Chapter Eight
Carson was sleeping, his head was resting against the concrete wall when a loud explosion ripped the sleep right out of him.
Carson was on his feet with his sword out in less time than it took to blink.
His gaze swept the room, taking everything in at one glance.
It didn't take him long to find the culprit who caused the disturbance.
The girl was standing in front of, what used to be a metal door, with her right hand balled into a fist, that was still outstretched in front of her as if she punched the door completely off its hinges with her bare hands.
He looked down at himself and was surprised his invisibility had still been active.
He usually had to put a little concentration into maintaining his invisibility, which was why he had to find houses to sleep in when he was on a mission and needed to rest his eyes for a bit.
His eyes did a double-take when he noticed the girl had finally donned some clothes.
Holy crap, she looks even more beautiful wearing that dress.
He noticed that her feet were still bare, which could only mean none of the shoes fit her, or she really likes being barefoot.
He went through the opening she had created and exited the tunnel into the bright morning light.
He caught sight of an object shining from the sunlight off in the distance. He put his hand to his forehead, blocking the sun's blindingly bright light from his eyes.
Is that the door!? He was shocked when he realized the door she punched landed over a mile away, being nothing more than a speck in the distance.
Carson was almost knocked over by a 5-gallon water jug as the girl walked past him.
Thankfully his awareness had been fine-tuned to a fine point in the last 20 years of constant vigilance, that he managed to pivot out of the way before he was hit by it.
The girl didn't even notice his feet kicking up dirt when he dodged the water jug and continued walking as if nothing had happened. Luckily for me, she is not very observant. Otherwise, I would have just given myself away, just like that.
He sighed mentally as he followed the girl.
Carson was at his wit's end as he followed the girl for 2 straight days while going the wrong way.
Like an amateur, she managed to veer herself west instead of staying south, which would have brought her to the city a day and a half ago. His new plan he came up with was to Grab her and take her to the city while she was unconscious, but he had no idea she would last this long.
He was exhausted, his feet hurt, and now, he was running dangerously low on water.
The sun bore down on Carson relentlessly; if only my invisibility got rid of the sun's effects on me, he thought sluggishly.
However, he did learn the girl's name while she talked to herself as she continued ever onward without stopping. She started talking to herself after about a day of traveling.
He just jotted it down as heatstroke, but he did hear her call herself Sarah in one of her sessions of talking to herself.
Carson was just about ready to throw in the towel and reveal himself to her when she suddenly shouted something he could not catch and dropped to her knees, as if in surrender.
His whole body stiffened when he heard her shout.
He bent down low as he summoned his sword, his head turning in all directions, surveying his surroundings.
He dropped to his hands and knees; he placed his ear to the earth and waited, listening for the faintest bit of vibration.
"I want to go home," he heard the girl say quietly while sobbing.
His heart went out to the poor girl. This was no place for someone like her. She needed to be behind the safety of the walls, not out here where death awaits you around every corner.
Carson's head jerked up off the ground as he could hear faint vibrations in the ground.
Damn, they heard her, he cursed internally.
His whole body relaxed as he prepared for the battle to come; his exhaustion was completely forgotten.
He looked at the girl still weeping on the ground with concern.
If it was just him here, he could easily handle a few dozen Carnage Worms, but if he had to protect the girl as well, this could get a lot more difficult for him.
Carnage Worms were earthworms that got mutated after the Nova Wave hit.
Nobody has learned why animals mutated to such a degree after the Nova Wave happened. Researchers have theories of why the mutations happened, theorizing that the Nova Wave sent raw energy into the animals, mutating them at a cellular rate. Still, they cannot explain why humans did not get mutated at a cellular level as the animals had; instead, they turned to ash, crippling humanity as we know it.
Carson felt the ground shake under his feet and knew it was about time for the battle to begin.
He put the blade of his sword facing down, a few inches from his toes.
Carnage Worms were notorious for appearing directly underneath your feet, catching most of their victims unaware and swallowing them whole.
Just as Carson had predicted, the Carnage Worm appeared directly under his feet. Still, at the very last second, he dove to the side, narrowly avoiding being swallowed alive.
Carson had a wide grin on his face when he landed unscathed; you're going to have to do a lot better than that to get the drop on me, buddy, Carson thought smugly.
However, his grin vanished when he noticed the direction the head was going. It was heading straight towards the girl.
When he saw the frightened girl's face, he knew that he messed up, and he knew it was too late to get to her in time.
He watched as if in slow motion, as the Carnage Worms massive mouth, with hundreds of jutting teeth, fell upon the girl he sworn to protect.
His heartbeat rapidly as he watched the worm swallow...nothing, the girl managed to dodge the Carnage Worm at the last second.
Carson let out a sigh; the stupid girl is trying to give me a heart attack.
