Chapter 25: Mayhem
Everything was not how it was supposed to be. Maya dashing out of the chamber. Mart following right after her. Them, disappearing together entirely.
If anything, only Audra's reaction— which was calm in the midst of a storm, was the only thing I could count on. So much so, that my heart immediately relaxed when she turned to me and Neil, face still poker amidst it all. "Right," she said, not wasting a second. "We can't follow them. It's too late now."
"But," I said.
"We need to go." Her eyes went solely to Neil, who felt leaden beside me. Judging from his stance, he had probably fallen half-asleep. "Stay close behind me. Both of you," Audra said.
And close behind her I went, tugging Neil up as much as I could. The guy probably weighted twice as me and Audra, though he was lanky as hell. Under any other circumstances, I wouldn't be able to drag him at all.
A few feet from us, Audra began to ask. "Which way is it again, Pax? Left or right?"
"I don't know. . ." I really had no idea. My breaths were coming in spurts.
But even before Audra could answer, a piercing siren penetrated the air, so powerful that I could only grit my teeth. Somehow, Maya had managed to escape Mart's grasp. Damn it.
After a few more seconds, footsteps were already sounding, echoing around us. I glanced at Audra in panic but she never faltered.
"Run," she said, "I'll hold them off."
"No!" I protested. "You said we'd do this together!"
"Well, I lied." She glanced at me. "Do you think I'll ever let that happen?"
But why was she still so calm? I didn't understand.
Audra gave me a smile, even when her eyes were as stoic as ever. Even when the rest of her didn't give out a clue. "Maybe one day I'll tell you all about it," she said. "Just like you'd tell me why you do certain things? But certainly not today. You need to escape."
More footsteps. More people coming from the other side. I suddenly felt the need to drop Neil. To help Audra. I wanted to protect her so badly.
But when she took a fighting stance and shook her head at me, there was something on her face that pleaded for me to trust her. To leave everything to her. It was just for a brief moment, but it was enough to convince me, to put my entire faith on her.
Gritting my teeth, I said. "I'll wait for you to join us!"
It was difficult to run the other way and into another tunnel, not because I was dragging Neil. Not because he was heavy too, but because I didn't realize that being strong was complicated.
Being strong was not always staying and fighting. Being strong was not always helping someone in need. Sometimes being strong was not getting in the way too. Sometimes being strong meant you have to pave the exit.
Which would be hard to do, not knowing where I was going.
There was a fork up ahead. Three tunnels that I hadn't remembered taking before. Now the next question was, which way should we go?
"Right. . ." Someone wheezed beside me. I was so surprised by it that I almost completely dropped him. "Right," Neil said again. "Go right."
I dragged him to the right, not knowing how to feel. If I thought about it real hard, Neil was the reason we were both here, weren't we? If he hadn't left me in the sewers— if he hadn't been so selfish, then right now we'd probably be somewhere safe. Not running for our lives. Not being yanked from behind, suddenly.
I cried out loud, just as someone grabbed me.
"Crap!"
Neil and I crashed to the ground. Looking behind, I saw that the sumo wrestler of a guard, joined our small party. Big as ever, catching up to us. But what was scarier than his face was the six-inch blade he was readying on his hand.
Neil moved so fast, I hadn't thought him capable of it. He stood up in front of me, pushed me from behind. "Go," he rasped. "I got this."
"But—"
"Just run. . ."
Neil couldn't even walk. What could he do against a giant of a man?
But then Neil gave me a glare, shook his head at me. "I thought you'd do anything for Audra?"
But I couldn't just leave him behind, could I? Not even when he'd left me before.
Yet taking in what he said, I knew I had to do something. Something that didn't involve conflict anymore. Something that would help us get out of here alive.
Staying with Neil now wasn't it.
So despite the guilt and regret washing over me, I turned around and ran. Fast.
Behind me, I could hear grunts and shouts beginning, but I continued to the tunnel, desperately thinking of something to do.
I broke into the sage chamber at the very last minute, where Dante, incidentally, was waiting for me.
"Hello, Pax," he said. The man was a picture of tranquility. Sitting. Legs crossed. He was oh so calm, so completely opposite me.
Furthermore, he didn't stand up, but had instead continued looking at me, a smile beaming on his face. "I knew you would join me sooner or later."
