Chapter 200: Alfred was alive!
The alliance was forged, and Hades was in a great mood. His feet hovered over the floor as he walked. Jo-Stride had something to do with that, but it was a reflection of the great mood Hades was in.
He whistled at the dinner table and every once in a while, a smirk couldn’t help playing on his lips.
He ate a lot of ice cream during the movie which they watched as a family before the children went off to bed.
And when he slid into bed, Sunshine did not expect him to be in such a celebratory mood that he kissed her on the lips out of the blue.
"Wow." she said softly, keeping in a chuckle. "You really loved making your frenemies admit that you are better than them."
He moaned like he was in ecstasy. "Oh baby, you have no idea how good it felt." His hand squeezed her waist hard like a giant paw seeking to break her in half.
"Easy boy." She told him.
He pulled her closer, so close that she could feel his breath.
She didn’t know who made the first move under the covers but suddenly, they were kissing. Their lips pressed together softly, tentative, hot and seeking.
Her mind screamed stop and breathe, her lips screamed push harder...so she did. The slow kiss became more passionate--more desperate.
It was like she had lived through five years of no intimacy just for a kiss like this. A kiss that set her on fire. A kiss that overwhelmed her. A kiss that melted the frost in her blood, turning her into a puddle of water.
Suddenly, Hades pulled away from her and he dragged her off the bed. He turned on the light so roughly like he sought to break the switch.
And then they both saw it. A large part of the bed was wet!!
He turned to look at her. She was soaked all through. "Should I take that as a compliment?" he joked.
Sunshine burst into laughter. When she thought of her body turning into a puddle of water from a kiss, she did not think she would make the bed wet.
"I guess I still have some emotional training to do." She giggled.
He hugged her from behind and sighed. He never thought her superhuman abilities would show up during the wrong moment. "Its a good thing we have some hundred or so mattresses in your space."
"More kissing?" she asked.
"Definitely." He agreed with ease.
They vanished into the space, to pick up where they had left off.
****
It was another morning and the air around city hall was heavy with the scent of char and rot. The acid rain had long stopped, but it’s touch lingered. Like the metal outside which was softer than sponge and curled in on itself like burnt paper.
The building, already cracked and scarred from years of neglect and corrosion of the acid rain had finally given in, collapsing in a heap of black and blue rubble.
Beneath it, people pushed and screamed for help. One by one, they lost the battle to live as days went by. One person had miraculously survived being buried: Alfred Fawk.
His sister’s words still echoed in his head: An apocalypse is coming, return to the country and come straight to fortress four on Westbrook Mountain.
The day he landed at the Wescott international airport was the day the meteors started to fall. He barely survived death from the strange snakes at the Majestic hotel and all the lunatics that were roaming around.
He escaped with a superhuman that had rain controlling abilities. Along the way, his skin touched the lemon scented rain, and he fell ill. His friend had kept going because they both thought death was all that waited for him.
But something unexpected happened. He didn’t die. He awakened!!
So, he made his way to the city hall, arriving in time to save himself from dying in acid rain. The rain was long gone and should he have been. But he had been treated well by the survivors in the city hall.
When part of the building collapsed, he stayed back for two days, trying to save those inside. It was the third day, and he was still giving it his best.
The only other survivor with him was a fellow superhuman, a woman named Nusra. She had family trapped under the rubble and she was determined to save them. Together, they had been moving rocks for days, with little rest and hardly anything to eat.
He was certain that he could keep going for a week. But Nusra was pale, her hands were cracked, and she looked like she was only days away from death.
"You should take a break." Alfred told her, she had been clawing at broken concrete for some time, and he worried she would pass out.
Nusra sniffled. "We rest; they die. The cold will kill them."
He knew that she was right. But both their abilities were useless at the moment. Hers was super hearing while him a pyrokinetic who could only create fires to keep them warm.
She ran off suddenly, and he sighed in relief. Maybe she was finally taking his advice and resting. She returned thirty minutes later with a broken part of a forklift that could be used to dig.
He shook his head and took it from her. "If we fail today, we leave."
An hour later of endless digging, Nusra put her ear to the rubble, her brow slick with sweat. "They are still alive." She whispered. "I can hear breathing, it’s faint but it’s there and I think we are close."
So, they dug with the forklift and fingers. Their hands bled, nails split, muscles trembled until they refused to obey. Alfred melted through twisted rods when he could, though he was beginning to feel drained. They both were.
Nusra guided him where to dig, her hearing picking out weak cries that a normal person could have missed.
Then a hand broke through finally and Nusra shed a tear. They had finally found an exit for those inside.
The survivors were pulled out of the ground, one by one. Their skin was ash pale, eyes sunken, lips trembling from dehydration. They staggered on the surface like ghosts, and some collapsed.
Among the survivors was mayor Townsend, his once immaculate suit shredded and his face grey with dust. When Alfred and Nusra pulled him free, he clutched Alfred’s arm like a lifeline, staring at him like he was a god that saved his life. "We thought that we would die in there, thank you." He managed to say.
The survivors huddled together around Alfred’s small flames, chewing dry scraps of beef jerky Nusra had carried in her pack. The silence was fragile, filled with only the sound of labored chewing and shallow breaths.
"Where do we go now?" One woman asked, lips trembling. "In this cold. In this ruined town, where do we go?"
A few feeble voices were raised; suggestions were made and turned down. Someone dropped dead and everyone gasped in fear. The cold ate at them like a void sucking their souls.
Then, Alfred raised his voice and said, "There is one place left where we can all go." He looked at each survivor, eyes burning with more than fire. "The base on Westbrook Mountain, we will all be safe there."
The words seemed to ripple through the group, but not with relief. Fear, hesitation and suspicion. It showed in their faces, and in the sharp way mayor Townsend straightened.
"The base on Westbrook?" He repeated, the name was foreign to his ears. "Where exactly, I know this mountain like the back of my hand, and I do not know this place."
Alfred scratched the tip of his nose. "My sister is a friend to the Quinns, they own it. There are forty-one of us here. Hopefully, they take everyone in."