AN: For some reason, this chapter was really hard to finish. Kept running into writer's block after block. So, giving you kind of a long chapter if tomorrow I don't upload anything.
The main issue is that I'm at a threshold. There are multiple directions I can take this story into, and I haven't finalized my decision as to which one. So, it's hard for me to write future chapters, since I have to build the foundations right now.
Anyway, that's for me to worry about and for you to dread.
Have fun reading
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In just a blink, his surroundings changed once more. When he opened his eyes, he wasn't in a forest anymore. He was in the dark, his body in pain, but his mind sharper than ever. Rage and fury had replaced the calm as he was told just a little about the smiling creatures.
But pain had nothing on anger. Just breathing hurt more than ever; a groan escaped him, even though he did his best to silence it.
His ribs burned like they were lined with something sharp, each inhale dragging and stabbing through his lungs. The blanket beneath him smelled of dust and metal, and for a second, Levi didn't know where he was.
But his mind tried to piece together the forest, the fall, the thing that was torturing him psychologically.
His hand grasped the soft blanket on top of him as it hit him. It smelled different from the one underneath him. It smelled of flowers and honey and chocolate, and he calmed down. A soft gasp came from nearby as they took notice of his rapid chest movement. "Levi?" The voice was small, trembling, but close. Almost as if she were next to him.
Ariana.
He could hear her shifting in the dark, the faint scrape of her knee against the floor as she leaned toward him. "You're awake?"
"Yeah." He whispered, understanding they were hiding from those things. Now, the question was, how long was he unconscious?
"Don't move," she whispered. "You're hurt. We- we brought you back from the forest. You fell-"
"I remember." His voice cracked halfway through, as memories cleared to him from the dream he had. She hesitated. "How do you feel?"
The question almost made him laugh. It came out instead as a shuddering exhale, half a cough. "Like I got hit by a truck," Levi whispered back.
She huffed out something like a laugh, but it broke into a quiet sniff. "That's… better than nothing."
He could feel her eyes on him even through the dark. Her hand brushed against his arm, tentative, barely there, before retreating, moving to his forehead, measuring his temperature. "We thought-" she stopped, words catching in her throat. "You were barely breathing when they carried you in."
"I know," he said finally. The words came out low, almost an apology. "Sorry." He didn't know why he said it, but it felt like the correct thing. Not out of apology due to his action, but for worrying her.
A sane part of him wondered why he would even care for her so deeply as he felt. They had only known each other for less than a week. But at the same time, it felt like he was in this town for a lifetime, even when he was only here for 2 days at most.
He couldn't understand how others survived more than a month. Levi could barely remember past two days, his life before this nightmarish town. 'Fear,' he thought, 'sure is a weird thing.'
For a while, neither of them spoke. The bunker was wrapped in that same heavy silence, broken only by the distant screeches of the monsters out there in the night. Then came another sound, faint at first, barely there, like wind passing through cracks. But it wasn't wind. It was distant, rhythmic. A mechanical growl. Tires on gravel.
A car.
Ariana, alongside everyone in the bunker, turned slightly, the shift of fabric barely audible. Levi strained his ears. The sound grew clearer, an engine, old, moving slowly down the main road above them. Everyone in the bunker must've heard it now. The air changed. Dread twisted and tore them apart in the dark.
"Fuck-" Donna cursed, her voice tainted with rage and helplessness as the priest battled himself from running out there. Something shifted in the corner of the room, and Levi thought it was another survivor.
He tried to sit up, but his whole body refused to move as pain shot through everywhere, and another groan escaped him. That snapped Ariana's focus back to him, turning her back to the entrance as she gently pushed him back down. "Don't." She begged, her voice cracking and poorly hiding the fact that she was crying.
Crying of fear and helplessness.
"Please…" She whispered, her hand going to his. "Stay with me." She begged, her body shaking. "O-"
"AHHHHHH!" Screams tore through the dark, filled with screeches of those monsters before Levi could even mutter the word. The entire bunker went silent as cries echoed through every single corner of the bunker.
