The Random

Chapter 13: Elbeast

Chapter Thirteen: Elbeast

     "Is this really the way out?" Charlie mumbled his words in the darkness. He was holding a thin light stick that gave off a flaring neon light as he and Bertie made their way through the dark underground tunnel. They'd been taking that channel for almost an hour now, but seemed like they were still going nowhere.

     "I read it thoroughly—the manuals!" It was Bertie, pausing from his strides to make Charlie catch up. "This should lead us to that gate you saw" he said, referring to the gates that Katze told Charlie, a week before they were sent to the battle.

     "Seems like it's heading to a dead end—"

     "It was you who insisted that we should rescue MG, remember?" Bertie cut Charlie short. He let out a brief and indistinct hiss under his face. Overnight last night, they went back to their manuals to decrypt a message suspected to be found in the arrangement of the gigantic pipes strewn all over the Underground City. Rumors had it that the arrangements of the said structures were bearing a message that would lead to a passage out of the city.

     Bertie was the first one to decipher the secret message, having suspected the weird alignment of the pipes that bore the City's official seal and motto: a gaping grizzly bear whose incisors were exposed through wide open jaws, embossed on a triangular silver insignia. Beneath was written:

     "Humanitas. Ante Omnia"—the City's official motto. Bertie had to have the more detailed City Map painted on the walls leading to the arena, examined first, before finally concluding they had at last found the passage. 

     The labeled pipes were arranged like an arrow pointing into something in the southern tip of the arena—the exit, Bertie presumed. It was secretly placed between two life-sized statues that looked like clutched to the black-tinted glass wall. It was a narrow rectangular hole that could only allow one passer at a time.

     It took them nearly an hour to get away from the assembly of randoms who were made to gather that night at the arena for dinner. They both had to trick the government guards securing the main entrance to the arena first, so they could sneak away and go through that passage.

     "You sure you wanna continue this?" Bertie asked as Charlie finally approached him.

     "If you don't want to come with me, it's ok, you can go back" Charlie answered, still sucking big drafts of air into his lungs. The air itself had made breathing hard for him. The smell of petroleum, moistened earth, burnt rubber and rust, mixed in the air, was stinging his nose.

     Bertie made a frowning face and then grinned as he walked toward Charlie, his arms outstretch for a hug.

     "Stop that! you're ridiculous!" Charlie said, waving his hand at Bertie not to come closer. He moved sideways to evade him, his hand catching Bertie's shoulder to tap. 

     Bertie arched his brows, giving Charlie a scrunched up face which only became observable upon being hit by the dim glow coming from the blue lighting stick.

     "Of course I'm not letting you do this alone. I'm going with you, let's go!" he beckoned at Charlie to start moving.

     Registering a brightened reaction, Charlie anchored his right arm around Bertie's left shoulder.

     "Good puppy—I mean Bertie!" he whispered, almost laughing.

     "Whatever blood sucker" Bertie mumbled, extending his right hand to meet Charlie's arm dangling from his shoulder.

     "I don't suck blood buddy"

     "You're a vampire"

     "A random one"