The God of Gravity part 3: Apocalypse

Deliver the Message

-

*

Philip goes out of his safe place to find water. Even down in this dark abyss-like sewer, the cold seeps in to make him shiver under his thick clothes. The unpleasant smell of the sewer is gone. For weeks the slurry did not move or be replaced by fresh ones out of the toilets. The frost crept on its surface and it glistens from the light of Philip's dim flashlight. A second later, his flashlight dies. It is good as useless. Instead of throwing it, he puts it inside his backpack. He might find new batteries for it, he thought. 

The exit and entrance of the sewer are what anyone might expect: Manhole covers. Philip pushes it upwards as silent as he could. The ashes and snow that piled up on it, enter with the light. Through the slit, he looks around as if he is inside a tank's turret. No one is around.

He slides it to the side and climbs up. Crouching, he looks around once more, just to check. With his foot, he slides the manhole back into its place. He left traces so he covers them with ash and snow. It is still obvious but he does not bother.

“This is a risky hideout now,” he mutters to himself. “I better find a place to stay. Safer than this.”

He sets out and instead of walking in the street in broad daylight, he goes through the buildings. It is a good way to hide from the sight of unwanted attention. Also, to minimize exposure from radioactive fallout. A few hours later, he covers hundreds of blocks then stops where most of the buildings got completely pulverized. It is near the crater. He rests and sits beside the ledge of the floor in the building he is in. The whole in the wall allows him I see the crater. It is large and deep. If it rains water instead of ashes and snow, it could become a lake.

“I have to get out of here,” he says to himself. “—out of this Capital. I bet it is safer in remote locations. All of these masked men are trying to surround Olympus. What they're going after are the deities. Although far from here, going east would be a good choice. There is a wide rural land—a place which I bet the masked men are not interested with. So that's where I'm going to go.”

He looks to the sky, thinking about the things once were. It has been quite a time since he saw the sky although it is not blue anymore. It is depressingly gray from now on. Then he squints his eyes for something in the sky. He stands up, puts his palm over his eyes, and scans the sky. 

“What the hell is that?” he asks himself. 

It is a person flying in the sky with griffins chasing him. Their screech sounds like warcries. The person dives down in the center of the crater then suddenly pulls up to fly horizontally toward where Philip is. He crouches down to hide behind the wall. As the person and griffins pass by, the sonic boom scrambles the settled ashes around them into the open air. Philip struggles to see as the ash clouds his goggles. He wipes it off and looks through another hole in the wall to watch the chase. He gets a clearer look and sees that the person is wearing some kind of winged boots. He steers to Olympus but more griffins chase behind him. 

Philip hears footsteps from below the building. “Not good,” he realizes.

Grabbing his backpack from the ground, he jumps off of the building and into the street. The concrete road cracks, the ashes fly around, and he sees masked men on the ground floor inside the building he came from. It takes them a second before reacting that the boy they are after is already trying to escape. 

They follow after him and he kicks into a ridiculous speed. A dozen of demigods chase after him. They can match his speed so he could not shake them off. To avoid getting surrounded, he goes into an alley. He jumps up at the right-side wall then kicks that wall to go up and to the left-side wall. He goes jumping to the right again then continues until he gets to the top of the building.

Building roof to building roof he jumps. The demigods are gaining on him. Then he gets a clear sight of the person who is being chased by the griffins in the sky. They finally catch him and rip him into pieces. It just so happens that Philip is running towards the building roof where the body of the person falls onto. He stops for a moment to look at the person on the ground, bathing in his blood. He is still alive but his arms are missing.

“The messenger god!” he realizes then looks back. The demigods are getting near. “Sorry, I have to go!”

The god stops him by biting his shoe. As he is beginning to enter his death, his last breaths allowed him to grunt the words, “Take… my… boots… deliver this…” He is referring to the message in his knapsack. The boy grabs it then the eyes of the god glow white as he looks at Philip's eyes.

“Argh!!” Philip grunts in pain. He suddenly feels his head aching. He opens his eyes and the god is already dead. “What?” he exclaims when the boots of the god fly away from their wearer's feet and into Philip's. The boots fly on their own. “Wa- Woah!” He goes through the floor just in time to dodge the attack from one of the demigods pursuing him.

