Chapter 70: Ch109. Wreckage under the aftermath
Kurt followed K and Evellyn through the desolated cityscape.
And the more he looked around, even while avoiding beasts and some groups of people, the less he understood the system’s words before he entered the bubble.
"It... It doesn’t look like a Nest, at all..." He whispered, trying to keep up with K’s pace.
"Shut it." K retorted. "It’s not safe for us to speak out in the open."
Kurt knew it was basically a situation of him talking to himself, if he was going to put it in simpler terms, however...
K’s tone was cold, sharp.
K sounded deadly.
It was as if he was going to attack Kurt if he did anything that K didn’t like.
After a few more minutes of the most intense running that Kurt ever experienced, they finally arrived.
It was an entrance to a subway station, but before they entered, K stopped in his tracks and put his mask back on.
Kurt was left with countless questions and a some more steps do walk down, as Evellyn also wore a mask and followed K.
Evellyn’s mask, however, was a completely slick and black one, only letting her red hair show.
And when Kurt arrived at the bottom of the staircase, he understood why K and Evellyn had done it.
There were many people waiting for them.
Ragged people.
Dirty, scrawny, malnourished like it had been weeks since their last decent meal.
And all of them turned towards K and Evellyn.
"Silence is back..." One old man said.
"They returned once more!" Another woman celebrated.
"The Red Oracle returned to us!" A man dressing like a ragged priest raised his fist.
There were probably a hundred people in the subway, and all of them approached to welcome K and Evellyn.
They chanted and clapped.
It looked like they were performing some kind of welcoming ritual of sorts.
And even if it were nothing but a harmless act of kindness...
It sent chills down Kurt’s spine.
"I apologize to you all, but tonight’s run was as dry as yesterday’s." Evellyn said through her mask.
"But you did bring something with you." Another woman said.
She dressed like the ragged priest, but she looked like a lovely grandma.
However, Kurt still clenched his fist, taking a step back.
’Have they brought me here just for them to eat me?’ Kurt readied his body to fight.
But when Kurt was ready to do something, the old woman asked.
"Does it mean that the prophecy is true?"
Kurt looked from the old woman to K and Evellyn, waiting for a response.
But it didn’t come.
What happened, instead, was that both K and Evellyn started walking again, and the crowd gave way to them.
When they were halfway from the entrance, everyone looked at Kurt.
"Erm... Okay, then." He took a small step forward.
He was ready to fight his way out, but there were two things keeping them from going all out in the very beginning.
Kurt felt his stomach sink with even the slightest thought of hurting people who had done nothing to him yet.
And every time he even so much as glanced at K, the young man’s aura would make chills run up and down his spine.
’How come there’s a version of me who’s so powerful, even while hiding all his power?’
Kurt took one more step, then another, and when he saw that no one was trying to approach him, his steps became more confident.
K and Evellyn walked towards the tracks, and jumped, with Kurt following them close by.
They walked a few more minutes, and arrived to a completely dark section.
K kicked the left wall in a series of particular spots, and after that, part of the wall split up to reveal the entrance of a hallway, lit up by electric lights.
They walked some more through that hall, and K finally took off his mask, followed by Evellyn.
"Silence is kind of a symbol here." K said, breaking the silence. "But the power of this symbol is wearing thin as the nights turn to days. If we don’t find a way for those people to eat properly and regain their strength to rebuild society..."
"They’re going to become like the people you saw upstairs..." Evellyn finished.
They arrived at a door, and when K opened it, Kurt’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.
Nikolai was waiting for them, sitting at a desk with a computer, but he was older, almost a full grown adult, just like K.
And by his side, typing lines upon lines of codes into another computer, Kurt saw her.
"Nadia... Nikolai..." Kurt said.
Nikolai turned around to face him, and Kurt saw the eye-patch covering Nikolai’s left eye.
Nadia had a prosthetic, metal right arm.
And everything suddenly felt dark to Kurt.
"Why... What’s going on here, K...? Why doesn’t it look like a Nest? What prophecy were the people out there talking about? What... What..."
The world around Kurt started spinning faster.
Too fast.
And when he noticed it, everything was fading to black.
Kurt passed out, waking up a few minutes later, with his head still slightly swirling, and his ears buzzing.
He was about to ask what happened, but then he looked around, to see that everyone was still there.
K, Evellyn, Nikolai, and Nadia.
"It wasn’t a dream..."
"No, it wasn’t. And it’s quite a shame that you, out of every. One. Of. Us, has to have that kind of reaction over something that you should’ve-"
"Kurt!" Evellyn called out to him, and both Kurts looked at her. "I mean... K!" She glared at him. "Can’t you see how young he is?"
K turned his back to his three friends and Kurt, letting out a loud sigh.
"Don’t you think I know that, Lynn? Don’t you remember that I used to have his age back when I was first introduced to that whole mess out there!?"
As K spoke, he shook his arms and opened them, representing the whole town above them.
"Either you eat a dead beast and become one of them, or you live long enough to become an animal, like the people back in the surface." He punched the wall, and only the concrete was damaged.
Kurt’s eyes widened at the perspective that crossed his mind, but he waited.
He was finally getting some responses, and he wouldn’t screw it up by saying something that didn’t matter at the moment.
And what K said after a brief pause, made Kurt’s skin crawl.
"And it’s all Rhegal’s fault!"
