Elaine turned when she heard Barry's sigh. She couldn't help but feel worried.
"What's wrong?" Elaine asked.
Barry looked at her. "It turns out that there is a limit to the number of skills we can have."
"What?" Elaine felt disappointed too. "I guess whoever is behind this disaster wouldn't let us go through everything easily, huh."
The car kept moving. The headlights turned on because the day was getting dark. It made the road more terrifying, like a scene straight out of a horror movie.
Barry thought about Elaine's words. Whoever was behind this disaster…
'Who or what is exactly behind this disaster?'
Barry wanted to ask about it but he was sure that Elaine didn't know the answer either. So asking was pointless. It was better if he thought about it himself.
Barry looked up through the window next to him. He had forgotten about it for a while but now he saw it again.
There is a crack in the sky.
The crack looked like when the glass on the phone or TV screen was broken.
The size of the crack looked the same as when Barry first saw it. However, he couldn't possibly be sure about that. Because it was far up there.
But he didn't see any significant changes. If the crack was expanding, it was expanding very slowly.
The fact that he didn't know anything about those cracks made Barry more restless.
Was reality cracking above him? Would a monster more terrifying than what he had seen so far emerge from the crack?
Why was it there? Why did all this happen?
It was true that the greatest fear was the fear of the unknown. And now Barry didn't know anything about anything around him.
"Are you looking at that weird crack above?"
The voice of Elaine's question made Barry turn.
"Yes," he said. "It makes me uneasy."
Elaine grimaced. "Me too. Do you... uhh... perhaps know something about that crack?"
Barry shook his head. "Unfortunately, no."
"Are you sure?"
Barry looked at Elaine. "What makes you think that I know something about that crack?"
"Well, you seem to know a lot of things. If it weren't for you, I would have been dead by now," Elaine said.
Barry stared at her. She seemed to trust him enough, making Barry more embarrassed to tell her where he got all his knowledge from.
"Unfortunately, I don't know about this one," Barry said.
"Oh," Elaine said. "Okay."
Barry felt that Elaine just wanted to make conversation rather than finding out the real answer.
She drove in the night with the threat of monsters and zombies that could attack from anywhere.
So, it was only natural that she wanted to divert her attention from the road.
But unfortunately, Barry didn't know what could divert her attention now from this sight. Because he himself also felt restless and scared.
"Uhm... We don't know each other too well, do we?" Barry said.
Elaine glanced briefly from the road to Barry, and then her gaze returned to the road.
"Yes. We never met before this," Elaine said.
Barry smiled helplessly. She clearly didn't realize that Barry had crossed paths with her before. She might not even know that Barry existed before.
But Barry could understand that. Basically, they lived in different worlds.
They started to introduce themselves more properly. Barry said his class and that he was a second-year student.
Elaine was quite surprised because she was one year above Barry. She thought they were the same age.
"You should call me big sister," Elaine said jokingly. She looked a bit more relaxed than before when they started chatting.
Barry chuckled.
Barry was relieved to see her like that. At least that was all he could do when he couldn't drive the car.
Suddenly, while they were chatting, Barry felt an ominous feeling.
But Elaine didn't feel it so she kept driving with a calm expression.
"Slow down," Barry said.
His tense tone made Elaine lose her calm. "What is it?"
"I... Don't know."
Even so, Elaine still slowed down the car.
What was in front of them was a dark road. Many lamps around the road were dead. Some street lamps that were still hanging only gave a little light.
They both couldn't see clearly. Because they were restless.
Barry clenched his teeth. Even though he didn't want to stop, continuing the journey when they couldn't see clearly what was in front of them was something dangerous.
"I think we should turn back and find another place to rest," Barry said.
Elaine looked back. They were far enough from her house to return. But she saw a motel next to the road earlier.
"Okay then. I saw a motel earlier back there," Elaine backed up their car and turned it towards the motel.
---
"Shit! They turned around!" A man cursed under his breath when he saw the 4WD car that was his target start to drive away.
He was extremely disappointed. With that car, he and his friends could leave this place faster after getting one more functioning vehicle.
The man looked at his five other friends who were also equally disappointed.
"What do you think?" the man asked.
One of the other men smirked and said. "Let's take the car. I heard they're going to stay at the motel. And there are two people there. One of them is a girl."
Everyone in the group nodded with a savage grin.
---