Spirit's Ascension-Chapter 86— Retrieval

Cole ran faster and faster the longer he thought about it. He had completely discarded all reasoning at this point.

His logical reasoning has been the only thing that had stopped him from doing something extremely crazy all this while, but now he has completely discarded that.

Thus, he was making a decision he was almost sure he would regret. But Cole didn’t care; only a thought dominated his mind.

"I need to save those kids."

He hadn’t realized how big of a wound that experience had left on him previously, but now it was all in full display.

House after house, person after person, Cole left all of that behind as he rushed towards the other side of the slum.

From the last time he was there, Cole noticed a lot of changes to the road and the way.

The road was much more empty than it currently is. Now there were more buildings than before.

Instead of calling them buildings, it made more sense to call them large tents.

Cole could see people moving in and out of them. He didn’t bother thinking more about it, though; he only waved it off and proceeded.

After about ten minutes of running at his full speed, Cole arrived in the vicinity of the building.

Cole finally paused his movements as he observed the build from a distance away.

"There must be some people there guarding the children," Cole thought.

"But Nothing will stop me from saving this kid now."

Leaving his hiding spot, Cole went directly to the entrance of the building without fear of the guards or anything.

The building in front of him was completely dark, with no source of light.

Cole’s steps were heavy as he approached the building. In no time, Cole entered the building.

His surroundings were completely black since there was no light. It wasn’t too hard for Cole to see, though.

One of the perks of being a spriter.

The last time Cole was here, he entered this hall with a deep sense of hope, but now he was feeling only intense anger.

His eyes were filled with so much hate that they were almost palpable.

He went down the long hall with quite a bit of caution. Despite not being scared, he knew if he wasn’t careful, he would also end up being captured.

Cole heard the familiar sound of dripping water, the deeper he went into the building.

But Cole felt slightly unsettled. The place was just too quiet to have people in it.

"Could it be that they aren’t here?" Cole thought while heading deeper as he went.

After a while, he arrived at the familiar hall. The hall was extremely dusty, just like it had been abandoned for a while.

Seeing this, Cole felt even more skeptical about his decision, but a gut feeling kept him from giving up.

He could feel there was something that needed urgent attention within this place.

With that thought in mind, Cole proceeded deeper into the hall. scrutinizing everything with as many details as he could.

He looked in every nook and cranny. He found quite a number of things, from clothes to chains and even plates, all around the hall, but there was nothing that pointed at kidnapping or anything.

With that, Cole left the large hall and moved to other parts of the building.

From office to office, passageway to passageway, he found nothing.

Cole grew more frenzied and jittery the longer he searched. Tears even began pooling in his eyes.

"Do they really have to endure for one more day?" Cole said.

He fell to his knees in disappointment, with tears beginning to pour down his face.

"No one should experience that."

"Especially kids," he cried out.

Cole knelt there for a long time; the longer he knelt, the more rage pent up in him. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"Whoever is responsible must never let me get them," Cole thought.

He rushed to his feet in rage and began violently slamming the wall.

One strike at a time, he increasingly damaged the wall and even his hands.

Cole was hitting so hard his skin peeled, revealing just the flesh beneath.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaa," he suddenly shouted.

After that short bout of self-mutilation, Cole relaxed a bit.

His explosive rage had transformed into a calm and reserved one. The one that was far more dangerous.

This sort of rage was one that could lead to one’s ultimate destruction and bear no fruit.

Cole was just at the edge of falling into an abyss deeper than he could ever imagine.

He was just about to leave the building when he suddenly heard a voice from behind him.

"Cole!" The voice called out.

He felt quite shocked since the voice was from someone familiar.

"What are you doing here?" he said without turning back.

"This is a mission for all of us, and I don’t think you should do it alone."

"We are ready to follow your lead, but you need to carry us along."

Cole still stood there with his back facing them, not saying a word.

Behind him Bryan and Linda were standing there quietly, patiently waiting for his response.

"You guys don’t seem to get it," Cole said calmly.

"This-"

"Shut the hell up," he suddenly heard from behind, cutting him off.

He shockingly looked behind him. He saw Linda much closer to him with an extremely furious face.

"Do you think you are the only one with worries?"

"This is really important to you; we have gotten that point since we were about to accept the mission."

"We agreed to the mission because we were ready to support you."

"So stop all of these selfish actions of yours and let us do that," She berated.

Cole felt uncomfortable with Linda’s words; he knew they were actually true, but he just couldn’t accept it.

He could feel all the pressure on himself. He didn’t feel like the matter was pressing to any of them.

"This doesn’t concern you guys; it is something I must do," Cole said.

"There you go spouting nonsense again, do you think we only followed you because we were nice?"

"We agreed to help you because we knew there was something you could help us with too."

"Everyone has something very important to them."

"So stop acting like the world belongs to you. sorry to tell you this, but it does."

Cole was taken aback by Linda’s words again.

"They have something I can help them with, but what could that be?" he thought.

Linda’s words felt like nails that were driving straight at the weak points in his heart.

Slowly the anger in his chest reduced and slowly dissipated. In the place of anger was now sorrow.

Deep sorrow that could be felt in the air.

Cole felt tears coming again, but he wanted to act strong; he didn’t want to appear weak in front of the guys.

He closed his eyes to hide it all away.

"Idiot." he suddenly felt someone touch him by the head.

It was Bryan; he stood beside him and stared at him with the sort of gaze that felt extremely reassuring.

That small word felt like the key that released it all. His pent-up emotions were all released at once.

Cole just fell straight down to the ground and began wailing. Tears, accompanied by snorts, streamed down his face.

Linda and Bryan didn’t know what to do, so they could only stand there staring at Cole while he bawled his eyes out.

Cole kept crying for much longer than expected, but the tears gradually reduced as he slowly fell asleep on the ground.

"What do we do now?" Linda asked.

"I don’t really know; we can only wait," Bryan responded.

The two of them then proceeded to get somewhere to rest while Cole cuddled up on the bare ground.

While they were seated, they brought out the information they were previously given and decided to begin analysis.

"Let’s try getting as much information ready for him."

"He should be fine when he wakes up again."

The two had grown a little bit closer than they previously were. Earlier Cole had to be the intermediary between them.

Something seemed to have occurred between them while Cole left the room in a rush much earlier.

While they were analyzing the information, one thought kept going through both of their minds, but no one felt ready to ask.

They looked afraid of something, but at one point, the two of them finally lost the ability to hold it in.

"What do you think is Cole’s connection to all of this?" They both asked at the same time.

The two of them looked at each other with a slightly awkward face. The awkward air immediately made Bryan rub his shaved head.

His actions were met with a strange look from Linda, but she decided to say nothing more.

The two of them then grew quiet. The only sound in the air being that of paper.

While the outside world was quiet, internally Cole was in a deep turmoil.

"Where is this?" he asked with a worried expression.

All around him was complete darkness, the only source of light being a point in the distance.