Maids VS Apocalypse

A gray twelve-meter wall seemed to shrink in height while extending both left and right. The buildings behind it came into sight, their roofs entering the picture one after the other. Everything seemed to grow smaller with time, and in just a few minutes, it all vanished.

Mark watched the scene play out from the window at the very back of the truck. A formless weight pressed on his chest, brought forth by an unanticipated sense of melancholy.

A semi-shut-in like him had no real attachment to the environment beyond his sanctuary, or so he believed for a long time. Turns out one couldn’t avoid laying roots after spending two years in one place or the pain that comes with ripping them out.

Mark sighed wistfully and turned away from the desolate road and the red plains. He didn’t expect much when his stalker of a superior went to get new vehicles for them to travel in and because of that, it came as a shock when he showed up with two more trucks nearly identical to the ones King Scorpion melted away.

Who would’ve thought that military equipment would be abandoned along with the rest of a once-metropolitan city?

Alex, Elya, and Ben used one of the trucks while Franco, Mark, and Lara used the other. It was decided that each group would take turns driving among themselves. Only Ramsay was exempt from the arrangement as he chose to ride his bike.

The sergeant was bound to stop for a rest at some point but Mark had no intention of letting him get on the same truck. The earlier incident had ended with the youth being the butt of the joke for some reason, leaving him so resentful to the point that he would distance himself and refuse to speak to anyone, or that’s how he wanted it to appear, at least.

Though he was enraged at the start, Mark realized that he could use the incident to hide his true thoughts and divert everyone’s attention from the real reason behind his agitated state.

He had the confidence to do it without any of that, but adding another layer to his performance ensured that he wouldn’t get caught slipping.

While turning around to lie down on the long bench, Mark glanced at Lara who was sitting opposite to him then at Franco who was behind the steering wheel. He waited a few seconds then opened his Inventory and took out the identical copy of his phone.

Instead of unlocking it he just stared at the cracked screen for some time. He had tried asking for more info earlier but received no reply, and seeing that no notifications appeared after it had been taken out he understood that nothing had changed.

"The people who opened the gates to hell will strike again in a few hours."

"Slaughter is their goal."

"If Hope’s End is your destination then be prepared for battle." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Mark experienced a lot of emotions while thinking about those three messages and the strongest among them was astonishment

With only a few words, the mysterious "Friend" was able to divulge a lot of information all at once, giving Mark enough food for thought to last him the entire trip.

The most important point is that they will face an enemy in Hope’s End. Said enemy wasn’t after them per se, but a clash was inevitable if they continued on their path.

The enemy was looking to spill blood and they were primarily targeting whoever was in Hope’s End. Unlike Stonegate, the civilians over there had yet to be relocated from the shelters. The reasons ranged from the size of the population to the PK branch over there not having the equipment needed to send people to other worlds.

The plan was to move the survivors to the headquarters gradually over the course of a week, but from the looks of it that would have to change.

The obvious thing to do with such information was to relay it to the Peace Keepers so they could do something about it. However, upon further consideration, Mark dropped the idea.

Friend stated that the information he provided was something the Peace Keepers weren’t telling him. In other words, the PKs knew about the coming attack but believed it to be unnecessary to inform him about it, even though he was heading straight toward it.

Mark suspected that Ramsay only heard about the attack earlier which is why he was suddenly in a rush to leave. It didn’t appear like he had told the others, but maybe due to experience, they didn’t argue his decision.

’The people who opened the gates to hell...’

That line made Mark realize that, although he knew a gate to the Underworld was opened during the Great World War, he never learned who had done it or the exact reason why they did it. He only heard that it was done as a part of the war efforts and the rest he filled in on his own, which wasn’t too difficult to do.

Even before his eighteenth birthday, Mark had been wary of the chances of the war resuming. The end of the world granted him the relief that it won’t be happening but now he was being told that’s not the case. Something smelled awfully fishy about the whole matter.

It couldn’t be that the warmongering elites had yet to hear about the world ending, and it’s less likely that they decided to have one last bout before that happens.

Their focus should be directed toward learning about the Overworld and the powers ruling it to determine what path they would take going forward. As they are starting from scratch like everyone else, caring about old conflicts was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

’In the first place, how can they resume the fighting with the Peace Keepers around?’

There was no logical reason to suddenly resume the fighting now, and the more he thought about it the less sense it made.

Mark felt his eyes grow heavy so he put away the copy phone. He was going to be the last one driving so he would have at least four hours of rest.

Just as his mind began to drift, another possibility slowly surfaced, allowing him to see the conflict from another angle.

’The Peace Keepers... they... they don’t have as much control as they made it seem..’ His thoughts grew sluggish as he yawned. ’There... are... there are others... aliens...’