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Chapter 8: Reasons to Hate Luck

After climbing up about fifteen meters on the ladder, they took the chance to look around and see if the area was clear. There weren't any lights, so Sara lit her staff alight. She stood next to Lincoln to help lead. They had to find some sort of stick, torch, or a flashlight of any kind. They went left down the hallway, making a turn when they could. Everything was still the same, bleak situation as the areas they've traveled recently, except in this case, it was like a hospital.

When they found a small procedure-like room to rest in, they entered to stop for a few moments, giving Lycan a chance to take a break with the pain in his back. He didn't say much about it, but they knew that the wound in his back would still be in sparking pain; pain that Michael hated he inflicted upon him in his berserk state. LJ sat beside him in case of a random attack. Lincoln spent the time planning with Veronica, who still detested the idea of traveling the short way, but shoved her thoughts because she valued Sara as a friend, a girl friend, a gal-pal, whichever way she felt like putting it.

Sara decided to check on Lycan's back again to see if she needed to heal the wound again. She needed to. The wound reopened again and he would be out of doing any extreme fighting for a couple of days. Michael ran by with a few more bandages.

"Sorry-"

"Get a grip, Michael." Lycan interrupted rudely. "I know you're feeling bad for what you did to me, but you couldn't control your actions."

"Lycan…" Michael said weakly.

"Look," he said more softly, "you can't keep feeling like what you did to me was your fault. I'm not sure what that new power did to you, but you can't blame yourself for the slashing you gave me."

"Michael, go-" Sara coughed again and the white light emitting from her hands dimmed a little bit. She concentrated more and the white light shined brightly again. "Just go check on what's going to happen now."

LJ remained silent beside Lycan, this time wondering why the heck he wasn't over there with his brother helping with the planning. When he noticed Michael heading in their direction, he got up. "Hey, you'll be alright here with Sara, right?" He asked quickly, caring less of what his answer would be.

"Yeah."

"Alright. I'm going to go help with the planning."

Lycan snorted. "About time."

"Shut up." He looked at Michael. "Wait up, Michael!" He ran and caught up to him.

"What's up?"

"Nothing. Just wanting to go help out with the planning and seeing as you're heading there, we minus will just walk the short distance together."

Michael was baffled. "Okay…" It was the only reply he could give without thinking hard on it.

The two of them walked side by side until they reached Lincoln and Veronica, who were busy staring at the map with Sara's staff serving as the light. The map laid flat on the stainless steel table with the staff about fifty centimeters away from it. They couldn't decided which way to branch as Veronica had intel on which monsters would be in each one, presuming that none of them decided to hibernate. What sucked for them was that one path, after traveling about sixty meters, would branch left into a large room; the other would've led straight and then left into a small bridge that hung over a vast, rectangular room. The monsters contained in each were dangerous, one having a colony of oversized boars who had armor and weapons like a knight from the medieval days. The other was on a raggedy bridge that could only hold one person per crossing in a hallway that contained nothing but about a meter and a half sized paralyzing spiders. They didn't know which way would be safer.

"Splitting up across a bridge that spans about 10 meters is a bad idea, especially if we can't clear the spiders out." Veronica said.

"What if we baited them into the hallway?" Michael asked.

"That would take too long as we don't know how many of them are there." Lincoln said as he stared at the map. There has to be another way…

LJ stared at the map, analyzing each of the hallways. "Wait, what's this?" He pointed at a small line that was in the middle of each of the two paths that were laid out for them.

"That's one of the vents for the ventilation of this… hospital I guess." Veronica clarified. "I don't see how climbing through the vents would help us."

"That's the thing." Lincoln said smiling that his little brother saw this before any of them could. "They do help us." He pointed down on the line and traced it with his finger. "Look at where this goes." Everyone watched his finger. It went straight for a sixty centimeters on the map, then turned left across the middle side of the room with the boars. After thirty centimeters, it turned right and went right down the middle into the hallway adjacent to the room.

"Are they even wide enough?" Veronica asked. She never resorted to crawling through the ventilation system before.

"They should be for all of us; but not sure about Lycan." Lincoln said semi-confidently. He was sure, but then he wasn't sure.

"We could always pull him with a rope if he barely fits?" LJ suggested jokingly and he snidely smiled. He wanted to get Lycan back for the comments when they were treating him.

"And open his wounds in his shoulders? I don't think so." Michael defended. LJ pursed his lips together.

"LJ, come on, get over it, will ya?" Lincoln said, frustrated with the childish antics of him and Lycan. "We really need to work together to get this done. When we're safe, you two can go all out in your teenage ways."

"Alright! Sheesh! I'll stop!" LJ said in defeat.

"Well let's see if Lycan is ready to go." Lincoln rolled the map, stuffed it in his bag, and grabbed Sara's staff. Veronica loaded her shotgun and rifle while Michael and LJ went ahead. When Sara saw them approaching, she stopped healing the wound, seeing as she did all she could. There was a reason why she stopped. There was something burning within the blood of Lycan's and it seemed that Michael's slash was doing something to the blood.

"How's the wound?" Michael asked as he helped Sara stand up when he and LJ passed by Sara.

