Amiel gripped Eira's foot as she screamed from the pain.
"Eirian!" She called for me to help.
As I watched her, I debated on what I should do. If I did, I might die with her. I might not get to see my mother again. I may have relived this week once, but there wasn't a guarantee that it would happen again. It might have just been a one-time thing.
A tear began to fall from her eyes, begging for help. Before I could come to a decision, a roar came from far out in the distance. I see a four-legged figure with large antlers on its head. It was the moose from before, but it looked different. The moose has eight eyes on each side of its face, skin fragmented like Amiel's, and its roar was distorted as if eight different roars overlapped. It was corrupted.
My heart stopped. Not because there was another corrupted creature here, but because animals couldn't get corrupted. It was something only for humans. Done through a pact with the God of Chaos.
'What is happening!' I thought.
It charged towards us, hitting Amiel across the forest, just to hit the ground multiple times, rolling until he hit a tree, making a loud bang. As he got up from the floor, Amiel let out a deafening screech, not as loud as the moose, but loud enough for me to cover my ears from the pain.
When he finally recovered from the attack, he started to charge back at the moose. Looking back down at Eira, I screamed, "Let's go!"
Eira, who was struggling to get up, got up after a few desperate attempts. I placed her arm around me, and we started making our way back to campus.
As I made my way back to campus, I could hear the loud clashing of the two, along with loud bangs through the forest. Birds flew scared of the noise.
---
As we struggled, making our way through the doors of the cafeteria, Ael sees Eira hopping through the door with her arm around me. He put down his pencil and walked towards us.
"What happened?" Ael helped me bring her back to her sleeping bag.
"Amiel, he's corrupted," I replied.
"Huh!?" Ael let out in shock. "Why would he make a Pact of Chaos?"
"I don't know," I replied. When I do, Eira screams in pain, reminding us of her situation.
Amiel's grip seemed to have crushed Eira's foot. Ael placed her foot on his bag, keeping it elevated, and started working on it.
He looked towards me, "We will talk about this when I am done with her." As he looked back towards her, he said, "Sorry, this is going to hurt."
After a while of working, Ael and I sat in the kitchen as Eira slept, and it was about two o'clock. We gave her some morphine to help ease the pain, but that would only do so much.
"So what happened?" Ael asked while more pages around us hung. It seemed like he was able to translate a good amount of it.
As I leaned against the counter, I looked up to the ceiling, grabbing my temples, tired from the mess. "Honestly, I don't even know." I looked back down at Ael, "We were heading towards the veil to meet up with Amiel, but it turned out he was corrupted. Trying to run away, Eira got caught by him, but before Amiel could do anything, a moose came charging at him." I looked at Eira lying down in the center of the cafeteria. "Somehow this moose was corrupted as well."
"The moose, corrupted?" He questioned. "How is that even possible?"
"I don't know." I looked back at Ael he looked at me with a worrisome face. "All I know is that if it wasn't for that moose, we would have died then and there."
"Looks like we have more problems to worry about." He laughed as he tried to ease the pain. "You know I would usually make a joke about now, but I don't even think I can."
I chuckled, 'To think that even this situation got him like this.'
"So Amiel is dead," Ael said as the room filled with silence.
"Seems like it."
We weren't close to him, but still, the death of a comrade hurt. We may have disagreed on different things, but it's not like we didn't spend the last few days with him. We went through the bunker together and explored the campus. When you do that, you end up building a connection with them. I tried not to let it get to me, but unconsciously, I clenched my jaw. When I noticed, I sighed to relieve the pressure.
"Did you figure out anything?" I asked, feeling awkward, to ease the tension.
He sighed, looking back at the pages. "Sadly, no. All the pages keep just seeming like gibberish to me. At one point, it got me questioning if the people who wrote this were crazy."
Upon finishing his sentence, the winds grow intense outside.
"Another snowstorm?" I asked.
"Looks like we aren't going to get much done today," Ael replied. "Either way, it works out, Eira needs to heal up." He looked at her before turning back towards me. "Since there isn't much else for you to do, mind helping me translate?"
"Sure, I need something to keep my mind busy either way."
Even as the day just started, it looked like we were back to being trapped in here once again. Ael worked all day and then later through the night. On the other hand, I slept and took care of Eira, making sure she was okay. When I woke up in the morning, I was greeted by Ael's cheering and screaming. He held up a page, dancing around in the kitchen like a madman.
"What happened? Are you okay?" I asked, worried if the lack of sleep was finally getting to him.
"I am more than okay, I am actually great now." He replied as he stopped dancing, smiling at me.
"Then what's with all the dancing and screaming?" I asked, getting up from my sleeping back, rubbing my eyes as I walked towards him.
He held out the page as he danced and said, "That's because I figured something out. A way out of here."
My heart dropped.
"I figured out how to contact the God of Numen."
I stared at the translated page of text in front of me.