the next dark age: book two insanity

chapter 12 the explosion

After about five minutes of Trisha sending out mental signals to try to locate Angel, Trisha had finally bumped into Angel, who was crying, had a red 3 on her hand, and babbling on about... something.

"What happened?" Trisha asked Angel, had some blood on her clothes.

"The Anti-Christ has become flesh and walks among us as Dawn." Angel babbled. She then said something was incomprehensible.

"What?" Trisha's eyes bulged out of their sockets in realization. Dawn has somehow escaped from his prison, and she had no idea where he is.

Angel held on to Trisha "Lance is dead. Dawn beheaded him. Please you have to protect me. I CAN'T FACE THAT THING AGAIN!"

"Hey, listen, everything is going to be fine, we just need to find the other and"

Trisha couldn't finish her sentence, as she felt what she thought was an earthquake, before seeing a giant ball of fire in the distance.

"What was that?" Angel screamed.

Trisha didn't know how to respond to this. She felt like no matter what she said, she would just make things worse. Angel was clearly going through something, and she had no idea how to deal with this. So she did the only thing she knew how to at this point, and try to protect Angel

"Listen, you see that old store?" Trisha pointed to a small shop that had several small little stations with hoses attached to it in front of it. "You need to hide there."

"What about you, You can't leave me!" Angel said, feeling sick inside. She knew that what she was saying was selfish, and made her sound like she was spoiled, but it was all she could think of at the time.

Trisha wanted to punch herself for what she was about to do, but she knew that the explosion had come from near where the holding cell of Dawn was, and she needed to save her friends. "I need to help the others, who are probably fighting Dawn. I promise I will come back for you though." and Trisha ran off towards the explosion.

...

When that building next to him blew up, Adam was finally able to recognize the smell. It was the gasoline used in his car.

"We need to get out of here," Adam screamed over the ringing in his ears from the explosion, "that liquid is extremely flammable." Before Adam could even finish the sentence, the fire was already approaching the group, and they blindly ran the other way.

After about a minute of sprinting through the smoke, Stephanie stopped the group, "hold on," she began to cough nastily "Sapphire is still back there with Michael."

"Um excuse me," Lizzy said with a bit of sass, "we are not going back there. I can feel the heat from here, and we are a good twenty feet from the fire."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that." Dawn said, walking dangerously close to the fire as he approached them from the right. Right after he said that he pointed a remote towards the previous town hall, which was behind them, and it detonated  a bomb placed there by Dawn earlier.

Stephanie instinctively ran the other way of the explosion, and was followed by the others. At that point, Stephanie was fueled by pure adrenaline. The people around her became figures in a confusing landscape full of fire. The dead bodies lying around her were now just fuel to a raging inferno engulfing the city. She even received several burns from the fire that she ran through, but that was nothing compared to the pure survival instinct that merely seeing Dawn could bring out. She never even noticed that she passed right by the place that once held Dawn, and now held Sapphire.

...

At first Sapphire thought she was going blind when she went outside, but after feeling an intense sting in her eyes, and a heat that reminded her of her fireplace at home, she realized that it was actually smoke in her eyes. She lowered into a crawl position and tried to find some opening among the smoke and flames. Michael did the same thing behind her.

"Why is he doing this?" Sapphire asked over the wails of the dying and the roaring of the town going up in smoke. She began to see visions of her hometown, and of her parents, which she quickly tried to push out of her mind.

"I don't know." Michael answered with worry in his voice, "he likes to do this sometimes for no reason, but the population of the cities tend to be much bigger."

Sapphire finally found a place to stand. She couldn't see clearly, and she couldn't catch her breath without inhaling some polluted air; still though, it was better than where she was at before, and for that she was grateful.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Michael and his best friend." said Dawn, who Sapphire could still recognize from sight, despite her blurry vision.

...

Stephanie heard Dawn say this and turned around. Her heart skipped a beat, and in that moment of pain, and pure fear, Stephanie had a little bit of hope.

Stephanie ran to Sapphire, but Dawn was one step ahead of her, and pointed his remote another bomb, sending a mountain of debris into the alleyway between Stephanie and Sapphire.

Seeing that the debris was able to be climbed, Stephanie began to climb the obstacle, before being pulled down by Adam. "Are you insane?" Lizzy said with a hint of sarcasm, "if you face Dawn, you are guaranteed to die. You heard what Michael said, Dawn could take on all of us combined, and that was with Angel and Lance. Not only that, but even if Dawn doesn't kill you, the fire will."

"My best friend is out there right now." Stephanie started with a low growl, "If you think I will stand here while she dies, then the only one here who is insane is you. Come on Adam"

Adam didn't budge.

"Are you coming Adam or not?" Stephanie yelled, anger rising in her voice. She grabbed and shook him, "That is your sister out there. Are you really going to just watch her die?"

"I didn't think that anyone could be this powerful." Adam trembled, "I don't want to die, and I especially can't watch my sister die."

"Well then help me climb this hill and kill Dawn with me and Sapphire."

"I'm sorry. I can't. I will be right here though if you guys do kill him."

"Fine" Stephanie turned around and began to climb with the determination of a mountain lion. She was going to make sure Dawn would burn in the fire he had created.