I Want to Die, But I Am Immortal-Chapter 95: Sophia in danger (5)

He swept his fire across the entire length of the catwalk a merciless reaping. In a matter of seconds he had cleared the high ground. He had eliminated the biggest threat.

He turned his attention to the men on the other side of the factory. He was about to open fire again when another bullet slammed into his leg. Then another. And another. His leg was a mangled ruin.

Seven bullets had torn through it one of them passing straight through the bone. Blood poured from the wounds a crimson river staining the dusty concrete floor.

His speed was gone. His greatest advantage had been stolen from him. He tried to run to find cover but his injured leg buckled under him.

He was a sitting duck a wounded animal surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves.

From his safe vantage point Johnny watched with a triumphant smile.

"Now’s our chance!" he yelled to his remaining men his voice filled with a savage glee. "Attack him all at once! Finish him!"

Even with his shattered leg Adam was still faster than a normal person. He pushed himself up using the last of his strength to lurch towards a nearby piece of machinery. But he was not fast enough to outrun the bullets.

Another round tore through his stomach passing straight through his body. The impact threw him to the floor. His strength finally failed him. He lay there his vision blurring his body a broken wreck.

As he lay dying he saw them. A dozen more bullets hurtling towards him. They seemed to move in slow motion a final deadly ballet. He closed his eyes. He gritted his teeth.

He braced himself for the inevitable end. He had lost this loop. But he had taken many of them with him. And he knew that he would be back. He would always be back.

The final volley of bullets hit him all at once. Thirty rounds tore through his broken body. The number kept climbing a relentless storm of lead. One final bullet pierced his skull and the world dissolved into an endless expanse of blackness.

Adam was dead.

A triumphant roar erupted from the catwalk. Johnny threw his hands in the air a savage grin spreading across his face. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"We did it!" he screamed his voice echoing through the cavernous factory. "We killed the monster! We’re rich!"

But his celebration was cut short by a terrified scream from below. "Boss look!" one of his men shrieked his voice laced with a new kind of fear. He was pointing a trembling finger at the spot where Adam’s body lay.

Johnny looked down. And what he saw made his blood run cold. His triumphant smile vanished replaced by a look of stunned disbelief.

Adam’s body was breaking apart. It was not decomposing. It was fracturing like a pane of shattered glass. The pieces were not falling to the floor.

They were disintegrating into particles of pure black energy a swirling vortex of darkness. The darkness grew spreading outwards from the spot where his body had been a hungry void consuming the light.

When Adam’s body had completely vanished the darkness remained a swirling vortex of nothingness. And then the ground beneath it began to fracture as well.

The concrete floor cracked and splintered the pieces dissolving into the same black energy. The very fabric of reality was tearing apart at the seams.

The speed of the disintegration accelerated. It spread outwards a tidal wave of oblivion consuming the rusted machinery the dead bodies the very walls of the factory. The remaining mercenaries screamed in terror turning to run for the exits. But there was nowhere to run. There was nowhere to hide.

One man’s foot touched the edge of the spreading darkness. It dissolved into black particles just like Adam’s body. He felt no pain. But his leg was gone. His very existence was being erased from reality.

The darkness consumed everything. The factory the city the entire world began to break apart dissolving into an endless sea of blackness. The stars in the sky winked out one by one.

The moon crumbled into dust. The universe itself unraveled its threads coming undone until there was nothing left. Nothing but the void. A silent eternal emptiness.

Adam’s ’Return by Death’ ability activated. The system window flashed before him its blue light a familiar beacon in the void. It announced that he was being respawned.

As he vanished from that timeline the world he left behind shattered. The factory the city the entire universe dissolved into blackness wiped from existence as if it had never been.

His eyes snapped open. He was lying in a hospital bed. The harsh fluorescent lights of the room blinded him for a moment. He looked around his heart pounding in his chest.

He was back. He was alive.

A profound sense of relief washed over him. He was not at the train station. He had not been sent back to the beginning of this painful loop.

The door to his room opened and the police commissioner Captain Miles walked in. He looked at Adam who was now sitting up in the bed. He walked to the chair beside the bed and sat down.

"Leave us alone," he said to the officers who had followed him into the room. They nodded and left closing the door behind them.

Adam swung his legs over the side of the bed. He stood up and started to change out of the hospital gown into the clean clothes that had been left for him.

"What are you doing boy?" the commissioner asked his voice a low rumble.

"I’m leaving," Adam said without looking at him. "Do you have a problem with that?"

The commissioner was taken aback by his audacity. "You don’t seem to understand," he said. "You’re a suspect in this case."

Adam finished changing his clothes. He turned and faced the commissioner his expression a mask of cold indifference. "You can’t do anything to me," he said his voice a quiet challenge.