Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 339. Familiar

Henry’s POV

I woke up coughing, my lungs filling with dust-concrete.

Familiar.

I only heard my heartbeat thrumming in my head, not a single other sound.

Opening my eyes, I saw the sky. Reaching to my side, I didn’t feel an ounce of warmth; there were only sharp concrete chunks.

So familiar.

I sat up, closing my eyes when I saw my surroundings turning.

I touched my ear and looked at my hand; there was blood.

I injured my head.

I stood up with difficulty and looked around, seeing no black skyscrapers anymore, just a landscape of black debris: a broken cardhouse, the efforts of building homes and going higher for more space, going higher to fit more people—everything had come to naught.

The buildings had turned to dust that lingered in the air, in the whole vicinity, and with each breath, I was taking part of the concrete inside my lungs.

SO FAMILIAR.

Something had crashed into the skyscraper.

What had led to that?

Was it a crane?

I tilted my head and pressed my eyes shut, trying to remember.

The images slowly came back; my ears rang, my head felt as if stuffed with cotton, but I could soon force sense into the situation.

I looked around myself again but couldn’t see Kenny, and finally, the panic set in as I looked back to my feet, at the debris hill I stood on.

Not a sign of him.

FAMILIAR.

I fell to my knees and started to burrow through the concrete.

Lifting one chunk after another, the pieces varying in size from that of a hand to the size of a car, one piece after another, but the hill was so high, the concrete so sharp, and Kenny so far away.

We had been on the first floor before something crashed into the building, so he should be deep down, buried somewhere under the destroyed building.

There is no reason to be this anxious; there is no reason for my eyes to blur with either blood or tears; there is no reason to think of something that happened long ago.

He isn’t like them; he is stronger than anyone else.

They were humans, so they died, but Kenny is a god.

He wouldn’t be smashed so easily and simply, so fast and senselessly that it would be comical.

Amidst the concrete, I found bones, and my foggy brain concluded for a moment that they were his, but then I remembered that I wouldn’t find clean bones—there would be squished flesh, ripped skin, and spattered organs—I would know.

I threw the bones away and continued digging with my hands, thinking that behind each piece I would find him, that he would groan and curse, and ask me what took me so long.

But behind the concrete was only more concrete; with every breath, I felt more suffocated by fear and dust.

My ears regenerated slowly but surely, and soon I could hear the wind, cutting through the dust, slowly removing it, and foretelling the arrival of a storm.

I felt something move and turned around, hope overcoming me, but there was nothing, as if I were just imagining things.

I continued to dig, not interested in ghosts or the like, not interested in anything that could attack me, as I only focused on digging.

CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK

Hearing the familiar sound, I broke into laughter, but with the empty vicinity, my voice echoed back as an exhausted scream.

I didn’t turn around again and continued to lift and move, to remove and dig.

CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK

Unrelentingly the bones scattered in the vicinity pieced themselves together, but what did it matter?

I haven’t found him yet.

Then I saw it; after lifting a black concrete slab, I found a milky white crystalline surface.

I fell back on my knees after throwing the slab away and touched it.

Is he inside this? Had the merging with the crystalline counterparts really provided us with shields?

"NGHH!" I finally felt able to breathe again.

Why are you CONSTANTLY DOING THIS TO ME?

Had he protected himself, or was it me who could finally protect him successfully?

I touched my neck and found that I had only one collar around my throat, which was the one Kenny gifted me—the one and only collar I’d never want to take off.

This makes things easier.

I wrapped my hand in shadowy energy and cautiously acidified the debris until the small crystalline dome was exposed.

I let the shadow disappear and laid my hand on the crystalline surface, praying that he was inside and all right.

CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK.

The crystals fell with the wind, slowly dissolving until I stared into the brown-reddish eyes of the child that was sitting there stoically, hugging her legs. The child had a head injury as well and seemed dazed.

But behind her was Kenny; he was here.

I stepped around her and forced Kenny’s body into my arms; he was unconscious and looked badly beaten.