"I'm here." Levi comforted her, barely audible, as his eyes found the figure in the corner of the room once more. Confused, he looked at it, squinted just a little to see who it was, only for it to disappear right in front of him.
His blood went cold, but Levi breathed, controlling his heartbeat. As more screens and cries of help crawled from outside and haunted them. Ariana let out a whimper, and he pulled her to him weakly. Before they knew it, she was hiding her face on his chest as tears escaped her eyes.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
After a long time, the screams stopped and were only left behind the screeches of the smiling monster. Donna and Khutri were sitting down, learning into the wall, hoping to disappear, but nothing. They still existed where they were.
Ariana's dad and mom had moved, taking over from Levi, comforting and hugging Ariana. The silence wouldn't stay for long, as sometimes, cries would interrupt. And then, the screeches were gone.
They didn't have the time, but light seeped in slowly, like it was afraid to touch them, through the bunker hatch. Even then, nobody moved for what felt like another hour. It didn't feel like real sunlight. Instead of giving hope and a sense of a new beginning, it only fueled the sense of fragility. Of another day alive.
Levi's eyes opened to it, heavy and reluctant. He didn't remember when he fell asleep, as the smell of normalcy in the blanket comforted him. His body had cooled into a dull ache, the fire in his ribs now reduced to a steady, cruel pulse with every breath, but he still felt dizzy. His mouth was dry, and each swallow felt like sandpaper. The air still smelled like metal and old earth.
He turned his head slightly. Ariana was there, her back against the wall, eyes half-open and unfocused. She hadn't slept. Her dark hair clung to her face in uneven strands, her hands still clasped together in a fist. Her mom and dad were by her sides, arms wrapped around her for company and shelter.
Across the room, Father Khutri was sitting near the door, muttering something under his breath. Donna paced, her arms wrapped around herself, stopping every few steps to listen to something only she could hear.
No one spoke above a whisper. No one dared.
Levi shifted to get comfortable just a little, a quiet grunt escaping before he could stop it. Ariana's head snapped toward him instantly, exhaustion falling away from her face like it had never been there.
"Hey," she said softly, sharing a glance with her parents and coming to him. He tried to push himself up just a little, but her hand pressed against his chest. "Don't."
He blinked, then gave up, sinking back against the wall. "They're gone?" He asked. Her mouth moved before her voice did. "I think so."
That seemed to be the signal, as the priest moved to open the hatch. Immediately, more light poured into the hole, making everyone squint as they could barely see. Khutri slowly pushed the hatch wider, squinting into the light. "It's clear," he said.
Their eyes adjusted slowly, but once they did, Levi turned to the same corner he had seen the figure.
There was no one there. The closest person next to it was a short man, Dale something, but he was too short to be the figure. "You okay?" Came a man's voice, turning, he saw Miguel.
Levi blinked at him. It took him a second too long to answer, like the words had to travel through mud to reach his mouth. "Yeah," he lied. His throat was dry, his tongue heavy, and he had the mother of all headaches. "Just tired." For a second, he thought he saw the man and her daughter smile, but it was gone.
Miguel moved closer to the hatch, crouching beside Khutri as the older man climbed halfway up the ladder, stopping just before the sunlight reached his face.
Ariana stayed beside Levi, while her mother and everyone else followed the priest. She didn't look away from the priest, her eyes flicking between him and the hatch like she was waiting for the world to collapse again.
"Let's get you out of here," Miguel muttered, once he got the priest's signal.
From the bunker back to Miguel's house was painfully and very slow. The hardest part was getting out of the hideout. His whole body, from inside out, screamed in protest, and safe to stay, he had almost cried from pain.
From there, he had learned he was unconscious for two days and one night, waking up on his second night.
Ariana sat by the edge of the couch, unrolling the bandages with slow, careful movements. The morning light through the cracked blinds made thin gold lines across her face. She had simply washed her face with water and fixed her hair into a bun.