I scowled.
"At one point or another, it always ends up like this." Finally, the man stood up, didn't brush away his jeans, but rather, scratched at his long beard, went on with his little speech. "People always lie to us, tries to destroy our way of living. But I can stop all this chaos, you know? Your friends needn't have to die like all the others before them."
"Bullshit!" I yelled.
He shrugged. "We can both rule Conduit. Me as your adviser. Think about it, Pax."
What kind of fantasy was he talking about? Didn't he see that I was trying to escape?
"Little one," Dante said, walking towards me. "This place is a utopia. Why would you ever want to leave?"
"It's not real," I answered, looking around. "Can't you see that this is all just make-believe?!"
Dante's eyes flashed at me, but he continued moving forward nonetheless, while I moved back, searching for something to take. "And what's so wrong with make-believe?" he asked. "You'd rather go out there where everyone hates what you are?"
"Not everyone," I reasoned. "My parents—"
"Probably think you're disgusting as the rest of them does." Dante smirked. Continued. "Face the truth, Pax. You and I? We're the same. We just like different flavors, but we're both cut from the same cloth."
"No!"
"We're both a shameful," he continued. "We're both goodhearted people that the world screwed over. Why, lesbianity, and bestiality are just two sides of the same coin. If I'm disgusting, then you're disgusting too."
God, no!
Dante moved forward again. "Knowing that. . . Knowing all of this, if you surrender to me, I will save Audra. No questions asked. All you have to do is take an oath."
An oath?
"Kind of a bloodletting." Dante inched a few feet forward more. I inched a few feet back. He grinned at me when my back hit the wall. "Kill Neil," he said fervently. "Kill people who shamed you. Just as my wife had shamed me. Isn't that fair?"
No. He was crazy. I knew that from the start. But this?
Quickly, I glanced to my left.
"Kill him, or I will have to kill you, Pax. Then Audra. I wouldn't even bury you two together. I'd make sure of that. I'd given you all the chances you can get. If you do not give me an oath now, I will have to slit your throat and get it over with!"
Ha! We both knew that wouldn't happen. Me taking an oath, I mean.
And as he looked onto my face, he must had realized that. I had always been a bad liar.
Dante started running to me. It was now or never.
Grabbing the torch to my left, I had just been waiting for the right moment. And just when Dante almost came crashing to me, I threw the freaking torch away.
Way, way up before he could get it.
Miraculously, it landed exactly where I wanted it to be, setting the sages on fire.
"No!"
Dante, seeing what I'd done, turned around and left me for the crops. Shrieking.
Someone else called my name at the same time. "Pax!"
I turned to my new enemy.
But what was a call onto fight completely vanished when I saw another guy. Dirty, bloody nose, but most of all carrying two people in his arms.
Hanz, grinning at me, said the words that I wanted to hear. "Let's get out of here! The four of us!"
People were rushing into the sage chamber when we ran out ourselves. People like the sumo guy, who were guards. Ordinary members of Conduit, too, in order to save their treasure.
But none of them seemed to notice me, or Hanz, who was carrying Audra and Neil. Thus, we were able to escape all the way to the final tunnel, pausing upon the narrow exit where Hanz had pointed me to.
"Wait a minute!" Hanz panted, shifting Audra and Neil in his arms. He'd carried them football style, though was now trying to reach onto his jeans pocket for something.
I went closer to him and tried to get Audra. But Hanz, to my surprise, shook me away. "No," he said. "I'll carry them. You get the lighter, and decide what happens to this place."
I gave him a look, which made him explain further. "I'd been trying to rescue you for days, Pax. While I only managed to get materials recently, I'd planted some bombs to help you escape. So you decide. Quickly."
Bombs? What did he mean?
My gaze began to travel to the torch-lit walls, skimming the big-sized rocks all around us, only to see the makings of fireworks sticking on the ground.
Hanz was beaming at me when I gaped at him again. "I was thinking of creating a diversion at first," he said. "But now? Through those, we can trap everyone. What do you say?"
I shook my still baffled head, trying to clear my mind and decide. He was giving me an option. A mighty tempting one at that.
After a while, I nodded to him. "Trap them," I said.
