Escaping Darkness (Book 2): The Cloud by Richards E.S. & Kraus Mike

Author:Richards, E.S. & Kraus, Mike [Richards, E.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic | Thriller
Publisher: Muonic Press Inc
Published: 2019-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Standing in Michael and Angelica’s house, Mia struggled to keep herself calm as she listened to the pair of them. She could understand where they were coming from and that they didn’t want to leave their mother to die alone, but she couldn’t comprehend why they were willing to condemn themselves to death by doing so. Surely this was not what their mother wanted. Surely, she would also be encouraging them to leave. Encouraging them to live.

“I’m sorry, Mia,” Michael shook his head for the thousandth time. “I just can’t leave her.”

“But what about your family?” Mia argued back, her knowledge about Michael’s life increased after the conversations she had shared with Patrick the night before. “What about your children?”

“Please don’t,” Michael hung his head in shame. “Please don’t bring them into this. Don’t you think this decision has been hard enough? Don’t you think I’ve already spent hours trying to figure out what to do? I know I’ll never see my kids again if I stay here, but that is the choice that I have made. It’s my choice, Mia. Not yours.”

Pursing her lips, Mia knew she couldn’t argue too heavily with Michael. He had clearly weighed his options and he had chosen to stay with his mother. Mia hadn’t even seen her yet, but she had to imagine she was incredibly unwell for Michael to be willing to abandon his own children to stay with her and keep her safe. Not that he could really do the latter. No matter what they tried, the people in Michael’s village would die if they stayed behind and already that morning Mia had discovered that death toll was going to be a lot larger than she had hoped.

Stuart was right. The people were basically split in their decisions: half were willing to leave; the others wanted to stay behind. The small village in the valley was the only place most of them had ever seen. It was the only place they had ever felt safe and as a result, it was the only place they wanted to die. Because die they would. Mia had explained it to them repeatedly. There was no way of escaping it. The village simply didn’t have the resources to outlast the eruption. The people in it would die, and they would die a horrible death too.

It sounded like it was already happening in some instances, a cough from Angelica confirming Mia’s suspicions. If anyone breathed in the harmful toxins too much, their lungs would begin to fail. They would struggle to catch their breath, finding things as simple as walking upstairs difficult. Their throat would begin to itch, the person’s insides dying without them even noticing. They’d cough up blood, retching out the poison from inside them. But it wouldn’t be enough. Once the volcanic toxins had been ingested, no one stood a chance of survival.

And if that didn’t kill them——if by some miracle they managed to avoid inhaling their murder weapon, the people in the village would likely swallow it instead.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.