Chapter 3: Overturned Everyday 2
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"Wait, Gil—"

Not letting her finish, he grabbed her hand and began running again. Looking around earlier, Gilbert had seen that they were at the end of the boardwalk, right next to the carnival, and above the deep end of the beach at this point. That was exactly the problem. They were above the deep end of the beach, meaning, it was a complete dead end from the family restaurant that they had escaped from. Just as they were about to run back to the earlier parts of the boardwalk, a familiar roar could be heard.

"▂▂▂▂▃▃▃▃▅▅▅▅!!!!!”

"Damn it, that thing's already caught up with us?" Gilbert saw the monster had already reached the part of the boardwalk that was above land, completely cutting off their escape. "This way!" He rushed into the carnival, Cardinal right behind him. The inside of the carnival was quite fancy. There were merry-go-rounds, teacup spinners, bumper cars, and a huge Ferris wheel could be seen at the edge of the pier. A map showing all the attractions was posted on a bulletin board at the entrance. Gilbert rushed over and began scanning it. 'Where is it... the place that any kind of public attraction has... bingo!' The security center he had been searching for was right at the edge of the carnival. Surely, there had to be some kind of weaponry they could use to fight against the monster there. He grabbed Cardinal's hand again, but let go when he felt her shake him off. "Cardinal?"

"Haa... haa... sorry, Gil... I think I'm at my limit..." Wheezing for breath, Cardinal slumped down to her knees. "This is too much exercise... after not eating for a while... in fact, I think I'm going to—"

Gilbert averted his eyes as he heard the poor girl puke her lunch out. He had completely forgotten to consider Cardinal's condition. It was actually impressive that she was able to keep up with his running, considering how the lunch he bought her was the only thing she had eaten for three days. He patted her back as she eventually stopped retching. After an awkward silence, she looked up at him, her eyes slightly teary and cheeks flushed, although whether it was from throwing up or embarrassment, Gilbert didn't know.

Cardinal wiped her eyes, "It seems like this is my limit, Gil. You've saved me many times now and I can't repay you by slowing you down. I'll try to hold it off, so leave me here and get to safety!"

"Uh huh. That would have sounded a lot cooler if you didn't puke out your guts beforehand." Gilbert sighed and gave her a flick on her forehead.

"Ugh..."

Seriously, what was wrong with this girl? A violent and grotesque monster was after them and she was still in the mood to joke around. Although, he realized that his earlier panic had slightly subsided and a small smile was trying to form on his face. Just then, a poster in the corner of the board caught his eye. 

"Ouch... Gil, what was that for—"

"Quiet. I got it. This is how we're getting out of this." He grinned as Cardinal gave him a questioning look.

 


 

It was furious. It was hungry. It wanted to kill. It thought it could kill in the small, crumbly place. But, a boy had ran away with the girl. When it followed, the boy and girl got on a flimsy thing with two circles and left quickly. Faster than it could run. This made it mad. It had run after them, even if it's legs were slow and heavy. It saw them at the end. Nowhere to go. It saw them go inside a strange and sparkly place. Still. Nowhere to go. It ran to the sparkly place as fast as it could. After entering, it saw small white puffs on the ground. They smelled delicious. It was hungry. So, so, hungry. It followed the puffs. It found the boy at the end. Good. Good. Good!

Letting out a tremendous roar, it charged.

 


 

A few moments earlier

 

"No no no no no. We're not doing that."

"Why not? The only thing you'll even be doing is placing the popcorn in a trail. I'm the one actually doing the dangerous part."

"That's exactly why! You could die—"

Gilbert tuned Cardinal out as he rescanned the map. Earlier, he had noticed something quite obvious about the monster: it was quite stupid. The thing would single-mindedly charge at whatever it wanted to kill, without any regard for strategy or traps. Granted, it didn't really need to think about those things when it was strong enough to bulldoze through anything in its way. Still, this was why a rough plan formed in his mind. 

"Just take the popcorn from that cart over there and make a trail to this place on the map. I'm gonna run ahead and set things up there."

"Wait, Gil!"

Before Cardinal could protest again, Gilbert began running. He was headed to the "Silly Spiral Slide" that was a playground attraction in the carnival. It was a spiraling slide that supposedly had a height of 15 meters. "Supposedly", because the notice that Gilbert read said that it was still in construction. What had further caught Gilbert's attention was the warning at the bottom that stated that the slide was currently "highly unstable and dangerous to be around without proper equipment". 

