UnHonor

chapter 5

Like a thorn in a big and beautiful flower bush, that clean boy who emerged from the temple gate caught the eye of every sneaky onlooker, drawing an envious reaction from someone.

"What's that boy doing there!? Wow, I'm so jealous of him." Jesse shared his feelings with his friends in a whisper.

"Where??" Chao raised his voice slightly, his jealousy quickly turning into silent anger, and his gaze shifted from joy to a frantic search. "Oh, I saw him! Look at him! He looks strong even from this distance. I can promise he's never been hungry for a moment in his happy life." The words came out like curses, effortless and bitter.

"Oh, I saw him too. What a handsome boy." Elena added, her silent anger adding fuel to the others' jealousy.

"Shut up, Elena." The three friends said together; even Jesse glared at her.

"What does he have that we don't?" Barry asked. The rest of his friends' gazes followed suit.

"Maybe that yellow-haired guy is very valuable," Jesse commented.

"No, he must be tall, and his muscles are extremely magical." Chao also shared his opinion.

"Maybe he gained several attributes from childhood, which made his wish very important, and that's why they invited him to the paradise of beautiful girls." Barry added his opinion, his voice dreamy.

"Maybe he shits gold at night," Elena told them, sarcastically.

"Oh, shut up, Elena. You always have to dirty everything." Barry glared.

"Not if he shits pure gold. Hehehehe." Elena chuckled.

This time, the others ignored her and continued staring dreamily.

"Do you think...he...with the girls..." Chao stammered.

"Yeah, those girls would definitely let him hang out with them, eat, and...hold their hands," Jesse replied in a dreamy voice.

"Heh, that's what he meant." Elena sneered from a little away.

This time, Chao and Barry glared at her at the same time, and Barry said,

"Yeah, sure. If they let you in to heaven, they'll definitely give you other options."

"Yeahh," Chao whispered, full of dreams. "Think about it...he lives with them and...and experiences happiness firsthand."

"What do you think happiness tastes like?" Barry whispered, knowing he should have been expecting Elena's taunt, but to his surprise, he heard nothing. Instead, he heard Chao's answer.

"I think... super... sweet... the holy screen always uses it as a great flavor..."

Barry nodded in agreement.

"Hey, guys..." Jesse, who had been silent for a moment, called out hesitantly. Chao and Barry looked at him, waiting. "That boy... got a little closer and... and I can't shake the feeling that... he looks a little familiar..."

Jesse's hesitation spread to the two of them very quickly, and their gazes focused on the boy's face, which was becoming more visible by the moment. His hesitation quickly spread to the other two.

Just then, they suddenly heard a faint scream beside them.

"No! We have to go! Nooooo!” Screaming, Darius pushed Elena away. She had approached him and was staring at him with concern. Then, with a speed that was not expected from his thin body, he stood up and started pulling at his friends' torn and old shirts.

"Hurry! Hurry! Get up! huurrrrrry."

Fear was oozing from each of his words.

In shock and astonishment, his friends were staring at him, not a word coming out of their mouths.

The immobility of his friends invited madness into Darius' gaze.

"Right now," he shouted, a scream that even reached the happy girls of the temple, who stared into the distance for a moment.

The shock of Darius's loud voice and the unfamiliar look on his face forced Jesse, Barry, Chao, and Elena to their feet.

"Darius... Darius, what's wrong? Why are you acting like this?" Elena, worried about Darius's erratic behavior, grabbed his thin arm and was shocked by the intensity of the tremor hidden beneath his bulky shirt.

"We have to go...we have to go..." Suddenly, all that panic and madness left Darius, leaving only endless despair.

How were they going to escape the God who was following them and had sensed their presence?

"Darius..." Jesse whispered worriedly, moving a little closer to Darius. "Dude. Are you okay?"

"God...God is after us...where could we go?" Darius was broken, whispering words that smelled of despair.

"God? Which God? I don't see any God here." Barry said, his gaze darting around him in horror, searching for the God Darius was talking about.

"There. Right there. In heaven. He must have sensed us coming this way... He's coming for me, he's coming for you. He's coming to finish his unfinished business... We have to go... We have to escape... We have to... We have to..." Others heard Darius' broken whispers, and each of their gazes turned toward the single most unusual thing they had ever seen.

"Oh... He... He's changed so much.. He's Nathan!!" Jesse screamed in excitement, but before his endless excitement could spread to the others, Darius's trembling hands covered the sides of his head, and he screamed madly.

"He's not Nathan! He's dead! Right in that cave! The one walking there is a power-crazed immortal who harbors godlike thoughts in his brain! He's the god who threw me from the sky to the ground!" Darius's words, filled with terror, froze every emotion in their minds. "I'm only alive because of luck. I swear if we didn't live in a garbage dump, he would have killed us a thousand times by now!"

