Shattered World (Shattered #3)

Chapter Nineteen

A sound woke me from sleep, wedged between two hard bodies. Rainer groaned into my ear, pulling me closer into his chest, while Murphy popped up from the couch, his head swiveling to determine where the noise had come from.

“What the hell is that?” Warner’s irritated voice sounded from the other couch.

Footsteps padded into the living room, the rest of the apartment woken from the same noise. As the sleep faded from my brain, I realized it was another siren. Except this one was different than the last.

Immediately, Rainer was pushing us off the couch, standing up and heading toward the window near the kitchen. He pulled the curtains to the side, but even though I waited for the bright rays of sun to spill inside, there was nothing but black.

It wasn’t the darkness that came from a cloudy sky. No, this was darker than even midnight. Aiden rushed to Rainer’s side, Sasha coming to sit down on the couch beside me.

“What’s happening?” She whispered.

Squeezing her hand, I shook my head. “I have no idea.”

Murphy and Warner made their way to the window as well, the four of them turning toward us with slack jaws and terror in their eyes.

“This is it,” Murphy said on a gulp. “The meteor hit.”

My eyes popped wide, my body moving from the couch as I rushed to the window. I wanted Murphy’s words to be wrong, but there was no denying the sight before me. The sun was nowhere to be seen, a massive cloud of smoke painted the entire sky, blocking out any rays from reaching Earth.

“We need to leave. Now.” I began shoving everyone away from the window, knowing that the time we had would turn from hours into minutes before we could blink.

Mina had taken it upon herself to spend hours poring over the files we had stolen from Vex’s basement. The files that detailed my father’s research. According to them, the initial effect of the meteor would be a cloud of dust, spreading into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun.

If the dust was already here, that meant millions of people were already dead. In the middle of the night, the heat of the blast, the force of the meteor’s hit, would have killed them all as they slept.

But that wasn’t the end. For the next several days, maybe longer, aftershock earthquakes would wreck the continent. The entirety of the surface beneath our feet would shift.

We all scrambled to gather our belongings, shoving random things from the apartment into our bags. When we all stood outside the entrance to the building, I took a deep breath before pushing the door open.

If I thought the night before had been cold, it didn’t hold a candle to the absolute frigid temperature that met us. Without the rays of the sun, the temperature had dropped colder than ever before.

Even if we sprinted to the pier, there was no doubt that all of us would have frostbite. I could already feel the painful bite against my exposed skin, my cheeks reddening in an instant.

The streets that were barren the night before were now filled with thousands of people, none of them properly dressed as they sprinted across the roads. Several cars tried to make their way down the streets, but there were too many people on them, blocking their way.

“None of them were prepared. It’s a month early,” I breathed out, wondering how many people would miss their chance, solely because they hadn’t planned for this possibility.

“Screw everyone else. We need to start moving,” Rainer shouted, shoving a man to the side as he began sprinting through the crowd.

Murphy scooped Lucas into his arms, Aiden doing the same with Stephanie, knowing we didn’t have the time for them to slow us down. This wasn’t anything we had faced before. We weren’t running from a threat that we could outnumber or evade. Nature had no qualms about who it destroyed, and we were directly in its path.

My breaths came hard as we ran, the cold air a struggle to inhale. Sasha heaved at my side, her feet tripping over the cracks in the sidewalk, my hold on her arm the only thing holding her up.

I didn’t know how long we ran without stopping, but eventually, none of us could handle it any longer. We needed to take a break. The air was too cold, easily below freezing, and I knew it would only get colder. Within several days, the air above the surface would be inhabitable.

Rainer stopped near a restaurant, the lights off, but dozens of people huddled inside. Pushing the door open, he ushered us all in, my first deep breath coming for the first time in hours.

Hands on my knees, I breathed deeply, trying to gather myself. I knew we still had miles left. At least a few more hours until we reached the pier. I only had to hope that it was enough time.

Just as the thought bloomed, the floor beneath my feet began to quake. Reaching for the nearest thing to my side, I gripped Warner’s shirt, his arms circling my hips as he pulled me tight into his body.

“Was that?” I asked with wide eyes, and Sasha nodded.

“That was an earthquake.”

The terror that had sat in my chest since I woke this morning doubled in size. The after effects of the meteor were hitting sooner than my dad’s research had anticipated. And I knew that could only mean the meteor was larger than they had first realized.

“Rainer, we don’t have time. We need to leave,” Aiden urged, realizing the same thing as I had. If Mina had spent hours reading our dad’s papers, Aiden had spent days. He knew what this earthquake meant. Life on this continent only had less than a day left.

Rainer nodded quickly, eyeing the people in the building, all of them weeping silently. Raising his voice, he shouted, “We are headed to the bunker. I don’t care if you have a spot, if you want the chance to survive, you can follow us. Otherwise, you should begin to say your goodbyes.”

With those parting words, he turned toward the door, pulling Lucas into his arms, giving Murphy a break. Warner belatedly let me go, pushing me into Murphy’s arms, picking up Stephanie. Without another word, we exited back outside.

Some people followed us, the others staying inside, accepting their fate. If possible, the temperature had dropped further in the few minutes we had been inside. Cracks littered the street, a large crevice down the middle of the road.

My gaze was drawn to a woman kneeling beside the crevice, screaming down into the abyss. I shut my eyes as Murphy dragged me behind him, refusing to think about the people that had fallen.

My feet blistered as I ran, the wind roaring in my ears as we raced with the crowd toward the pier. Even as we ran, I knew there were too many of us. If the guards outside the bunkers were to check every single paper, it would take hours. Hours we didn’t have.

“Oh my god,” I gasped, a realization spreading through me.

Murphy stopped mid-stride, pulling me to his side, cupping my face. “What? What’s wrong?”

I gripped his wrists. “What if there’s no one there to open the door? What if they didn’t make it in time?”

Murphy was already shaking his head before I could finish the thought. “We will not think about that. Now run.”

Grabbing my hand in his, we sprinted together, chasing after the others. The crowd thinned as we made it further along the path, some unable to continue, others fading behind as they didn’t move fast enough.

We were so close. I could see the daunting shadow of the ferris wheel in the distance, a beacon of salvation. Struggling to take a deep breath, I tripped over my feet as the ground shook beneath me once more.

This tremor wasn’t as fast as the other. It couldn’t be ignored, as the entire foundation of the city trembled. A large crack in the cement started before us, my eyes widening as Murphy pulled me to the side, pushing me out of the way as the ground vanished beneath our feet.

The chilling sound of buildings collapsing sounded and I turned on my heel, slapping a hand over my mouth as I watched the skyscrapers fall from the sky, crumbling to the surface.

“Sweetheart, we have to keep moving,” Murphy urged, and I nodded silently, allowing him to guide me.

I thought I had been prepared for this. Knew what was going to happen. But nothing could prepare you for the utter destruction of the end of the world.

Our path became narrower as the crowd shoved and pushed, trying their best to avoid the crevice in the middle of the street.

I stifled my screams as I watched people push others into the darkness below. I knew this was the end of the world, but I soon realized it was also the end of humanity. There was no room for kindness, for altruism when it was your life or theirs.

“Alessia!” A voice screamed from ahead of us and Murphy pushed past a few men, not even flinching when one of them stumbled to the side, his scream piercing the air as he fell.

Warner had been the one to scream my name, his wild eyes spotting me as he towered above those around him. His dark gaze was the first thing I spotted. The large wave heading straight toward us was the second.