Delving deeper

—

The slow blinking red lights continued to illuminate the large corridor; the paint on this corridor now smeared in light yellow with the huge number "02" pasted in black.

A few meters down the said corridor, the two teenagers stood in the dark. The noticeably smaller adolescent knelt to inspect the current damage beneath his feet, that being a couple of goons Klara managed to knock down—by "knocked down," preferably, mangled.

Klara was on Dante's right.

"When the hell did you become this strong?" Dante expressed, looking down on a couple of goons Klara unintentionally mismanaged with her newfound strength.

Their limbs sparking, and a bit of blood oozing.

"They might die bruh…"

"Nah hubby. They won't. Even if they do, they kinda deserve it." Klara said, shrugging it off. It seemed she'd already reassured herself that it was for a good reason, even if the goons died.

The latter scoffed. "Got a point there." As he fumbled in between the supposedly knocked-out heaps of flesh and metal, his eyes trailed to the heavy weapons the goons possessed.

One had an LMG stacked with modifications, while the latter was a mere pistol the size of his hand with a rectangular build, with the barrel having a white holographic iron sight. Even if Dante would most likely strive to use the smaller weapon to his advantage, he ultimately chose the LMG mainly for how "cool" it looks and how effective it may be in case a wave of Cybos comes at the duo.

Klara took notice of this. "Why not the smaller one?"

Dante cleared his throat. "Uh…well I can just bring it if I wanna."

"Eh?"

The smaller teenager grabbed the LMG by the barrel and then at the weapon's butt before slipping its embedded sling over his shoulders, allowing the weapon to hang behind him. It took him a lot of effort for just a few actions. By that time, he was already huffing.

"You should exercise some more," Klara teased with a smug smirk, looking ahead down the wide hallway, the said corridor blinking red.

Dante grumbled and groaned, adjusting the sling hanging on his back before kneeling again to grab the pistol. "Not the right timeee for a lil bit of Tom foolery here, Klara." he said with an obvious hint of sarcasm in his tone.

As the two teens tread deeper into the crimson-lit hallway, the distant noise of a metal door shutting echoed through their ears.

Dante flinched.

He glanced at Klara. "See anything?"

The latter frowned. "Uh…no? Can't see shit apparently. My body kinda didn't develop any night vision…" she said. "Soooo saaad."

The hallway slowly flickered red, revealing only glimpses of whatever person or thing created that sound.

Until a silent whistle echoed for a second from a distance, a small dot of orange faintly illuminated the hallway.

Klara squinted. "Is that–"

In an instant, the bullet whipped through Dante and Klara.

It ricocheted onto the ceiling, sending sparks flying, leaving a mere dent.

Both teens shrieked as they dove onto the floor, both eyes fixated on the now bullet-shaped imprint above them.

Another shot echoed, and a second bullet zipped across the hallway, this time missing the two teens by a centimeter. Instead, the bullet streaked down the hallway entirely.

Pumping with adrenaline, Dante stood up, lifted the barrel of the LMG, and pointed at where the shots originated from. He then fired a volley, each one ricocheting off of the walls and the ceiling, an array of sparks, metal clanging against metal.

A display of bright orange lights filled the darkness of the hallway as Dante continued to blast. The roar of heavy gunfire resounded as he did so.

Several seconds passed; he took a sudden halt, took a prone stance once more, and stayed silent beside Klara.

The sparks of the hallway and the hissing of damaged pipes filled the deafening silence. The tension was unbearable. Both teenagers lay motionless.

Thirteen seconds.

Seventeen seconds.

Twenty-five seconds.

…

A full minute passed by.

The tension subsided, and it brought the teens to a halt. They let out a sigh of relief before switching glances.

For a second, they gazed at each other in utter silence. That tore apart when Klara bubbled out a hearty laugh. Though Dante was initially stunned by how his best friend was laughing away her worries, given the dire circumstances they were in, he followed in the end.

Both teenagers shared a giggle and chuckle. It was almost as if they found their whole situation somehow comedic.

Suddenly, a flurry of orange leads zipping in their direction shattered the moment. The loud bellow of gunshots from the darker side of the hallway emerged, forcing Dante and Klara to scoot to the hallway's edge to maximize the distance.

When the barrage of orange trails flickered, the very second the rounds took a halt, Klara sank her fist right into the metallic alloy walls of the hallway, dug her fingers deeper, and pulled out a chunk of bent and dented metal enough to shield her and Dante from the trail of lead.

"It's crazy how you pulled out that chunk like paper," Dante remarked amidst the rain of orange hail.

"I know, right?" Klara responded. "Now I think it's time to use that smaller bang bang ya got there on your waist," she said, referring to the pistol dangling from Dante's belt.