Her eyes were still puffy from crying all night in fear. She was a mess, but at that moment, as she concentrated on taking care of him, she looked…
"Hold still," she murmured, her brow furrowed. The fabric peeled away from his skin with a soft, tearing sound.
Breathtaking.
Her breath caught once she saw the injuries. "Levi… these were deep."
He frowned, snapping back from his daze. "And?"
"They're almost gone." She turned his hand palm-up, tracing the faint pink line where the gashes should have been. "It's only been two days. They should've needed-" She stopped, letting go of his hands and instead poking his sides, making him flinch.
"Hold still." She ordered once more, but another flinch. "Levi-"
"I'm ticklish there. Okay." He interrupted, swatting her hand away gently. Ariana remained stunned for a moment, then her face twisted into amusement as she tried her best to stop the smile growing on her face.
"Sorry, I'll be careful." She replied, her voice betraying her very poor job at hiding her smile. She slowly approached once more, her face focused, as she examined him. And as she suspected, the areas that were in a very bad situation were healing much faster than normal.
"I need to check your legs." She told him, moving her hand down and finding the same thing. Without saying anything, she checked his head, temperature much higher than normal, but with fewer bruises and swelling.
"It doesn't make sense." She muttered, stupefied.
Donna's voice came from the doorway, dry and half-bitten. "Nothing here makes sense anymore." She crossed her arms, staring at Levi. "Mind telling us what really happened out there?"
Levi met her eyes, then glanced at Father Khutri, who stood behind her with the others, one family thanking them with their eyes. The old priest's hands were clasped, his expression unreadable.
"What do you mean?" Levi asked.
"You didn't come back to the bunker after us," Miguel said, stepping forward from the kitchen, and Ariana's mom followed close. "Everyone knows what comes out at night, and you- what, went sightseeing?"
Levi's tone was calm, but something in it trembled beneath. "I wasn't sightseeing. I stayed out to pull one of those things away from another hider."
A ripple went through the group- most unbelieving, but not the family. Donna let out a small, humorless laugh. "You expect us to believe that?"
"It was still daytime when we hid." Khutri started. "They wouldn't be out by that time. If, based on what Miguel said is true, you told them that you had left something behind."
With a sigh and dried breath, he told them everything he could. From his reasons as to why he stayed out, which made Donna almost strangle him, what he discovered of their senses, to when he wanted to hide but stumbled on another hider's position.
Which led to him leading one of those things away before the person hiding the box make any sound. "Thank you." Mark, the teenager, interrupted, alongside his family. "No need." Levi told them, refusing their thanks, and Khutri finally closed the door of the house, leaving them alone.
With a silent order from Donna, he continued without interruption, though he noticed Ariana and her mother weren't looking at him anymore. He continued from how he fell, to falling unconscious, to his dreams.
By the time he was done, he was exhausted and more dizzy than when he started, while everyone else remained silent. Then it was shattered by Donna's humorless and bitter laugh. "You sound lost," she said bluntly. "This place gets into your head."
Levi felt like he was slapped as he looked at her in confusion. "But it's true. I even told you this on my first day." He insisted, looking to the priest, but even he did not believe him. "I dreamt about this place before I even saw the tree on the r-" He coughed violently, his rising voice fading as he felt like his head was splitting into two.
He felt a hand on his forehead and was given a glass of water by the older version of his caretaker. "His fever is rising. Let's have this talk another time." Ariana interrupted coldly, before Donna or Khutri could say something.
But they could feel it. Whatever that was being built with the unofficial leaders of this town was gone. And it looked like the same could be said about Ariana's family, as they refused to look at him in the eyes.
As her parents left them, Levi turned to her. "Aria-"
"Please." She interrupted, a smile on her face, but it did funny things to Levi. "Rest. You've got a fever." She told him, putting him carefully under her blanket.
But Levi's face was anything but relieved as he focused on her smile.
It was one given to strangers. Not the one he saw the previous days.