▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 36║▌║▌║█│▌

I Leaned up against some of the rubble around me, so I don’t have to put any pressure on my hurt leg. Mr. Grey was steadily coming toward me, eye aglow. I lifted up one of my state-of-the-art pistols, and I shot a stun shot at him. His electricity aura around him just absorbed the shot like it was nothing. I fired off about ten more shots consecutively at him to see if I could slow him down but to no avail. He just kept on walking toward me. He was about ten yards away when I had an idea. I turned my pistols off of their stun mode and pointed them at the walls of debris and rubble. I fired a couple of shots at the walls, and the debris and dust from it kicked up. Some of it fell on him but not enough to slow him down. I stumbled across the rocky and loose ground made by the debris. I don’t want to go out this fast. I have to make more time for Via and Jack to get some distance, and I want to, deep down, pass the quiz too. Behind me, I could hear Mr. Grey speak out saying, “Just give it up Khan. You are clearly injured, and you can barely walk. Don’t make me have to hurt you even more than you already are.”

I ignored him, and I managed my way to the very edge of the perimeter of the hole Mr. Grey created in the subway tunnels. I looked up at the cliff separating the streets and myself under the ground. There was still dust in the air making it hard to see the edge of the peak of the cliff. I could hear the crunch and rummaging of the debris Mr. Grey was causing getting closer and closer behind me. I hurriedly reached in my belt for the rope and hook the lab department gave me as a part of my tools in my belt. I put the hook into my pistol and fired off a shot at the top of the cliff. I tugged on the rope the hook was attached to, and I felt the rope go taught. I gripped the rope, and started to climb up the rope. When I just started to climb up the rope though, I felt a hand grab my ankle and pull on me. I looked down, and I saw Mr. Grey’s glowing eye and melancholic face staring back at me. “Trying to leave so soon?” Mr. Grey retorted.

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Thinking quickly, I grabbed the knife attached on my other ankle, and stabbed it at Mr. Grey’s arm. It connected. The knife went into Mr. Grey’s forearm, and I could feel his blood spurt from his arm onto my own. He let go from the shock of it, and he took my knife with him still embedded in his arm. His lightning powered down a bit as he went back down to the ground of the subway tunnel. I immediately started to climb back up the rope. Left hand over right hand, left hand over right hand, I scrambled to get back into the daylight and main ground. I could already hear Mr. Grey’s lightning power back up from the ground below me as I eventually reached the peak of the rubble and debris cliff. When I got to the ground on the main land, I looked around to see what my hook had latched onto. I followed my rope to the hand of Jack holding the hook! Via was standing beside him, smirking, and she told me in a sarcastic tone, “You didn’t think that we would just leave you here did you? Just be glad we found your hook when you shot it out.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of them despite the situation we were in. Another beep went out throughout the arena. “Only seven minutes have passed?” I said out loud in an exasperated tone.

“Actually, eight minutes has passed. A buzzer went off when you were trapped in the hole.” Jack told me.

That is a pleasant surprise. I then remembered that Mr. Grey was about to pop up out of the hole too, and lay into us. I tried to get to my feet, but fell from the pain in my leg. Via caught me before I could hit the ground, and I grumbled a thanks through the pain I was feeling. I put my arm around Via’s shoulder as I told them, “We need to start running. Let’s head into a building and try to wait out the remaining two minutes if we can. Preferably a building that has a lot of shadows and no light, so Jack can move freely inside of it.”

I got onto Via’s back, and we went into a building almost instantaneously. It was an office space that was on the second floor of a building near the park. It didn’t have a lot of light in it either which made it a good spot for Jack too. I limped my way to hide under a desk with Via, then we waited.

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