Live Wired (on indefinite hold)

Chapter IX, Night Terrors

This was it. I was outside.  Now I just had to manage to survive the 8 minutes of death. Walking out through the gates is suicide. The average life expectancy of crossers is a pitiful 8 minutes. That is why the only people who venture out are criminals, the insane, or those truly skilled. I like to think I'm the latter.

I look what remains of the city that was district 17. There's about 300 meters or 2.5 soccer fields of flat space in between, crossing it before the ghouls get me won't be easy. After gauging the distance I make a break for it, pumping mana into my bloodstream and muscles in order to go faster.  It is at this point when the turrets stop firing at the infected. The gates are almost closed, so they don't need to keep them at bay any longer. 

All those bullets that were previously illuminating the field disappear making obscurity fall over the land once again. There's a full moon tonight. It's covered in thick black clouds and struggling to shine on such a tenebrous night. Under it, the barely visible shadowy figures in the dim light have stopped moving; they have realized the gates will close before they get there. 

For a brief moment, the night is eerily still.

I know better than trying to hide, so I keep on running. These things are intelligent and saw me come out of the gates. They know I can't be far, and would set up a search perimeter to find me.

One of them finally notices me dashing madly through the dusk, and after a brief pause, it produces a deafening screech and starts running after me like an animal, using his arms as front paws. The others soon follow, their screams possibly producing one of the most helish noises I have ever heard. I'm certain that without my helmets noise regulator I would be deaf and bleeding from my ears.

I ignore them and keep on sprinting, pumping more and more mana into my legs and moving diagonally left in order to avoid the horde.

Since it rained last night, the snowy field I must cross is muddy and wet. Moving on its terrain feels like stepping on quick-sand, every step you take sinks you deeper into the foul-smelling mud. It probably isn't even mud. Mud is just made of earth, this muck most likely contains half the safe-zone's garbage in it. 

The creatures notice me moving diagonally, then trying to outsmart me, they start assembling in a line to cover more ground and move parallell to me, intending me to run into their makeshift wall at some point.

I shift my course, choosing to face them head-on. I run towards them with all my might. In response, predictably, the creatures also change directions matching my frontal assault, clawing and tumbling over each other in order to get to me.

As I near them, they start trying to form a circle in order to close my escape routes. I still can't see them quite well in the night. Their ploy doesn't intimidate me, so I continue my approach. When they notice I won't stop, they drop their grand strategy and choose a more simple approach- mindlessly charging at me. 

Once I'm an arm and a half away from them, I pour as much energy as I can into my legs. My muscles bulge and strain under the pressure. Just as they are about to reach me, I crouch for a split second and then, mustering as much force as possible, jump. 

The kinetic force exerted was so potent that it ended up creating an explosion, showering the ghouls with mud and leaving a small crater on the ground. Meanwhile, I was 4 meters up in the air. Way above the reach of any infected who might want to grab me, like a kid with a party balloon flying off to the stratosphere.

The landing was tricky. I couldn't just land on two feet because that would sink me up to my knee in the mud. I had to roll as I landed in order to cover more surface area, a hard thing to do with a movement restricting hazmat suit which weighs more than 30 kgs. Unfortunately, this wasn't like the movies where the hero lands and the pursuer just stands there doing nothing like an idiot for a long moment; no, the infected wouldn't give me the courtesy. They were already chasing after me as I was falling, and were now breathing down my neck.

My feet just kept getting sucked by the mud. Both the ghouls and I were having a hard time traversing the terrain. It was a shit-show, and we were running in a strange manner, similar to that exercise in gym class where you run while bringing your knees up in a 90-degree angle. If I had any shame left this would be the moment to feel embarassed.

Sadly, the ravenous creatures had the advantage. The fire resistant suit I was wearing was heavy and making me sink deeper. Even magic can't do anything about the rules of physics. Growing more desperate by the moment and out of alternatives, I tried using the jump-pack in the hazmat suit. This suit belonged to a fireman previously. Nowadays, the buildings were so tall, that it was a necessity for them to have this device. I didn't know if it would work in this situation, since I've never used one, but I had to try.

The jump-pack took a while to work, because the burners in charge of propelling the suit were full of mud from when I rolled. Nevertheless, after 15 seconds of potent heat, the dirt got pulverized. With the obstruction gone, I was subsequently violently thrusted upwards, ripping me out of the muck. I quickly turned off the burners, not wanting to go flying into the air again. 

I repeated this process over and over again. Whenever I would start sinking, I would perform a short jump with my jump-pack. My control also got better at it with each jump, and soon enough I left the creatures and their demented shrieks biting the dust. They wouldn't give up, however, and are still chasing me, madly clawing and thrashing through the mud.

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Another chapter completed. Make sure you vote if you liked it. It will help the story get into the hot list, or so I'm told.

That's how I feel about this chapter btw.

Welp, that's it for me. Next update during the weekend probs. Be good, babies, and if you can't be good, don't get caught.