 

Arriving at the center of the carnival, Gilbert immediately saw the slide. It wasn't nearly as tall as he had expected, but its unstable nature seemed to be completely true. Surrounded by flimsy scaffolding, the slide seemed to shake and wobble with every gust of wind that came its way. 'Perfect', He thought as he quickly got down on his knees and began removing some tall poles that had been stuck into the ground and leaned against the slide, most likely a budget stop-gap measure by the carnival organizers in trying to create some more stability. The slide made extremely loud creaking sounds by the time Cardinal arrived and placed the last of the popcorn right in front of Gilbert.

"Gil, I put it all down like you said. I still think it's better if we just hide and wait for it to tire out—wait, isn't this thing creaking too much!?" Cardinal gave a slight shudder as the slide seemed to teeter ominously.

"There's no guarantee that something inhuman like that even gets tired. Also, it doesn't seem too happy that we got away on the scooter earlier." A distant roar could be heard, as if to confirm his suspicions. Then, he noticed something and stepped closer to Cardinal. As his face came closer and closer, Cardinal became almost as red as her scarf.

"W-wait, Gil! I know this is a life-or-death situation, but there's a proper order—"

"You ate some of the popcorn, didn't you?"

"..."

 

"Ugh..." Cardinal cradled her head again after the hard flick Gilbert gave her. Ignoring her wronged eyes, he shooed her away with his hand. If the creature saw Cardinal when it arrived, it could ruin the entire plan if it decided to go after her instead of him. Just as he saw Cardinal hide in a nearby café, a loud thump drew his attention back to the entrance to the playground. The monster had arrived.

 

"▂▂▂▂▃▃▃▃▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅!!!!!!!" Giving its loudest roar yet, the monster charged straight at Gilbert. Steadying his nerves, Gilbert used the popcorn on the ground to gauge the distance.

10 popcorn. 7 popcorn. 5 popcorn. 3 popcorn. Now!

Gilbert hurled himself to the right as the monster barreled past him. He felt a slight pain against his shoulder, but quickly rolled to his feet and looked back. 

 

CRASH!!!

 

The monster had splendidly launched itself straight into the exit hole of the slide and with how thick its arms were, it could not dislodge itself easily. More importantly, its desperate thrashing and struggling completely ended the slide's valiant effort to remain upright. With a loud rumble, the entire slide began to collapse, debris and scaffolding falling down and burying the monster.

Gilbert ran out as quickly as he could, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a random piece of slide equipment. Thankfully, besides some tiny pieces of wood, nothing had hit him. He stopped a short distance away from the collapse, panting for breath.

"Gil, you did it! Your plan actually worked!" Cardinal jumped out of her hiding spot and rushed over to him.

'Idiot. I told her to hide until the coast is clear.' Still, he couldn't help but grin as relief overtook his body. It had probably only been an hour or so since the monster began chasing them, but the exhaustion that racked his body made him feel like a few days had passed instead. Cardinal abruptly came to a stop, her eyebrows furrowed as she peered at his body, "Your shoulder, it's bleeding!"

"It just nicked me at the last moment. Guess it was a closer call than I thought." Gilbert reassured her that it was nothing to worry about when he heard a sudden rumbling behind him.

Instinctively, he pushed Cardinal away from him.

 

BAM!

 

"Gilbert!!!!"

 

 

The first and only thing that he registered was pain. Overwhelming pain that seemed to border on death wracked his entire body. It took him a couple seconds to realize that he had been flung into the café and the red covering his vision was his own blood and not the café's curtains. He tried to get up, but immediately stopped as a hundreds of his nerves seemed to scald him instantaneously. How many of his bones were broken? Three? Four? Maybe all of them? It was a pure miracle that he hadn't lost his consciousness at this point. He strained his eyes to look through the blood and saw Cardinal running towards him. The monster was still standing in the wreckage of the slide, panting and drooling heavily as it looked in his direction with blood-shot eyes. It seemed like the slide's collapse did do some damage to it after all.

"No. No! This... there's so much blood...."

