The World Never Ends

Chapter 10: Nikol

There was a very loud bang when we stepped through the doorway, and the entire building shook. Dust and debris from who knows how long ago fell from the ceiling, and it felt like the temperature rose a few degrees. The first thought in my mind was probably the scariest thought I’ve ever had. The nukes hit. 

I didn’t want to believe it, but it was the only logical explanation I had going right at that moment. When the room shook, Rite and I both looked at each other, and based on Rite’s look of terror, I could only imagine how scared my face looked. The last nuke that hit was well before I had been born, in the year 2023. The war had lasted a grand total of maybe two years, probably more, but the whole last year was basically countries threatening each other with nukes, until South Korea finally blew up half of the United States. That lead to our retaliation, taking Korea right off the map, and most of Europe. After that, alliances went to hell, no country trusted another, and nukes were sent out almost as fast as the countries could build them, which they had designated almost 800 people per base to building them in mass production. It was some very dark times, and not a time anybody would want to live in. Infantry was deemed useless, and so was pretty much every other form of artillery. The only other form of military equipment that was mass produced had been SAM turrets, and we had supersized them to defend against nukes at long range to minimize damage to countries. 

After what seemed like eternity, it turns out countries still hold grudges, which I thought was ridiculous. I had been over twenty years since the last nuke hit, and they still held the war against us?!

I collapsed against the wall, breathing sharply. I was scared as hell, and I needed some time to let this all set in and take effect in my brain. I had no clue how many people survived, or even if anyone did survive.

Rite pulled me into his chest, and I could feel his heartbeat against my ear. His pulse was fast, and I knew he was panicking as well, but he still held himself together to comfort me. I broke down at the thought of that, and we sat there for maybe twenty minutes; me crying into his shirt, and him comforting me, whispering to me that he promises everything will be okay.

-    -    -

Pure silence. Absolute silence. The worst kind of silence.

I woke up to nothing; I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. There was nothing, nor was I anything. Nothing was real, everything was real. Then the smell hit. Dirt. That’s something.

I felt him next to me, and I shook him awake. I told him we have to go. Now. 

-    -    -

We ran. We ran until we couldn’t, and we still had more to go. We couldn’t see, and the only thing we heard was the tap tap tap of our footsteps hitting the what felt like marble floor. We hit the walls many times, and we immediately got back up. I held Rite; Rite held me. I honestly had no clue where our destination was, I just knew that wherever we were heading, that they best prepare for us to show up. 

The proving went from nothing more than a game for the capital’s officials to entertain themselves with, to us being quite possibly the only people left. Why they saved us, and not anybody else still kind of confused me, given they were able to save much  more important people than Rite and I. Maybe they did, and Rite and I just don’t know that yet.

I pushed aside all of my thoughts and focused on running and holding onto Rite. Suddenly, he fell, and I had still been running full speed, with a tight grip on him, so when he fell, he pulled me down on top of him, and he groaned from the impact winding him. He wrapped me in what seemed like a hug, and we just laid there for close to twenty minutes. 

When we finally got up, I didn’t even want to. This was basically the apocalypse; I just wanted to lay down and never get up. I didn’t want Rite to pick me up. I didn’t want him to do anything other than keep holding me, and maybe more, I don’t know. 

We took off running again, but I could tell that fall took a lot out of Rite; he was lagging behind slightly, and running out of breath earlier than usual. It made me feel rather bad. Was it me that did that?

I heard him start coughing and that’s where I called it quits. We had been running for what felt like three hours now, and I didn’t want him to push himself past his limit. In Apenture, you are built for endurance and strength an entire year before the proving, and I have no clue what kind of training that Rite went through before coming, but I had a feeling it wasn’t much, if even any at all. I knew he didn’t have as much endurance as me, even if he wasn’t hurt.

We both sat down, against the wall, and I pulled him against me, and we just sat there, recovering from what seemed like the eleven mile run we just endured. I kissed his forehead, and told him, “It’s okay, we will make it, I know we will. We are almost there, okay?”

He whispered back, “Yeah, okay love, I know we will, too.” What got me about that sentence is at the end of it he tried to give me a smile, but even though I could barely see, I knew all it was was a wince. I felt horrible. 

-    -    -

After I was sure Rite was well enough to continue, we took off again. The tunnel had started to shrink, closing in to become smaller. Also, the tunnel had become more and more heated. After a while more, the tunnel was no longer able to fit us both side by side, but we both insisted on holding hands so we didn’t lose the other one, which slowed our progress by a ridiculous amount.

The tunnel shrinking continued, until we were in nothing more than just a crawl. Progress was miserable, but at least the tunnel had stopped shrinking. The walls and floor had turned to dirt, and I was certain I was disgusting right now, but that didn’t even bother me. I had bigger things to worry about. 

Suddenly, the tunnel opened up, and I fell down a ledge of maybe two feet onto hot, hard marble floor. Rite was almost instantly on top of me, picking me up off the ground and holding me. I looked into his eyes, and kissed him, and I noticed his smile.

That was when I realized there was little light in the tunnel. We are almost out! I thought to myself. “Rite, I see light! We are almost there!” We broke into a dead sprint down the hallway for almost five minutes of straight running, and that was when we came up to another door, this time, the door was glass, or at least, it used to be. All of the glass on the door had been broken, but the odd part was, there was no sign that the glass was even there. It was almost as if the glass had just vanished, or had been disintegrated, and not to mention, the temperature felt as if it was past 100 degrees, which was not a good sign.

Rite and I decided to tread carefully through here, because this was the first light we’ve seen in what felt like maybe a day. We had no clue what may lay ahead of us, so I had Rite watch my back, while I watched his back.

We began clearing rooms, and Rite opened a door that contained weapons. We quickly took what we could hold with full mobility, and took off to clear the rest of the rooms. There was no life in this building, which unnerved me. I had no idea what to expect now, nor was I able to put much thought into it as we ran from room to room.

Rite pushed open a door and I saw him fall over, with something attacking him, and I kicked it off, and shot it twice. Then, without knowing what attacked him, I walked in the room, looking for anymore hostiles. Turns out, whatever that thing was is alone. I walked over to Rite and helped him up, and I kicked whatever attacked him to turn it over to get a better look. I had what looked like grey fur, and it looked like a mutation of an oversized rat and a dog. It was probably the single most hideous creature I’ve ever seen, and I almost had to choke back a gag.

Rite looked at it once, refused to look at it again, and he avoided it at all costs.

We finished clearing the rooms, and he had found a door with an old EXIT sign above it, and we decided to go through there last. We had no clue what was on the other side, maybe the remains of the capital. We went through the doors, which ended up in a small hallway, with a single set of metal doors on the other side, identical to the ones we entered the capital building through. A flash of anxiety flooded through my body as we approached the doors.

Rite almost pushed right through the doors before I stopped him because I remembered I had found some hazmat suits in the main room, and given nukes had just dropped, it only seemed logical.

We went back and suited up in the suits, then started back to the doors. Hazmat suits were heavier than they appeared, probably doubling my body weight. 

Rite and I slowly approached the doors, and I forced them open.