The Heavenly Tale - Nameless God's
Chapter 9's
Normally, when Faith woke up, sunlight had already started seeping from the clouds. But today is different. He even asked if she was still dreaming, or if she had woken up at the wrong hour. But the crowd outside was already noisy, and he was sure it was morning. However, sunlight does not seep through the clouds in the usual way. This bright red light adorned the gaps in the gray clouds, out of nowhere the source because he could not see the sun. The more the noise outside, he wakes up and realizes Daniel and Ben are no longer around.
The girl was still wrapped in her jacket when she came down and saw Ben standing with some men. He approached, but Ben saw his arrival and shook his head. Before long, several men, including Daniel, appeared from behind him while carrying something wrapped in large sheets. The men put what they were carrying near the crowd of other men. Faith was curious, but she did not want to let Ben down, so she fell silent in place.
“Is this the last one?” said a man.
“The last one we found,” Daniel answered the man.
“What else is it today? Is this not finished?” another man replied.
The girl was still silent in her place, and Daniel saw her and approached her. “Very bad and depressing. The people living on the top floor are freezing to death, their bodies are freezing,” he said as he shook his head. His face was sad and tired. “This is truly a punishment from God that is relentless.”
At that time, Faith ventured a bit on her tiptoes to see what people were getting into. He was shocked when he saw the bodies of those curled up who looked extremely pale and stiff lying piled up on the street. There's probably 10 frozen bodies in there. Daniel and his friends just took down that poor body. He can only pray in his heart.
“Why are they all freezing?”
“It seems that last night the temperature was very cold and they snuggled up to warm themselves up. But when we arrived early in the morning, all their campfires were dead and the equipment was cold. They were killed in such a position. Their bodies are frozen, completely frozen like you are holding frozen chicken meat; they can be touched, but they taste hard and cold. I really can't believe..all the floors below are fine.” Daniel gave a long sigh. He's the one who has to lift their bodies, so he must know what it's like.
Faith momentarily fell silent while hugging her body. He carefully said, “If you say it as God's punishment, does that mean you believe in God?”
Daniel seemed silent for a moment. “I was raised religious, so I believe in the existence of God. But seeing such a catastrophic event, I believe God is very angry. I am pessimistic about whether people can survive or not, or whether they are still entitled to God's mercy or not. It's painful to be faced with something like this. Looks like it's really Judgment Day.”
Faith then nodded. “I think, in times like these our trust is tested,” he replied. When Daniel looked at her, he just smiled. “I believe if God had not left one man on earth, at least he would have forgiven those who kept believing.” Daniel did not answer, but the man seemed to be considering the girl's words. Seeing that, the girl calmed down.
No matter how much he liked Daniel and Ben, and no matter how much he wanted to talk more with the two, Faith could not stay. He had an appointment to go to the coastal town. Ben had checked with his binoculars and declared that the sea had receded more than 3 days ago, so maybe the girl could walk there, he was not sure if the area was safe or not. Faith told the group secretly, only to Daniel, Ben, and a few people, because she did not want to interfere with the ongoing moment at that time. He received some food supplies and new survival equipment. Everyone asked him why he was so desperate to go to the coastal town, but he explained that the promise he had made could not be denied.
Faith began to leave about an hour after the frozen corpse was found. He walked again for a while until at some point he felt that the day was hotter than usual. The sky that was glowing an odd red that day seemed to be blowing a hot wind. He paused for a drink and continued on his way. Apparently, what he felt was not just a feeling. The further he walked, the hotter it became. He did not know what time it was because the sun was not there, but he knew that the sky was now red. Unlike the twilight red sky, this sky looked like a pool of blood, with small white cloud clumps spreading out.
He became exhausted faster and sweat poured from his head. He took off his jacket and put it in his backpack, leaving him with just two coats of shirt, a long-sleeved thin sweatshirt and his turtleneck. Her hair was still hiding behind her skull. Gradually the weather became too hot, and he decided to take off his turtleneck, remove the skulls, and tie his hair into high bundles. He drank and drank again, two big sips every time he stopped. He continued to fan his head with his hands, but the heat was extremely inhumane.
The girl touched her chest to fan the collar of her shirt, but she suddenly stopped and did not raise her hand from her chest. How quaint. His left hand felt cold, and the cold seeped into his chest, cooling him down to his neck, shoulders, nudges, and back. For a few seconds he was stunned and stopped walking, trying to enjoy the coolness in his body. When he took off his hand, the coldness was still lingering. So he walked again while filled with happiness and confusion.
