THE DARKEST HOPE

Chapter 34 First Thing in the Morning

Chapter 34

First Thing in the Morning

The aftermath was bad. Over twenty of his men were dead and the realization that he was never going to see them again was eating Jin alive. He had to hold back his anguish though and focus at the job ahead, their work was far from over.

It took forever to clean the mess. They collected and piled up the bodies. Then poured a generous amount of gasoline over the piles. The only thing clear about the vampire virus was that it was destroyed completely by fire, they needed to torch everything. There was no other way to be certain that it was not going to spread from the corpses. Dead vampires and dead humans combined formed ridiculously stacked clusters here and there along the underground corridors, from afar they looked like odd little hills of flesh. Just the thought of that made Jin want to puke his insides out.

Jimin and Suga were working along with the others in silence. There was not much to be said when you are walking around into pieces of scattered meat infected with the vampire virus. Randomly one could notice the bloodied face or arm or leg of one of the hunters and policemen who fell victims.

Occasionally their eyes would meet, a serious deep stare of dread, holding the realization that this slaughter was just the beginning of a doomed war. What chance did they have, a handful of humans, against that complete monstrosity. Yes, this was the beginning to what seemed like the ends of their lives. The truth was too hard to be said out loud though and they just chose to bite down on their tongues and silence it as if there was still some future ahead.

After hours of hard, exhausting work down the moldy sewers the party finally crawled out, dirty, sweaty and relieved to see the grayish sky yet again.

"Everyone is out!" A man at the entrance to the sewers yelled and Jin looked around to confirm it. Yes, everyone seemed safely out, except for those who died down there. They would never get safely out, Jin thought with sorrow and some poisonous bitterness filled his mouth.

"Light the fire!" he commanded with a raspy voice and in a minute a lit torch was thrown down the sewer shaft. The fire spread quickly, engulfing all within its reach, the blood, the dead bodies, the entire butchery down the moldy corridors.

"It will stink for a while but at least we got rid from most of the monsters down there. That should secure the City for a while." Suga commented, looking blankly at the smoke, rushing out the hole. His mind was full with images of the dead down there. The whole mission looked now like a distant bad dream, a thing from the past, one more obstacle they overcame and survived. Unfortunately this too had its price, their survival was paid with the lives of others, the security of the City was paid with the blood of its defenders.

Jimin too was staring at the thick smoke without blinking. The horrors they went through were reappearing randomly into his brain but somehow all of that carried little meaning right now. He too remembered with sorrow the ones who fell down there. But to him it was more like some torturous drilling regret. A regret that he was not one of those who died. As time progressed his life had started to feel less and less meaningful to him and the actual living seemed more painful than death.

With Jungkook gone and his research hitting rock bottom, it was like all that ever mattered dispersed as if it never existed. What now, do what, go where? He was clueless about that. The only thing he could do was help his friends, fight alongside them with as much strength as he had and probably in the next battle he would be lucky enough to fall down like the others. A life well spent, probably that's what the others would say. But to him it seemed like exactly the opposite, a life totally wasted...