The tears of pain were joined together by the tears of fear and sadness. “How could I even accept death? I experienced it once… I don’t want it again… Not again!” Focusing on the wound on her back, she hardened her blood and changed its shape into a guillotine. Focusing on the shape was hard as she tried to move it without her hands, only using her power and mind.
The bone began to crack as it was pressed from both sides. Once it snapped, Navia opened her eyes and saw the fire on top of the pile. She wasted too much time in one place, and the fire was getting closer. It wasn’t like any opponent she had faced. It wasn’t about to leave her alone even if she died. There was no way to deceive the flames. The walls of the chimney were darkened with the smoke and almost invisible as the smoke spread all around the place.
Navia braced herself and grabbed the bone. As she pushed it out, she quickly hardened the blood to seal the wound. There were no tears left for her to cry out, and her throat was damaged, unable to scream as loudly as she used to.
From the bottom of the pit she fell into, she had to climb up the corpses. She had to reach the wall to get out of this hell. Wasting no time to glance back at the fire, she began to climb up the mountain of dead bodies. Her mind was at its weakest, but she had to survive. Her hands reached for any stable thing to grab, be it someone's arm or mouth.
The rot left stains on her skin, the smell was so strong that she no longer smelled anything except for the same disgusting stench. The displeasure of touching soft mush of rotten muscles and skin had to be ignored or at least endured for long enough to reach the top.
As she reached the top, her gaze was locked onto the wall, ignoring the bodies beneath her feet. Navia was about to run as she forgot that the ground under her was unstable. Stumbling forward, she tried not to fall on the corpses. The touch of the smooth and cold stone was pleasantly welcomed by Navia, a different feeling than anything she had touched for the last twenty minutes. A slight smile appeared on her face for a mere second before the corpses began to fall down, the bodies below beginning to crumble because of the scorching fire.
Her hand was pressed to the wall before falling, as she was descending down with the others, her fingers tried to grab the soft surface. Two nails fell off her hand, spraying blood across the wall. Hardening the blood was enough to stop her fall. The blood glued her hand to the wall. She watched as the bodies fell into the fire and vanished in the dark smoke.
Raising the other arm, she glued her left hand to the wall, turning the blood on the other hand into liquid, she raised it even higher and began to climb up the wall. The smoke hid the length she had to overcome, but there was no other option than to climb up. She didn’t have much problem with controlling the blood to climb up since she had done it once already.
“How far is it? Will I be able to reach it? I have to… I HAVE TO!” Shouted Navia, her eyes wide open and determined. With each step, she was becoming slower. “Am I getting exhausted already? No… I feel dizzy… It’s… It’s the smoke… I’m going to die from it. I have to reach the top…” Navia knew the danger, yet she still climbed up without hesitation until a question rose in her mind, “But will I reach it?” The distance suddenly became larger inside her head than it used to be. She couldn’t gamble her life, she had to survive, she had to do something.
Navia changed the shape of her blood on her left arm into a thick gauntlet, and she took a wide swing and hit the wall. Then again and again, desperately wanting to see it crack. Her sweat dropped onto the fire below, making it hiss at the contact and vapor in an instant. She didn’t know how thick the wall was, but she didn’t know how far away from the top she was.
A small crack appeared, and as she smashed it repeatedly, the crack widened, the bits of smooth stone began to fall down, but there was no sign of light on the other side. That didn’t stop her from continuing the barrage of punches. The hole in the wall was large enough for her whole hand to get inside.
Seeing as how far it got her after so many punches, she switched the strategy. Placing her hand inside, she focused on gathering all the blood to the hand, hardening and expanding it. Forceful pushing the hardened blood to put pressure on the damaged wall. Where cracks appeared, the blood quickly moved inside them and hardened. She could hear the wall crumble, her idea was working, but the reserves of her blood were running out, missing blood and being poisoned with the smoke slowly accumulated, and her head began to spin. Her head felt light, and her mind unfocused, making it harder to control the gate.
Making the blood expand was much harder than pushing it, so she gathered it from a few places and used all the force she could to push it. There was no sign of it working, but there wasn’t a need for one. It just needed to work. It was as if she were punching the wall from inside. Fewer punches were needed for it to work as the wall on the other side began to collapse, and cold air brushed against Navia’s stained face. It was refreshing, as if she had just woken up. That small hole became the hope for her. It was a way out, and she was nearly escaping this hell.
She entered the first part of the hole that was large enough for her to squeeze in. To destroy the outer wall, she used a small hammer. Slowly but surely, she chipped more bits of the stone. Navia created an exit out of this hell, but it wasn’t the end. Looking down, she saw the exact same distance she had fallen earlier, the same fall that sent her into the morgue.
“Can’t get a rest… Not even once…” Navia changed her blood into two gauntlets with spikes on the palms. “Hope it works out…” She whispered as she looked back, the smoke was slowly filling in the hole as it found another way of escaping the chimney. Navia grabbed the outer edge of the wall, pressing her hands against the wall, she let go. Instead of falling down, she was sliding down, using the spikes on her gauntlets to stick to the wall and to slow down her descent.
Navia’s gaze was on the ground under her, already feeling glad that she would be touching hard ground. The cracks from the hole began to spread, and more bits of stone began to fall. First were small rocks that Navia noticed, then bigger chunks of the wall. With limited movement, she tried to move to the side and avoid the falling stones.
As one of them hit her arm and moved it away from the wall, she was near losing her grip on the stone surface. Her body went cold in an instant, quickly reacting to the danger, she moved the blood from the arm to the left leg to create two spikes. She kicked the wall and stuck the spikes in it, halting her descent.
Looking up for any more falling rubble, her eyes widened as a huge part of the wall began to crumble and fall. One-fourth of the entire side of the chimney was collapsing right toward Navia. Looking down, she knew she had four more floors to descend. It was either to fall or to be forced to fall and be crushed by the chunks of stone.
“I survived the fall once, so I can do it twice…” Navia pulled out her spikes and began to slide down the wall at full speed. She only used the hardened blood to protect her skin from friction. She could hear the wall getting closer to her, there was no way of surviving it. She couldn’t spare another second; changing her gloves into a stick, she pushed herself away toward the nearest building.
“This time… It will be different!” Shouted Navia as she extended her hand toward the edge of the roof. Last time her arm didn’t withstand the force, but this time it was different. Creating the gloves with spikes, she slid down the side of the building and stopped by the window. With one kick, she shattered the glass and jumped inside.
In the room, there was a table with four chairs, on two of them were sitting a young woman and a boy. They were praying until they were interrupted by broken glass. “RUN!” Shouted Navia as she grabbed their hands and forcefully dragged them out of the room. The young woman wanted to fight back at first, but the sound of cracking wood and stone made her realise the danger that was right on her neck.
The building was collapsing as the falling stone damaged its roof and side wall. The floor was made of old and rotten wood that was quick to crack. The ground underneath them began to fall, and right at that moment, Navia made a decision. She pushed the woman forward and threw the child toward her. The ground where they landed was stable since a wall was supporting it, while Navia no longer had that luxury.
“Brace yourself…” Thought Navia as she prepared herself for the pain that was about to come.