Chapter 4- Doom (Part 2)
Akio's face looked rather apathetic as he watched the monster change its focus to where he threw the rock. Even though he knew what he did was morally wrong, he couldn't feel any type of guilt in his heart. He had prioritized his life over the life of three people, what's wrong with that?
People are extremely selfish and Akio lived all of his life seeing and suffering because of that selfishness. He was beaten up, insulted, and robbed of anything he possessed countless times. He had seen how humans can be the most heartless creatures that walked this world.
They would not even consider if he had eaten anything in the past 3 days when they beat him up and take his copper coins. It reached a point where Akio had to keep count of how many consecutive days he went without eating a single thing. He discovered that by the 3rd day, if he didn't consume anything no matter how minuscule it was, he can die.
These same people didn't seem to think twice before doing this morally wrong act. Now, he had merely did the same thing, surely he won't be punished for it when the other people that did the same thing to him weren't punished as far as he knew.
If his survival meant sacrificing others then he will gladly accept that.
'I want to live.' He thought to himself as he watched the small family quickly get out of the tin foil when the nightmare creature discovered them. Much to their bad luck, the other two monsters saw them too and quickly ignored their meal as they found a bigger, more delicious-looking one.
"NO!! Please!! Help us!!" The woman said as she covered her child. The father on the other hand could only tear up as he tried to hug his family.
What happened next was nothing short of a repulsive horror movie. Akio's eyes squinted when he saw the family get eaten alive by three nightmare creatures. Their skin was torn and their flesh was shredded. Slowly, their shrieking cries started lowering and lowering until they vanished completely.
By that time, Akio had already moved from his hiding place and passed the three monsters. He wasn't some twisted monster who enjoyed watching other humans get eaten alive even if he was the direct reason for their death. The only reason he watched was to find the perfect time when the monsters were engrossed in their meal so he could run out unnoticed.
Akio's journey continued, the long trip toward the gates was quite tricky. He had to keep moving one step at a time, using every hiding place to keep himself away from the eyes of the Fear-Rank monsters.
On the way, he saw countless people get killed and even more trying to hide or run away. They all shared the same looks, the looks of terror. Many of them were people that Akio didn't know, but there were also some of them that Akio knew. They were people that treated him horribly and made his life even more of a hell than it already was.
One of these cases was what was in front of him at the moment, a decapitated head of a human that was thrown to the side and ended up near Akio.
The head was bloodied with a part of the spine still intact and linked to it. Akio felt a strong urge to vomit his stomach out but since it was empty nothing came out.
'The guard…' He thought as he held his mouth and closed his eyes.
This was the same guard that he heard talking about his night activities a few hours ago. From what he can see, he had suffered a horrible, painful death. The sheer terror he saw in those empty eyes made him instinctively retreat.
But, Akio wasn't that interested in this head at all. As much as he didn't like those guards, Akio wasn't a vengeful soul by nature. Getting mistreated on a daily bases robbed him of the desire to take revenge on every human that abused him.
So, when he found the opportunity to move, he stood up and ran out of his hiding. During his dash, the tip of his feet hit the head and made it roll to the other side.
Minutes passed as Akio closed up on the gates. After the first occurrence, he was able to quickly leave the populated area of the slums where most people lived and reached the outskirts. This place was noticeably more well-off than the heart of the slums. While compared to the inner city, this place was still dirt-poor and basically not made even for humans. But, compared to where Akio lived, it was heaven on earth.
The houses here were made out of wood rather than thin metal. There were also glass windows although most of them are broken beyond repair. What was most important was that the path in this area wasn't rock-riddled and filled with pointy pebbles that could hurt the bare feet of passersby.
"I'm close. But… this is weird." Akio whispered as he wiped the sweat from his face. His breathing was erratic and his heartbeats were uneven. He felt as if he was going to lose consciousness any time soon.
Looking down, he clenched his teeth. His huge injury was still bleeding although the blood it was oozing out was much less than before. However, with Akio's small frame and his already malnourished and unhealthy body, this amount of blood was more than enough to bed-rid him for a long time. But, not only did he not take care of the injury but he also used that leg to move a lot and to even run as fast as he could which only made it even worse.
'I'm… cold.' Hugging himself he searched for a good place where he can rest for a moment. He had.
Luckily, one of the houses he was standing close to was empty. So, he carried his heavy body inside and quickly fell down against the wall, his face was wet with sweat and as pale as a sheet of paper. He could barely keep himself from closing his eyelids and leaving his weak body for fate to deal with.
'I can't… sleep.' He thought as he looked at his arms. Then, with whatever power he had left in him, he cut a piece of it.
After that, he rolled it around his leg and closed his eyes to try and bear with the hellish pain he was about to feel.
*Squeeze*
"Mmmm…" His closed mouth leaked a small moan. This wasn't the first time Akio had to deal with an injury so his pain tolerance, for a 15-year-old boy, was quite impressive.
But, for better or worse, he was able to at least stop the bleeding. But, that only stopped his condition from getting even more horrible, that's it. He still needed immediate medical care which was something that simply doesn't exist in this place, none that he knew of at least.
"This is… really bad…"
Akio could only think of two things at the moment, food and water. If he can eat something then he might be able to help his body in the healing process.
'Does this house have any food?' He wondered as he looked around him weakly. The place was small with only 3 rooms. One of them was the kitchen.
'I need to search the house.' He forced his ragged body to stand up again and with the support of the wooden wall, he walked toward the kitchen slowly. He could still hear the sound of the monsters ravaging the slums outside but they weren't his biggest problem at the moment.
"Ugh… Only dead bodies?" Akio murmured when he reached the kitchen. He already had enough of seeing corpses for the day. Even though this wasn't the first time he saw dead people, it wasn't a pleasurable experience no matter how many times he witnesses it.
For him, the state where humans feel the most fear is when death is knocking at their doors and as much as it interested him as a concept, it was never on his 'To-Try' list.
Anyway, from what Akio saw inside the kitchen, it seemed that the owners of the house were killed and mutilated a while ago as flies were now buzzing around the corpses.
'Wait… so this attack started from the outskirts?' He thought.
Because of the state of the corpse and the fact that blood started drying out, he was certain that these monsters didn't appear in the middle of the slums but instead came from another place and invaded. However…
At the realization of the possibility, Akio's eyes widened a little and a small frown appeared on his face.
The outskirts were the farthest point of the slums from the forest so he doubted that these monsters came from there. So, it only leaves one single possibility. One that made him frown hard and sent a chill down his spine.
'The monster's invaded… from the inner city's side?'