It was a relief to know that most of the bodies had been buried beneath rubble.

 

The sight of a singular body made the new clones choke, the person’s death undignified. But that wasn’t what terrified them, it was the motionlessness that the bodies had. Their eyes were still, their chests were still, their whole body was still. Compounded on to it the cold blue tint that their skins had taken and the splayed out manner in which they died, made for nightmare fuel for the newer clones.

 

For the older ones, four clones from the original seven, it was…a good death compared to many they had seen before, at least the person didn’t have his face ripped out, or removed from every muscle.

 

The somberness of death, the dizziness and instinctive disgust that it brought was petrifying. It showed you at the end, how utterly worthless life is. How feeble and weak life can be, it can be snuffed out just by random chance…by just a whim of fate and that of the gods.

 

The clones were grateful at times for the tick in their head that said that death wasn’t so bad. Horror wouldn’t be the least of their problems if they still retained a normal living entities instinctive terror of death. Emotionally, it still had an effect.

 

So many faces, so many lives, so many dreams. So so much, just gone. So many unique individuals, killed, instantly. It reminded them of the thug who had broken into their house, how his eyes stared into his, even as his body gushed out blood from the neck. He had dreams? He had worries, he had parents, brothers and sisters.

 

Yet, they were all gone by a single miscalculation. 

 

Death is easy to achieve, life is hard to keep.

 

A clone pressed his hands against the ground, (Singular Focus) on full blast. Experience had thought him that the sound was the second-best way of detecting if any monsters were nearby – because of them are ambush predators, and those don’t even utter a sound if they get shanked. The best way was to sense the vibrations, the little minutes bops and bumps that wrung out from everywhere.

 

It was difficult at first, to even feel if there was something even there. But with help from the other clones, the detector clone had it down pat in a couple of tries.

 

He told the other clones to stop, their steps wringing out like bells in his mind. Finally, there was silence, his hand sense noth-no. No, there was something, a faint tick and tack. The clone moved his arm to the left, then to right, then to the front and back. He unholstered his sword and put it on the ground, pointing towards a wrecked two-story home.

 

“There is something moving inside that home.” The clone pointed to the house, and quickly the other clones left the perimeter they had set up.

 

“You think it’s a monster?” The rookie said casually, his tone betraying a brief burst of excitement.

 

“No, it is under the wreckage, it must be a person trapped under it all.” The detector clone crunched his brows and uttered solemnly. “We will have to help.”

 

“Brother, I don’t think we have the time, we need to reach the dungeon.” Another of the rookie clones said nervously. “The faster we get to the dungeon, the more lives we save.”

 

“The dungeon won’t go away anytime soon, the person under that house will.”

 

That got the clone to shut up and help. They marched towards the house and got to work clearing off the little pieces of stone, it was minutes later when they had found themselves in a predicament. A rather wide piece of roof was still unbroke, and the detector clone sensed the vibrations coming from below the wide piece of roof.

 

The fallen roof was slopped, angled like a tent from the rubble below it, providing a space for one person to fit beneath it. That same rubble blocked off access from the space beneath the roof. A solution was to remove the rubble that was under the roof, see if they could make a pathway for the person to exit. Trouble was that the clones weren’t architects and didn’t know which rubble was bearing the weight of the roof.

 

“We have to break it, just make a hole big enough for one of us to get in and get the person inside there out.”

 

“Dude, look at it, it is a solid slab. The thing will shatter before we can cut a hole in it.” 

 

“Well do you have a better idea?”

 

The group fell silent after that, each one delving into deep thought. An older clone kicked his leg against two bricks that were stacked on each other, and he got an epiphany.

 

“I got it. Gather ‘round boys.” He excitedly told them. “Let us try to lift the roof, not much, just enough to put a strong stone block underneath it. Then we repeat that again with another stone block on the stone block from before. If we stack it high enough….”

 

“We can make a passageway tall enough for someone to crawl through.”

 

The clones arranged themselves around the roof, putting their fingers on the little sliver between the ground and the air. 

 

“On three pull ups. One, Two, THREE!”

 

They grunted collectively, using seven trained men worth of muscle on lifting a stone roof. It rose slowly, which bolstered the clones to put in even more effort. And when it reached a high enough height, a clone pushed a stone block beside him with his leg.

 

When it was underneath the roof, the clones gently dropped down the roof on the stone block. The detector clone quickly got on his chest to peek at whatever was contained inside. He saw an old man with greying hair, his feet kicking repeatedly against the roof. The old man looked like a sage, with broken scholastic glasses on his brows and a long white beard that trailed down into the earth.

 

What got the clone’s heart to wince was the little girl held in the old man’s embrace, her ruby eyes staring into his with aggravating intensity. She was uninjured and wore silk robes.

 

“Don’t worry girly, we will get you out. Fret not.”

 

The clones judged that another stone block would be enough, and they lifted the roof and had a clone hastily put the stone block above the other one and set the roof on top of it. The extraction of the two persons was easy enough, the old man’s unconscious state proving him rather flexible and the girl's rather actionless attitude was certainly a boon.

 

They gave them jerky and a blanket on a clothing line.

 

“What’s your name girly?” The detector clone said to the motionless girl.

 

“Hema Goldfield.” The girl’s response was monotone, and her eyes still dug into his.

 

“Why don’t you go with that guy over there, he will lead you to a safe place.” The clone pointed towards the rookie clone who was tasked with the unenviable task of escorting these people back to the bell tower and running to catch up with them. Poor guy had to even carry the old man in his arms.

 

“Ok.” She broke from his eyes and immediately stood next to the clone.

 

“Go. You know the route we will be taking to reach the dungeon.” The detector clone chuckled. “You better start walking if you want to see any action.”

 

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Yo, been sick these past few days, only been able to produce this much, hope you don't mind.

There are currently 7,000 words advanced on my Patreon.

All the love for Mambell, the beta reader for this story.