He runs away without bothering to think about the winged boots he is wearing right now. He crashes through the glass panels to cross another building. 

“Oh, crap!” he yells, realizing he cannot make it. Below, three demigods are waiting to kill him. “Argh!!” he screams but the boots pull him to the next building. He crashes through the hard wall and rolls on the floor.

Coughing, he realizes that the boots are helping him. He is too late in recovering to continue running. The demigods are already surrounding him. He has got nowhere else to go but up. He jumps but blocks with his arms after a demigod comes through the floor above to heel-kick him. Philip goes down into the bottom of the building, destroying floors he crashes on. They surround him even from above. All ways to escape are covered by them.

He is fine and just needs to adjust his mask. Standing up and looking around him, he is wary of any chance that he could slip to escape. He finds one but requires him to be aggressive. Bursting into a sudden speed, he kicks the man who kicked him down. The man blocks with his knee.

Philip's eyes widen and retreat to kick again but the man blocks using the knee again. The boy lets out barrages of kicks and the man simply uses his legs to block.

“Yarghh!!” he exerts to roundhouse kick the man.

He misses when he steps back but he returns to counter-kick Philip. Did not work, as Philip blocks with his knee. He slides back and realizes something.

“This presence and technique,” he says. “Father?” The man did not answer as the men around them laugh. “I know it's you! Why are you doing this?!!” They laugh even louder. “Answer me!!!” With the help of the boots, he unconsciously uses them to amplify his kick. “Lumberjack's Axe!” The man takes it, miscalculates the strength of the kick so he gets hit in the face, destroying his mask, and knocking him away.

Philip could not believe what he is seeing. “IT IS YOU!!!” he screams as the man is his father. With his n***d face, he glares at his own son.

Others attack and overwhelm him. He fights back kick after kick, until he receives a punch to the face, destroying his mask. 

Kneeling on the ground in a corner, his palms are against the floor. The blood on his face drips onto the back of his hands. His cheek is bleeding from the wound caused by the broken glass from his goggles. His jaw trembles as this might be his last. Another man kicks his face. They laugh. 

The boy sits in the corner, panting so hard, and tastes his blood as it drips into his gaping mouth. It is over, he thinks. He has no strength to fight back. His father lets the men do what they want and leaves the scene. He disappears from Philip's senses. 

“This is not real,” he thinks, shaking his head.

They are about to stomp him simultaneously when swords impale them from the back. They scream in pain as they are getting lifted. Their bones are grinding against the sharp edges. From the space they create, Philip finds Sayuri with her eyes glowing violet behind her goggles. Hiroki and Prisha are with her.

“ARGH!!!” screams the impaled men.

She is annoyed by their screaming. Silence comes in after the sounds of swords slicing bones and flesh. Then the thuds of the bodies as they fall on the rubble and the splattering of blood. Prisha and Hiroki hurry up to help Philip.

“It's gonna be fine now,” says Hiroki, opening his backpack. He grabs medicine and bandages. His hands are trembling and he could not pour the water properly on the cloth.

“Let me do it,” says Prisha.

“Okay.” 

She grabs the cloth and wipes the blood from Philip's face. “What's your name?” she asks.

“Philip,” he answers with a sigh. He is barely keeping himself conscious.

“Okay, Philip, you'll be fine. We are here to help you.” She is removing the b****y broken pieces of glass and ashes on his face.

“Run… it's… dangerous here.”

“Lady Sayuri will protect us. She's very powerful so we will be okay.” She puts powdered medicine on his wounds.

“Tha… that's right,” Hiroki agrees, stammering.

“Is that her?” he asks, looking at Sayuri as she looks up into the hole from above. Through it, Hyun covered in blood comes down holding a god in the throat. Another one comes down. It is a bird but turns out to be Jasper as he morphs. He laughs so hard.

“Yes,” says Prisha, already wrapping bandages around his face. “She's so beautiful, isn't she?”

He nods then falls unconscious.

*

-