Rules of Survival | afi

day six - part 3

"The day of my birth,
my death began its walk.
It is walking towards me,
without hurrying."

~Jean Cocteau

•••

I can't stand it. The stench, the insanity of it all, the blood on my shoes. I turn around, push past a shell shocked Ashton, and retreat back up the stairs.

He finds me leaning against the wall, my hand over my face. I can't shake the horror, the sheer evil that's encompassed this place. I shouldn't be so effected by it. I knew what I was signing up for. But that doesn't make it any less hard.

"We should go, Liza." Ashton says, putting two fingers under my chin to lift my head up. I force myself to meet his eyes, swallowing down tears. I can't stand this weakness bullshit. I need to get myself together.

I nod faintly. Anyone around probably heard the shots, and could be heading towards us right now.

"I don't-" I move past him, wiping a hand over my face. "My gun-"

"Here." Ashton hands me my weapon, kicking the trapdoor shut with his foot. "I got it. Neither of us has to go back down there, don't worry."

I take it from him with grateful eyes, moving to the door. My hand is barely on the knob before footsteps pick up outside, and I freeze.

I barely have time to make eye contact with Ashton before they're on us.

The door slams open, knocking me back several feet on my ass and sending a flame of pain up my arm. I scramble to get to my feet, the sounds of Ashton's gun going off ringing in my ears. I throw my rifle up to my shoulder, our assailants slock Ashton and his weapon to the floor, and I pull the trigger.

Nothing.

The gun doesn't go off. I'm out of bullets.

I jerk at the trigger in frustration before hurling the gun off to the side, lurching forward to defend my partner. It looks to be two men, tall and broad shouldered, and neither are expecting it when I brace myself and deliver a spinning heel kick straight into the first ones face. He stumbles back, his partner swearing in surprise, which gives Ashton enough time to get up and jump him.

I don't waste any time. I kick my guy again, knocking him to the ground, going to smash my boot down on his face. He grabs my leg, slings me to the side, slamming my head into the hard wooden floor.

My vision is blurry. The man pulls something from his belt, a gun I presume, and pulls the hammer back as my hand shoots upwards and knocks it out of his grip. He swings at my face but I dodge it, rolling to my feet to slam my elbow into his neck, sending him crumbling to the ground.

I can hear Ashton struggling with my opponent's parter several feet away, but there's nothing I can do to help him. This guy is strong, barreling into my legs so that I flip over the top of him. Now we're both on the floor.

I throw my arms around his neck, pulling them tight to cut off his airway from behind. This leaves me dangling from his bag, arms around his waist, and the man growls before standing up and moving backwards, thrashing me up against the wall, the furniture, even the door until I can't take the pain anymore and let go.

I land on the ground with a heavy thud, right on top of something hard and metal. His gun. I barely get my hand around the grip before he's on me.

As expected, his hands go around my throat. But he's too stupid to restrain my arms, and I jerk mine upward, slamming the end of the gun on his forehead and pulling the trigger.

His brains blind me temporarily, the weight of his body now fully on me now that he is dead. I shove him off, swearing, wiping roughly at the gore on my face as I struggle to make out the scene in front of me.

Ashton and the man's partner are rolling on the floor, a dagger in our opponents hand. He's swinging it at Ashton's throat and Ash is swinging his fist, struggling to keep the guy from ending his life. After a few careful seconds of aiming, I'm able to shoot him through the neck, successfully ending the fight.

We just sit for a few seconds, breathing hard, as blood soaks into the wood. My whole body is throbbing. I'm pretty sure my back is torn up, because I can feel the raw skin rubbing against the rough fabric of my shirt. He slammed me against way too many things. Wincing, I manage to pull myself to my feet.

"You ok?" Ashton asks, wiping blood from his nose. He has a black eye and bruised hands, but nothing major.

"I'll live." I manage, picking my gun and the corpses pistol off the floor. "We should go."

Ashton collects the bullets from the bodies while I get everything together, and just like that, we're ready to move again. The fact that this just keeps getting more and more casual scares me a little. We just almost died, and we're acting like it's another day at the park.

Well, it technically is.

The weather isn't lightening up, but the climate has changed from cold and dry to cool and humid. Storm clouds are brewing once more, normal looking ones, hovering over our heads just waiting to open up. We have less than forty eight hours to end this. Forty eight hours to survive.

We keep low and move fast, trying to stay within tall grass or foliage if possible. The safe zone is set to shrink in an hour, so we need to find a place to settle down and watch.

After several hours of searching, Ashton finally finds a little tunnel underneath the road for water drainage, barely wide enough to fit a human being. We both squeeze in, taking the comfort of darkness, and spread leaves over the entrance to block out the light.

I check my wristband. Still thirty of us left. We have over a dozen kills. If we win this, we'll be set for life.

Right now, there's not much we can do but sit and wait. Wait for the action, for the safe zone to get so small that hiding is impossible. Wait for the impending storm.

It's going to be a long night.

•••

shit is finna GO DOWN YALL. it's the final countdown. these next few chapters gon be wild