Chapter 25: Stage two

The depth of the earth shifted and sank from the demarcation of the rail track down as far as his eyes could see, creating a pseudo border out of the actively rising terrain and all Rylan could do was watch as it happened right before his eyes, The thundering sound in the sky grew louder as streaks of red lightening shot down into the earth, destroying the remains of standing structures and setting ablaze every thing in it's path. It was like watching the apocalypse come to fruition.

He'd been so entranced by what had been happening in the sky that he'd abandoned movement to gawked at the scene, The rumblings brought him back, the earth trembled unforgivenly, a rejection of the merge that was forcefully happening. The earth beneath him tilted and forced everything to fall in the angle of it's unnatural tilt, he gripped onto a proximity warning sign, a lost moment of focus and Peter fell of his back.

“Fuck.” He cursed, he threw his arm out to grasp peters wrist but missed him by an inch. “Fuck you Daragura.” He hissed as he released his grip on the signs pole and followed after the Peters rapidly descending fall.

What is this? He screamed in his head, angling his body as best he could to catch up to Peter and thankfully he did before seconds before he would have crashed into a building. Rylan let out a hallow breath, relief dulling every sense as he gripped onto Peter whose quiet snores somehow calmed him, He envied him—he really fucking wished he was asleep right now, but sadly he was awake to witness this otherworldly phenomenon.

Pressed against the wall of the building, he saw people for the first time in a while and gladness filled him, a smile crossed his lips, they were hanging onto whatever they could and some had even began crawling on the angled floor. He felt a soft rumble beneath his feet and immediately he yelled.

“Hold unto something—” But before the sound of his voice could get to them, the angel of the earth beneath them shifted again, the change forced him forward, gripping Peter with one hand and jamming his other free hand into the wall, he held on. The earth was going back to it's normal position which meant that everyone who wasn't holding unto something sturdy was going to—His thoughts of the scenerio were interrupted by the unfolding reality, people screamed as their grip wavered and they were forced to fall back into the exposed dirt of the elevated city behind them, the impact killed some and those that survived the harshness were lost by the concrete that followed the incline correction.

Rylan kissed his teeth, jumping back down and praying for God that it would be the last time that the earth shifted, he looked at peter, still fully asleep and unscathed but his grip hand tightened, Rylan let out a breath, fatigue was beginning to make his legs feel like noodles but he persevered, He turned to look at the people who still survived, Looks of fear and unmatched horror blessed their features as the staggered forward. Rylan wished he could help, wished he could say something to elevate them but there was nothing he could possibly say that would be of any kind of comfort to anyone.

“It's ok.” It was not.

“We'll all survive this.” A clear lie.

“This won't last forever.” There was no indication of that. So he begrudgingly turned and focused on the one person he'd promised himself that he would protect and gett somewhere safer but if this was going on everywhere was there anywhere in this world that could actually be considered to be safe or was he just plainly feeding himself a lie.

He sighed, a sound that had become all too familiar with him, He'd never felt this level of fatigue before and honestly he wanted more than anything to just lay his head down and fall asleep on this cracked blood stained concrete floor but he couldn't, He needed to keep peter safe and to do that he needed to stay awake and as physically active as he could possibly be.

He turned and was about to start walking away when he felt a steady vibration beneath his feet, The people around him gasped and cried.

“God, not again.” A man wearing a dirtied navy blue suit begged as he he clinged onto a waiting bench that had been bolted to the floor, But something felt off He stared at the ground but the vibrations where nothing like the ones they had heard before the earth shifted, this was completely different. He closed his eyes and pictured it, what could it be this time, it was definitely not coming from there ground which meant—His eyes flung open in instant panic.

“RUNNN!!” He shouted as he sprinted as fast as his legs allowed him to, people still stood, confusion marking their faces at the sudden scream but they realized why a moment later and before they could all start running insect like beast as big as vehicles began to pour down the edge of the elevated City.

As he ran he ripped a part of his shirt off and wrapped it around Peters ears to block out the Nightmarish sound of overwhelming pain consumed screams of the people behind them.

“Sorry.” Rylan said as he ran without even trying to help, but what could even he possibly do, there were just many and he could barely stand, If he tried to do anything other than flee right now, his fate would be no more different than theirs. “Sorry.” He screamed out loud, the screams were begining to quiet down but he refused to look back, he refused to watch people who'd done nothing wrong get devoured by those creatures.

“Fuck you Daragura.” He cursed the deity as he turned a corner and took shelter inside the charted remains of a breakfast cafe.