Feeling for his pulse came so naturally; just the urgency with which I was listening to it varied—and right now, the urgency was on a tremendous high level.

Henrietta had also been inside the small dome, lying on the destroyed concrete; she had her eyes open, staring at the sky while heaving for breath.

CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK

His pulse was alright, but I still fed him my blood and looked to the sound of the bones that rearranged themselves constantly and continuously.

A half-black, half-white skeleton in the form of something like a gigantic rhinoceros with a long tail that had sharp bones sticking out as if they were spikes was still in the making, standing still until it would be completed, the gigantic black heart still beating inside it.

The bone monster had merged with the counterparts inside the skyscrapers.

We had to leave NOW.

I patted Kenny’s face, but he showed no signs of waking up, so I held him to my body and stood up, carrying him.

"OPEN A PORTAL!" I yelled at Henrietta, but she didn’t move, not even when I kicked her in the side.

She moved her lips, but no word left her; her body trembled as she still gasped for breath; she seemed catatonic.

CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK

We had no time for this.

I bent down and grabbed her wrist to yank her up and pull her over my shoulder.

"Can you walk?" I asked the child, and she nodded, hurriedly standing up.

"Then RUN!" I told her, starting to pick up speed, running over debris while carrying Kenny and Henrietta, always the sound in my ears, the sound of what could be a formidable opponent we had no way to defeat for now.

But it should be okay.

We just had to flee.

This thing wouldn’t come after us; it hadn’t shown interest in us at all until now.

The wind felt as if it was whipping us to continue, to run, and the kid was slow, soon falling back a good part.

But if I left the kid behind, Kenny wouldn’t like it.

CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK.

I ran back to her, over the debris hills of black concrete, seeing the rhinoceros starting to move, tilting his skeleton neck; it seemed more conscious than the forms it had displayed before.

"GET ON MY BACK!" I commanded the child, and she jumped up, putting her arms around me, when I continued to run over the countless destroyed skyscrapers.

Was this something like my personal hell, just produced for me?

It can’t be. Kenny is here, and he is alive, so everything...

Everything is good; everything is alright.

This can’t faze me.

I could hear Henrietta whispering as I carried her on my shoulder, I could hear and feel Kenny’s heartbeat as I had his body pressed against mine, and I could feel the kid on my back shivering.

And then the sounds changed, because there were additional footsteps, the concrete and debris that trembled on the ground, and more dust that was produced.

I looked behind me and confirmed what I already knew.

The Bone Monster was following us.

I took a sharp turn to the left, and after jumping and running over more of these black debris hills, I could hear the steps not turning quieter, on the contrary.

This thing is following us, for real.

I chuckled, trying to come up with something, trying to suppress screaming.

While still running, I moved my hand with which I secured Henrietta on me awkwardly, trying to imagine a shield appearing—the little crystals coming together to provide protection.

After a few tries it worked, little shields appearing in the air, and when I felt safe enough, I put the three down and imagined a dome over them to protect them.

"GET HER TO OPEN A PORTAL!" I yelled at the child before making a turn and running back to the monster.

While still running to me, it swung its tail at me, trying to kill me off with the bony spikes.

We were still too close to the shield; I couldn’t afford a fight here.

I let the acid spread through my veins, teleporting away from the tail and dodging the attack.

We were still too close to Kenny, and I didn’t know if the shield could take an attack from the tail, and I couldn’t take my time to think about how to destroy this monster.

The bigger this monster got, the longer it needed to put itself together. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Acidify the bony rhinoceros, get back to the shield, bring Kenny farther away and hide him under another shield, then come back and fight whatever was trying to attack us.

Maybe Henrietta would wake up in the meantime, and there would be no reason to fight at all, because we would just go home.

Then I could demand an even higher compensation from Kenny because of the dread he had put me through yet again, with letting himself get buried under nothing other than a fucking skyscraper.

This constant dread of losing him had also become something that was now so damn...

FAMILIAR.