"I can't heal it fully." She said softly, yet beautifully all the while. "There's something stopping his skin cells from rejuvinating, same thing with his blood. The body responded well to the healing before, but now it's not even working." She said grimly. "Wherever we're heading, we better hope they have facilities for treatment."

"Don't worry." He reassured her. "We're heading somewhere where you could maybe learn more about yourself. Lycan might be able to get his treatment there too."

"Good." She smiled and hugged Michael. Her face turned straight when she remembered what he said. Somewhere where you could maybe learn more about yourself. Sara wasn't sure whether or not she wanted to remember more about her past. It was a simple item of mental inquisition and she was afraid of what she didn't know, or what she didn't want to know.

Michael caressed her left hand in his and smiled his sweet, melting smile. "Don't worry, Sara. You have friends who will be there to help you whenever you need it. Especially me."

Sara smiled. She indoubtly had friends whom she could rely on at any given moment. "Thank you, Michael."

They stared into each other's eyes, forgetting entirely that Lycan was still sitting there silently. Their love for each other grew with each passing second and they both very well knew it. The question was who would make the first move? Sara was waiting for Michael, but he was indeed doing the same. It was incredibly complicated.

Lycan and LJ were watching the two love birds stare at each other for a few seconds and then noticed that the others were drawing closer. "You know how I hate to interrupt a good moment, but I think we should move? Lycan needs a little help standing up here." LJ blatantly interrupted.

Michael and Sara turned their heads toward him and nodded quickly and shamefully. They helped him stand up on his two feet, which was just as uncomfortable as it was sitting down. Lycan just shrugged off the pain again and then began walking next to LJ as he led the way back into the hallway. Lincoln followed right behind them with Veronica not far behind. Sara and Michael walked in the back, hand in hand as they did in the warehouse, but like a couple this time.

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Everyone walked straight down the seemingly endless hallway until they saw the ventilation. Luckily enough, it was wide and large enough for Lycan to fit through without any problems. They didn't need his back touching the vent sides as that would exacerbate his wound and perhaps infect it. The vent was too dim to see what was ahead, so Sara borrowed LJ's staff and lit his and hers both in a kindle flame that didn't burn the holder. She passed her staff to Lincoln and LJ's staff back to him. Lincoln pulled the cover off the entrance to the vent and jumped in. He helped pull up the others in, passing the staff to Michael to lead.

"Just keep following the path of the vents. If you hit a turn, turn and crawl in that direction." Lincoln told Michael. He nodded and began to crawl. Everyone followed, Lincoln being the back of their train. When Michael hit a left turn, he turned and continued to crawl that way.

"Quietly!" Lincoln whispered as loud as he could without alarming the monsters below them. Michael then slowed down to nearly a sliding worm movement to get through the vent as they crossed through the middle of the room above. The boar soldiers were snorting and chortling. They slammed their axes on the floor, making a loud, treacherous slam that shook the vents. This made everyone but Michael regret the decision as they held in the space.

"Move faster!" Michael murmured. He began to crawl swiftly, but like a ghost; almost as if he was ready to assassinate an unsuspecting foe by snapping its neck. Everyone nodded and began work across faster. One of the boars, the hefty one that towered high over the rest of the group, started swinging his axe up and down. The swing was rather mighty enough to cut through an armor built out of the toughest materials known to this world. Its sharp edges cut through the vent in front of Lycan, who miraculously kept his mouth shut. The group was separated and they didn't know what to do as they looked back.

"Lycan, pull back!" Lincoln whispered. He responded with a quick nod and tried to shimmy backwards, but then the worst of the worst occurred. The leader, who was the genetically overgrown boar, swung his axe upwards in a sideways position, and slammed into the vent, which dented it upwards, towards Lycan's gut and chest, nearly squishing him. Ultimately, it dropped on top of it with Lycan knocked out from the impact. His head popped out of the front side of the vent. The boars stared at it for a moment. Lincoln spent the time observing, praying that they weren't going to attempt to kill him when he looked like he was practically dead. LJ thought the same thoughts.

They sniffed his head and then looked between one another. The leader snorted when it looked at its comrades. It was their way of communication. There were 20 other boars besides the leader that surrounded Lycan. Veronica, who couldn't exactly see what was going on, knew what was about to happen as the boars chatted away. She managed to squeeze past Sara and LJ and dropped down in the middle of the boars.

"What is she doing?" LJ stressfully asked.

"No time to ask, just follow her!" Michael commanded. And as he said that, Lincoln dropped down, drew his sword and was back to back with Veronica. Sara grabbed LJ with her arms like an eagle would to catch its food and flew out of the vent on the outer side of the boars. Michael dropped down and drew his sword in the middle of the crowd.

"Protect Lycan!" Lincoln ordered. "He won't be able to fight when he wakes up, so protecting him is the number one priority!" He swung his sword around and then held it at a ready position in front of him. Veronica cocked her shotgun and Michael held it to the side. LJ and Sara had no time to throw shields and magic incantations so they conjured their elements in their staves and hands. Though the boars were mainly melee close-up fighters with clubs, maces, and axes, seldom few were magistrates. They didn't know what to expect from them, especially the bulky leader. Lycan could've climbed on top of it and knocked it out, but they have to improvise with what they have. Their luck couldn't have gotten worse, at least they hoped.