Chapitre 7: Ruins
"Very well. Next, we secure our luggage and get the hell out of here" I said once I had thought about the mess we were in, everyone nodded and we headed back through the rubble, turning towards where the creature had headed. But none of us had made any complaints about that, choosing another route to lose our way with the weather against us wouldn't be the best decision.
"It might be a lot of them, and they are further away, this place seems to have more levels down" Mark speaks, trying to comfort the whole group that was nervous due to the continuous sounds of landslides.
"We just have to get out of here, after this we can forget about the Noxian metal, we can make it with everything we find" interjects Lily. She seemed to be trying to keep calm in her way.
"Quiet, we'll talk about it once we get back." The silence that followed was heavy and the nerves seemed to be high. But it was something necessary, we had been careless again, we paid with little blood this time, but next time it could be a life.
We continued in silence and checked every building, so in little more than 3 minutes we arrived at the same square, where the things we had recovered from the area were. We picked up as much as possible but left much of it behind, not only because of the weight, but we knew there were eyes on our camp so our missions always took place at night. We were a couple of miles away, with two hours of oxygen.
"We can get a good deal out of this, maybe even pay the fare to Piltover" Yutong closes his mouth when I hear a small chuckle from Lily that makes me start laughing too. Yutong finally joins in and even Mark. For a single moment, there in that subway city under the moonlight, we take a second to forget where we are. That the ruins around us are crumbling and that countless dangers are all around us not only inside but outside. It was one of those laughs that fades into a somber silence when we realize that why we were laughing had nothing to do with the humor of what was being said.
The silence for a moment, weighs us down before our predator appears again. we take cover behind some debris.
"Shit, it followed us until it found a wide spot."
"Fuck, should we hide?" asks Lily loud and clear.
"It'll catch up with us any second, plus Mark won't be able to hold on." I can't stop panic from rising in my throat for a moment.
"Lily, Mark. Stay and move towards the exit, depress this device, then climb up and pull it towards my position, it will create a distraction so we can escape the place. Disarm the mechanism so that they are activated together. Yutong secures the luggage, we can't lose the day. We'll take the profits and survive". Without waiting for them to respond I set my plans in motion knowing that there would be no other option,
At the same time, I could see how the Karkinos were focusing on me, practically running for their prey. I couldn't see anyone else which had calmed my worries a bit.
I decided to play my part as the bait by throwing my mace towards its shell. With such a creature it would only get in my way, and its response was to charge to the right fast and hard, clearing practically any structure in its path. With its weight, it could collapse any normal structure, but these ruins were an advantage for rats like us. A rat in Zaun learned two things if it wanted to survive, one of which was to climb.
I knew I was terrified, I could hear my heart beating fast, after all, I was being chased by a creature that could kill me at any moment, but I felt confident climbing over the rubble and debris of the high steps of the ruins. We had decided to avoid them because of how unstable they seemed, but apparently, they did not yield even with the continuous shocks that the Karkino was causing.
But it was at that moment that I heard the distinctive crunching and sliding of one of the rocks. That sound was followed by immense pain as that rock landed on the back of my leg, causing me to fall to the ground where the Karkino was anxious for me.
He walked slowly towards me. He pointed his claw and looked towards the rest of my group. They had followed my orders and were fleeing towards the exit of this horrible place.
"I knew you were a smart bastard."
I could almost sense his pleasure as he slammed his claw into the ground, but there was something I had gained over the years, I knew my friends would never let me down. Continuous rattling of cans sounded and I could see one of my trusty bombs as it rolled across the floor.
BOOM
I'd take this bastard to the grave. I didn't bother to look back in the direction of my allies, and a familiar voice filled my surroundings.
__________________________
Dark clouds of dust covered the cliff and the subtle scent of an approaching storm was carried on the winds. The group walked through the paved and broken streets of the ruins.
"We have to go down, they know how it is, this must be part of their plan" Lily's voice shouted amidst the ruins as he looked at the hole his friend had fallen through. The bombs had caused a collapse where he and the Karkinos were.
Neither of them could be seen and the hole seemed to have no end.
'Why don't they say anything,' Lily cried out in despair.
'Damn it, why didn't I stay' was a thought that could be shared in everyone's mind.
The guilt was on all of them, a small part of Yutong expected that at any moment he would come out of the hole. He should never have let Damian go. When they didn't find him after the smoke settled, they thought it was a temporary delay, an unforeseen event, and that he would come out at any moment with that smile on his face.
Had Damian planned the whole thing, or had they simply been blamed for his death? If it really was his plan, he knew that at least he was trusting in something and that he would have a chance of survival, but any number of things could have gone wrong. Although Yutong knew this was no time to let his thoughts wander, someone had to take charge of the group now that their leader was gone.
"We have little time left, we should leave and return once we get more filters" Yutong said, everyone knew they had little time left and would have no chance without the filters.
'I'm sorry...' was everyone's thought once they turned around and headed back.
He had sworn to himself that he would protect them all, and yet he failed.
Yutong had always doubted Damian when he first met him. The boy was quiet and also frequented the orphanage program on the docks, where they barely received bread crumbs along with leftover food. It was rare that he hadn't sought out a group of scavengers, though he was not unique, the weak always pushed them away, which is why Yutong had always stayed with his brother Mark.
Still, there was something about him that told Yutong to stay alert. He always appeared out of nowhere at the docks and no one else seemed to notice him. That's why it was odd that he approached them on the day of the expulsion.
Whatever his intentions Mark had said we would need numbers, his brother had always been the brains of the two, but that changed over time thanks to Damian. His plans were logical and strict, which Mark liked, but he knew how to use the Yutong force when necessary, soon Lily joined and they had formed more than a group of scavengers. They had formed a family.
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