Corrupted: The Pain We Feel (Book 1)

Chapter 10: Leaders Wisdom

~Aella’s POV~

Tristen and I finally reach the level that Zoey is on, “ZOEY!!!” I yell, trying to find my best friend.

“I’m in here!” I hear her yell from down the hall before dashing over through the piles of dead Corrupted. ‘What on Earth?’

Tristen and I run into what seems to be some kind of large storage room, only to be met with Zoey leaning on the wall, covered in ash. “What happened?” Tristen asks, looking around at the large mess.

“I yeeted them.” Zoey laughs, dropping what seems to be a button in her hand.

“You remembered the bomb that Mr. B taught us to make.” I smile, remembering that day so clearly. Mr. B had taken us outside, within the church barriers, and had us make bombs out of wiring, propane, rock salt, iron nails, and a lantern battery. It’s actually really simple, not that hard to make if you just know how to do it.

“I’ve been wanting to test that out for so long, I couldn’t resist. Plus, it’s not like I had any other choice. There was like 40 or 50 of them.” she replies.

That’s when I notice that her leg is oddly placed, she must have dislocated it during her fall. “Here, let me fix that.” I say, bending down and putting my hands in their respective places on her leg so I can snap it back into place.

“On 3, ok?” I ask, looking her in the eyes as she nods her head. “1.” with one quick motion, I snap her leg back into place as she yells out in pain.

“What happened to 2 and 3?!” she yells in painful exasperation.

“If I said 2 and 3 then you would have expected the pain and it wouldn’t have worked.” I deadpan, shrugging my shoulders as she groans in pain for a second before getting up.

“Let's get out of here.”

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We all stop for a moment to catch our breaths, there are currently no Corrupted near as far as I can tell for the time being so I should probably use this time to take a break and go over our next move. “Ok, we can’t walk all the way to the lab. It’s at least 50 miles away from us and it’ll take forever for us to get there on foot. Plus, it’s very likely that the lab won’t have the cure. But it’ll have information. Information we need. When we get there, we see what we can find and keep going from there. It might have the identity of the person who started all of this. Or at least the location of another Lab with more information that we can use to figure it out. Point being, we can’t walk the whole way.” I start, looking both of them in the eyes with a serious look on my face.

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Tristen asks, taking the matter seriously instead of cracking a joke, knowing that now is not the time to be messing around.

“We get a car.” I reply simply.

“How are we going to do that? We don’t even know how to drive!” Zoey butts in, clearly confused.

“I do, I can do it. But, it’s not going to be easy getting a car in the first place.” I tell her.

“Of course it’s not, since when is anything easy?” she comments.

“There’s a little town not far from here, probably 5 to 10 miles. That’s where we’re headed. There’s an old junkyard that should have something that runs.” I reply.

“Ok then, what's the problem?”

“It's overrun with Corrupted. All of the cars that still work are on the far side of the junkyard. We're gonna have to be sneaky, we can't risk being spotted or we’ll be dead before this journey begins.” I pause for a moment to get out my journal and open it to a page.

“I found a layout of the city online and sketched it out. There's a sewer system that runs all throughout the city, including right under the junkyard. There's an opening just outside the gate on the far side of the junkyard where the sewer let's out. If we go under the junkyard through the sewer system, we can sneak past all of the Corrupted without them even knowing we're there. Once we've gotten out of the sewer, we climb the gate, find a car the runs, and get the hell out of Dodge.” I explain, pointing to different parts of the map as I speak.

“Why do I have a feeling something's gonna go wrong?” Tristen asks, pointing out the Elephant in the room. Sneaking into a Corrupted infested junkyard? Doesn't exactly give anyone peace of mine.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid too, but I have to be strong. For them. They're trusting me to have everything planned out. Trusting me that everything will be ok. I'm the one with all of the maps, blueprints, and information. So I'm basically the leader of this mission, I can't have them thinking that I don't know what I'm doing. I have to be able to know what to say when they feel discouraged, or afraid, that's my job. As both a leader, and a friend. I have to be able to keep their spirits high or they'll get discouraged, and I can't have that. It'll get them killed.

“We're gonna most likely have to deal with some Corrupted in the sewer. But it can't be worse then the junkyard, as long as we stick together, we'll be fine.” I reassure him, nodding my head as I look him in the eyes with a light smile.

“I have a really bad feeling about this.” Zoey butts in as she shakes her head, clearly afraid and very discouraged.

“Fear only affects the outcome if you let it. We have each other, and that's all that matters. I know we can do this. Just remember,” I pause for a moment before concluding my statement…

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“Togetherness is your greatest weapon.”

I made a twitter account for Corrupted so go follow it and I'll notify you when a new chapter is out! There will also be some quotes that will be in the book and other stuff involving Corrupted so go follow! It's @Corrupt_Wattpad