Chapter 8 - Separated

"SEHWA!!"

Van's voice, urgent and panicked, resounds across the hallway.

Normally, he wouldn't have done such a thing but he couldn't think about that now. Raging booms echoed all around him as they seemed to get closer.

He ran taking turns, from corner to corner, trying to put some distance against his pursuers. Clear dusts of light have been emanating from his figure, boosting his running speed to some inhuman degree.

A trickle of blood was visible by his lips and he was tightly holding onto his abdomen. He was clearly wounded.

However, Van's mind was ringing. Everything wasn't registering in his mind and the sound of his panting clouded everything else.

Sehwa was gone.

They were still on their way to the armory when the atmosphere suddenly turned eerie. It felt like eyes were glued to their backs and the hair on their skin stood.

It was just a flash of darkness. Then, there they were. Like viscous ink, they were beasts of the dark and so, it was their home.

Not one of them could have reacted.

Sehwa was the first to disappear. When he turned to look, Van was shot with overwhelming force from his back, he was hurled like a ragdoll thrown against the wall.

His insides were shaken as he gasped in pain.

Only an hour had passed, yet chaos had already ensued. In the end, he could only continue in silence and hope Sehwa could make it to the armory.

• • • ° ° °

An hour before the incident…

"Sehwa, there's a map saved in your terminal. Take it out."

Hearing Van's instruction, she immediately reached for her bag and took out the terminal she used for her daily practices.

Van then clicked open a file within the tablet's interface and an image of the whole ship filled the screen.

"Whoa… it shows the different floors too?"

Sehwa, fascinated by such a sight, fiddled with the ship's figure and its inner structure zoomed, depicting several rooms and the interconnecting hallways.

"This is where we currently are." Van pointed towards one end of the ship and the scene shifted to another location.

3rd floor, residential area. The screen displayed such a label under the image.

"Right now, we are on the Rear top floor. The ship has a total of three floors and the place we are headed to are on the Middle 2nd and Front 1st floor respectively. With the armory closest to the ship's center, the larger the number of monsters that could appear there. So we have to be very careful and stay on guard."

On the screen, Van pinned the two locations with a red indicator.

"Unfortunately, the tablet couldn't update to a real-time position observing ward." Van commented as that would supposedly help guide them to their destination.

Watching the map, Sehwa followed Van as they continued their journey. They had just left and Van was guiding Sehwa how to read the map with their current position, so she was able to keep up while tracing the path they took.

Their pace was quite slow as they had to be cautious of any lurking monsters. However, the ship was also huge. The distance they had to cover to reach their second and final destination would take hours by Van's estimation.

Nevertheless, they had to move as they were now outside. They had to at least reach the armory and replenish some supplies, otherwise their preparations for today would all be for naught.

From shadow to shadow, they hid their form through each room and they were making enough progress.

Sometimes, even Sehwa would catch the clattering silhouette of a monster. Her back was already drenched from sweat.

Not only because of tiredness, but was also due to the terror that haunted them by the minute.

The hidden monster of this area was clearly following their traces. Whether it was by their scent or sound, she didn't know. All she was glad for was that at least the monster still had ways before it latches upon their trail and they have to rush off.

This meant however that their journey was filled with inevitable silence between the two. If Sehwa could, she would have even held onto her breath.

Soon, they were about to reach the first hour mark. Van had made it so that while they move in irregular turns, they would always take a break for every hour.

Van wanted to do this, not only to adjust to Sehwa's pace, but also so that he could maintain enough strength.

And so, Van signalled to Sehwa that it was almost time and they had to leave. Fortunately, there was a hall nearby that the two could remain in hiding for some time.

They slightly increased their pace and were already in a junction that led to the room they were about to take a rest in.

However, the situation wasn't without mishaps.

"Va-"

As Sehwa cautiously looked around as they moved, one sight she didn't want to see came into her view.

Creak…

It was a prolonged scraping noise that immediately attracted her eyes. It pulled into her consciousness and left her looking right into it.

"Gasp!"

A silent gasp. The thousand words she wanted to scream were instantly jammed by herself into her throat. It was as if she was choking in extreme dread.

Reflected in her eyes, a smile with hundreds of sharp protruding teeth covering half of its face. It was a malicious smile.

An exaggeratedly malicious one.

Its skin was severely sagged and was rotting disgustingly. Its body, mangled beyond recognition, creaked with every slight movement. It sounded like bones grinding against one another.

It dragged its broken hand and leg as it walked on all fours. The blood along its trail seemingly endless.

The most peculiar, however, was its upper face. A dark scaly thorn pierced it beyond belief and the saggy skin was torn and revealed the messy flesh and skull, fragmented to several pieces.

Its upper part of the face was completely annihilated by the thorn. But somehow, she felt like the monster had a piercing gaze that robbed her of any energy to escape.

