YOU WEREN’T UP FOR THIS, WHAT A SHAME.

So many memories bursts into mind, all of them are bad.

You can close your eyes now,

Relax your body,

It’s alright, take a deep breath and relax, on each exhale you can feel your body heavier and heavier, so heavy that you start sinking on the chair. Until there’s no more chair, so you start falling like there was no ground, no walls, no ceiling, there’s nothing, only your consciousness.

All the keys can be found in you now, you just need to reach your thought and grab it.

Fenik’s hand starts to rise to the light, grabbing it with all he got, he pulls it, one, two, three times. Four, five, six, ten, eleven… forty-two, forty-three, one-hundred-sixty-seven times. One-thousand-ninety times. So many times, that he lost count of, until he finally dislocated it from its origin.

“What are you doing?” God asks far away.

The light gets brighter, it’s strange but he knows exactly what to do, and so he does it, stinging it to his left leg.

In a flash, he strongly inhales as the world comes back brighter than before.

“Why you did that?” Tamara scolds Fenik, clicking her tongue.

Fenik looks around, realizing he’s seated on the floor of the barricaded sleeping area on the floor below, he tries to get up by sliding his back to the wall, it’s difficult, he is trying his best to control his breathing, but it’s no use, he inhales way too much and exhales too quickly.

“Are you okay?” Ray asks with her hand above the sword’s sheath, worried.

Fenik goes a step forward, each heartbeat is like a punch on his chest.

“Why you took an adrenaline shot? Don’t you know the consequences?” Tamara says angrily.

Fenik ignores her, going for the closed door and opening it. There’s some yelling, sword swings and thuds outside.

“Tell them to retreat,” Fenik’s voice is faint and brittle.

Ray looks at him and nods, going outside, Fenik follows.

“Good, everyone out then…” Tamara complains from inside.

His feet were his worst enemies, one mistake and he would go down, but he needed to go forward. Ray isn’t visible anymore, the place is like a maze, it’s hard to walk and think at the same time.

He can feel that this is it, this is what he trained to fight all along, but he can’t draw his knife, his fingers are numb.

For each second, the headache gets stronger.

The noises guide the way. Left foot, right foot. Then left foot…

Where am I again?

Fenik didn’t understand his own question, he knew where he was, why that thought came to him?

“Keep formation!” Someone yells from far away in the next corner.

Fenik turns, seeing two people cutting down three of those creatures. They are outside, right on the open barricaded entrance of the glassed cage.

Fenik holds the shoulder of the first one.

“Retreat.”

The person turns with fear in his eyes, it’s Kyle.

“You scared me, Fenik.” He looks forward again.

The second one turns as well, showing he’s Zack.

“Fenik,” he opens a smile, a fake confident smile. “We can’t let this happen. We are going further.”

“What?” Fenik tries to speak but falls on his legs.

“We can’t lose this base on the first day, so we are going to take down them all, there are eggs that didn’t hatch yet, we just need to take the upper hand.”

Zack kneels to Fenik’s side, grabbing his shoulder.

“Trust me on this one, give me Vis and I finish the job, just like always.” Zack looks deep into his eyes.

“I can’t… concentrate.” Fenik’s head spin once more, almost losing consciousness.

“It’s alright, give what you can, we don’t have much time.”

Fenik slowly raises his arm, and uses Zack’s arm as support, touching on his shoulder.

Zack looks forward with confidence, the others are fighting, waiting for the tide to turn, cutting the SAE on midair in half before they can sting anyone.

The blue-string lights come out of Fenik’s neck, then it travels to his arm to Zack’s neck. It’s a bit stronger than Larry’s, even by the current situation.

The world starts to shake, as Fenik tries his hardest, the treads of power travels from one suit to the other, increasing the efficiency and power of the BC circuits, and so, making the wearer have his full potential.

Then it’s over, the world goes almost black, but he can keep it up, a constant wheezing sound makes it harder to listen.

Kyle holds Fenik so he wouldn’t fall from his back.

“That’s more than enough!” Zack grins, getting up and going forward, “Kyle, take care of him, I’m going to finish this-“

! There’s something underground.

The three of them look down at the grass, but there was no time. A bean of red and orange light stroke instantly, big enough to engulf Zack completely and pierce the clouds in the night sky.

The deafening click noises of its intensity continues for a full three seconds, and then everything goes dark and silent.

Not only their eyes needed to get used to the darkness, but also their minds, gazing where Zack was. Kyle got up, supporting Fenik with one hand on his shoulder.

There’s no one there anymore. Kyle opens his mouth to ask something, but he doesn’t have the strength for it.

! Underground.

Everyone’s focus change, Kat that was on the far-left side looks down, her eyes in complete tension, rapidly jumping away from it.

Another thunderous light comes from underground, which now changes position and moves towards Kat, but she is fast enough to evade it as well. Whatever someone else wasn’t able to predict it going suddenly further back.

His legs fall on the ground, without his upper body, splashing blood on the grass.

