Day Two-Fifty-Six: Flight

We ran, diary.

We ran like hell.

Now we're huddled in the dark, sheltering together like… rats. Hoping that the weird connection between us all is enough to stay alive. It's a very small hope.

The inevitable happened. The royal guards… they turned on us. When we reached the bottom of the hole, what seemed like an eternity away from the beginning, we found… a room.

A coffin.

A door.

We only had a few seconds to process that information before the guards came at us. King Jeffrey went down first, hit from behind and knocked onto the dirt and rock floor. Two of the guards seized him and dragged him further into the chamber.

The other guards attacked. One struck a nobleman on the temple with a mace. Judging by the loud crack, I doubt the man ever saw anything again. One went for Libby, but she ducked under the swipe of his spear and rammed him into the wall. Cedric and Bernard, quick on the uptake (and probably expecting this all along), did the same to three more guards. Thank the gods for Cedric's bulk.

I was too panicked, too weak and worried and frightened, to do anything but soil myself. That, and… look into the chamber. Stunned. Confused. Not surprised, but bewildered as shit. And what did I see…?

The coffin.

The door.

Logan. Kneeling at the base of the door. Doing… something.

A penguin, skittering towards the door, waving for the guards to drag King Jeffrey to him. Screaming "He's not done yet? He's not done yet?! FUCK!"

And Eve. My Eve. Watching. Not caring. Arms folded, three guards standing behind her. As casual as a spring day. She didn't help us, she didn't hinder us. She simply watched.

Libby dragged me out of my stupor. I ran with everyone else. Ignoring fatigue we darted up the rickety wooden ramps, two at a time. It didn't matter how long it took, we would reach the top of that fucking hole. Time moved in a void, and I, running past torch after torch, ignored the seconds.

Until we hit another squad of royal guards, heading down. Blocking us off.

It was Bernard, surprisingly, who saved us. As our group of ragged commoners and nobles hunched back defensively, Bernard spotted a ballista mounted on one of the railings. He grabbed the handles, swivelled it towards the encroaching guards, and fired. They jumped back as a heavy metal spear launched out of the gun and shredded part of the walkway, not enough to bring it down and trap us, but enough to force the Omega Corpsers out of sight.

We stopped and caught our collective breaths. Cedric, genuinely impressed, thanked Bernard for his initiative. They had a moment. But that moment ended, and we're still stuck here.

There are royal guards below us. Royal guards above us. We have some food, from one of the caches I spotted on the way down, and enough water to last… a few days. Maybe a week. There's a surprising amount of supplies, but we can't stay here forever. That's plain. Eventually one of us will be too weak to man the ballistae along the rails, or too tired, or simply tired of life, and that will be the end.

The door.

Gods help me, the door.

It was supposed to stay in my dreams, where all truly bad things belong.