Zahra slipped her elbows over the edge and held herself in place long enough for one of them to grab her belt. Next, Zahra got her left knee up and was rolled atop the wall where she took a much-needed breather. They all needed one.
“Um… yeah… thanks.”
No one answered her. They just waved her off, each one of them huffing and puffing. Ali was favoring his left shoulder, which wasn’t good. A rotator cuff tear at a time like this would absolutely constitute as piss poor timing.
“You good?” Zahra asked, still on her back. Ali was bent at the waist, rotating the bad joint slowly. Something must have pinched and caused the man a good amount of pain. He sneered but didn’t whimper.
“I’m… fine.”
Rabia offered him some support and helped Ali to his feet. “You’ve always been a
Zahra almost laughed from the look of surprise on Baahir’s face. She had been taken aback as well — apparently, there was
Chunks of the wall broke away, reminding Zahra of the imminent danger and urging all four of them to their feet. Zahra was at the front of the pack, pointing to something she had seen earlier. One of the buildings was close enough to the wall for them to jump.
“Come on,” she said, moving at a brisk pace.
They traveled to the left for sixty feet along the top where the main entrance into the courtyard vanished. Zahra skidded to a halt and watched dozens of the Damned tumble into the molten void.
Then, section by section, the foundation buckled and the entire wall fell. Its demise quickly followed them.
Zahra ran, keeping her hands out wide to balance over the shifting floor. The wall shook with every undulation.
They were nearly free.
And then more of the cavern’s back wall broke apart.
The pieces of massive stone hit the floor, and Zahra leaped onto a nearby rooftop. She landed and rolled to one knee. Baahir was next. Rabia and Ali jumped at the exact same time.
The wall disappeared just as their feet left it. Zahra scrambled to her feet and headed for the other end of the roof when it too fell away. The entire building was coming down beneath them. They were thrown off their feet. Zahra rode the collapsing structure and landed flat on her ass as it became more of a slide than a Tower of Terror-esque vertical drop.
They were all deposited onto a buckled road that was also wrenched to a steep angle. Zahra kept sliding, taking the legs out of a random Damned as she slid. He smacked his head on the hard ground, cracking his skull like an egg. Parasites spilled everywhere.
No one stuck around to see if he was dead. They all got up and ran, darting in and out of buildings of all sizes all while pointing themselves at the dilapidated stairway. This time, they stayed close, refusing to separate from one another. Zahra was armed with her grappling hook, swinging it around like an amateur Japanese
One of the blades impaled itself in the temple of a Damned woman and was grotesquely torn free with the flick of Zahra’s wrist. Even worse was the pressurized geyser of inch-long worms that spurt from the wound. She didn’t care. At this point, Zahra’s revulsion had been dulled by her tiredness, and the heat and smoke of the cavern. She doubted she’d ever be truly disgusted by anything ever again.
A slight woman limped out from behind a squat, square structure. The top half of her skull was missing, giving the world a glimpse into exactly what was going on inside her head.
Literally.
The exposed innards of her brain were the worst thing yet. It was as if someone had glued a dust mop head to the top of the woman’s skull and then somehow brought it to life with electricity. The worms wriggled and moved in sync with each other, and with every coordinated pulse, she moved.
Baahir covered his mouth with his hand. “I think I’m gonna be—”
Zahra grabbed his shirt and pulled him left. “Me too, brother. Me too.”
The Damned thinned out as they moved farther away from the courtyard, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still in trouble. The crumbling ground sped up, chasing them. Zahra could barely breathe. Baahir was wheezing worse than she was. Ali’s shoulder was giving him fits, and having to run wasn’t helping. Rabia was tired, but otherwise fine, annoyingly so. Zahra loved her to death, but she was sick of that woman never looking miserable.
Zahra couldn’t imagine how terrible she looked right now.
