Awakening
Page 56
*
The next morning, Kingston awoke to a silent room. Barsch had fallen asleep at some point, clutching Lanista close to him like a razor-sharp, serrated teddy bear. Alza, on the other hand, had slept like a corpse, and was now standing at the far end of the room, examining the row of dead computer consoles she had found there. He tried to think back to the events of the day before, but only his conversation with Barsch remained. Everything else was indistinct and hazy, to the point where he could not remember how they had found the bunker.
“Maybe I am getting too old for this. I should be in my hut, reading a good book, not traipsing across the country with two youngsters who could run laps around me. But I made a promise, and I will honour it. And if need be, my pain will become my penance…” Turning his gaze skyward a stray thought crept over him, “Father, will I ever find redemption?”
“We are even now old man. That was the last time I will help you. If you fall again, I will leave you behind.”
Alza had returned from the computer bank, and wore her customary blank expression. From his jumbled memories, he could vaguely remember her helping Barsch save his life.
“I know. If that happens, please take Barsch and run.”
It was a slim chance that Alza would actually oblige his request, but he needed to try. If anything happened to him, someone had to keep the boy safe, or he would never be able to find rest in the next world. Alza had not responded to him, so he left the bunker, intent on surveying the storm damage. Upon reaching the make-shift door, a thin smile spread across his lips. Barsch had performed admirably, given the circumstances and his relative inexperience with his weapon.
“That thing has saved me twice now, so why can’t I see it as a good thing? Maybe I’m just paranoid, but that chainsword doesn’t seem to be the same one Erebus used. It’s as if it has a soul now, and that soul is feeding off something inside Barsch… But that’s just an old man’s silliness, right?”
Moments later, he exited the bunker and was confronted with a scene of devastation. Almost all of the fake grass had been stripped from the bunker, leaving large swathes of exposed metal glinting in the morning sunlight. Steam still rose from several potholes scattered throughout the area, and many of the hills bore deep scars from the hypercane’s passage. But the most damage lay on the horizon, where the storm had evidently reached its peak.
If Carçus City had been teetering on the brink of destruction before, now it was falling headfirst into the chasm of oblivion. Less than a third of the buildings still stood, the rest were multi-coloured heaps of debris. Even as he watched, another mighty tower collapsed. It had most likely been worn down by decades of degradation, before being finished by the storm’s merciless killing blow. Any chance they had had of finding the city intact had just become almost non-existent.
And even if the hospital still stood -which would be a miracle in its own right- just getting there would most likely use up whatever luck they had left. And, if the gods finally decided to show them mercy, and they were able to overcome all obstacles and make it to their objective; the odds that the medicine would still be there was so depressingly slim that merely thinking of it brought a shudder to his frail body.
However, despite all this, Kingston had made up his mind. He would press onwards towards the decomposing city, alone if need be. He refused to continue being a burden for his friend, and acquiring his medicine was the only way to do that.