Ashes (Clementine X Male Reader Book 2)

Aftermath-Steel Prison

"Fuck." You cough up dust as you struggle to get your hands underneath you. You can hear yelling near you, but your ears are ringing so much you can't make out what they're saying. How close were you to that explosion? Where are Brooklyn and Cas?

You move your right leg and freeze. Your eyes bulge as you're hit with pain. It feels like you've been shot multiple times. You have to get up. You have to get out of the tower. It's going to fall.

Someone grabs you and pulls you up.

"I'll help you walk!" Brooklyn yells as the tower rumbles and creaks. It's becoming unbearably loud.

"You won't make it. Leave me." You'll slow her down. You know that.

"I'm not leaving you." She starts pulling you in the opposite direction of the entrance. You limp along as best you can. Every step feels like you're being stabbed in the leg. You don't have time to think about what happened to it. You don't even look at it. You keep moving forward.

"We'll exit through the back." She shouts over all the noise. "It's our best option. Maybe we can get to a building and hold up inside while the tower collapses." When you step out of the lobby and into the cafeteria, you see the ruin it's in and know that you're chances of making it out of the back are ruined. There are no exits that you can get to without climbing over something.

"The sewers." You say as loud as you can. Brooklyn puts her ear closer to your mouth. "The sewers." She doesn't question you; she starts moving immediately. You're not sure where the sewers are, but she clearly knows.

She takes you down a flight of stairs into a basement. The shaking is worse here, but it's quieter. "I don't know if this'll work." She props you up against a wall and checks the hole in the floor. "But it's our best shot. So we either take it and die." She grabs you again. "Or die anyway."

You lean against a set of railings surrounding the hole and watch her descend the ladder, sliding down most of it. " Ok. I'll catch you if you fall!" She calls up to you when she reaches the bottom. You slowly step over to the ladder and lower yourself over the side of the hole. You let your bad leg hang as you climb down, which proves more challenging than you thought it'd be. You lose your balance, unsure of how high you're up. You yell, worried that you're too high to fall. Brooklyn catches you by your arms, keeping you from seriously hurting yourself. Unfortunately, she doesn't stop your leg from hitting the ground. You're in hell. You have to be.

"We'll go as far as we can." Brooklyn pulls you over to her and supports you. "And hope the section we end up in holds when the tower collapses." She's trembling. You don't blame her.

It happens. One last tremor, silence, and then everything starts shaking so violently you feel it in your bones. Brooklyn speeds up and you trip, but she catches you before you fall. You're sure she's yelled something, but you can't hear her.

You fall again, but this time Brooklyn goes down with you. The rumbling grows louder; the shaking becomes more violent. You huddle together because it's all you can do.

You're going to die.

-

"Y/N?" Brooklyn says after everything quiets down. She's been crying. You're still huddled together, clutching each other like it'd help.

"Yeah?" You cough after you open your mouth. You can taste the dust. All of the sewers are likely filled with it now.

"I'm never stepping foot in a skyscraper again." She sounds relieved you're still there.

"Me either." You agree with her. Joking is the only thing you can do right now. Everything has gone to shit.

The two of you laugh together, lying on the sewer floor, unsure where you go from here.