CHAPTER THREE
Mariosol woke up the next morning to find that the Man was missing. Her big black eyes darted from wall to wall, starting to tear up. Water drops pooled in her eyes and slowly rolled down her cheeks. The little babe started to whimper without her newfound dad. He was nowhere to be seen.
"Ah ha! I got it!" The man's voice echos through the train tracks. Immediately, Marisol's head shot to the direction of the sound.
The man was out of Marisol's line of vision, but she could still tell it was him. She had gotten used to his presence and knew the sound of his voice.
"Ah! Ah..!" Marisol babbled, tears still streaming down her face, "Baba..!" Her attempt to get the man's attention had gone unnoticed—the man was still yipping in excitement. Marisol didn't know what to do. She sat alone for a moment, unmoving. Her plump cheeks squeezed together in contemplation. Her eyes were reddened and droopy, a side effect of crying for prolonged periods of time.
Meow..?
Marisol looked to the side, locking eyes with a tiny little creature. It had two, long triangle ears sitting upon a round head. Black fur covered its entire body, except for in the ear. Its head was a little oval shaped, with a stout nose, and had three grey eyes. Mariosol sniffed, and reached out toward it, temporarily distracted. The creature hissed, yelping and scooting backwards. Marisol was instantly intrigued, moving forward one scoot for every two steps the cat took backwards. Mariosol reached her hand outwards, spreading her chubby fingers, but instantly retracted them.
The creature had unlatched its jaw, displaying nine fearsome rows of teeth. Within the rows of teeth, there were two pointed fangs near the top. It launched itself towards the babe, snarling fearfully. Marisol, backing up in time, had narrowly dodged the bite. The creature crashed into the wall, its two fangs completely imbedded in it.
"Marisol..!!!" the man quickly spotted what had been happening after the loud crash and dropped what he was doing. He sprang into action and raced around the corner, picked Marisol up, and searched for a weapon to fight the creature. "Agh, I shouldn't have left you alone." He clenched his jaw while his eyes darted around the camp he had created.
There was the fire, which the man could take a stick from…
The animal struggled, puting its hind legs on the wall to pull out its teeth. It growled, adding its paws to the mix and finally was released. With no time to spare, the creature flipped around to face the humans. The man simultaneously grabbed a stick from the fire and dodged an incoming attack. Unfortunately, the fire had been put out already (Marisol wouldn't be safe), so he didn't have a great weapon. He tried to stab the creature in the chest, but the stick was too thick to puncture anything.
Ahhh, what can I do… what can I do…
He walked backwards slightly, trying to make sure the creature didn't bite them. With one hand holding a child and the other the weapon, the man didn't have good chances on winning the battle. His last rations were behind the animal… he couldn't just leave. The creature launched forward, opening its mouth to bite him. The man yelped, slamming the stick in the animals face. The creature stood still for a second, then flopped down and fainted.
"What." The man looked at his stick and at the cat, rotating his head back and forth. He had only been a small time scientist before getting stuck down here—how did he have the strength to do that..? He didn't care, as long as he picked up the rations. He looked down at the creature. It wasn't like anything he had seen before…
Was it mutated…?
"Bahhha..!!" Marisol was on the verge of tears. She had been terrified, unable to do anything. The man's heart stung. He just left her there…
The man hugged Marisol, placing her head on his shoulder, "I'm sorry I left you alone," he apologized, even if she didn't understand, "I did it so we could find a way out, which I found. We're close to going home..!" The man stroked the baby's soft hair, comforting her. Marisol sniffled, holding back her tears. She hugged the man back, and grabbed his shirt in a fist. The man sighed in relief, still patting Marisol's head.
The reason the man had left Marisol alone earlier was because he went to find Data. He had been searching for an exit, but had no idea where to go. The train station had gone on forever, it must have been longer then at least 50 kilometers. He felt like he would never be able to get out, but just as he opened his phone for a light, there was a single bar of data. it took some searching and raising and lowing his phone to find the bar again, and he was able to get his location. He was in Switzerland, underground.
He hadn't been able to been able to anything else, as he had to fend off the beast. But now that he had some time, he could think about what that meant. These phenomena had been really strange—he had lived in the UK before, which was odd because now he was in Switzerland. How did he get here..? And what happened earlier? The man had never seen a creature like that. It looked like a cat, but it had fangs and third eye….
What exactly had happened..?
He sighed looking back to Marisol. He didn't know what to do. He didn't even know if civilization as he knew it was still alive.
"Agh," Marisol grunted, lifting her head from the man's shoulder. She looked left and right, and back towards the man. She stared him dead in the eye and clasped her fists even tighter on his shirt, as if saying: never leave me again.
"Mh, I won't leave you again." He tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. The man started to walk over to the area where he found the data. He needed to check something. he raised his phone, feeling like a teenager desperately needing to find data to text their friend.
his phone displayed zero bars.
He sighed, bringing his phone down. He could just keep walking.
Ding!
His phone had one bar.
A smile creased his face, his eyebrows slowly rising. He opened the search app on his phone and searched up 'news.' He waited a minute, two minutes, three, and was loosing his patience. But compared to this entire venture, these minutes weren't so bad. The man's heart thudded within his ribcage. Would he be be able to figure out what happened..? His hands shook while holding the phone.
Ding!
The page had went through and the news headlines had popped up.
"The end of the world?"
"The largest earthquake ever recorded in human history."
"Studies show that the earth's rotations is slowing down…"
"Nine hundred million causalities so far, 31% increase estimated…"
The man gulped, blinking his eyes. Was this real..? Was the earth ending..? He looked down at Marisol. No, no it couldn't. humanity always found a way to struggle through hardships. Through easy and hard, even when humanity was in the wrong.
Searching through the news articles, something became abundantly clear. No one actually knew what was happening. Some said it was an earthquake, some believed it was the rotation of earth slowing down, and some even believe that aliens were behind this (they weren't).
The man could understand some of these theories. He remembered before he fainted he was making his way to work, and the buildings around him started to collapse, and how he fell into a crack in the ground. He also vividly rembered the wind being extreme strong, enough to blow a 70 KG human off their feet.
The earthquake theory made somewhat sense—it would explain the buildings topling and the ground cracking, but what about the wind..? No earthquake could explain the sudden change in the wind like that.
However, the Earth slowing down could explain both. Theoretically, if the earth slowed down drastically, by something like 0.01% or even 0.001% it could cause the constant state of inertia to stop. Everything would topple, and the wind would drastically increase, causing what happened earlier. But, nothing he knew of could decrease Earths rotation that drastically without doing extreme damage. There would be longer nights and days, more extreme temperatures, and an increase in gravity… Not to mention, the only thing able to decrease the percentage of the spinning that much would have to be a celestial body colliding with earth, or rotating around it. If there was something like that, someone would have noticed it.
The man was more determined than ever to escape. He had to leave. He had to see what had happened to the outside world.
"Baba…" Marisol looked up at the man, watching as he fell into deep the thought. He needed to move. How else would they leave..? She decided to pull his face down and grab his hair. "Baba.!! Baba!!"
"Ah, Marisol, fine, fine, I'll go." The man understood completely, and started to walk again. His eyelashes lowered and he looked dazed.
They would then descend into the train tracks again, continuing to try and find their way out of the tunnel.