109 Lights out
“Is it done?” Nadia asked, raising her eyes to Mathew’s face. Even though she only looked for confirmation, she didn’t remove her shoe from Stephen’s face.
“Lemme check,” Mathew said. “Stay away for a moment,” he then asked while moving his eyes to Leila and Daria.
The girls moved away. And as soon as he was free to do it, Mathew kicked Stephen in his stomach, forcing him to roll around on the floor.
Mathew then got down to his knees only to grab the bounds that kept Stephen’s hands together and raise them a little.
“Yeah, he is missing his pinky,” the young man announced.
The finger was cleanly cut off from Stephen’s hand. Yet, even though it went missing just a moment earlier, the wound was perfectly closed, making it seem as if he had lost his fingers years ago.
“I think we are in the safe,” Mathew then announced. He stood up from his half-kneeling pose and rested his hands on his hips… Only to take a deep breath and then release it along with all the tension in his body.
“So it’s all over now?” Nadia asked, quickly jumping forward and tugging at Mathew’s cloth. “Are we safe?”
“For now, we are,” Mathew replied, keeping his doubts to himself. “Unless the monsters will evolve above the level that this fortress can protect us from, the entire compound should now be a safe zone.”
This was the very reason why Mathew was willing to try so hard and extend so much effort right at the beginning of the apocalypse. The experiences of his former attempts at surviving it made the young man terribly aware of a simple truth.pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ
In order for humans to thrive, they needed a safe place to fall back into. And the fortress that Mathew and his group finally managed to establish was exactly that.
“Then, isn’t this the best time to take some rest?” Nadia pushed forth with her agenda.
“Why do I have the feeling that yours and my concepts of what rest entails are not the same?” Mathew pointed out while bringing up the corners of his lips in a small smirk.
“Are you against the idea?” Nadia asked in a flirty tone while snuggling up to Mathew’s shoulder.
“Hey, that’s not fair!” Leila protested, standing up and leaving her post at Stephen’s hand. Yet, before finally moving on from securing him, she made sure to send a kick to his side.
“Aaghg…” their former enemy could barely find the strength to utter a moan of pain. After all the torture and then sacrificing his very own system, he no longer posed any threat to them. “Still, we can’t rest easy yet,” she said as she stepped over Stephen’s powerless body.
“We need to confine him somewhere,” Mathew judged, sparing the man only a single, short glance. “He fought with us; he lost. He then tried to trick us into killing all of us by stealing my system…” Mathew’s tone turned darker and darker the more he spoke about the man. “But no, I don’t think we should kill him,” he added after a few more moments of hesitation.
“Are you going to forgive him?” Leila asked, raising her eyebrows as high on her forehead as her psychique allowed. “This isn’t the kind world where you can offer such leniency!” she protested.
“Calm down.” Mathew rolled his eyes. “Killing him would be akin to letting him off easy,” he pointed out. “A moment of pain, and then it’s all over,” Mathew said and shook his head. “With how the world is outside of the compound, I believe we would be getting the worse end of the deal than him,” he added in a slightly more silent tone. pᴀɴᴅᴀ ɴoᴠᴇʟ
“What should we do with him, then?” Daria asked as she stepped up and placed her hand on Leila’s shoulder. To Mathew’s surprise, this simple gesture managed to rein in the anger that appeared on Leila’s face when she spoke before.
“For now, let’s just lock him down somewhere,” Mathew ordered. Strap him to the window or something, I don’t know,” he added while shrugging his shoulders. “We have more important things to take care of than dealing with a powerless bastard like him.”
Mathew meant exactly what he said. He took one last look at the miserable state of his first major opponent in this new, changing world before turning around and heading for the door of the classroom.
“Let me guess,” Nadia stuck to Mathew’s side, “we are going to the top floor?”
“Yup.” Mathew nodded his head. “The system said something about expanding the scouting area, but I do not feel any presence, neither within the compound nor around it,” he explained. “It’s nothing more but my guess, but I believe I will only be able to access those features by that merchant.”
“That makes sense,” Nadia admitted before turning silent and simply enjoying her walk through the corridor.
