“Agh!” An involuntary moan escaped from Mathew’s lips.
The dull thud of his body crashing into the concrete wall of the building didn’t bode well. But the metallic crack that followed and the cold feeling underneath Mat’s fingers announced the important thing.
“I did it,” Mathew whispered, fighting off the momentary pain caused by crashing into the wall. He then took several deep breaths to calm himself down.
‘Well, then, let’s not waste any time,’ Mat thought, dropping himself as low as he could before taking a look down.
“Damn it,” Mathew cursed when he realized the one mistake he didn’t account for.
Even stretched out as far as he possibly could, his foot still dangled a few inches away from the window’s frame.
‘If I just drop, I will likely slip,’ Mathew thought, bitting down his lips.
There was only so long that he could spend theorizing while hanging down from the half-pipe. There was no telling when the bolts holding it in place would give up. What was even worse, though, was that Mathew wasn’t athletic enough to keep on hanging like that!
‘Anything, is there anything…’ he thought, desperately looking around to find a spot easier for him to descend.
And there it was, near the middle point of the building length. A drain pipe ran down the entire height of the building.
The problem was that Mathew was near the centerpoint of the entire compound, not in the middle of the wing!
“I don’t have much choice, I guess,” Mathew muttered under his nose as he came to a decision.
Creak…
The pipe let out a long, wailing cry, signifying that it was under a lot of stress. Hardly any drain pipe was designed to support the weight of a human, after all!
‘Please, just hold on for a moment,’ Mathew begged in his thoughts, slowly moving his body sideways through the outer wall of the school.
And below him… there was nothing. Only a long distance to the ground, and then hard and unwelcoming earth… that was currently brimming with zombies to boot.
‘It’s better not to fall, I guess,’ Mathew thought, trying to make some light of the situation.
Because in the position he was in right now, he could only try to scam himself into thinking positively… as there wasn’t a single thing that could make Mat feel optimistic.
Bit by bit, Mathew moved across the wall. He only managed to reach half of his way before the occasional noises made by the drainpipe turned constant.
‘It’s not going to last for much longer,’ Mathew thought, hurrying his movements up.
Sadly, he wasn’t athletic at all. Sure, the system would help him grow faster than anyone without it… but he has yet to start growing properly.
‘Damn,’ Mathew tightened his lips, turning them into a thin line. ‘Normally, I don’t think I would be able to make it,’ he thought while keeping his hands moving.
And then, a bolt came loose. One of the supports on which the half-pipe was held to the wall came off.
‘Fuck,’ Mathew cursed under his breath as he hurried his hands. But it wasn’t a simple task either, as his exhaustion started to get into Mathew’s muscles.
Another bolt came loose, causing the entire pipe to wiggle threateningly. It used to be stable support for Mathew’s hands, but now it was slowly becoming a challenge just to keep on holding to it.
‘Hurry!’ Mathew screamed in his thoughts, desperately moving his hands sideways.
He reached out for the vertical pipe…
The third bolt came loose.
The horizontal line that Mathew hung down from suddenly broke, causing the part with Mathew to swing away from the wall and then down.
It was only moments away from breaking off completely.
‘HELL!’ Mathew screamed out in his mind, terrified beyond any measure. Yet, before panic could take over his body, he just happened to look forward, right towards the window he wanted to reach.
‘Huh?’ Mathew froze for a moment when he saw more than he expected to in the reflection on the glass.
The pipe cracked again, another bolt coming loose. The entire thing fell down even further, quickly threatening to go below the level of the window Mathew wanted to climb!
‘Now!’ Mathew forced himself to swing forward, despite how this would clearly compromise the structural integrity of the pipe. But right now, he was simply too far from the window to reach it.
Mathew swung his legs forward, bending the pipe even further as he got closer to the window.
Then, the last of the bolts that kept the pipe attached to the wall gave up.
Mathew let go of the metal piece since it no longer provided him with any help.
He was falling. There was no denying it. Mat’s swing gave him some forward momentum, but it was nowhere close to the gravitational pull of the planet.
“FUCK” Mat screamed out when his hands struck the frame of the window, sliding past the glass only to end up crashing at the still.
“No, no, no!” Mat milled with his hands, desperately attempting to grasp at something. But no matter how hard he tried, his hands continued to slide down the metal of the window’s still.
And then, the fingers of Mathew’s right hand hooked against something, giving the young man something to grab.
“OH FUCK” Mathew screamed when the entire weight of his body rested just on the fingertips of his right hand. He could feel his tendons crying out in pain, ready to snap at any given moment.
‘One last bit!’ Mathew screamed out in his soul, tensing his muscles as he swung his body to the side, reaching for the support with his other hand.
“Uff…” Mathew released a long sigh when he finally managed to stabilize himself on the wall.
His body was burning, exhausted beyond any measure. It was only a matter of time. But Mathew still managed to gather some remnants of his strength to pull himself up.
Only when he safely sat on the window’s ledge did Mathew breathe a sigh of relief. Yet, as he looked into the glass of the window, his feelings turned conflicted.
On the one hand, he nearly turned desperate when seeing the monsters crawling all over the classroom he wanted to break into. Yet, as he caught up his own reflection in the window, Mathew couldn’t help but swallow a gulp of salvia.
Because now that he could see in his own reflection, Mat could see the same informative windows that he saw above Nadia before, now floating all over himself!