Fatal | The Second Life I [COMPLETED]

Chapter 45: The Fire

- J P -

I follow the others up the stairs as the shots ring out. Nick had just gotten a nasty gash in his leg, and thankfully Aniya had helped him up here.

Marseille grabs a nearby washcloth and goes into full-blown doctor mode. She stuffs it in Nick's mouth, and grasps the glass tightly. She pulls, and Nick's scream is muffled.

"Sorry." Marseille says. "Didn't want you to bite off your own tongue."

"A bit of warning would be nice." He retorts, as Marseille wraps the washcloth around his bloodied calf.

"If I'd have told you," Marseille begins. She tightens the cloth, and Nick yelps. "You'd have refused."

"You don't know that." Nick says, crashing into a chair.

"Oh, I know." Marseille says, and Aniya laughs nervously. I hear footsteps outside, and step onto the staircase. I fire a few rounds at the door, making sure they're held off for a minute longer.

"Aniya, protect Nick. Marseille, come with me." I say. The two girls grab their blades tightly. "We need to outsmart these goons."

"Then let's do it." Aniya says, lifting up Nick. "Come on, let's hide."

Marseille quickly follows me, and I hear a bang from downstairs. Footsteps follow as the door slams open, signalling their arrival. "Where are you bitches?" I hear one scream. The door can be heard closing, and even being locked.

As Nick and Aniya go into the bedroom, Marseille and I go into a game room area. It was lined with couches, a pool table, Tables, a small bar, and A desktop computer. I was amazed at how well New Yorkers saved on space. Compared to Oklahoma, these houses were miniature.

Footsteps crash upstairs as the two men step into the foyer. I duck behind the computer desk, and Marseille in the closet. One of the two men begins searching a bedroom near us, and I ready up. A bullet goes off, and a pit of dread goes off as I think of my biggest fear.

The second guard comes crashing into this room, and I had never noticed his true size before now. He was built like a Navy Seal. I could never hear my own heartbeat better than I could right now. Every shift in the fabric of the carpet, I felt. Every shift of air signalling him turning.

A light turns on, and I realize too slowly that his gun has a flashlight. Before I can react, a searing pain comes through my exposed arm and I collapse to the ground. My pistol drops to the carpet near me as he nears me.

"You killed my friends!" He screams as he lifts me by the shirt and slams me through the bedrock wall. A cloud of blood follows as my shoulder cries in agony. I land on the ground with a thud, and scream as the damaged shoulder impacts a nightstand in the bedroom I was forced into.

"Yoohoo." I hear from behind the man. He turns, and a sword effortlessly makes a slit in the man's throat. Blood spews all over as he reaches up to grab it. His gun falls, and Marseille looks at the new blood on her sword before rushing to me. "Oh my god!"

"So it's bad." I hear, as a commotion by the stairs is heard. "Oh no, Aniya!" It's followed by tumling, and two loud clunks as the commotion quiets. Then it begins downstairs. I turn back to my screaming wound. "Y- you can help, r-right?"

"I don't have the equipment right now." She mutters. She grabs the bed sheet behind me and rips a piece off, wrapping it around my shoulder. It near immediately is stained red, and I cringe at the shoulder damage. "That fall tore it up, I can't fix that with bed sheets. We can try, though. Come on."

I stand up, grabbing my pistol and following Marseille out of the room. Nick clambers down the stairs, and we rush to catch up to him. He was obviously in pain, with his leg being held the whole way. We eventually catch up, where the last sideman pushes Aniya out into the backyard of the house.

The back door gives way to the force, and she topples out. The man rolls over and rushes to grab his gun as I aim mine. As Aniya runs back inside, ducking behind the wall, I fire. The bullet doesn't hit him, but instead lands into a jug of fuel for the outdoor grill.

It violently explodes, sending me back into the dining room table with the shockwave. The man gets launched into the air, and my vision goes dark.

...

I awaken to groaning and muttering. I look around, with my eyes adjusting easily to the sunset. Aniya and Marseille were carrying me, and I moan. They look down, a surprised look on their faces. They stop and drop me to my feet, where I struggle to balance for a second.

Unsurprisingly, my shoulder bursts into pain and I can feel blood leaking in the bed cloth. I look around and see Nick wearing a face of relief. "Thank god you're alive." He says. His free hand was still on his leg wound.

"W- what hap.." I manage to get out.

"That." Aniya says, pointing behind us. I turn around, being met with a asky of smoke and flame. The horizon to our east was all in flames. I gasp, remembering what I had done in that house. This was my fault, and I knew it.

"Oh, my.." I start. "Shit. We g-gotta move!"

"Yeah, let's go!" Aniya exclaims, seeing a band of sickos running either toward us.. or away from the flames. I notice that Marseille was the only one in our group that was mostly unharmed, since the blood on her wasn't her own.

Aniya had gained a large bruise on her face, arms, and carried a sizeable black eye. She had numerous cuts and bruises, too. Nick had kept only the leg wound, and I of course had the destroyed shoulder. (Which hurt, still, by the way.)

We pick up the pace, walking tirelessly through Brooklyn to outrun the seemingly unstoppable fire. The entire walk was filled with nothing but me asking myself what I had done. I imagine Aniya feels hella guilty too, since she was the one who wanted to come here in the first place.

Suddenly, I collapse. My energy was dying off, and the blood in my shoulder only kept dripping. Aniya and Marseille help me up, and I finally see the river. I was on my last leg, and was likely suffering from blood loss. It explained my daze perfectly.

We reach a bridge which was foreign to me. It wasn't the one we had come over, but the more surprising part was the amount of kids there. "Brooklyn Bridge." Aniya says. "We made it, come on!"

We rush to the group, seeing the panic the kids were in. Many sickos were attacking them, and dead bodies were strung everywhere - both human and sicko. We push to the front of the crowd, seeing a small group at the middle of the bridge. There was one there, however, that made me scream in joy.

Ronnie.