Glint

Part 5 of a Post-Apocalyptic Mini-Series

The room exploded in the palm of my hand.

The big glass wall that faced out to the city fell in a blistering scream. Down below, the streets yawned their siren.

“YOU IDIOT!”

I charged out of the room. Everyone inside lived for barely a second longer.

The impact of the beast’s movements followed me with the ferocity of a tsunami. My back was sprayed with red and the ground beneath me caved and bent and I fell below. My knee crunched the wrong way and I laid writhing as the rest of the outpost was roused from complacency.
I got up as the beast ravaged the floor above me, leant on the wall as I heard families do their best to rip their vocal chords from their throats. I hobbled forward, swearing, panting. Down a path to the left, another beast had entered the building, turned the carpet to a wildfire that was rapidly approaching. To the right, a gurgling poison was working its way along the walls. I slammed my body into a locked door until it gave way to avoid both.

On the other side it was even worse.

The main housing area.

A man without an arm or a face wobbled past me before collapsing like a drunk. A woman whose flesh was melting disintegrated at my feet. Her friend became paste on a wall. And their friend turned to ash in a breath.

I walked through the sludge of all their bodies to a set of stairs, and tried my best to run down before committing to falling. Faster, safer.

I was at the door of a lift. I barged into it, dented the metal, pried my fingers into it, yanked it in both directions. It fought back, but my body weight prevailed.

Inside was a deep drop into the building’s basement… Into the sewers that I swore I could recognise even from up here. Home. Freedom.

I leant forward and grabbed onto one of the old elevator’s cables. It was slick, but it would be enough to break my fall.

I tried to catch my breath, to focus, to find it in me to take the risk. In my uncertainty, I leant back.

I looked up the stairs I’d fallen, reconsidered the carnage one last time. From it hurled a man desperate for the same escape I was. He ran towards the elevator, slid past me and gnawed at the rope with fingers that were too anxious to properly grasp it. He hit the bottom with a sound that made me rethink everything.

Perhaps all that awaited me was that thud…

“Fuck!” I leant onto the cable again, told myself I was going to do it… “FUCK!” But I didn’t. I’d made my decision… again… and now I just had to find the courage to go through with it.

I needed to stay up here. I needed that obelisk.

I needed to be more than the sewer garden, deserving of the second chance I’d forced upon myself.

“Fuck…”

I turned and hobbled back into the building.

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