by Danny
Danny Hearn:
I stand on the shoreline, watching the TriVext Citadel Building collapse in on itself from no more than thirty meters away. The giant serpent slithered its way into the building after Tobias only seconds ago, and now it was being killed in an avalanche of collapsing concrete and steel. There's something humbling about that. A creature of such power and majesty, its life snuffed out so quickly.
There's been too much death today. Jason. The serpent. All the Leviathans we killed. I mean, sure, the serpent and the Leviathans were blood-crazed monsters out to kill us all... But still. They were lives. And I do feel bad about killing.
The building makes a deafening noise, like the mightiest thunder doubling upon itself and echoing infinitely. Chunks of conrete and shards of glass collapse down around us, causing us to run back along the shoreline to where we left the boat. A hasty retreat is most definitely called for.
An enormous shriek of pain echoes around the island. It's the serpent. It's still dying. The building is still falling. These buildings take a good few moments to collapse completely.
I duck to the left as a piece of concrete roughly the size of a basketball narrowly misses my head, and I keep running along the sand. The other guys are in front of me. I'm short of breath. This isn't good. "COUGH!" I'm coughing. This definitely isn't good. I need to stop for a moment, to catch my breath... so I do.
Velo notices me stop, and turns around. "Danny! We gotta go!" he yells. I nod to him in reply, then cough again. "You okay?" he asks.
"Yeah... probably just dust from the building," I manage to reply. My chest is clearing a little... that's good.
I keep running along the beach, and catch up with the others. Looking to my left, I notice what remains of the building come crashing down into a heap. Blood is seeping out from between the fallen concrete slabs. Lots of blood. I can see the creature's enormous tail trailing out from behind the rubble. It shakes pathetically once or twice, then stops still.
The last of the building falls. Everything becomes much quieter. We all stop, and look over toward the ruins of the building. Everything is still. The entire island is quiet, as if mourning the massive loss of life it witnessed today.
"Whoa," Hal says quietly, for nobody but me to hear.
After a few moments, Eurostar says, "Let's get to the boat."
We all clamber down the beach, to the spot where we left the boat. We look around for a moment. "Uh... guys," I say, "where's the boat?"