He's been walking at a constant pace all along, not too fast, not too slow. Suddenly, a rumbling sound startled him and stopped his steps. At first it was just a rumbling sound that sounded far away, but suddenly a great shock knocked down his foundation. The girl crouched on the ground due to the huge earth tremor. He then heard a huge crackling and rumbling behind him, and it seemed as if it was approaching him. Stabilizing her intention to not look back, the girl got up and ran away in a daze. The earthquake was not as big as the first one, but it was still shaking fast, and he was trying his hardest to run.
But the great earthquake destroyed the buildings around it. He initially still ran through the dust and ruins of the building, but then he was dragged backwards. He did not understand why, but a huge collapse fell behind him and caused the ground he was on to split open. He fell in a lower layer of dirt than the road height, but he climbed up roughly, clinging to anything so he could get back on the main road. When he succeeded, he ran still swarming with dust and rubble for several meters, but in the end he had to fall when the ruins of another large building fell in front of him, blinding his gaze as well as pushing it a few centimeters back. The girl fainted.
When Faith realized some time that she did not know how long, then she felt her whole body hurt. First of all, he had to pull his foot that was hit by concrete. Fortunately his leg was just pinched, and he received a lot of injuries but his leg was not broken. Second, only he felt his hand slashed in some parts, the tip of his fingers bleeding because his nails were broken. Fortunately because he was wearing a gauze bandage wrapped around his hand, his form was still intact. Third, and this made him surprised, he saw that his gaze was flushed red. He suspected that he would be blind, but it was not. His eye pellets were scratched long and blood flowed from there, drenching his eyes. The red he saw was his own blood, not because his eyesight was broken. Then lastly, as he tried to stand up, he felt his entire body in pain, it felt like he had been punched out countless times.
But the girl still woke up and stood up with a body full of wounds and damage. To his surprise, he was still able to stand even though his legs hurt. He forced her to drag her feet somewhere else to stop and check her bag. ‘Oh this nice bag is also not damaged at all’ thought. He tore off the tip of his trousers, then bandaged his large wounds with bandages. By this time his clothes had already been torn in several pieces, and he tore his long arm deliberately as there was a considerable wound near his elbow. After finishing closing her big wound, the girl sat down and drank, taking a moment to ponder.
She lived.
What happened to him was horrible and dangerous, but he was alive. That alone was something he should be grateful for. He could not know how the fate of Daniel, Ben and others who survived, and he did not want to compare their fate and thought selfishly that ‘dia lucky’. He only felt that he was given a chance to live once more, and he should not waste it. With that in mind, the girl got up and continued on her way, this time with slow steps as her body was in an impossible condition.
The journey is getting more difficult. It was not only because his body was weakening, it was also because the debris of the collapsed building filled the entire section of the road. He had to climb and jump carefully so as not to harm his body further. He did not know how long it was running because the sky still displayed the same color, so he could not estimate what time it was. At some point, his steps stopped. He was exhausted, but that was not the main reason.
The ground before him collapsed quite deeply. As far as his eyes could see, only the ground collapsed that he could see. Soil, bits of asphalt and concrete, as well as rocks and puddles gather under the sinking of the ground. From around the hole, iron and pipes large and small sticking out dangerous. There should be a toll road that leads to the border with the coastal city, but let alone toll roads, buildings and everything has disappeared in the swallow of the earth. Faith looked far ahead and believed her memory that she had to cross the huge hole in order to get close to the border of the coastal city. He has no other choice. He had to plunge into a large, wide hole and pass through it from within.
Despite having established her intentions, the girl still shook her head, regretting her terrible luck. But since he had no choice, he began to descend the hole carefully. He rests on rocks and large pipes sticking out of the ground. Fortunately for him, the runway was human enough to tread so that despite his great difficulty, he managed to descend several tens of meters down.
His feet slowly carried him between the rocks and muddy and mud. He had already walked several hundred meters when his eyes saw the human crowd standing far apart. From their movements, they looked confused. Many of them looked injured, dressed in tatters, and were crying. In the heart of the girl exclaimed, ‘They are safe! There are survivors! I'm not alone!’ and thank you in silence. And this time, although his pace was still slow, he had a new strength to walk.
