Desperate Hope

Elian felt completely consumed by a sense of despair, as if he were falling into a bottomless abyss. Almost a minute had passed, and the creatures kept advancing, like an endless tide of hungry insects. They ran through the streets, completely covering them, sweeping away everything in their path.

When he thought the terrifying horde of monsters would never end, he noticed their numbers beginning to dwindle, until the streets, once crowded, now seemed empty. However, some scattered creatures were still running toward the explosion area.

Finally, he made sure the creatures had gone, as he no longer felt the vibrations of the ground.

"The smell is really unbearable," Elian whispered.

Though he was used to the stinks of the dump, he couldn't help but hold his breath as much as possible. Not even the stench of a rotting rat under the sun for weeks came close.

"…"

He watched the smoke from the explosion with complicated thoughts.

Almost all those people who, just a moment ago, had been alive, now lay dead. It was disturbing, but in the place where he had grown up, thinking too much about tragedy only brought even greater problems.

It was better to leave those thoughts behind, no matter how cruel it was.

"Ugh... My arm..."

Suddenly, a groan of pain made him turn toward Hugo. He was sitting, pale and sweating, with his left arm twisted unnaturally. The impact of his fall from nearly a meter had been devastating, the bone was broken, piercing through the skin, and blood began to soak his gray suit.

The glasses he wore lay some distance away, completely shattered.

Elian deduced that he had fallen, putting all his weight on his left arm, which explained why it was so badly injured.

"I-it hurts too much..." Hugo could barely speak, his face twisted in pain.

"Don't make noise, stay calm."

Although they were on the roof of a building, those creatures had sharp hearing for sound. No matter how much the poor man agonized in pain, there was no choice but to endure it in silence.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked softly.

Hugo, sweat on his face and a grimace of pain, weakly asked, "Do you know... how to stop the bleeding?"

Elian hesitated for a moment, looking at Hugo's broken arm, from which a lot of blood was flowing. He had no medical knowledge, but he couldn't just stand still while he bled out.

"I'll try," he replied hesitantly. "I don't know much, so forgive me in advance if it hurts."

Hugo nodded slowly, squinting from the pain.

"Do... whatever you can. I d-don't want to die..."

Elian didn't waste time. He knew he needed something to cover the wound, so he looked at Hugo's suit, but it was already too stained with blood.

Then, his gaze turned to his own suit.

It was only for a moment, but he realized that the silver watch he was wearing was now broken. The glass was gone, and the small transparent stones had fallen off.

He stopped looking at it and focused on what really mattered.

There were two options for fabric: the jacket he was wearing, but when he touched it, the material seemed too thick, and he didn't think he could tear it quickly.

So he focused on the white shirt he wore underneath.

Raas!

He quickly tore a piece of his shirt, rolled it up, and pressed it tightly against the wound.

"!"

This made Hugo shudder and squeeze his eyes shut.

The arm kept bleeding, but at least the pressure seemed to help, though the pain was evident in every breath Hugo took.

"This is the best I can do... just hold on," Elian said, aware that they couldn't stay there much longer.

They needed to find someone who knew what to do, maybe a doctor.

Elian looked at the city as the wind tousled his hair. He didn't know where to start.

The last conversation with Rupert kept resonating in his head. The name Amelia hammered in his mind. If he remembered correctly, to find her, he had to reach Kensington, but... how?

He didn't hesitate to ask Hugo, who answered with effort.

"To the west... it's to the west," Hugo murmured, struggling to stay conscious. "You know... It's part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea... About half an hour from here..."

Though dizzy, Hugo couldn't understand how someone born in London wouldn't know where Kensington was.

However, in their current situation, Elian preferred not to think about anything.

Elian looked westward, frowning. He didn't have a compass, but his grandmother Rosario had taught him the cardinal directions when he was a child. A sigh escaped his lips when he thought of her, but he quickly refocused on the situation. According to Hugo, they were about 30 minutes away by foot. But with those monsters all over the city, and with Hugo's condition, it was going to be very difficult.

He even doubted they would make it, but he couldn't stay on the roof waiting for a miracle.

Suddenly, Elian saw something a few meters away.

It was a metal hatch on the ground. Without thinking, he helped Hugo and they walked toward it. He crouched down and began to open it quickly, eager to find an escape. But before he could open it fully, he felt pressure on his shoulder.