I didn't want to go into too much details of how I set those fireworks quickly in flames. Or how, grabbing a torch, Hanz and I managed to squeeze through the exit while Audra and Neil were still knocked down.
What I was desperate to know, however, was what happened while I was with Dante. Those few, short minutes that I wasn't with Audra. Or what happened to Maya and Mart— if Hanz recognized them, or had seen them at all.
But I guess some things you just had to leave behind in order to go forward. Either way, we were back in the sewers before I knew it. Contrary to how Dante had acted before, none of us had left the place entirely after all.
Hanz, who was shifting Neil and Audra higher on his arms, seemed to know where he was going. "Just come with me," he urged in the darkness. "We'll get out of here. I promise you that."
And sooner than later we were. After a few minutes, exiting away from the sewers, we dashed straight onto the night, for once the surroundings free from towering walls.
I breathed in the crisp air gratefully. Felt the wind hitting me from all sides. "Through here!" Hanz said, racing onto the grass.
I looked around at where we ended up on and followed him irregardless. There was a grassy bank of some sort, most of those grass in the distance already as high as our heads.
Finally, when we were deep enough into them, I saw the makings of a vehicle. A hatchback car that had seen better days. Hanz, tilting his head to me, nodded his chin to his back pocket. "Please," he said.
I scrambled after him, tiny branches under my shoes cracking.
Afterwards, still holding the torch, I took something from his pocket with my other hand. A car key, and immediately knew what to do with it. I opened the hatchback, while Hanz himself tried to bring our friends inside carefully.
Only then did I notice that my heart was still racing. My breaths coming out in gasps.
Hanz, after all was done, wiped his brow before turning to me. Then gave me a massive bear hug that took me by surprise. "Pax!" he said. "I thought I'd never see you again!"
Me too.
But ugh, he was so tall. And muscular at that. I tried to squirm away, which he noticed, and immediately let me go.
"No homo," he muttered.
Of course, no homo. But I had things— a lot of things to ask. What in the world just happened to us?
Hanz, shrugging at me, seemingly understood my silent question. "A lot," he said. "A lot had happened to us. I mean, let's not even talk about the rats."
I gasped. "You ate rats?!"
"I said let's not talk about it, Pax. Just please."
The two of us fell into silence. A nervous one at that. We had barely made it out of there alive. For all we knew, Dante and his team could come clawing out of the sewers any moment now, and kill us without mercy, right here, right now.
And yet, glancing at Audra's sleeping form in the car hit me with reality. We were not inside Conduit anymore. Hanz was with us. And so was Neil. Finally, even though it was just a previous fantasy, we were free.
Hanz, realizing that too, gave me another bear hug. "Forgive me," he whispered. "For not rescuing you sooner."
It was in the wee hours of the morning when I'd managed to catch up with things that had happened with Hanz, the moment we were separated. They were attacked, just like Audra had said. But what Audra didn't know was that Hanz followed them all the way to Conduit. Tried to rescue us repeatedly, though to no avail.
"Then, I tried to get help," Hanz said, over the campfire.
He assured me that no one would get out of Conduit anytime soon. No one would see the smoke. So I let him create a small fire near the car, with the condition that he would keep us safe, no matter who made it through.
"What kind of help?" I asked, following his statement. "With who?"
"Random people," Hanz said. "I asked random people from outside to help. I managed to find my way out the sewer soon. But those who saw me out here didn't want anything to do with me. I mean, being in the sewers all that time, I was too dirty. No one could recognize me too. And as you can imagine, not a lot of people would come here. So it was really difficult to find anyone at all."
I looked around. Yeah, no kidding.
I didn't even know where in the world we ended up in. But thinking about it, this was better, wasn't it?
Hanz continued. "I stayed here outside for a day or two, hatching up a plan to not only help you escape, but to provide you with safety after you do get out. And that's when I happened upon some straggler."
"A what?"
"A small group, Pax. Their leader was in desperate for money. So I pounced."
My eyebrows cocked at him.
"I meant, I asked him nicely if he wanted to help me," Hanz cleared. "I traded my watch to get us accommodations."
"What kind of accommodations?"
"A boat." Hanz's eyes glimmered. "You'll see tomorrow. If we're right on schedule, we'll be able to escape there. Pax, for the first time ever, our future is looking up."