Rift

Chapter 6: The bigger they are...

"Terry, no!" I screamed, while a rush of adrenaline gave me the strength I needed to free myself from the pillar on top of me.

I couldn't see him from this room, but I didn't have the luxury of time to go check on his conditions. In front of me there was still a giant, it was injured and this fact made me let my guard down, but it was still a very physically strong adversary, and taking one of its hits might be the end of me.

I was already beginning to hear the others climbing up and talking to Terry, I couldn't hear him responding, though.

The giant began to charge at me, his expression a mixture of pain and anticipation, the former coming from my gift, which was still stuck in his eye, the latter probably coming from the thought of returning me the favor.

I waited for him to come closer to me and threw my toy sword towards the knife, either to make him dodge and unbalance, or to try to knock off the knife. He dodged, and this let me dodge his inaccurate punch as well, while rushing through his legs and distancing myself once more from him.

Meanwhile, Lemmy and Imamu got through the door — actually just a big hole in the collapsed wall — and saw the monster, now a few meters from them, with its fist still raised in the air. He probably wanted to take me down first, but he didn't disdain the new poor souls that were looking pretty taken aback at him.

Lemmy was the first to react, he quickly pointed his rifle at him and shot. The bullet hit the giant's muscular chest, but he didn't look too impressed or affected by that and just lowered his fist in a natural motion, trying to crush Imamu, who had just grabbed his sledgehammer.

He lifted it up, holding it with his hands on both ends, and prepared to block the blow, after all, his raw strength was unmatched among the members of our group. His opponent was no human, though, he would probably smash the shaft of the sledgehammer, and the person behind it soon after.

Imamu must have understood that too, because instead of taking the blow head on, he moved his body and inclined his weapon accordingly to deviate it, then, continuing the motion, he slipped one of his hands closer to the other and raised the sledgehammer up again before plummeting it on the giant's forearm.

Despite the difference in size and strength, that must have done quite a bit of damage, because a loud crack of bones breaking could be heard at the moment the hit connected.

Soon after, the giant roared loudly enough to make me want to cover my ears, the others must have felt the same because Imamu, who was the closest to him, turned his head and moved his left hand to his ear.

That little opening was all that the giant needed, because he quickly kicked him, and he was sent crashing towards the wall. He then fell to the ground, motionless.

"Lemmy, aim for its eyes!" I shouted while picking up a skein of thread and uncoiling it to get a long string.

Lemmy, who, just like me, at this point was used to seeing companions die, was quick to shake off the shock and tried again to shoot at him, this time aiming for the eyes.

He didn't manage to hit the target, but at least forced the giant to cover his eyes with one hand while feeling around in the air with the other. He even made some steps in the direction of the enemy fire but Lemmy was quick to move away before he was reached.

I took advantage of this time to coil the string some times to obtain a long, thick string, and to twist it a few times to make it more resistant. I then proceeded to tie it to the two remaining pillars and pick up some rocks.

"Lemmy, stop shooting for now, wait for my signal" I told him, just before I started throwing the rocks at the giant. In response, he turned his attention to me and came charging in my direction. I just kept throwing rocks high enough to make him look up and hoped he wouldn't see the trap I prepared for him.

Then he came into contact with the string and stumbled over it, but since I didn't have enough time to make a thicker string, it snapped. He didn't fall, but he was very leaning forward, and was trying to halt his oncoming impact with the ground shifting his balance back.

"Lem-"

He didn't even give me time to finish saying his name, the bullets had already been fired in quick succession. Even if I couldn't see them, I heard the shots, and I knew they had hit the target, seeing the giant's expression filling not so much with pain as with the realization that he wouldn't be able to stop his fall now. He put his hands in front of him to avoid slamming his head, and to avoid making the knife, still in his eye, go deeper.

The same knife that I was currently reaching out for, now without anything to worry about as he was face-to-face with me and all his limbs were busy mitigating the fall. I took it, pulling it out a little, before swiftly sliding it towards the other eye and plunging it back in.

A jump and a turn around later, I was now on his back and had a perfect view of his neck, and despite his wild attempts to dismount me, my left hand was firmly grasping his hair, and my right one was just a moment away from slitting his throat. His skin was hard, but just like the skin of a human won't bleed by taking a light punch but can easily be cut by a piece of paper, his skin, which was able to withstand a bullet, couldn't stop my sharp knife.

He collapsed, and I remained on top of him, catching my breath. I watched behind me to look at Lemmy, he seemed relieved too, and he lowered his rifle before rushing to Imamu to check his condition.

I didn't have too much hope for Imamu to be still alive, Terry, on the other hand, didn't receive a direct hit from the creature, so I decided to go check on him. In the little room with the climbing plants, I found him sitting against a wall with his eyes closed and blood seeping through his shirt on the left part of his abdomen. Eric was by his side.

"Did you wait here the whole time?" I asked, unable to mask my disappointment.

"I, um... Terry needed assistance" he tried to justify himself.

"So why are you standing there doing nothing? Go get some bandages and oxygenated water from the bags understairs."

He began crouching to climb down, but I interrupted him.

"What about Evelyn and William?"

"We told them to get out" he answered.

"Tell them to come back in, and show William how to treat a wound."

He went down without saying anything, and it was only when he had put some distance between us that I could hear a faint mumbling along the lines of "Who do you think you are, giving orders left and right." I let it go, after all, it was nothing to make a fuss about.

Furthermore, Eric is the one who knows me the best in this group, more importantly, despite what he says or how he feels about it, he knows who I was before the Apocalypse. At some point in my life, giving orders became natural, but that wasn't something I had longed for, instead, I considered it more like a burden, one that was put upon me by others.

I got closer to Terry and gently shook him by the shoulder. He woke up and looked at me, grunting from the pain as he tried to change position.

"What the hell happened?" He asked, confused. He probably didn't even have the time to see who the enemy was.

"A giant of some kind, I think, he looked just like a normal man before... growing" I answered, shrugging on the last part.

"Are the others all right?"

"Lemmy, what about Imamu?" I shouted, averting my eyes from Terry to direct my gaze towards the other room.

After some seconds of silence, he came into our room, then answered.

"The heart isn't beating, I was trying CPR, but..."

He didn't end the sentence, instead he looked down and shook his head. He was used to losing companions, but that was only when he had to focus in a fight for survival. In calmer times, he was a sensitive man, and I'm sure his mind couldn't help but recall all the people he had seen die in the last few weeks.

Now that this unexpected fight was over, Celara came back to my mind, I had to find her and finally get some answers.