Chapter 39: Impending doom

The air inside the command room was thick with heavy tension. Maps of the Seattle River were pinned to the concrete walls, but every single map was useless now.

Mayor Vincious Gerald stood at the head of the steel table. He leaned his heavy hands onto the cold metal surface, staring down at the glowing tactical display in the center of the room.

His face was pale and lined with deep wrinkles of exhaustion. How couldn’t he be exhausted? A fucking river had suddenly dried out!

Around the table sat the most powerful figures left in the sector. Salma sat on the left, her arms crossed tight over her chest, her face cold and unreadable. Next to her sat Jacob, the deputy mayor, tapping his fingers restlessly against the armrest of his chair.

Across from them stood Leader Imani. Her forehead was wrapped in fresh white bandages, and her tactical gear was scratched and battered.

"Let us go over the situation one more time," Mayor Vincious Gerald said, his voice deep and raspy. "At zero three hundred hours, the water levels in the Seattle River dropped to zero in less than twenty minutes. The entire riverbed is completely dry."

"How could that even be possible?" Jacob let out an exhausted sigh. "It’s not just dry. The mud became solid as it backed up!"

"Why is that impossible, Deputy? If someone had told you a month ago that the world would be fucked up like this, would you have believed them? Nothing is impossible." Salma scoffed, despite Derreck trying his best to stop her from doing so.

She was in a bad mood. Her little daughter had sneaked out without anyone’s knowledge. Her whereabouts were unknown. Although Salma knew her daughter was powerful, that wouldn’t stop her from worrying about her.

Salma had done a simple investigation about Summer and learned she was with Jacob and his family. Their relationship was apparently close. Summer had been a bodyguard for them until they reached the settlement.

That made Salma angry. How dare they make her poor daughter a bodyguard and have her do hard labour? So, Salma was pretty pissed off with Jacob now. But she could only bite her lips and hold back, or else it would be pretty obvious.

Jacob sensed her animosity too, though he had zero idea why this Rogue leader was angry with him. He merely thought that was her characteristic.

"Be a bit serious about our situation," Leader Imani interrupted coldly, glaring at Salma. The Rogue leader’s reputation among the soldiers wasn’t that good. Common people preferring Rogues was the main reason.

But for Imani, there was another reason. It was the one that had caused the vertical scar on her right eyebrow.

"Do your brows still hurt, Imani?" Salma asked in fake concern.

"You-"

"Can you two please shut up?" Vincious ground his teeth.

"Who the hell do you think you are, ordering my young miss around? Courting death?" Derreck took a step towards the exhausted general. Imani also drew her weapon, covering the general as the situation reached the breaking point of a fight.

"Sigh." Jacob sighed, clicking on the screen. "Our drone cameras reached the source twenty minutes ago. A massive portal opened in the middle of the riverbed."

Ignoring the atmosphere, he pointed at the screen.

The room fell completely silent.

Jacob pressed a button on the control board. The main monitor flickered to life, showing a live aerial video feed.

In the center of the vast, cracked riverbed, a massive tear in reality floated in midair. It was pitch black, surrounded by violent purple lightning that pulsed with energy.

"We do not know what it is," Jacob said, staring at the screen. "We do not know where it leads. But our researchers confirmed one thing. The portal is growing. It expands by two meters every single minute. If it continues at this speed, it will swallow the entire sector by tomorrow morning."

"We cannot fight at a time like this," Jacob said, slamming his fist onto the table. "If that thing keeps growing, our base and our families will be wiped out without a fight. We need to send a team inside to find out what is happening."

"Send who?" Salma asked, speaking for the first time. Her voice was sharp and cold. "Send soldiers? Like they’d dare. Or... are you expecting me to send my people to their deaths? Don’t forget, even if the river went dry, it didn’t erase the fact that anyone who ventured into the riverbed died."

The room went silent. Salma was right.

"She is right," Mayor Vincious Gerald admitted, rubbing his tired eyes.

Leader Imani narrowed her eyes, staring directly at Salma and then back at Mayor Vincious Gerald.