They are dead.

Kyle's eyes bulge in fear as he presses Fenik’s shoulder.

What the hell… Zack died just like that.

Zack’s grin appears on his mind for an instant, his throat closes, it’s hard to breathe, he closes his hands even more strongly, squeezing harder Fenik’s uniform.

We are all going to die here, isn’t it?

Fenik places his hand over Kyle’s, and turn his face to the side to look at him with only one eye, with the worst stern expression ever.

“You hurting me,” He speaks parchedly.

Kyle snaps out of it, loosening the grip, he looks to everyone, they are still fighting, someone calls to retreat from afar.

“Okay…” Kyle mumbles in shock, “k-keep my cool.”

Kyle keeps his sword and raises Fenik off the ground, carrying him in front, one arm to his torso, and the other to near his knee pit. Walking towards the bunker’s insides.

As they step on the firm concrete, Kyle’s steps echoes on the building and the outside noises get muffled. He looks downwards to look Fenik’s arm moving and realizing what he was trying to do.

“Don’t do that,” Kyle’s voice is shaky.

Fenik’s hand is scratching another syringe on his vest.

“You already took one,” Kyle continues, “There’s one adrenaline shot missing, that’s how you got up, right?”

Fenik doesn’t respond, he just grabs it and starts dragging his hand to his legs.

“If you do that your body won’t take it!”

Fenik’s eyes are dead, he can’t focus on anything, he’s using everything he got to move his hand.

“Don’t you remember? You could permanently damage your heart.” Tears come out of one of Kyle’s eyes. “You’ll just get in the way like that!”

It doesn’t matter, he’s not listening, and in a push of a button, he injects it.

The world bursts in colors once more, quickly getting on his feet again, pushing Kyle backward, with his knife on hand, legs spread and arms forward, bending his body to get the right balance with his head looking down.

Fenik dashes forward, pushing Kyle to the side of the corridor, pinning on the wall with his knife one of the creatures that were following them, it shrieks its last breath and stops. Fenik straightens himself and starts walking to the cage’s entrance, where the people on the squad are going to, retreating as they slowly walk back to keep formation, yelling to each other.

Kyle goes a step forward, but he only can do that before freezing in thought and fear.

Why I can’t go? I’m the one in the assault team, so why you are going to fight while every fiber of me is screaming to run? Why did you enlist to the support role, if you are so strong and stubborn like that?

One left step, and one of the right. Each second Fenik’s heart pulses in pain through his entire body a couple of times, he places his hand on the cage’s entrance metal. One more step followed by the second, his boot above the crumbled concrete with the dirt of the outside, his silver-blue hair, with some loose strands, covering his eyes.

The squad is all around the exit, Ray looks back, with a scene surprising her more than anything that happened so far in her entire life, nothing could beat it, not one gift she received once, nor discovering something new, not even the death of her friends could make her more surprised as she’s now. A scene that confirmed the hell they were in.

“Fenik… ?” She asks herself.

Fenik is grinning, Ray never saw him smile even once, a scene that she couldn’t have imagined nor his face muscles, which were all twisted and being forced upon.

When was the last time he grinned? Maybe as a kid or as a baby, but that doesn’t matter. He goes a step forward, making his entire body to go outside. The encirclement of the squad kills creature after creature, their blades dripping blood into the cracks of the green floor.

Not everyone is there, after all, some have died, but that doesn’t matter either, Fenik goes a step further, his walking slightly warped by the pain as blue strips come out of his entire body, creating some kind of a splashed paint that keeps trying to get out by each pulse of pain, but it’s engulfed back constantly.

‘What are those? Insects?’

A crisp voice comes from within, as Fenik looks higher, showing his red eyes.

‘It doesn’t matter what nature throws at us; humans always are going to prevail.’

He goes a step forward.

‘It doesn’t matter if they can lift a hundred times its own weight, or a thousand for what I care.’

His twisted grin opens even more.

‘Humans can make machines to carry a million times over what any other being can lift.’

The boots roar as it hits the ground.

‘Humans can make rockets to jump so high that they can pierce the atmosphere.’

One more creature falls beside him with a knife wound on its side, as the first people are going inside to retreat, he continues forward.

‘SO DON’T WASTE MY TIME WITH SUCH LESSER CREATURES.’

One creature jumps at him on the left, with stings and mouth at ready, Fenik closes his grin and moves his left arm up to protect himself, as his right goes for a trust that impales it on midair, inertia makes blood spill to his face.

‘IF NATURE IS GOING TO EVOLVE FASTER, HUMANS WILL EVOLVE EVEN FASTER.’

He swings the blood off the blade and points it forward.

‘I WON’T DIE FOR SOMETHING AS PATHETIC AS THE NATURE.’

But in a split second, a thud is heard which echoes throughout time, everything turns as if the entire world was falling, all fading to black.

“You are way too stubborn,” Kyle grabs Fenik before he falls to the ground. “Just don’t get mad at me for stopping you.”