After taking a deep breath, I threw the first tile on to the street below.
The sound resonated throughout the entire street , drawing the attention of every zombie in the surrounding area. Almost instantly, all the monsters began to run towards the general direction of where I had thrown the tile.
Soon after, I threw another tile, closer to the entrance and they gathered much faster than before. I took out three more tiles and closed the zipper on my bag. Putting the bag on my back, I threw another tile, barely inside the entrance - the zombies reacted exactly how I had wanted them to.
My heart began pounding, sweat started forming on my hands as I got ready to throw my penultimate tile. Doubt crept into my mind- what if this didn't work? What if I injured myself while climbing down and the zombies caught me before I could escape into the sewers?
In short, fast gasps, I threw the tile as far as I could to the side of the corridor, closest to the staircase. It was scary how many footsteps I heard, my hands began to shake as I tried to slowly leverage my body over the edge of the rooftop.
Soon I would have to be running to the manhole and somehow pry it open. Trying to find a good point to jump on the canopy, I noticed something that resembled a small pipe. Suddenly, my fear began to dissipate as I became hyper focused on the pipe which was simply laying there.
THUD
Before I knew it, I had jumped off. Surprisingly, I managed to not injure myself. Before I got the chance to even pick up the pipe off the ground, I faintly heard many footsteps from inside the mall.
"Shit!" I exclaimed before throwing the final tile as high as I could on to the rooftop. The tile made an extremely loud sound, as though it had shattered on impact. For a moment the steps of the zombies went completely quiet; thenI heard them continue, even louder now.
The closer the zombies got to where I had broken the rooftop window, the louder their groans and steps became. I took this chance and quickly picked up the pipe that had been laying on the ground. It was solid. While running to the edge of the canopy, I tried bending it with my arms, only for it to not even budge; a smile rose on my face after seeing how sturdy it was.
I quickly put it in a side pocked of my bag before leveraging myself over the edge of the canopy. Without a trace of hesitation, I jumped down. On impact, I had badly landed on my left leg.
Knowing the pain would get only worse as time went on, I ran as quickly as possible to the manhole, grabbing the pipe from the side pocket.
As I was limping over to the manhole, from the corners of my eyes I saw how more and more zombies appearing, though it seemed none of them had seen me yet, as they all were simply walking instead of trying to chase me.
Finally, I had reached the manhole; quickly, I began to try to pry it open with the small pipe. All the commotion of me trying to open the pothole caused the zombies to notice me.
Finally, I got leverage over the manhole and tried my hardest to pry it open. Surprisingly, it was much easier than I had anticipated and quickly pushed it to the side. While quickly entering the sewer system, I realised the bag was too full to get in at the same time as me and quickly took it off my left shoulder and let it hang on my right elbow.
The zombies' growls and footsteps grew louder with each passing moment. Swiftly, I dragged the manhole's lid back to where it was with my left hand, holding the stairs with my right.
Soon after the lid had clung loudly, indicating the lid had been secured, I heard many steps on the lid, as well as very loud growls and occasional scratching while I was slowly making my descent to the bottom of the stairs, where I had presumed a sewer system was. But honestly, I had no idea what could possibly be there.
After finally reaching the end of the staircase. I held my breath due to the foul stench. However, I was weirdly happy to see that this was an older-style sewage system, as there was a small pathway that led in one direction.
After readjusting my bag, I quickly started to look at where the pathway would lead me. Holding my nose, I made my way further, I noticed an exit on my right side.
After a moment's thinking, I decided to continue walking and ignored the exit, I wouldn't want to end up where that huge crown of zombies were.
The further I walked, the more my leg began to hurt my vision began to slightly blur and my breathing became heavy. I looked down and pulled the pants I had been wearing and noticed it was bleeding.
...
I found myself laying on the concrete, face first. I sat myself up, leaning against the wall, I wondered what had just happened.
"Did I pass out?" I wondered to myself, pulling up my left pant to look at how my knee was, only to see the bleeding had seemingly stopped a while ago.
"How long have I been out for?" I asked out loud, while holding my head. Weirdly, the disgusting air which I couldn't help but gag at before felt like regular air... did I already get used to it?
I sighed and stood up, my left leg wobbled for a moment under the pressure, but it didn't hurt nearly as bad as it had before. I decided I would take the next exit I would find and use it.
After what felt like hours , I finally found an exit. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I thought back to the many times of turning back and going to a previous exit, which was guaranteed to be there, but persevered, thinking "an exit will appear any moment now, and this will all have been worth it".
Holding my bag on my right elbow, I began to climb up the stairs, hoping I would quickly recognize the place where I end up.
After making it to the top of the stairs, I quickly realised I wouldn't be able to remove the manhole with just one hand. I tried putting the bag on my back and strongly leaning against the wall, with the bag supporting me.
After a very uncomfortable and beggingly nervous struggle, I managed to squeeze the bag behind my back, whilst leaning against the wall. I slowly raised my arms, pushing against the wall with my feet against the metal stairs on the opposite side.
I began to lightly push the manhole with both of my hands, afraid that if I were to push too hard, my bag would slip, and I would fall face-first to the bottom of the staircase.
With my hands becoming increasingly sweaty from the situation I was in, I decided I would do one fast and hard push with both of my hands at the same time.
A moment later I took a long, deep breath and pushed with all of my might against the manhole above me. To my surprise, I had pushed the manhole out of place, and it was now leaning slightly upwards.
I quickly took the chance. I grabbed the stairs with both of my hands and found a stable position.
I took a peek outside and only one thought came to mind as I looked at what was in front of me.
"Where in the world am I?"