He lunged forward in an attempt to cut the Carnage Worm in two, but the body of the worm exploded, sending bloody chunks of its body in all directions.
He saw a figure fly past him at breakneck speeds, but his keen sense of eyesight caught every detail of the beautiful red headed girl as she flew past.
Her dress blew in the wind, now covered in green chunks of gore. Her beautiful long red hair flew behind her like she was a hero of legend, but all of that was thrown out the window when his gaze caught sight of the see-through underwear she was wearing under her dress.
Carson sighed as he rubbed his eyes with his fingers.
"Yep, that settles it; I'm going to burn in the deepest parts of hell," he said to himself as he tried getting the image out of his head.
He looked at his compass to get a better bearing on the direction the girl flew off to.
He sighed again when he noticed she was going west still.
He sprinted after her, but he had already lost sight of the girl as she traveled too fast. His body flew across the ground at breakneck speeds, easily going 250 mph.
He no longer had his invisibility active, as the Carnage Worms did not track by site, but by vibrations and sounds.
Carson lost track of how many Carnage Worms tried to swallow him from below his feet. The only problem for them was, Carson did not let his feet touch the ground for more than a split second before he would spring off the balls of his foot, launching himself several yards forward before landing on his other foot, only to repeat the process all over again.
One of the Carnage Worms adapted though, it shot out of the ground in front of Carson and to the right.
He watched as the Carnage Worm did something strange, instead of doing what they always did, coming out of the ground head first, then trying to swallow you in a dive.
But this time, it was different; the Carnage Worm shot straight into the air and stopped after getting 17ft of its body onto the surface. He thought the Carnage Worm would lay its body in front of his trajectory and prevent him from moving forward. Still, instead, the head dropped in the other direction stopping 2ft off the ground.
As his body flew across the ground getting nearer to the Carnage Worm, the worm did something even more unexpected, its body twisted counterclockwise in a direct collision course with Carson.
Carson's body reacted almost instantaneously; his right foot slammed against the ground, pushing him off the ground in a forward flip.
He felt the hair on his head brush against the Carnage Worms body as he went past it. When he was clear, he pulled his body out of the flip. His blade flashed behind him as he struck at the worm without even looking.
The sword whistled as it cut through the air, then there was a wet squelching noise as his blade cut through the body of the worm, severing it in half.
The balls of his foot touched the ground, and the instant it did, he shot himself forward again.
The Carnage Worm didn't even manage to slow him down in the slightest, as he pushed himself after the girl who got him into this mess in the first place.
If I ever catch up to that girl, I'm going to give her an earful.
He watched as 2 more worms tried the same tactic, only this time they appeared on his left side.
A grin formed on his face when he noticed the worm's antics.
At the last second, his foot blasted himself off the ground, sending him in a forward roll through the air, only this time he had his blade in front of him, spinning with him.
The blade made loud whistling noises as it spun in the air with him.
The Carnage Worms tried to slam into him, only this time they were beheaded before they even managed to get close to Carson's body, his sword in front of him taking care of them.
Carson looked at his compass after landing and altered his trajectory. He managed to go off course while dealing with the bothersome worms.
Carson frowned when he noticed 3 worms spring up out of the ground 100 yards in front of him, this time; however, they were standing directly in front of his pathway, side by side.
His gut screamed at him to not change directions, so he listened to it and went straight forward.
His gut feelings were rarely wrong, so anytime his gut urged him to do something, he did it without hesitation.
When Carson was only a few feet away from the center, Carnage Worm that was just standing there with its mouth open facing him,
His body blurred and looked like it went in two different directions simultaneously, both heading towards the gaps between the worms simultaneously.
His body reformed, directly in the center again, just on the other side of the Carnage Worms. Lines seemed to form on the worm's body as Carson passed them, the lines, after a time, started leaking green blood, slowly at first, but after a few more seconds, they started spraying green blood everywhere.
The worm's body's slowly split into several different pieces. Wet chunks were hitting the ground behind Carson as he listened. A small smile could be seen on his lips when he heard the splatter of gore behind him.
"You're going to need to do a lot better than that if you want to slow me down," he snarked at the dead Carnage Worms.
"Well, crap, this isn't good," he muttered to himself as he glanced back towards the thousands of Carnage Worms, hot on his heels.
They were still 200 yards back, but they were slowly gaining on him as he sprinted forward.
When he cut down the 3 Carnage Worms, he noticed a wave of endless worms behind him, but that was several minutes ago. They were still way off in the distance, at least a couple of miles away.
He knew what he had to do, if he kept running like this, they would eventually catch up to him, and by that time, he would have wasted even more energy, exhausting himself even more before the battle would inevitably start.
"DAMN YOU, SARAH!" He roared in the direction the girl was going.