The smaller teen raised a brow.

He had to admit that he forgot all about the pistol dangling on his hip.

Dante unholstered the pistol. It had a small magazine slotting in the middle of the pistol, having five slots, and a button in place of where the pistol grip should be. He checked the magazine and the button; the magazine had ten 3-millimeters, and the button had an arrow pointing forward.

He let his index finger linger on the pistol button before pressing it, ignoring the trail of orange lead hurling at them before pulling the trigger, blindly firing at random points on the darker side of the seemingly endless underground hallway.

"Ah--fuck--shit...ow.." Dante winced, recoiling back to the handmade shelter Klara pulled out of the wall. He let go of the pistol, wincing as he pressed his fingers on the injury on his hand.

"What happened? One of those assholes shot you?" She growled, seemingly ready to pounce right there.

"No...no, I handled the damn gun wrong. So I got like...a bit of a scrape in between my pointing finger and thumb..."

Klara snickered. "Nice."

"Piss off." Dante snarled before blindly firing more. "You know, it'd be way cooler if the hallway would light up when I pull the gun's trigger so I won't miss shots."

Another bullet zipped past the hand-made alloy shield Klara ripped off. It was clear that the opposite side of the hallway still lives.

"I can't fucking shoot shit..!" Dante whined. "My right's my dominant hand, and my left is fuck at aiming…!"

 "Hang on," in a moment, she crouched from her previous prone position, scraped away another large chunk from the walls of the corridor using her fingers–barely the size of a basketball—and hurled the metallic ball directly on the darker side of the hallway.

A loud clang echoed down the darker hallway, allowing a halt for the volley of orange lead.

Klara took advantage of the moment, standing up in an instant, dug her fingers down the reinforced walls, stabbing her hands deeper into the adjacent wall, dug her fingers deeper, and pulling out an even bigger chunk from the walls.

She stood in the middle of the hallway and started vigorously throwing the chunks at the darker side of the hallway.

It was a gamble.

She didn't know if her chunks would hit the enemy or not.

In an attempt to keep the enemies at bay, she stabbed her hands below the concrete before her and felt her way around the concrete below her using her finger until she felt heaps of rebar.

Grabbing the thick strands of rebar used to reinforce the concrete floor, she pulled them out with relative ease. Once exposed, oxygen welcomed the rusting rebar.

Loud cracking and rumbling took place as the ground in the hallway shook. 

In a brief moment, the heaps of rebar launched themselves from the ground as an effect of Klara's tactic.

Due to this, she took advantage and flapped the rebar as she would her blanket, making the entire rebar connected to the ground flap upwards and downwards. A wave of rebar flapped up and down the blinking red hallway.

She grinned as she finally took a halt. "See that hubby~?" She taunted without looking in his direction. "I told you I–"

He wasn't there.

All that was left was a ripped portion of his jacket, the LMG that was torn apart and–

"Blood…?"

Klara started looking around frantically. The hallway blinked red at a rapid pace before stopping entirely. Now all she could see was pitch dark. The sparks from the rectangular lights on the ceiling were the only ones giving her a source of light.

Desperate, she called.

"Dante?" 

Her voice echoed.

"ₖₗₐᵣₐ…"

"Dante!" The girl started looking around frantically. "Dante! W-...W-Where are you?!"

"ₖₗₐᵣₐ…"

"O-Okay... Just keep talking..! I-I…I'll find you..!"

"ₖₗₐᵣₐ…–"

The abrupt intervention of a loud squelching sound accompanied by snapping and gurgling resounded within the leveled hallway and ended with a splatter as if several buckets of paint were emptied on the floor.

Flinching, Klara called once more, vulnerable in the dark. "...Dante?"

From the darkness ahead, a minuscule pair of static red circles came to life. The teenager took notice. 

"Whose there?" she said, her voice stern. "Where is Dante? What did you do? Give him back."

It did not respond.

Instead, it hurled something at her.

She caught it.

Due to the immense dark, she could barely see what she took hold of. Just by feeling it, she felt some kind of warm liquid riddling down her arms. 

Feeling it some more, her fingers entangled onto seemingly hair-like strands, wet and moist, leading to more of that liquid running down her palms.

Sneering, she tossed away the thing in her arms. 

An audible splat came to be.

"Why did you throw it away now?" The red minuscule dots uttered from a distance. Its voice was human, though static. 

Squinting and frowning, she responded. "...what?"

There was a deafening silence.

…

…

…

"I returned your friend, didn't I?"

A spark from above came to be.

For a moment.

Just for a second.

She saw Dante.

His other half missing.