Dawn- An age of Darkness

This whole place was kind of… bad. 

The smell was terrible. At this point, I was just trying my best to not think about the smell. It wasn't working. 

There were large crawling bugs everywhere. 

And we had no idea where the hell we were even going. 

"By the way, the way that voice sounded, are you familiar with that?" Alisa said. 

Beads of sweat formed. "Nope, not even a little."

Yeah, I erased that voice from my mind a long while ago. 

I cleared my throat, took a deep- okay, maybe not. There was no need for deep breaths!

"Do you think- father can be brought back to life? You said it's possible though-" Apparently Viola still wasn't convinced.

Things happened a bit too fast. I guess this was normal. Maybe she hadn't grasped the brutality of death yet. After all, she was just a kid. All this time, I treated her like an adult but now, now I understood. All her selfish behaviors were justified. 

And actually, I wasn't that affected either. For someone who just killed a living being, I was so calm, that it was surprising even to me. I knew her father was already dead but still, I killed him. I killed a person. 

And yet, it didn't feel real. It didn't even feel surreal. It just felt like a daydream. 

"You've never seen an undead right?" I asked, she nodded. "Basically they are dead people who come back to life but they are in so much pain that they think eating other living things would make them better. And they hate the living because of that pain. They first came to be when a god tried to make all the people who fell in a war come back to life. I've fought thousands of undead and almost every time I killed them, I felt like they passed away at least a bit more peaceful than they were still roaming around." Or maybe I was just high on adrenaline and potions. "You saw your father bite me and suck my blood, right?" 

Viola sighed and looked at the ground as she walked. "I see."

Wait, the guy actually sucked my blood. "Am I going to be fine? I mean-" Since I didn't felt anything I never bothered to ask. 

"You've got a regeneration curse on you, remember? Though you don't ha-" Alisa paused.  "It won't be a problem, no." She wanted to say something but didn't. 

I wanted to ask, but there was a more pressing matter at hand. 

How were we getting out of here again? Cause no matter how I looked, there were hundreds of canals, and we were just going straight.

This whole place was weird.  Wastes upon wastes just came down the drain and moved forward. And though we followed the flow, I had a feeling this won't lead us to any desired exits.

"Look sharp!" Alisa said, throwing a shard of ice.

"Don't worry, I'd seen it way before you did." But since it was out of my range, I didn't try anything funny. 

There was a white rat with red eyes in front of us and it was at least bigger than Alisa. It was running at us with neck-breaking speed. 

The shard did make contact but nothing happened. It was more like the rat got hit, lost its head, but regrew it immediately. So yeah, nothing happened. 

I sighed and threw a ball of holy, and upon contact, the rat disappeared. 

"Is it me or are vampires a bit too weak?"

Alisa sighed. "That's the problem. They are rather strong and have a lot of abilities but when it comes to holy, they are even weaker than actual undead. You did see it coming out unscathed from my ice attack, right?"

I guess that was a fair point. 

"But, can't we just destroy the ceiling and climb up?"

I actually didn't expect Viola of all people to suggest something that extreme. 

I cleared my throat. "You'd want to climb up with your body in that state?" 

Me and Alisa were one thing, but she was a literal princess! Though I did see her wet herself, so, I guess this couldn't have been that much more embarrassing. It was still going to be embarrassing regardless though. 

It went without a saying that all three of us were covered in shit. Literally. 

Yeah, Viola washed us, and I was shivering with the cold, but still. Just a simple wash wasn't enough to get rid of this foul odor.

She grimaced at the thought. "Lead on please."

'But lead where?'

This whole place was like a maze without any exits. Small pipes came from above and dumped everything on this large canal, but there weren't any ways to climb up, at least not without drowning in shit.

We'd already reached three dead ends. 

It was almost like that forest situation, where no matter where we went, we couldn't find any places. 

Wait, didn't I still have those three balls?

I quickly searched my ring and sure enough, I had those three. 

I only took out one, very carefully. I made sure I didn't touch anything else in the ring. I sure didn't want to spread this shitty smell. 

Actually, after all this, I'd be sure to give everything- EVERYTHING- a thorough wash! Might as well spend a whole day in a lake or something. 

"How do we use this again?"

It was the crystal ball we used to travel across the forest. 

"You should touch here, rub here and this …." Viola went on. It went over my head. 

I did not get anything, no sir!

It was almost like the time I was explaining how the internet works to my long-dead grandpa. Unfortunately, I was the grandpa now. 

Alisa did get it though and she immediately took the ball off my hands and started pointing around. She was a slave driver, there was no denying the fact. 

Well, at least now we had a way to go. 

***

There were bugs everywhere, and that was no understatement. 

The rats and the bats were easy enough to deal with. But then there were the large worms and even snakes. The hell was wrong with this sewer system!?

I had a feeling I'd be very sick for a while after this. 

Not all of those things were undead though. Some were genuinely just wild animals. Sure didn't stop them from attacking us though. 

After half an hour of mindless following and killing and definitely ruining my whole respiratory system, we finally reached an end. There was an opening and light.

The canal kind of got bigger.

Yes, I had a bad feeling, and no, this wasn't just a bad feeling. This was a very bad feeling. 

The closer we got to the exit, the shittier our surroundings became. 

The reason?

All the dumps were apparently being dumped through this large pipe. 

And into where?

A river of course. 

But how high was it?

Very high, of course. 

Yes, another day of 'I don't want to jump but I'll die if I don't.' 

"Ha hah ha." I chuckled. Life was amazing. 

This whole setting almost looked like a waterfall. But instead of water, shit was falling, spraying everywhere. 

"He breaks every once in a while don't worry about it." Alisa smiled grabbed my arm and Viola's. "Let's make sure we don't break our bones this time." Her smile was radiant and a second later we all jumped. 

Well, at least we weren't marching into forests. 

Wait, weren't we already in a forest?

Shit.

***

Blueh!

After all that terrible, terrible time, I had to throw up water of all things. 

Just moments ago we fell in the water and my two companions fell with me. 

Everything was fine and I didn't feel like I'd broken any additional bones but then there was the thing about my already broken and cracked bones. They probably just got crushed. The water was deep enough to not die and definitely dense enough for easy swimming. All that would have been fine but- but not only was the water contaminated, but I was also more or less crippled. 

And in this golden time, both of my companions were passed out and they started drowning. Perfect!

So, even being crushed, I didn't have a choice but to give it my all. And why the hell was this river so frigging wide?

I imbued my whole body in a hurry and dragged both of them back to the nearest shore. I just had one hand, how the hell was I supposed to carry both!? At least that's the question I asked myself before trying, but I kind of just bit into Alisa's clothing and just carried her like that. 

It was one hell of a swim session. I was amazed that I even made it to the shore. 

My body was burning up and I might have drunk a bit too much of this shitty water.

The rest was history. 

Argh! Everything just wanted to come out. 

And it did too. But at least all three of us made it to the shore. 

The other two, however, were kind of still passed out. 

I breathed hard, but they were in a lot worse situation. 

Alisa was okay, barely breathing, and just passed out, but Viola wasn't breathing. 

I checked her pulse. 

She didn't have a pulse either. 

The water was freezing, so I first undressed Viola and got come sheets out of my ring and covered her, next, I tried CPR. 'Please don't die on me.'

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