When the girl is tired, she will stop to rest and eat and drink a little. At that time he was stopping when he saw a very shabby-looking father running while exclaiming ‘My son!’ and hugged a girl who came from the opposite direction. The father cried while his daughter hung around his neck. How happy she was, the girl could not help her heart to be filled. As he walked further and further away, more and more humans he saw, and over time they looked like the flow of a human river. Scenes such as the father and daughter also happened several times. The lost family is reunited. It all seemed very difficult to be true, but it was happening at this moment and the girl could not help but believe it.
They were still walking in a huge crowd as the thin fog started to disturb their view. The sky was still a striking red, and this scene made Faith hallucinate seeing the color of the surrounding soil and rocks turn red. It is not good to constantly see the colors striking, he thought.
As he was walking, suddenly a trumpet-like voice sounded from the sky. The voice was so loud and deafening that everyone stopped in place, some even lowered their heads in fear. All eyes stared at the red sky that was blocked as a layer of fog, including the girl.
For a few seconds the sound of the trumpet appeared in the sky, and when it suddenly stopped, everyone looked at each other, confused. The girl looked around her, noticing that everyone was trying to find the same answer. It was then that he gazed to his right side and caught a very familiar figure.
From the sky, came a big bat that came like black rain. For a while he was stunned to stare at the sky, until the large pool of bats stopped descending. The bat that came down then fell to the earth, some fell straight, some shot to various directions. He thought it was a bat because they came from such a long distance that what he saw seemed small. But as the hundreds of bats approached, Faith realized that they were not bats at all. Yes, their wings resemble bat wings, but their bodies are 2-legged and 2-handed like humans, only their skin is black and looks slippery. Their heads were small horns, then their eyes were yellow. They shrieked, displaying large, yellowish-crackling canines and saliva. Their hands are stretched out, with 3 claws large enough to grip a human. It's not a bat at all.
The girl was preparing to retreat to escape, she knew that any creature was a dangerous creature so she had to run away. But the man, the Spirit Master, turned completely to face the creature and raised his clenched hands. He was silent for a while then opened his fist in a pushing force. A flicker of thin white light that filled the hole pushed back the flying creature. The creatures screamed again, but this time in pain. Some fell to the ground and had trouble getting up, the rest flew in an indiscriminate direction and collided with each other and fought each other.
The girl gaped a little and she was stunned staring at the man. When the man turned his body and their eyes met, the girl blinked.
“What are you?”
“How did you do it?”
“Are you here to save us?”
Questions emerged from the crowd accompanied by a sense of awe. But the man did not touch her. He continued walking closer to the girl. To his surprise, the girl moved backwards. This movement made the man stop too. His eyes opened slightly in shock.
The girl shook her head. “You are not a god,” said the girl. “You will not play around and take on the role of a god.”
Screeches were heard from behind the man, followed by human screams. Faith averted her gaze and got a terrifying premonition of terror. He looked back at the man, but his legs brought him back. “Rari. Please run.” The girl said a bit loudly while twisting her body and ran as hard as she could even though her legs were in a lot of pain. “Please run.”
He did not know if anyone was listening to him or not, but he started to see some people running. The further he ran, the more people came running and preceded him. Blame his scarred body, this was the best he could do. Unfortunately he stumbled over something and fell near a puddle of black water. His shabby body, drenched in sweat, dirty and full of wounds, was plastered on the reflection of water. He recognized his face, but with the amount of dirt and wounds on his face, even the blood still remaining in his eyeballs, he was almost horrified by his own face.
When Faith looked behind her, the man was already standing a few steps behind her, his umbrella was still closed and his face was somewhat moody. “I came as promised,” said. His voice was almost whispering, too slow to hear, but for Faith he could hear it.
The girl tried to support her body with her arms that were not badly injured. He looked at the red-clad man with his striking eyes. “Master Spirit has promised me, and this is not his promise. He promised not to scare me.”
Hearing this, the man in red looked astonished. “Why am I going to scare you? I'm here to protect you.”
Vibrantly the girl replied, “No, she's not here to protect me.” He sealed his mouth, making the man before him speechless. The Master of Spirits came to earth to take his soul, it was a certainty. He doesn't mince words about protecting her, he'll just drop her off and follow her. If only he had to die halfway, the Spirit Master would have taken his soul. He'll let the girl die, not protect her.
The sound of the earth cracking down from below shocked the girl. Around the man's feet, something appeared that resembled the roots of a plant creeping out as if it was alive. Not just one, but many roots. Faith was aware that the root was spreading also around her leg, so she got up violently, tore off her already torn tendon, then ran away.