And that was crucial in the few moments that passed by.

The monster lunged at her like a ferocious beast. Its maw tearing its whole face apart, like it wanted to swallow her whole.

The limbs it dragged on the ground seemed to only appear mangled, but the speed of the monster as it approached was beyond any of Sehwa's expectations.

"N-no!!", was her words before the monster's large gaping maw was already in her face.

Crack!

In mere milliseconds, a loud dull crack boomed as Sehwa was swallowed by a pitch black darkness.

Her form disappeared and the monster was disconcerted. Like a wild beast, it realized that it had lost its prey and was fuming with rage.

Van had also noticed the situation and turned his back to look towards Sehwa.

However, it was too late.

Not a trace of her shadow was left on the spot she once was. Instead, a monster raging about welcomed him and as he was about to pull on his gun to shoot, a force sent him flying to the nearby wall.

It was brief. But it was also all it took for their form to crumble.

That was all that happened that led to the present.

Several monsters ganging up and laying an ambush, Sehwa's sudden mysterious disappearance, and the fact that he was injured plagued Van's mind as he escaped.

• • • ° ° °

Drip…

A continuous drop of liquid echoed across the small room.

It was a silence shattered only by the occasional drops from the leaky faucet. The tub, already halfway full, was quietly being filled with clear water.

The silence however didn't last long.

Crack!

A dull crack filled the space. Barely an instant, the darkness retracted and a figure was drawn out from nowhere.

Pink hair, a delicate face, and dressed in leather jeans and jacket.

It was Sehwa suddenly thrown into a tub filled with water. Inevitably, the liquid splashed all over the place as she fell.

"Ugh!" She groaned in pain.

"D-don't eat me!"

She struggled in the tub as she pleaded in panic. The water turned chaotic even more and the room's once still silence, broken with Sehwa's appearance.

"Huh? Water?"

Soon, the difference of the situation dawned upon her. Showered in water, and a room that was clearly a bathroom.

"Where, ha… Where am I?" Confusion flitted in her eyes that changed to caution.

With the tub wet and slippery, she scrambled off the water and found herself panting on the ground. Fortunately, even with the racket she made, there was no noise coming from outside.

The bathroom seemed to be much more isolated than the area they were formerly in.

Sensing that, peace slowly flooded her heart and so did the room. Weakness filled her limbs and she found her back leaning against the tub.

"Haha…"

A depreciated laugh. Sehwa couldn't believe herself at this moment.

"I thought I found strength in myself even temporarily… But the fear that has sunk deep in me is unbelievably hard to overcome."

She whispered in a trembling voice. The self she sees right now reminded her of the Sehwa that Van first met. It was a story that depicted the beginning of her tragedy and something she hasn't even had a memory of.

"I even escaped by myself… Though I don't know how it happened, I still left Van alone."

Tears threatened to fall from her eyes. She couldn't help but feel heartbroken.

Minutes pass.

Sehwa stayed still feeling deeply depressed. However, changes soon took place in her eyes.

In her memory, the short strip of this past month was vividly playing in her mind. The Van she saw in her daily life reminded her of his continuous drive to live everyday with hope, even with the direness of everything else.

She remembered the favor she still owed Van for saving her life.

Now, it's her turn to save herself.

Finding determination within her hopelessness, Sehwa finally looked up and the same brightness shone within her eyes.

She was worried about Van but she knew he would be safer than she currently was. Van was a trained fighter but she wasn't.

And she doesn't believe she'll be found in the middle of nowhere by Van. The effort that would take was impractical and wasn't worth attracting the monsters' attention.

Soon, she had made up her mind. The only way was continuing towards their first destination. She knew Van would also think about this as the armory was closer than going back.

Sehwa calmly took to her feet and tried to dry her clothes off as much as she could while resting the aching muscles in her body.

She checked the bag she had and removed every item to remove any water inside. Thankfully, no items were damaged or became unusable.

Taking this chance, she took a bite of the few packed rations she had. For a moment, she felt a blissful feeling of being able to eat in silence and without any threats.

After a few minutes, she felt ready to go and she didn't hesitate any further.

She swiftly placed all her things back into the bag and pulled the gun from her side holster.

The slight trembling of her fingertips as she held this weapon was very obvious, but her resolution didn't allow her to take a step back. With herself ready, she pulled out a flashlight she took out in advance and slowly pulled on the door.

Creak…

A low creak sounds which Sehwa tried to minimize as much as possible. As she peeked through a small opening, she torched the area outside but found no life present.

With a sigh of relief, she slowly got out of the bathroom.

Faced with the dim darkness outside, she opted to turn the flashlight off as much as possible.

Afterall, she didn't want to attract any monster's attention.

She then steadfastly took her steps towards the open door that led to the hallways once more.