“Don’t think you are going without us!” Leila shouted once she emerged from the classroom, right as the couple was about to climb the stairs.
“Did you secure him?” Mathew asked once the girl ran up to them, followed by a calmer Daria.
“You can fuck me in the ass if he manages to free himself and escape,” Leila said with a small smile while she leaned forward and grabbed Mathew’s left arm. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
“Am I supposed to climb on your back now?” Daria asked in a joking manner when she joined the rest of the group.
“What for?” Mathew shrugged, dumbfounded by the question.
“You don’t seem to have a third arm that I could snuggle up to,” Daria pointed out while spreading her arms to the sides. She then allowed a small giggle to escape from her mouth before shaking her head.
“Girls, Daria is right,” Mathew admitted, despite how nice it was to feel two cute and sexy girls competing for his attention. “We can play around after we get a good night of sleep,” he added as the group started to climb the stairs.
And then, the entire corridor suddenly turned dark.
“Wha!” someone cried out, surprised by the unexpected darkness.
“I guess the power finally went out,” Mathew muttered, only to press his lips together into a thin line, desperately hoping to hide his dissatisfaction.
‘Back then, it took three days for the electricity to go belly up,’ the young man thought. ‘I guess rushing for this fortress affected the entire city,’ he realized, once again reminded of how devious whoever came up with this apocalypse was.
“As if killing innumerable humans wasn’t enough, actually trying to survive only makes it harder to, well, survive,’ Mathew thought, gritting his teeth in a powerless fury directed at the beings responsible for this entire apocalypse.
“Did you say something?” Nadia whispered directly to Mathew’s ear, using the fact that her hands were still wrapped around his arm to locate him.
“Don’t mind it,” Mathew shrugged the question off. “I’m just happy we got to defeat Stephen before we lost the light,” he used a random thought to mask the words that slipped out of his mouth a moment earlier.
‘There is no point in making her worry,’ Mathew thought as he led the group ahead just with his touch and memories alone.
“I didn’t know the world could get so dark,” Daria suddenly muttered as she grabbed the back of Mathew’s shirt, most likely worried about losing the rest of her group in the total darkness.
“I ac…”
‘Huh?’ Mathew shook his head when he suddenly heard a voice in his head. For a moment, he was confused about the situation, only realizing what was going on nearly a minute later.
And so, he closed his eyes.
In the complete darkness that covered the school, keeping his eyes open didn’t matter at all.
“I can actually see perfectly well, even without the light,” Norbert pointed out, still moving around in his ghost’s form.
“Then you can lead us to the entry-hole to the shaft,” Mathew pointed out.
“I don’t need to,” Norbert replied, his voice indicating he shrugged his shoulders, even if he didn’t have any. “It’s to your right,” he announced a second later.
“We are here,” Mathew quickly brought the news to the rest of his group. He then turned to his right and slowly walked forward, only stopping when his leg didn’t find any surface to lay down on. “Okay, guys, I will go first, just in case…”
“I will go first,” Leila quickly volunteered. She then gently pushed Mathew to the back before touching the wall all over before she figured out the exact location of the hole in it. “Without you and your system, we are just like everyone else. We can’t risk you getting hurt,” she explained before getting into the hole.
“I will go next,” Daria reported, quickly moving past the couple and stuffing herself into the hole the moment Leila climbed high enough to free some space inside.
“After you,” Nadia announced a moment later. Yet, rather than letting go of Mathew’s arm, she climbed up on it, leaning over his ear. “I will take care of your back now,” she whispered before suddenly pushing her tongue out and driving it up Mathew’s earlobe. “You can pay me back the same way later.”
‘This girl…’ Mathew thought, shaking his head as he stuffed himself into the hole and grabbed the rails of the ladder. Yet, just as he was about to start climbing up, Mathew turned around and reached out.
His hand quickly stumbled upon Nadia’s body, only to climb all the way up to the area of her collarbone, only for the young man to grab the girl by the top of her shift and pull her closer to his mouth.
“I guess I have no other choice but to discipline you later, do I?”