Living On The Ground - John Murphy

Chapter 7 (Reapers)

I was sprinting as fast as I could down the tunnel. My breathing was fast from running and from the fear of what would happen if hey caught up with us. Murphy was right in front of me running as fast as he could. I looked behind me and saw 3 reapers running after us, and they were catching up quickly. I started to panic as I tried to run faster but physically couldn't. I started to fall behind and started to slow down. Murphy looked over his shoulder as he was running. He noticed I was struggling so he grabbed my arm and started helping me go a faster. As he was pulling me I saw that the tunnel was coming to an end. I could feel my eyes getting wider and my heart rate getting even faster.

Right before we were about to hit the wall Murphy quickly turned to the left. There was another large hole leading somewhere in the tunnel. When I looked back behind me I saw one less reaper. As we were running Murphy suddenly stopped and pulled me to the side in a small room. We were both panting heavily as I was bent down with my hands on my knees. Murphy slid down the wall and sat on the floor with this eyes closed. As we stayed there we heard voices from the outside and saw a torch light. We were both completely silent barely even breathing. My skipped a beat the whole time they were standing outside the entrance.

I finally took a deep breath out after they kept moving forward.

"There finally gone." Murphy said breathing heavily. I nodded and made a slight yes grunt. I clenched my jaw as I put my hands on my head. He looked up at me with a concerned face.

"You ok?" He asked me. I looked down at him.

"Ya I'm fine." I said quickly. I looked over at him. "Why did you help me?" I asked with a horse voice. He shifted his head over to me.

"Why wouldn't I, I wasn't  just going to let you die." He said staring at me. He took a deep breath and looked forward again. "And besides if you died I would just get blamed for it." After he said that I bit my top lip and looked over threw the door way.

"The coast is clear, we should get going." I said to him. I could here him getting of the ground and walk slowly threw the door. As we slowly made our way down the tunnel we could here the reapers close by.

Me and Murphy were walking back to back so we would always know if someone was going to come down the tunnel. My fists were clenched and my heart was beating fast again. I felt sweat dripping down my temple as I wiped it away with the back of my hand. That's when Murphy broke the silence.

"You sure your ok?" I heard him say. I snapped out of the little trance I was in and responded to him.

"Ya why wouldn't I be." I did with a stutter in my voice. I could feel him look over his shoulder.

"You don't sound fine." He said. I looked up to the sealing and and took a deep breath.

"Your right, I'm not fine. Because if you haven't noticed there are cannibal grounders chasing after us!" I said loudly.

"Would you quiet down! Your going to get us caught." He said whispering loudly. Suddenly we heard a grunt from behind me and Murphy suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" I asked quietly.

"Start walking the other way. He said quietly and nervous at the same time.

He quickly turned around and we started to run my way right before a reaper walked out from behind the corner. We both stumbled backwards before we quickly turned around, but right in front of us was another one. I felt my jaw drop as I looked back and forth between the two. I had so many things going on all at once in my mind. I thought to myself that this would be how I died.

Me and Murphy were back to back, so tight to each other that we almost pushed each other over. That's when noticed something behind the grounder. As I squinted my eyes more and more I could see a faint bright light coming from the end of the tunnel. My eyes quickly widened as I realized it was a way out. I quickly hit Murphy's arm and he looked over his shoulder.

"What was that for?" He said asked me struggling to look behind himself. I quickly licked my lips and cleared my throat.

"I see an opening at the end of the tunnel. I think it's the way out." I said with a hint of excitement in my voice. I could feel him turn his head back to the reaper closing in closer to us.

"If you haven't noticed we have a bit of a problem that is blocking us from getting out." He said in a sarcastic voice.

I rolled my eyes and clenched my jaw thinking. That's when Murphy started talking.

"I have an idea." He said looking strait forward. I looked over my shoulder wondering what he was going to say. "We should make a run for it." He said quickly taking a deep breath. My eye brows raised at what he said. "What!" I said almost shouting. He started talking again. "There's two of us and one reaper, if we both run at him at one time then he won't know who to go after, he'll end up not being to make a decision and not go after either of us."

I thought to myself for a second going threw the plan in my head. I sounded reasonable, but I didn't know if it would work. What if the reaper just chose to go after one person. What if there were more reapers behind him? All these thought that were running threw my head was making it difficult to focus on the situation. I finally nodded my head and told Murphy we should do it. Murphy started counting down from three.

"3,2,1, GO." He said as he quickly turned around and started sprinting forward. I quickly followed after him as we ran as fast as we could.

I was running as fast as I could when I noticed we were getting close to the reaper. My breaths got heavier with each step I took. When we finally were approaching him I put my hands up to cover my face. Right then I felt a hand grab me and through the reaper had caught me. I quickly opened my eyes and saw Murphy had pulled my aside so I wouldn't run into the reaper. I looked behind me as we sprinted and saw the reaper back in our tracks. I felt a large smile form on my face as I was still in Murphy grasp. That smile quickly faded as the reapers started chasing us again.

"Do they ever stop!" Murphy yelled.

As we got closer to the exit of the cave I was so relived we were going to get out. When we were finally about ten feet from the opening of the tunnel I felt the bright light hit my face almost binding me. When we were finally out me and Murphy ran for about another hundred yards before we both quickly fell to the ground. I rolled over onto my back looking up at the tops of the trees. I smiled and made a slight chuckle to myself. I rolled my head over and looked over at Murphy with a smile. He was leaning against a tree with his hand on his side. I quickly looked down at his hand and saw a small amount of blood. I quickly sat up and went over to him.

"Murphy what happened?" I asked him examining the wound. He liked his lips before he started talking.

"As we were running past the reaper, he cut me on the side with his weapon ." He said taking a small breath breath between each other word.

I quickly lifted up he side of his shirt and saw a cut that was about five inches long. It wasn't that bad but it was still pretty deep and could get infected. I tore a peace of cloth off his jacket and rapped it around him. I bit my top lip before I stared talking.

"The cuts not bad, but we should probably go find the others. The longer we are out here the more venerable we are." I said looking down at the ground. "If you can we need to start going now."

He nodded his head as he stood up. I took a step back making sure I wouldn't run into him. We started walking deeper into the woods finally going back to the others.