His eyes at that moment were wide open and he could observe everything that was happening around him. People were trapped by the roots from the ground, the rest of which ran there were suddenly disappeared in the ambush by the flying creatures before. He also saw his father and son from the previous scene. The boy bit his father's arm, his eyes lit up abnormally yellow, it was clear that he was not a normal human being. The girl continued to run even though blood was flowing again from her wounds, and she felt fear. A few meters before him, a man whose feet were stuck in the twists of the roots raised his hands and asked for help. Their eyes met, the man looked very clear.
Throughout his life, he always saw people asking for help. Those who are kind hearted earnestly ask for help when they are not able, but those who are dirty hearted take advantage of the kindness of others greedily. He can only help when he can, and when he can't, he can only look down. He always wanted to help, but his head always whispered that he himself was incapable, and his heart made him doubt by stating that no one could judge the intentions of the human heart. Several times he regretted not being able to help someone, several times he was grateful not to help someone. But when now it was in his presence, and the danger they felt was real, he could not avert his eyes, his heart, and his head.
Unable to ignore it, Faith stops, slams herself to the ground and cranks her bag and pulls out the crowbar she borrowed from Daniel and Ben's group earlier. The man was still hysterically begging to be released from whatever was holding him back. The girl asked him not to thrash, but the man was still hysterical. He hastily rained down his crowbar, tearing the writhing root until the man's feet came into sight.
“Please don't move, I'm trying to get you out,” Faith said in her breath. His eyes did not dare to look at anything other than the man's feet, afraid that he would suddenly hurt the man, and if his gaze was distracted, he could hinder his own movement. There was not half a minute when he began to cut the root with a crowbar, something flashed in his eyes, followed by a cracking sound and something warm soaked his face.
The man's head was hit with something that resembled a long black peg. His skull was pierced, and the peg stuck to the ground, hanging his head just like that in the air. The man's eyes and mouth were wide open, his face was in shock, but his upper head was smashed. Something he saw and felt at the end of his life must have been a terror.
Faith dropped her crowbar to the ground. His hands immediately closed his mouth, he could not describe how it felt to want to scream but also wanted to vomit at the same time. His eyes were teary and his vision blurred. Hot tears flowed from his two eyes that still could not turn away from the corpse of the man who was bleeding tragically.
Malicious. Only that word could come to the girl's mind. He twisted his gaze and something tall and large in black stood a few steps away from him. Thorns came out from the creature's back, making it look like a giant hedgehog, but its body was 2-legged and 2-handed. The creature was most likely a creature that hit the skull of the man's head and killed him instantly.
If this was the end, then all the girl could think about was sadness and tragedy. He was trying to save someone, but this guy was killed. He tried to do another good as long as he was alive, but he had to die even before his good was done. If he were to accept death now, he was only praying that the mistake he had made consciously or unconsciously, could be forgiven by the gods.
The monster figure approached with heavy steps. At his second step, he staggered down and his body drooped on the ground. The girl's eyes were still flooded with tears and blood, so her vision was still faint, but she was certain that the monster had fallen.
A few steps behind the monster, a tall, paddled figure walked over to him. It took a few seconds for the girl to stop her tears and stuffing, and when that happened, the man was already standing before her. The man crouched down before her, then the shadow of her umbrella enveloped the girl. When her gaze began to clear, the girl could see that it was the figure of the Spirit Master. This time Master Spirit actually came to him.
The girl tried to calm herself down, lower the intensity of her hiccups and blinked a few times to let out the rest of her tears. In the end he rubbed his eyes carefully as his temple was torn, then boldly looked at the man. That man is truly the Master of the Spirit. The way he looked at the girl felt very familiar.
“You have done your best,” said the man. His voice was soothing, unlike his emotionless clone. “It's okay, I'm now here, you can rest for a while.”
The sound sent him like a sleeping song. The girl lowered her gaze, then dropped her head onto the man's chest. His eyes were still hot as his tears were not completely dry yet, but he felt calmer now. The girl felt the man's hands carefully wrapped around her, then she fell asleep.
The red sky was still smoldering, the scent of terror was still as fiery as it was, and the sound of fear still filled the entire hole. Massacres were still happening everywhere, and red instantly colored the entire corner of the ground. But both the man and the girl closed their eyes. The girl, having closed her eyes and asleep, no longer knew what was going on around her. While the man, turned his eyes away from all the horrors that happened there.