A cold laugh escaped Chao. "Hehehehe. Don't worry, buddy. He's Nathan, a forever friend. Remember, a forever friend."

Seeing his buddies' resistance, Darius's legs went limp, and he fell to the ground, clutching his head in his hands. He muttered hopelessly and helplessly.

"I thought the same thing. But we're mortal, and he's God! The word eternity is nothing more than a simple breath for him. He considers us his dark past, which in his eternal life is nothing but a chain of hatred to imprison him in the mortal world.

He told me this and threw me down from the clouds, and now we're in front of the entrance gate to his paradise. Without any garbage to protect us. Why..." His voice grew weaker. "Why don't you believe me..." His whisper was forced. "Why don't you accept my wo..."

Drowning in disbelief and unable to accept it, only one person moved. Elena knelt down and stared into Darius's hopeless eyes.

"I listen to you. Tell me, Darius, what can I do for you?"

Darius whispered. "A place to hide."

"Hmm. There's only one place that not even a god dares to enter." Elena answered hesitantly. But that was enough to bring a small light into Darius's eyes once again.

"Really? Where?"

Elena pointed into the distance, toward a trail of blue and black smoke that could be seen.

"I know you suggested it and kept saying you knew a way, but how? There are so many guards there, we could call them a small army!" Chao answered, and the faint light in Darius's eyes plunged into darkness.

Thunuuuuuuuuuuuuuuder

Suddenly, the always sunny sky screamed, and millions of angry dark clouds conquered it.

Thunuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuder

The angry clouds slapped the ground, and a string of orange lightning bolts lit up the dark sky for several seconds.

LIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTINGGGGGGGGGGG

A few seconds after the thunder disappeared, the sound of the sky slapping reached their ears as they stood frozen in place and stared at the sky.

However, this was far from the end; the familiar voice shook the entire sky, the earth, the air, and even the cells of their bodies.

"Get ready, mortals! A god is about to ascend!"

Whatever doubt there was disappeared from everyone's minds. Even Jesse, who had the most, and even Elena, who had the least, and even Darius, who was the source of doubt, and in its place, a smell they were all too familiar with spread through their nostrils

The smell of death.

Darius looked at Elena. He looked at Jesse, he looked at Barry, he looked at Chao, and at the same moment he exchanged glances with the others. As soon as the last exchange of glances ended, they all ran.

Barry's father always said that running fast required motivation, and they had even more than motivation; they had their lives in the palm of their hands, which they were going to save by running away.

They had two legs and borrowed two more legs and put all the energy they had in their weak bodies into their legs and ran.

The death race began.

At the beginning of the race, Darius was ahead of everyone; a little later, Elena passed him and took first place. This was not the end, a little later, Jesse, the fastest of the four friends, passed Darius and ran on the hard asphalt like it was the smoothest ground he had ever walked upon.

After running for a while, Chao finally took third place from Darius and continued running behind Elena.

Darius had put everything he had in his legs and was just running. Even when he felt Barry's heavy shadow behind him, he only put one foot in front of the other and continued doing so.

They ran regardless of everything because there was only going to be one loser in this race and that loser was death.

They ran and ran. Soon, they left the temple that had been their heaven for a few moments and was now their hell of death behind them. Gradually, they saw the formidable size of the factory that had been the last place they wanted to be a few minutes ago and was now their only way to escape.

Thunuuuuuuuuuuuuuuder LIIIGHTIIIIIIIIIINGGGGGGG

The one-sided battle between the sky and the earth that continued with orange slaps never stopped, and even in their orange absence, it continued with power.

The one-sided battle between the sky and the earth was not the only sound that reached the ears of the fleeing friends. Shortly after they had left the temple, the sound of bloody curses spread through the air, with magical explosions that sent tremors down to their feet, announcing that a bloody battle had turned heaven into hell.

Boom boom boom boom boom

It was as if they could hear the earth’s stone heartbeat, for that endless, senseless, soulless existence had sensed what was about to happen.

The loser of the death match began to sing the death call with great enthusiasm, for the earth's stone heartbeat was nothing but a profound analogy for the static electricity that had gathered in the ground.

The earth was pregnant and was about to give birth to a superhuman being.

The magical explosions that swallowed mana like a black hole left such an empty environment that even Darius and his friends felt the lack of life. The absence of that mana fostered a numbness in their being.

However, the numbness was not alone. The legs that ran with all their might hit the pregnant earth and moved forward. That alone was enough for their hair, no matter how small or long, to slowly fill with electricity and stand on end. And that was enough to bring the call of death in their minds to the edge of madness.

