The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 50.3 - Human versus Rat Part III (Patreon)

                                                                                             Alexander North

I push through the pain throbbing through my legs, threatening to put me unconscious as I walk on wobbly legs over to the rat’s neck, where I put my hand to feel for a pulse. But nothing comes through.

Unsure of if that means it just doesn’t have a pulse in the first place, or if it’s dead, I continue dragging myself along its body towards its head, careful not to cut myself on its icy fur in the process. And once I reach its head, I can’t help but jerk backwards as its remaining beady eye suddenly move to look at me with absolute hatred in them.

I narrow my eyes at that before reaching for my knives, just to remember that I tossed them earlier already. So I turn my head to look at its stomach, where my sword is still poking out of, albeit with quite a bit of damage to it.

Unworried about the damage to my sword, I continue dragging myself along the rat’s corpse, which only barely tries lifting itself once without any luck, towards the rat’s stomach. But as I’m moving, I feel the edges of my vision continue getting darker and darker as the internal injuries in my legs that didn’t manage to heal continue to bleed, along with any other injuries I might’ve gotten without even noticing in my upper body.

Eventually I end up falling to my knees again, simply dragging myself along its body towards the sword where I barely manage to push further and further into its body up to the hilt. Then I collapse on top of the rat’s body, slowly feeling the last of my consciousness leaving me.

Damn it… I can’t… no…..

Right as I’m about to fall unconscious, leaving my instincts to take over from my lack of energy, I suddenly feel a rush of energy enter my body from the rat’s. Then everything goes dark.

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                                                                  A little ways down the tunnel from Alex

“Hurry! It sounds like whatever commotion was going on has stopped!” captain Andrew shouts while running down the hall, followed by Cynthia, the rest of Alex’s squad with the exception of Robert, and the lone veteran. The others had all rushed back to the main hangar at the first sight of spiders and rats running through the tunnel towards them from the way Alex went. And since Alex’s group was left fighting the rats and spiders off, they couldn’t follow.

Cynthia can’t help but frown, clenching her fists in worry as they all rush through the tunnel towards the commotion, having chosen not to follow after the soldiers and civilians who had chosen to rush back to the main hangar without them.

“What do you think it was?” Michael asks in a hurry as he runs. But the captain doesn’t answer and instead suddenly bursts forward, using his beyond human speed to eclipse the others and clear the distance of the tunnel at a much faster speed. “Or not.” The sergeant mutters without pausing in his run.

The rest of them stay silent as they continue running down the tunnel. Meanwhile the captain eventually finds the large rat corpse located a few meters down from an equally large spider corpse and worry immediately clouds his face.

“Please don’t be dead!” he chants to himself over and over again while rushing over to the rat corpse and moving around its back, then towards its head, and finally to its front, where he finds Alex lying on the ground unconscious and covered in his own blood. The captain drops to his knees next to him and turns him over gently before taking off his armor and checking for wounds.

At some point during the process, the others manage to make it over to them, and each of them immediately begins speaking at once.

“Is he okay?!” “What happened!” “Is Alex okay?” “Please be okay…”

The captain raises his hand as he finishes checking him over for injuries and leans back a little as he says, “It’s fine. He’s fine. No injuries at all.”

All of them let out audible sighs of relief, with the exception of the veteran who barely knows Alex. Then they all turn to look at the large spider and rat.

“Did… he kill these?” Victoria mutters with awe evident in her tone.

The soldiers all move over to check on the monsters’ corpses, with the exception of Cynthia and Michelle who stay by Alex’s side. But even Cynthia gets up after rechecking him to make sure he’s okay, completely ignoring his lack of armor and his damaged clothing due to him being family.

“If he was able to kill these… just how strong has he gotten?” Michael mutters with a frown hidden by his helmet. But then the captain snaps that thought as he says from next to the spider queen, “I don’t think he killed them. Or at least not alone.”

Most of the others turn to look at him before walking over to the spider queen’s corpse and finding him pointing at its head, which has a large, gaping hole directly to the brain.

“Unless he could somehow do that,” Andrew adds, almost as if as an afterthought.

Everyone next to the spider queen shake their heads at that thought before looking around for clues as to what happened. Until Michael – who had gone over to the rat – points at the icy spike that is in the place of its paw and shouts, “Over here!”

“Did he…” Cynthia mutters with a look of awe on her face.

“I think he did.” Andrew answers while looking between the two monsters and Alex. “I think the second lieutenant waited for one of them to kill the other before finishing it off.”

Silence fills the tunnel for several seconds, broken only by the sound of the veteran walking across broken eggshells.

Everyone’s gaze is attracted to Alex as he lets out a groan and rolls over.

“Is he unconscious or asleep?” Cynthia mutters with a look of bewilderment replacing the previous awe.

Everyone else just stays silent and shrugs.

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