Revenant Slaves Chapter 34: Chapter 33: Ash

Read chapter 34 of Revenant Slaves by Zee on NovelPedia.

Chapter 33: Ash Ash coughed and heaved from the dust. The walls of his house had entombed them; the world was pitch-black, and the terrible noise of the planet shaking still overwhelmed his ears. He kept trembling on the ground for what seemed like an eternity. The only solace was the beating heart of his mother, whom he was clinging to desperately. When he had thrown himself desperately at her, he had been prepared to die with her. She wasn’t dead yet; she was with him, she would remain with him. Ash would make it so or die trying. Zain had said that there were places that could prolong her life. He couldn’t give up so soon after having found hope. He had to focus on that singular purpose, to tether himself to that desire of saving Rain, or else he would have gone unconscious because of the intense pain all over his body. He seemed to have reopened his stitches and wounds. He was breathing hard, he was panicking, and they had somehow survived. The debris hadn’t crushed him. Why hadn’t it crushed him? It didn’t matter why; he was alive, and so was Rain. ‘Flame burn, Zain, to think he would abandon Rain just like that.’ He was dazed, slipping in and out of consciousness, as unlikely as Ash found the situation to be, ‘this is ridiculous,’ he thought as he felt himself yawning. Rain hadn’t shifted once since the roof had collapsed. Ash’s face was stuck under her head; it was unmoving, but he could feel her heart beating, could feel her breathing. Ash tried feeling around for her arms; they weren’t by her side, they were fixed in position, and he tried lightly tugging them free from wherever they were stuck. Rain finally moved her head then and pressed her chin with some force down on his head. He understood the gesture; she was telling him not to move her arms. It must be incredibly painful wherever they were stuck. ‘No! It can’t be.’ Ash was horrified by the thought that his mother was holding up huge piles of debris, which was why they hadn’t been crushed. ‘But that should be impossible,’ Someone as weak as her mother couldn’t possibly do that. Ash twisted his body as gently as he could despite the constant tremors. Rain tried applying force from her chin again, but only for a moment before relenting. Once, he was face up, or what he assumed was up, the darkness and constant shaking made it impossible for him to tell. He slowly felt his way up one of Rain’s outstretched arms; he felt a liquid that was streaking down her arm. His heart hurt for his mother when he realized it must be her blood. He kept slowly inching further to where her hands were, but stopped short. There was something there, at the edge of her arms. His hands ruffled through hair, a full head of hair. Suddenly, it made so much more sense why they hadn’t been crushed. ‘Zain! It must be Zain, that flaming lunatic.’ Ash, for just a second, forgot to follow Rain's arms to her hands. It was clear they were entangled in his hair; the why wasn’t really important right now. Ash wished with all he had that Zain would be breathing as well. Trying to survive while his corpse hovered over them was not a pleasant prospect to imagine. And in this absolute darkness, more than a little scary even. Ash instead traced Zain’s head to his face, then to his nose. The trembling of the planet was too much for him to be able to tell if he was breathing or not. He tried to move his hand down to his neck, eventually aiming for his chest. Only for Zain to bite his fingers, hard. Ash screamed, and of course, it was drowned by the noise of the tremors. ‘The Flaming bastard is alive, alright.’ Ash continued with his original mission; there was debris behind Zain's head, and Rain’s hands were being crushed by that debris, forming a shield for Zain’s head. Ash wondered why Rain had to be like that. She might have just ruined her hands for nothing. Just how much could her hands have made a difference? But Zain was still breathing, their savior was still alive, so that was something. It all ca