The Vordox

Chapter 8

We started climbing the bridge. We reached the high point where the ground was not visible because of the mist. We were halfway up the bridge. We kept going straight but then suddenly we saw about 50 infected people up on the bridge as if they were setting a camp for themselves. To be precise there were more than 50 people. As soon as we saw them, they saw us. They started making weird loud noises. They started yelling and coming towards us. Their big claws scratching all that was on the bridge. We in fear stepped back and then started shooting them. With the only guns we had on hand. We knew turning back was not an option as they were faster than us. And outrunning them would be a miracle. We shot the first 12 approaching us. Then we had to reload our weapons. We both ran out of bullets at the same time. As we were trying to reload, they came very close to us. They were seconds away to catching us. They were longer than us and had longer feet so that they ran faster. They came so close to us that I took out a smoke bomb from my bag. Pulled the key out and threw the bomb to our feet. In less than a moment there was a lot of smoke surrounding us. Nothing was visible we could only hear their growls and voices. I held Isabel's hand tightly said "follow me" she seemed quite scared. I pulled her towards myself and ran towards the infected. When they ran towards us. They were approaching us and we were running towards them. We could see while running through the smoke their projections on the sides. Amidst the smoke we saw their claws their long nails. Some faces but we kept a low profile and escaped the smoke. I took out another grenade this time I took the key out and threw it in the smoke behind us Isabel instantly did the same. We threw 2 explosion grenades on them. We started running up the bridge. Two loud explosions happened behind us. We turned around about 10 of them were alive. The rest of them laid on the ground unconscious and some even dead. They saw us running up the bridge and started running towards us we tried running faster. Then Isabel noticed about 10 more people who were coming from the top of the bridge. We were trapped. Infected coming from all the directions. Nowhere to go. She started shooting the people which were ahead of us on the higher part of the bridge and were approaching us. Running towards them. We were almost trapped. I held Isabel from her waist put her up on my shoulder. and I said close your eyes and jumped off of the bridge. It was almost the middle of the bridge high enough if we didn't land properly, we would've been dead. The mist was too dense we could see nothing but after 3 seconds or so we saw a building right under us. We fell for about 1 story from the bridge and landed on the building. We fell rolling to decreases the impact. I had sprained my ankle. I couldn't walk properly. In a few moments we saw the others jumping off the bridge and onto the building. This was not a good idea. There were about 7 more people on the building. I walked limping towards the side of the building and peeped down. It was not clear but I did see movement there. The mist was still there. They started approaching us Isabel started shooting them. I grabbed her the same way again "what are you doing!?" she yelled and while limping jumped off the building. Again, this was a longer fall and if we fell on the street, we wouldn't survive we crossed about 7 stories of freefall. We were lower than ground. As soon as we got a view, we saw a river it was right beneath us we fell in the river. I didn't know how to swim and my leg was also sprained. I grabbed hold of Isabel panicking she said, "it's alright stop panicking were alive" I was almost drowning. My mouth half submerged in water. We had just jumped off of a 7 story building into an ice cold river. She held me tight and said, "I am never jumping off of anything with you ever again" we looked at each other and laughed. Suddenly we heard a loud splash and an eerie scream. We turned around and saw there was an infected, they didn't know how to swim almost drowning he panicked to the side. We reached to the other bank of the river it got shallower and I stepped away from Isabel and laid on the hard rock bank. She was lying to my right we looked at each other and smiled again. We saw all the people who dropped from the bridge on the building fall one at a time into the water and going to the opposite side. Isabel came closer to my leg. My ankle was twisted a little she took out my shoe nice and slowly. It hurt a lot she grabbed my foot with a nice grip and untwisted it in one pain free motion which was not pain-free at all.

My leg was alright now. She gave me a pain killer which started its effect in about a minute. She asked me, "how did you know that there was a river here" I told her, "it was the 2046, the late Romanian councilor wanted a river in his country, so he made one" "so how did you know It was right here?" I said, "I didn't even know if it were here or anywhere" "then why did you jump if you weren't sure" I replied, "if we would've been up there. We would've died anyway" she looked at me awe-struck not losing eye contact. I said, "now let's move on". We started moving north-west and in about 10 minutes we reached the Romania-Ukraine border. As we moved closer the mist parted and then suddenly, we saw the enormous wall made with nanofiber iridium. I said, "this can't be possible why is this here? who did this?" Isabel thinking stepped back. I touched the wall it was as solid as diamonds. I looked at her and said, "do you know about this?" she said "yes, don't you remember what happened when Asia bought Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine from Europe and it wasn't a part of East Europe anymore so Europeans created this wall so that Asia doesn't buy more land from Europe" she said this showing me the map pointing her finger on it so that I understand all the boundaries. There was nothing I could do. Going to Asia from here was almost impossible. There was no way I could reach the Chinese base without a boat or ship, but they were banned from 2058 because of the incident that took place in the Atlantic. We were sitting there next to the wall. I felt hopeless we have no way to reach Asia. I was thinking why would Alison do this. Did Alison not know about this? Or did she trick stall me? I was completely blaming Alison and taking no self-responsibility. The map was kept on the rock near Isabel she was sitting. Both of us leaning on the wall thinking ways to get to the opposite side of it. She noticed the map and jumped up she said, "there are 5 other bases and one is quite close to us the Niger base in Africa" I said, "if we had only tried going there at first instead of the Chinese base. It was closer to us in the start and till now we would've been in it" she said, "stop complaining it was a simple mistake everyone does it. I do it too sometime but it's not something to cry over" I realized that she was right and crying over one mistake won't fix it but I was still disappointed. I said "now what" she said, "it's getting late we'll have to sleep here, we'll leave early tomorrow morning" I agreed at once we decided the route we were going to take. We are going all the way back to Italy with the same route without getting on the bridge as you know... It was not a pretty scene. Then to France, Spain, morocco, Algeria and then to Niger. But as simple as it sounds it was not simple at all. We cooked some food listened to some music to change the mood and talked about our jobs before Vordox for a while. Isabel was so tired she fell asleep on my shoulder, so I picked her up and placed her on her bed and I was up doing the first half night guarding.