Chapter 28: Fighting Together (2)
Ren felt somewhat annoyed. He didn’t really understand why he had rushed in. After all, he had no right or time to get involved in such things.
Maybe it was because of Jax’s annoying words, or the beta that stirred his thoughts, or maybe it was some reason he couldn’t understand. Either way, by the time he snapped back to reality, he was already in this new Polluted Zone.
Since he had come this far, he felt like he had to do something. Ren looked at the struggling blimp and its hurt passengers, thinking that their lives were surely more important than his own. He hoped to save as many as he could.
However, at that moment, from the shaking, damaged blimp, he saw the only person standing among the wreckage.
Ren’s eyes narrowed. "Is that her? Why is she, that beta, here too?"
Ren had met this beta three times before.
The first time, she was a young girl, barefoot, sitting on the frosty ground with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring blankly at the sky.
The second time, she was a grown-up girl, wearing a white dress with gold embroidery. Lace framed her small face, delicate and pretty.
The third time, she wore a dark dress. She faced others making fun of her but kept a calm and unbothered expression.
That time, she hid in a pitch-black pipe, quietly dealing with a big loss. But she still stayed cool and beautiful, as if nothing had happened at all.
It was the first time Ren had seen her in trouble. She was standing in the middle of wreckage, her pretty face covered in sweat and dust, her hair sticking to her neck, her clothes wet and blood-stained.
But her eyes, usually as calm as night, sparkled with light in the flying gunpowder smoke. There was a touch of anger, bitterness, and stubborn determination in her eyes. They seemed human-like, unlike her usual unfeeling and emotionless self.
"Good thing I’m here," Ren’s heart softened for a moment without realizing it. His usually cold and unfeeling face also softened when he saw the beta.
"Hey, are you from the rescue team?" On the shaking blimp, a hurt alpha managed to get up and yelled at Ren in the air, "How many of you are there?"
Ren pointed to himself, and then to a snowy owl behind him.
"Just me, and him."
The snowy owl was Hanson’s psychic incarnation. It followed along shyly but steadfastly.
"Only two?" all the hope that had just been lit in everyone’s hearts sank again.
Ren let go of his hand and a fist-sized amber ball fell from the sky. The ball bounced around on the deck before finally stopping. It looked smooth and had beautiful patterns, like a round gem that had hardened over many years. If you looked closely, the patchy pattern inside looked like a giant eyeball. When it hit the ground, it blinked as if it had come alive.
After it stopped moving, the patchy pupil hardened again. It lay quietly on the blimp’s deck, looking at the sky, frozen like a dead thing.
"This is the ’key’," Ren said, pointing to the sky far away, "I’ve already opened the portal."
Following his finger, a door-shaped hole was opening in the sky far away. It was as if a hole had been cut in the fabric of the dusk, showing a way to another world, a door to survival. Even though the portal looked far away, the distant black hole represented a chance at life.
"The key, he has the key!"
"Look there, it’s a portal. The portal is open, we can get out."
The hurt alphas hugged each other and cheered. The betas might not fully understand these words, but the experienced alphas were overjoyed.
The conditions for getting into the Polluted Zone were pretty random. Sometimes, while peacefully walking down the road, one step could suddenly lead into such completely unfamiliar and strange place. It was really hard to get out. The only way was to find the "key" to leave and use it to open the portal.
This was the Polluted Zone, now spread all over the planet.
The Polluted Zone showed up suddenly and kept getting bigger. It quietly and greedily swallowed up everything, like a bloodsucker stuck to the planet, squeezing the living space of humans and all creatures. Those caught by it hardly ever found their way out, left to lose hope within this chaotic world. Slowly, painfully, they were tainted, worn down, and eventually turned into part of it, becoming weird mutants.
Only those who risked their lives going into the Polluted Zone year after year knew the secret to finding the key within such places.
Now Kestrel and the others had the "key" to survival, and they saw the portal to life. The blimp used all its power, pulling its damaged body, rushing towards the portal with all its might.
The mutants that Kestrel had pinned down earlier scattered everywhere because of the impact from the whale’s tail. They didn’t die, of course. They even woke up quickly, gathering into a dark, thick cloud.
The Snowy Owl spread its wings, took Ren’s clothes in its beak, and pulled. Ren pointed in the direction of the portal and simply said, "Go first. Lead them."
The owl, not daring to go against his orders, had no choice but to fly. Under its guidance, the blimp rushed towards the door.
Ren, on the other hand, turned around, went against the flow, and faced the dark cloud that was catching up from behind. From his pocket, he took out a bottle of revulsant.
He suddenly felt like laughing. He almost wanted to laugh loudly facing this familiar scene because he once thought he would never need to use this thing again.
Sometimes, Ren thought of the dead souls, the faces of the comrades he could trust with his life. There were many people around him. Friends and buddies, always full of life. He didn’t know why he ended up in this state, alone and without a home.