"We have someone who can go," Leader Imani said quietly.

Mayor Vincious Gerald frowned, turning his head toward her. "Who?"

Jacob paused for a second. His eyes widened, his expression changing rapidly from anger to shock. He looked at Leader Imani with disbelief.

"Is it she?" Jacob asked, his voice dropping.

Leader Imani nodded her head firmly. "Yes."

Salma looked between the two of them, her eyebrows knitting together in deep annoyance. She hated being left out of the loop.

"Who are you talking about?" Salma demanded, her tone dangerous. "Speak clearly, Imani."

Leader Imani met Salma’s fierce gaze without flinching. "That zombie girl, of course. The one staying in the aquarium."

The moment those words left Leader Imani’s mouth, the temperature in the room seemed to drop completely.

Salma stood up so fast that her chair crashed backward onto the concrete floor. Her dark energy flared wildly around her body, turning her green eyes into burning orbs of menace.

"Say that again," Salma growled, her voice trembling with pure rage. "You want to send a child into a suicide portal?"

Everyone in the room except Derreck was surprised by her outburst.

"She is not a normal child!" Leader Imani shouted back, stepping forward and slamming both her hands onto the table. "I saw her fight with my own eyes! She killed that peak Feral zombie like it was nothing! Her body is entirely undead! Radiation does not affect dead flesh, and her physical stats are higher than anyone in this entire city!"

"I do not care what you saw!" Salma spat, her black shadow aura surging outward. The steel table began to creak under the pressure of her dark energy. "You cowards want to hide behind a little girl because you are too terrified to do your own job!" ℯℯ𝘭.

"It is not about hiding. It is about survival!" Leader Imani yelled, her knuckles turning white with tension. "If that portal expands, everyone dies! We need answers, and she is the only entity strong enough to walk into that void and come back alive!"

"Touch her, and I will tear your throat out," Salma snarled, her fingers curling into claws as black energy gathered around her palms.

"Both of you, stand down!" Mayor Vincious Gerald roared, his voice echoing off the concrete walls like thunder. He slapped his heavy palm onto the table. "This is not the place for your personal fighting!"

Jacob stood up as well, placing his large frame between Salma and Leader Imani to keep them separated. "Salma, calm down. Imani, lower your tone. We are not fighting each other today."

Salma glared at Leader Imani with absolute hatred, her chest heaving as she slowly pulled her dark aura back inside her body. Leader Imani lowered her posture, though her gaze remained locked onto the Rogue leader.

"Why the hell are you so mad? Like that zombie girl is your illegitimate daughter or something?" Imani gnashed her teeth.

"Ye-"

"Being empathetic is human nature, Leader," Derreck said, cutting off Salma as he gave her a look that stopped her from continuing.

Before anyone could say another word, the heavy steel door of the command room was violently kicked open.

A young soldier burst into the room, his tactical vest torn and his helmet missing. His face was pale as death, covered in cold sweat, and his hands were trembling so badly he could barely hold his rifle.

"Mayor!" the soldier screamed, gasping for air as he stumbled over the door frame.

"Report!" Mayor Vincious Gerald demanded, turning sharply toward the doorway. "What happened at the riverbed?"

"It happened, sir!" the soldier panicked, his eyes wide with terror. "A zombie just stepped out of the portal!"

Leader Imani scoffed in anger, turning her head back toward the soldier. "A zombie? We have fought thousands of zombies! What are you panicking for? Shoot it! Kill it immediately!"

"We tried, Leader Imani!" the soldier cried out, his voice breaking into a terrified scream. "Our heavy guns did not even scratch it! It is not ordinary! It is not a Feral!"

Mayor Vincious Gerald stepped toward the young soldier, his heavy boots thudding against the floor. "Then what is it?"

The soldier swallowed hard, his voice trembling violently as he spoke.

"It is far stronger..." the soldier whispered in horror. "It destroyed three armored tanks with a single wave of its hand!"

"What?!"

Every single person in the room shouted at the exact same time.

Mayor Vincious Gerald, Salma, Jacob, and Leader Imani all stared at the soldier in shock.