Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 155. The Fourhundred
Amidst the desperate screams, my thoughts raced.
What should we do now?
We’ll have to get them out, of course. But I can’t bring a few hundred people inside the mansion; it would endanger those inside, especially since we had food and water. It would be best if this group of people didn’t know about our hideout. We had enough rations to probably feed them all, especially since we would soon return to our world, but we’ll have to get the supplies here.
"We’ll get you out! But we need a bit of time to gather the right tools!"
"NO, DON’T LEAVE!"
"PLEASE DON’T GO!"
"We won’t go! My friend will go get them while I’m staying here with you!" I looked at Henry and motioned for him to climb out of the hole in the ground first so we could talk. He did so with ease and reached his hand down to pull me up.
We were both silent for a moment in incredulity of what we had just discovered, before I eventually spoke.
"Go back to the mansion. Tell them about the survivors. Get everyone who can carry something and bring as many rations as possible. I want each of these survivors to be fed when they come up."
"Understood." Henry nodded, waiting for further instructions.
"We’ll make the hole in the roof only big enough for them to come up one by one, so we can check them for anyone possessed. Someone from the mansion has to stay back with us to inform the newcomers about the current situation." I thought for a moment.
"We won’t let them out until we brought enough food and water and everyone who carried them has gone back. I don’t want any of these people to know where we are staying."
The screams from below grew louder until I yelled down,
"BE QUIET! WE ARE DISCUSSING HOW TO GET YOU OUT. PATIENCE IS THE KEY!" That somehow silenced the shouts.
"Also, bring back paper and a pen; someone has to keep count of these people, preferably with names and everything." That was everything that came to my mind.
"Okay, go now." I conjured a cigarette and watched Henry make his way. After feeding my body with nicotine, I jumped back inside the hole we had dug.
"I can’t talk to everyone at once; is there someone who can speak for you?"
"Get the doctor." Someone said.
"No, the doctor is busy; get Mr. Hendricks." Someone else answered, and while I thought there couldn’t be this kind of coincidence, I waited for them to bring him.
"My name is Ethan Hendricks; could you tell me your name, kind Sir?" The calm voice of a young man came through the little hole in their roof after he had finally arrived.
"No wonder my attorney couldn’t be contacted." I chuckled. Fancy how small this crater was to meet an acquaintance.
"...Mr. Howard?" Ethan was quick to recognize my voice. Well, I was probably his only client with superpowers.
"You got it right. I’ll tell you the situation first. We are not official helpers; the South District has fallen into a parallel world, and you are buried underground, as you already know. We’ll get you out, and in a week or so, a portal will open to bring us back to our world." Probably, if Henrietta manages to do it.
"Now tell me about your situation."
"...I understand. On our side, there are about 400 survivors, scattered over approximately 23 houses and 10 shops that are buried partly vertically and partly horizontally underground. We have used the time since we woke up to break through the adjoining walls, finding more and more survivors until we reached that number. We lived off the food that was in the houses, but it has long since run out. There is, however, a water source here."
More people than I expected... We have enough food, but that’s a huge number of mouths to feed.
"You still have to wait until we bring the tools to get you up. It will take a bit of time. Until then, get ready to bring out the elderly first, then children, then women, and then the men. And fill every water bottle you have with water from the stream."
"Yes." Ethan didn’t ask unnecessary questions, and I heard him talking to others, organizing their ascent. Their voices weren’t near the hole; they were two or three meters down from the roof, so I would have to come down and conjure up a ladder for them to get up. The hole in the roof can be easily widened with Henry’s power or just a hammer.
The voices didn’t cease as they talked, laughed, and wailed. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞
When Henry returned, he helped me out of the earth hole again, and I saw my grandmother, Anti-Guy, Glasses Guy, Mrs. Devin, and Chelsea. I didn’t see Baggy Jeans, but the last time I had seen him, he was withering on the ground, so he was forgiven.
Everyone who came was either carrying backpacks or folded fabrics with food and water. My grandma and Henry carried the most items, clearly the strongest individuals. They put the things down and came to my side, all peering down.
"Someone has to stay here, and we’ll get more food; water is not necessary; they have a stream down there." I could carry more than Chelsea, for example, but she couldn’t be left alone here in case some shadow appeared or something.
"Let Glasses Guy and Anti-Guy stay." Henry looked at them, and they didn’t disagree. Anti-Guy even yelled downstairs to see if anyone had survived with his last name, but the people downstairs just said they didn’t know.
On our way back to get more food, I answered everyone’s questions about how to proceed, how to stay quiet about the shadows to the newcomers, how everyone would get food, and how we would inform them about our departure in approximately a week.
The best-case scenario would be that we found all the remaining eight shadows among these people and had them slit their throats without issues; then, the last four who would attack would be dealt with in a week, and we would be ready to leave this fucked-up world.
My plan was to slip away with everyone we found to be possessed—after we fed and informed everyone—then bring them to our mansion and wake them up there so we wouldn’t have everyone panicking.
We made two more journeys and, in the end, had more than a few hundred cans of beans with us as well as a massive amount of rice.
Next, Henry and I worked on extending the earth hole so that everyone we brought through the roof could make it up by themselves.
After we finished, we jumped back inside again, and Henry widened it with his shadow hand until we could have a clear look inside.
The smell was still absolutely horrible, clearly from decaying bodies and human waste, yet it was already a miracle that they had all survived this whole ordeal.
Approximately fifty people looked up at us, squeezed together inside a small room three meters away from us—all of them shielding their eyes from the sudden light, some rejoicing, some crying, but all of them thin and devastated from their stay underground.
