46 Buried in the rubble
“Cough, cough!” Mathew spat out a mixture of blood, snot, and saliva that clogged his throat.
He couldn’t really remember anything that happened after he unleashed his ability.
‘What happened?’ Mathew asked himself, coughing out all the dust that he inhaled after losing his consciousness. Yet, as he opened his eyes, he felt a tingle of panic poking at his nerves.
Because even after he opened his eyes, there wasn’t a single thing that he could see.
‘Wait,’ Mathew thought when another realization struck his mind. ‘I can’t move!’
The young man managed to keep himself psyched up about the task by simply ignoring all the possibilities of him dying.
It wasn’t that he didn’t take them into account; he simply refused to think about them too much.
But Mathew now was different. Because he now realized that there was something worse than death.
‘Am I seriously going to just lie down and wait for some zombie to come and snack on me?’ Mathew asked himself, his heart starting to beat faster to pump more blood to his muscles.
“NO!” Mathew shouted, using the momentum of his lungs to tense all his muscles up.
‘Maybe I’m paralyzed, maybe I turned blind,’ Mathew thought, gritting his teeth as he pushed his muscles closer and closer to their limit.pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ
“I heard him!” Daria’s voice suddenly reached Mathew’s ears.
‘At least those do work,’ he thought, his body relaxing and… not moving at all.
‘Could it be that I’m actually stuck under the rubble?’ Mathew thought, trying his best to analyze his situation. ‘Wait, I don’t have the time for this! I need to free myself and finish those monsters up!’
Reminded of his goal, Mathew pressed his muscles again… But whatever was covering his body refused to buckle.
‘I guess I’m stuck here,’ Mathew thought, his lips inadvertently forming a small smirk. ‘It’s a pity I don’t have any stepsister to help me out,’ he thought, Mathew’s humor somehow staying by his side instead of leaving like all Mathew’s hopes and dreams.
“Mathew!” a voice penetrated through the darkness, reaching Mathew’s ears again. “Where are you?!”
‘Is this a trap?’ Mathew thought, the burden all over his body reminding him to be careful.
Ever since Mat saw that centipede monster, he realized that he actually knew nothing about the apocalypse. His experiences from his previous attempts have already gotten him so far… But the usefulness of what he knew back then was quickly running out.
In other words, his future was just like his situation right now.
Bleak, dark, and full of potential threats. pᴀɴᴅᴀ ɴoᴠᴇʟ
‘Still, I guess I have no other choice but to take a gamble now,’ Mathew thought.
He then inhaled a mouthful of breath.
“I’m here!” Mathew shouted as loud as his voice would allow him. Yet, stuck underneath a pile of heavy rubble, miraculously surviving the entire ordeal… Mathew couldn’t really use his voice as he would normally do.
“I heard him!” Mathew heard Leila’s voice only for a sudden tapping to reach his ears. “Where does tapping comes from?” Leila asked as soon as the strange noise stopped.
“Above my feet?” Mathew replied, only for a powerful bout of pain to pierce right through his chest.
“Cough, cough!” Mathew’s entire body tensed up as he coughed, yet it still wasn’t enough for him to free himself from his situation. On the other hand, he could now see a slight ray of light reflecting on the blood he had just coughed up.
“Just wait for a moment!” Daria shouted over, only for a series of strange noises to follow.
‘I guess I was right about being stuck underneath the rubble,’ Mathew thought once he recognized the strange noises for what they were.
And soon enough, enough of the broken concrete and various elements of furniture ended up removed from the pile to allow the young man access to fresh air.
“WHEEZE!” ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
The powerful breath Mathew took of this relatively dust-free air seemed to reinvigorate his body, filling his muscles with strength once again.
‘Was I on the verge of suffocating?’ Mathew thought as he pushed his muscles to their limits, slowly pushing a massive concrete slab off his chest.
“Mathew!” Daria shouted when the two could finally see each other. “How are you doing?” she asked, a look of worry appearing all over her face.
“I’m alive… somehow,” Mathew replied, only to move his hands to another task.
Now that three people worked on uncovering Mathew from where the rubble burying him, they managed to complete the task pretty soon.
“Here,” Leila reached out with her hand towards Mathew, helping him to get back up to his feet.
“What’s the situation?” Mathew asked while still lying on the ground. Yet, even when he stood up, he simply hung himself on Daria’s shoulder, unable to keep himself upright just yet.
“All the monsters are gone,” Daria replied, only to point her hand out in a seemingly random direction. “One of them died on the spot; another one got buried under the rubble. We finished the last one to remain,” she explained.
‘The numbers don’t add up,’ Mathew thought, forcing his head up and looking around the place.
“Where is the centipede?” Mathew asked, unable to see a single hint of this strange monster falling prey to his skill and its after-effects.
“Centipede?” Daria asked, cutely leaning her head to the side like some sort of confused animal.
“Didn’t you see it?” Mathew asked, his eyes opening up wide. ‘Was this some sort of illusion? Charm?’ he thought, racking his brains to come up with a possible explanation.
A small noise came from a ruble nearby. Just like Mathew managed to survive the onslaught caused by his own ability, it seemed that some zombies did just the same.
‘Well, given how we need to destroy their brains to really kill them, it would be no wonder if some survived that hell,’ Mathew thought, taking one last deep breath before moving on and approaching the source of those noises.
“Hmm…” Mathew moaned a little as he raised his hand and rubbed his cheeks.
He now stood directly on the pile that produced the small noise that attracted his attention. Yet, rather than going in to finish the zombie below, Mathew couldn’t help but shake his head and close his eyes for a moment.
‘Nadia…’ he thought, clenching his hands into fists. ‘I hope that donating those levels was enough for you to survive.’
Mathew’s head turned to the side. Even after the fight, he could still see the path that his small group took to reach the middle part of the bottom floor.
And what he could also see was the very reason for the rubble littering all over the ground floor.
He could see the massive walls of the school’s compound, blue sky, and a mass of zombies filling up the outer grounds of the school.
All of that, because of a very simple reason. A reason that also explained the amount of rubble all over the place.
It was the western wing of the school.
Or rather, its complete absence and a massive pile of rubble that replaced it.
‘I guess I can only hope you were in a different wing when it all collapsed,’ Mathew thought, clenching his fists even tighter than before.
Then, Mathew’s body suddenly shook as his footing became unstable.
‘What?’ Mathew thought, looking down…
Only to see a massive claw emerge from underneath the pile of concrete and broken furniture!
‘So it’s alive!’ Mathew thought, instantly jumping off the pile and towards the two of his companions.
“What the hell is this?!” Daria screamed out when more and more claws started to break through the rubble, only for the trio to soon realize that those weren’t claws at all.
The sharp, pointy bones that penetrated through the rubble… were actually the legs of the centipede that Mathew was so worried about!
“Retreat!” Mathew muttered, the sight of the centipede emerging from the rubble sapping all the strength and motivation that he had left. “We are no match for…” he said, only to watch Leila leap ahead, right towards the sharp bones of the centipede’s legs.
“ROAAAAR” a massive, anus-like head of the monster finally broke through the rubble, emerging from the pile while the dusted trash cascaded down its long neck…
A long neck that Leila jumped towards, only to slash right through it with her machete!