Gilbert wanted to open his mouth and tell her that it was okay, but even that seemed too much for his body at the moment. Was this really how he was going to die? By some fantastical monster that he would have only imagined in his nightmares? What an absolute joke. A life of going to school, going home, sleeping, and doing it all over the next day. A dull everyday that he was never able to escape from. When he thought he could, he was about to die for it. He looked at Cardinal again. Or at least, he tried to. His body no longer had any strength left in it and an encroaching darkness only emphasized his impending doom.

Cardinal crouched down and Gilbert saw that her face was filled with tears, sorrowful ones this time. He had the impulse to wipe them away, but it disappeared as soon as it came. Not that I even have the strength to. He saw her shake him, probably trying to keep him conscious, but it was too late. His vision was already constantly flickering in and out. Seriously, can't you even let me die in peace? The thought that it was a shame that he never got to enjoy the carnival briefly came to his mind.

Then, the darkness fully enveloped him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Accessing the Administrator's privilege. Invoking『Code: re/Construction』."

 

 

Gilbert could see a fading crimson light as he opened his eyes. He was still in the destroyed café, with Cardinal hugging him. If this was the afterlife, then it really fell short of his expectations. Noticing his movement, Cardinal hugged him even tighter while bawling, "Gil! Gil! You're alive again! I'm so glad!!!!"

Gilbert patted her on the back before lightly pushing her away. Cardinal resisted and hugged him even tighter, to which he let out a pained cry. "Not so tight! I'm heavily injured you know! You're gonna break my already broken ribs—" He stopped as he realized that he could move around freely now and he was experiencing none of the excruciating pain from before. In fact, his body felt perfectly fine, maybe even better than before he got hit. He pushed Cardinal away, forcing her to let go much to her dismay, and looked at himself. Other than his shirt being ripped here and there, he was perfectly fine. 'This can't be possible.' He knew his body was in a terrible condition at the end. Yet, his mangled leg that was bent in the wrong direction, the countless bones and organs in his body that were broken, and the bleeding gash on his forehead were gone without a trace, almost like they never even happened.

"How did I—wait, what's wrong with your eyes?" On a closer look, Gilbert saw that Cardinal's eyes were not her usual light brown, but were instead emanating a "crimson... red."

"R-red?" Cardinal saw her reflection in a broken shard of glass on the ground, before putting a hand over her eye. "I-I'm not sure. All I remember is how desperately I didn't want you to die and my mind going blank after that."

Before he could question her further, a loud roar erupted from outside the café. The monster had completely recovered from its daze. 

"Shit! This thing sure is fucking persistent!" Gilbert cursed, he had just died and come back to life and this creature couldn't even give him a minute to get his bearings? "Come on!" He pulled Cardinal up from the floor and ran outside. A second later would have been fatal, as the counter that they had been lying against exploded as the monster bulldozed through it. Hearing the crash behind him, Gilbert ran even faster.

"Wait, Gil! Where are we even going? The slide plan failed!"

"It's okay, I thought up another plan just now. Honestly, we should have done this earlier instead!"

The two eventually arrived at the edge of the pier. Gilbert could smell the salt in the air as black waves crashed against the pier's girders. The slightly overcast clouds above seemed to declare that it was the end of the line with nowhere else to go.

"Stupid Gil! You just led us right to a dead end!"

"Can you swim?"

"Huh?"

"Yes or no?"

"Yes...but, wait you can't be—AHHHH!!!!" Without another moment, Gilbert lifted Cardinal up and threw her over the railing. 'She's lighter than I thought. Her starving period must have really affected her.' He looked over to see her poke her head up back above the water, yelling something at him that he couldn't hear over the sound of the waves. "Start swimming towards the beach, I'll catch up to you!" He pointed to the beach in case she couldn't hear him before turning around. Just like always, the monster had caught up without a moment to spare. He could see its nostrils flaring in anger as it drummed its chest with intensity.

"▂▃▅▅▅▅!!!!!"

"Fuck you too." Gilbert climbed onto the guardrail. He almost lost his balance because of the wind, but was able to maintain it somehow. "Come on, you gorilla-looking knockoff! I'm right here!" He spread his arms and beckoned the monster. Whether it was from his provocation or this hour-long game of cat and mouse, the creature went berserk, rushing straight at him. He grinned. With the monster right in front of his face, Gilbert jumped backwards into the frigid waters beneath.

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