Liam awoke, a slight ringing in his ears. He looked around confusion clouding his mind. A split second later he recalled everything that happened.
The Zone, the explosion, the pain.
'The Zone collapsed'
Immediately panic set in. He looked down on his chest. It was no longer caved and his ribs merely ached before that pain too faded. His curse had just saved him.
A complicated feeling couldn't help but swell in his heart. But he couldn't just sit here wallowing. Now wasn't the time for that and more importantly...
'How long have I been out?'
It appears he hadn't blacked out for long at least thanks to his Self-healing ability kicking in. Liam made a move to stand but...
Nothing happened.
"W-what?" he uttered in confusion and willed his legs to move. They didn't listen. They didn't even twitch.
That's when he felt it. A sharp pain coming from his back, as though something was repeatedly driving a nail into his spine.
'No...' his mind echoed. '... no, no, no dammit' It was also, that with great horror, he realized that the pain in his spine could only mean one thing...it was broken.
He couldn't move.
A feeling of helplessness sunk into the depths of his heart. How many times was he going to experience this feeling? This helplessness? This powerlessness? How long was he going to be weak?
Throughout his teenage years he had been that way whether it was Dylan or his other school mates. They all saw him as weak, that was why they would pick on him. That was why he was afraid of exploring his feelings for Emily hiding behind the façade of just being a friend and more importantly he was in this situation precisely because he was weak. He would die today because he was weak. He would leave his mom and dad sad and crying over their weak son.
He would leave his little sister lonely and without her older brother.
All because he was weak.
Liam clenched his fists and despite the fact that the action made the pain much more biting, he didn't care at all. As he sat in that moment something within him snapped. His rage seemed to spill over and the familiar warmth that usually flowed throughout his body to indicate his ability working turned into a scotching heat.
A faint green hue danced along his entire body from head to toe. The bones in his spine snapped back into place, the feeling of pain vanishing as though blown by the wind and his legs…
They shifted slightly under his command.
'I can feel them again' Liam made a move to stand and this time he succeeded.
However as soon as he was back on his feet, a feeling of intense nausea overcame him. Sweat fell between in brows. His face turned pale and a feeling of vertigo overtook him making him feel slightly dizzy.
Aether exhaustion.
Anyone who had awakened an ability had a certain amount of Aether within their bodies. How much Aether one had determined how much you could use your ability and Liam had used his ability far too much already.
First at school, then here to heal his chest and finally his recent breakthrough that allowed his Self-healing ability to heal an injury as severe as a broken spine. It was no wonder he was hit by symptoms of Aether exhaustion.
It was then that his ears could finally zone in on the screams around him. Then the smell of blood and smoke filled his nostrils. And finally...
"Kiii kiii ki ki!" a shrill laughter echoed. First it was one then there was another and another. Soon there were many more that almost drowned out the screams of the people around him.
Liam's gaze was drawn forward.
The blast of the Zone collapse had launched him over 20 meters away from point of origin. The warehouse was gone, replaced by a desolate clearing of soil and stone.
There was nothing there apart from the shimmering portal as well as ten little creatures that looked identical to one another.
They were humanoid, barely half a meter tall with pale green skin, sharp teeth in crooked mouths. They were dressed in dirty waist cloths and carried various weapons- from rusted short swords to axes and clubs made of bone.
It took Liam but a moment to identify them.
'Goblins' he mentally cursed. 'It just had to be fucking goblins'
A goblin wasn't necessarily a difficult creature to deal with. It was graded as an E-Rank the bottom of the barrel in terms of power. So why was Liam worried?
It was because of they're numbers. What goblins lacked in strength they made up for in numbers.
Goblins came in packs that ranged from 20 to 40 and were cruel when it came to how they treated their prey. They loved to induce pain and suffering...at least that was the information he had managed to read from the Monster Encyclopedia back at the academy.
He had to get away from here before their numbers swelled. Just as he had this thought, the ten goblins moved. They lunged at the crowd that was just starting to make sense of the situation.
One of them was the very man who had pinned Liam to the warehouse door just a little while ago. He had barely managed to stand on his two feet when he saw a goblin rush at him with pure unadulterated malice.
"No! Stay away!" the man scrambled to run but his foot got caught in a piece of rock. He tripped and fell forward. Panic and blood drained from his face, he tried to use his arms to push himself up.
Barely a few inches off the ground but the goblin landed on his back. The long nails on its toes clawing at his back and tearing skin.
The man screamed. But his voice was cut short when the tip of a sword pierced through one side of his neck and emerged from the other. Blood pooled beneath and the goblin gleefully watched as the life slowing drained from his face.
The man released gurgling sounds, pain written all over his face before finally he grew still, eyes lightless.
The goblin seemed to grow bored at the sight of this and quickly scanned the area looking for other prey until...its eyes locked onto Liam 20 meters away.
***
Carrying the little girl on his back, Norse ran as fast as his feet could carry him. More of those little monsters had come out no and it didn't look like things were going to slow down any time soon.
His jaw set. He really needed to get that dispatch out or lord knows who long it will take for support to finally arrive and by then things would have certainly gotten much worse than they currently were.
The little girl clutched tightly to his shirt. She buried her face into the dirt covered cloth and sobbed silently. She trembled at the sounds that echoed all around them.
"Hey its alright. Its okay everything is going to be alright okay" Norse whispered in assurance.
Things didn't look that way though. At that moment a goblin appeared to the left aiming a blade at his calf. He had no choice but to skip to the side but in his attempt to dodge his foot ended up in some debris. He lost his balance.
"Shit" Norse tumbled to the ground and since he didn't want to fall on his back and crush the little girl with his weight, he could only fall in his front. Norse used his forearms to somewhat cushion his fall by the rough surface caused the skin on his forearms to bleed.
A shrill cry came from behind him and spun flipped to his side, leaning on a shoulder. The little girl let out a yelp but in that moment Norse couldn't bring himself to care in the slightest. From the ground he took aim with his handgun.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The goblin was fast on its feet. It darted to the left and to the right consecutively as it closed the distance. Aiming from the ground was quite difficult as it was and not forgetting the fact that he was fighting off the pain burning from his forearms.
Still Norse fired once more. And this time the bullet caught the goblin in the shoulder.
The little monster stopped in its tracks. Stalled by the sudden bout of agony.
It was enough for Norse to get a lock on and fire off a single shot that buried a bullet right in the center of its forehead.
Norse released a shuddering breath. That had been close. Too close.
"I-it hurts" the little girl who had been silent until now finally spoke pulling him back from his thoughts.
Now that the threat was gone he could finally spare some seconds to check on the girl. He hurried to a knee to check on the girl now. It was her arm. During the chaotic sequence of event that just occurred he had ended up leaning heavily on it.
'It must have happened when I was firing from the ground'
"I'm sorry" he said. Luckily it was just bruised purple and not broken. "I'll be more careful"
He also realized that he couldn't run out in the open. That would only make him an even bigger target.
He scanned the area. In his attempt to escape he had left the Zone directly behind him over 40 meters away. To the right about 20 meters away from his location was a burning building, an electric pole thrust into its side. The road, or at least what used to be a road close to it, was surrounded by large boulders and overturned vehicles.
A split second later, Norse cradled the little girl to his chest and dashed towards the left where two in tact buildings squeezed to tightly together they made an alleyway. That was where Norse raced off to.
It was his path to salvation.