"...?"

Hugo touched him with his trembling hand, pointing toward the sky. Elian looked up, confused: "What's happening?" he asked.

Bzzzz... Rrrrrrrrroooar!

A low and constant hum filled the air. At first, it was just a distant murmur, like an annoying fly. But then, the sound intensified, growing, until it became a roar that cut through the air.

Elian saw dozens of silhouettes on the horizon, moving at great speed.

"They're planes!" Hugo shouted, his voice filled with desperate hope. "It's the army! They're going to save us!"

Despite the pain that kept him pale, his eyes reflected happiness.

Elian didn't share the same excitement; he just frowned as those flying machines passed over their heads, crossing the sky.

"?"

Suddenly, something caught his attention in the distance; they were so small that he almost ignored them.

Small black dots began to fall from the sky, right where those planes had passed. At first, he didn't understand what they were, but the moment one of the dots touched the ground, the earth shook with indescribable violence.

Boom!

"Eh!?"

Hugo stared wide-eyed at a small fireball growing rapidly in the distance. With a trembling voice, he barely managed to say: "A-are... they bombs!?"

Elian instinctively covered his ears, but the noise kept penetrating his skull. It was as if the air itself had exploded.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

More of those terrifying fireballs appeared over the city, each one getting closer to the building they were in.

Boom!

Finally, one of the explosions shook the air only 100 meters from the building.

Flames erupted, lighting up everything as if the sky was tearing apart. The shockwave hit them with brutal force. The ground vibrated, the windows of nearby buildings exploded into a thousand pieces, and the roar of the explosion enveloped them in a cloak of chaos.

"We're going to die!" Hugo screamed, terrified, trying to cover himself. But Elian, without losing a second, opened the hatch and shoved Hugo into it with force, not thinking about his injured arm.

Without hesitation, Elian also slid into the hatch.

Fortunately, the fall wasn't too high, and it was cushioned by several cardboard boxes beneath them.

Boom!

Suddenly, an even closer explosion rumbled in the air.

Nearby boxes shot through the air, while glass fragments from the windows, shattered by the previous explosion, embedded themselves in Elian's skin. He didn't have time to react; he barely processed how everything around him turned into a chaotic mess of light and deafening noise.

When the rumble finally ceased, everything fell into a deadly silence.

Elian and Hugo, covered in debris and dust, slowly got up. The world around them continued shaking, as if the earth itself were trembling from the echo of the explosion.

Cough! Cough!

"...Are you okay?" Elian asked, coughing from the dust he had swallowed.

Hugo, covered in dust, nodded, though his arm was still in a sorry state. Fortunately, it seemed he hadn't suffered more damage.

Although Elian wanted to see what had happened outside, he decided to wait until those terrifying explosions stopped. He only had to wait a couple of minutes for the calm to finally return to the city.

He didn't waste time; he got up immediately and began climbing the metal stairs leading to the roof.

A slight pain forced him to stop for a moment.

It was then that Elian noticed several cuts on his sleeves, now stained with small blood spots.

"!"

When he reached the top, what he saw took his breath away.

The city, the same city he once thought was so far out of reach, was now completely crumbling. Buildings were falling into ruins, the streets were covered in debris and fire. All that was left was destruction.

Sigh...

Elian sighed despondently and decided to descend again through the hatch. As he went down, the cold metal of the stairs scraped his hands, accompanying the silence that surrounded him.

He needed to talk to Hugo and decide his next move.

"Huh!?"

Suddenly, when he was halfway down, something strange happened.

The touch of the metal, so real and firm until that moment, simply disappeared. There was no warning or sound. He only felt how his hands stopped finding resistance and, suddenly, his body was suspended in the air.

Elian fell quickly, but before panic could take over, his vision began to fade, a thick, black veil spreading, enveloping everything around him.

...

"Ahhhh... Eh?"

When he opened his eyes again, a piercing scream escaped from his mouth, as if he had fallen from a great height. However, it was extinguished almost immediately when he realized where he was.

The worn colors, the dirty walls, the unmistakable smell of dampness mixed with the stench of garbage. It was his home, his little shack in the dump. Everything seemed exactly the same: the battered mattress in the corner, the rusted pots stacked up, and the makeshift roof filtering the moonlight.

Elian blinked, unable to comprehend, as his breathing quickened and his heart beat violently in his chest.