Death was getting closer, whispering in their ears, and the only thing that could make it retreat was a terrible and imposing factory that was getting closer and closer.

Boom boom boom boom boom

The earth suddenly gave birth to wilder heartbeats and announced the horror of destruction.

Darius, right behind the others, finally noticed a change in their direction. Elena, leading their death race, moved her hand to the left, indicating that they were changing their goal. A little farther away, the short but terrifying walls surrounding the factory’s territory finally appeared. Their purpose was not to guard the factory, but to warn that anyone who crossed the boundary without permission would surrender their freedom and become the factory’s property.

The sense of terror that those simple white walls gave them was nothing more than a fleeting sensation compared to the tremors they felt from the sky and the earth, and that was enough for their skeletal bodies, one after the other, to place their hands on the wall and throw themselves over it. This descent was not the end, however, because, ignoring the bodies that had long since passed their limit, Elena got up from the interior floor of the factory, which was more sinister than ever, and started running again.

The others, while the Death wail sent a wave of terror through their bodies with each blow, once again lifted their exhausted bodies from the ground and forced them to run.

Elena turned for a moment and opened her mouth to say something, but seeing the sight behind them, the color drained from her face and without any additional movement, she aimed and ran.

Without even allowing themselves to think about what had terrorised the rarely frightened Elena so much, the others followed her once more, and very quickly, they reached the factory walls that seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky.

The walls, like the ground beneath them, were made of cement, or at least that was what Darius thought.

Soulless and cold, the only thing that stood against the horror of the imminent birth of a god with unwavering power.

While it revived the cold fear in their hearts, it also gave them the hope of staying alive.

KAKAKAKABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Drop drop drop

The raindrops, with their coldness that seemed like thousands of small sharp stones, landed on their defenceless bodies, and the heat of death drawing near pushed them toward destruction.

There wasn't a drop of rain before, and suddenly it was everything. The rain became so intense that Darius could barely see Chao's body, which was a little ahead of him. This, along with the soaking that added cold shivers to the other tremors running through their bodies, was enough for Darius, who had felt thousands of feelings and fears in those few short moments, to finally lose control of his body for a moment and slip on the wet ground.

LIGGGGGGGHTINGGGGGG

Another orange lightning bolt hit the ground, and this time it was extremely close to the factory wall and much closer to the others!

The light in the sky became stronger for a moment than the darkness of the heavy rain and showed Barry part of Darius's falling body.

That was enough for Barry to dive towards Darius and catch him in his arms before his head struck the ground.

CRAAAAAAAAAAASH

They both crashed down, slipping on the strangely slick surface created by the rain and cement, and soon they collided with another person.

Chao, whose speed had slowed down as the rain reduced his visibility, felt a heavy blow on his thin legs, and soon, the three of them began to slide on the ground that was getting steeper.

The three of them were accelerating and soon found a new passenger. Jesse, confused and looking for Elena, was bending down to find Elena's footprints when suddenly two pairs of feet hit his shins, knocking him over in Chao's arms.

Jesse, happy but too exhausted to express his feelings, simply gripped his friends’ hands as they slid away in an unknown direction through the rain, which seemed capable of pouring an entire waterfall over their heads.

Amidst the rain and the explosions that were slowly making them believe that even the terrible factory could not stop them, they slipped, and peering through the rain, they searched for the first person in the race.

The momentum of their slide, which seemed to never end, increased with each passing second and very soon, even in that heavy rain, they saw that they were approaching the endless wall of the factory at great speed.

In their surprise, they all suddenly stamped their hands and feet on the ground and tried to slow down to prevent themselves from hitting the factory walls, but even though they used all the strength of their weak muscles to do this, their efforts had no effect.

"Oh, there you are!" A familiar voice shouted, and a human bullet landed on them, stealing the breath from their chests.

Elena, brighter than ever, glanced at them and confidently nodded her head. Then, with her sharp-heeled shoes, she suddenly stamped on the right side of the path, using the force to slightly change their direction. If anything, the maneuver only made them slide even faster than before.

With no other escape, with an acceleration that increased every moment, the hope of coming out of the impending collision safely became less and less until finally, the eternal friends were very, very close to the cement wall that seemed harder than ever, and they screamed.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" friends screamed in terror.

"Hahahahahaha" Elena, on the other hand, laughed out loud as if she was enjoying it.

The moment of impact finally arrived, but when they were less than a meter away from the wall and could taste the blood in their mouths, the ground suddenly gave way beneath them and, still screaming, more frightened than ever, they were plunged into darkness.