My 100th Rebirth a day before the Apocalypse - Chapter 213

Chapter 213: Chapter 213 Rescuing the Captives
 

It took her a full five minutes of careful study and practice using her telekinesis on unseen objects. Once she gained a deeper understanding of the lock’s workings, she began to manipulate it. As she grew more confident, she quickened her pace and swiftly unlocked the door. A loud ‘click’ echoed, and the door swung open slightly.

A confident smile played on her lips as she carefully entered the door. Fortunately, 008’s minimap had a trap detection feature, allowing her to move with ease and deactivate the traps set throughout the underground hideout. She could tell from the traps that the Coltons had put considerable effort into securing this place, using vicious mechanisms designed to easily butcher any infiltrators.

The Coltons must have so much confidence in this place.

The inside of the steel door smelled like moss, and the whole place had an eerie, ominous atmosphere. However, Kisha did not falter or turn on any lights as she descended. Thanks to her heightened senses and eyesight almost as sharp as Sparrow’s, she could make out what was in front of her and see better than most.

She decided not to use any light source to avoid alerting any guards and giving them a chance to prepare an ambush. Fortunately, there were no additional guards inside. Not long after, she reached the end of the long stairs and was hit by the stench of human filth and the foul smell of human feces and urine mingling together in the enclosed space.

A dimly lit fluorescent bulb hung high on the ceiling, casting weak, flickering light. There was no other source of illumination aside from these bulbs. As Kisha walked further, she saw a long hallway lined with dungeon cells, each containing at least one or two men or women.

When they saw a shadow approaching, they all began to tremble in fear. They could barely make a sound, too weak to fight back, and filled with despair and terror. They expected to be dragged back up, only to return as cold corpses or at the end of their lives.

As Kisha walked down the long corridor, she saw fear consuming the captives, preventing them from even looking up at her. They assumed she was one of their captors. The Colton bastards hadn’t even provided their prisoners with clothing; most men and women huddled naked in the corners of their cells. Some were on the verge of severe breakdowns, rocking themselves while mumbling incoherently.

The entire place was so gloomy it could easily drive anyone inside to mental instability. With no sunlight penetrating the darkness, the captives were convinced they would waste away and die, just like countless others before them.

These people were no longer recognizable as beautiful. They had grown so emaciated, their cheeks hollow and their limbs resembling matchsticks. Their eyes were vacant. Kisha didn’t even want to imagine the kind of torture they had endured to reach this point. It was evident the Coltons didn’t care if their captives died here. Bowls filled with writhing maggots sat next to blackened, rotten food. Some prisoners had resorted to biting into their own flesh to soothe their hunger, their eyes red and feral.

Kisha continued walking, her eyes scanning the cells for the person she had come to find.

“Are you here to save us?” The soft, raspy voice of a woman caught her attention. Though barely more than a whisper, the silence of the place made it audible to everyone nearby. The question, filled with a fragile hope, reverberated through the corridor, reaching the ears of other captives in adjacent cells.

Simultaneously, nearly everyone looked up at Kisha’s small frame, a stark contrast to their brutish captors. Those who couldn’t see her in the corridor as she passed drew closer to the bars, craning their necks for a glimpse of their potential savior.

Kisha did not immediately respond to the woman’s question. Instead, she posed one of her own. “Have any of you seen a young man, around 19 years old, with ash blonde hair and blue eyes?” The corridor fell silent once more, and no one replied. Kisha scanned the surroundings again, realizing that the dimness and the dirt covering everyone could easily obscure any distinctive features like ash blonde hair, making identification difficult. Eye color, too, would be hard to discern in the gloomy light.

“Wait! Are you telling me you only planned to save one person and leave all of us here?” One of the men from another cell shouted in horror, his voice nearly turning into a shriek as he frantically posed the question to Kisha, his hands gripping the bars tightly in front of him.

After hearing him say that, almost everyone became hysterical. They believed that someone had come to rescue them, offering an escape from the godforsaken dungeon to a better life, momentarily forgetting the ongoing apocalypse outside. Their singular focus was solely on leaving the place.

Kisha remained silent for a moment, contemplating whether to save everyone immediately or focus on finding the specific young man. However, she quickly reaffirmed her commitment to rescuing all the captives present. Taking a deep breath, she addressed them calmly and patiently, “I intend to bring all of you with me. I’m looking for a young man with ash-blonde hair and blue eyes. If anyone has seen him, please let me know so I can locate him before we leave.” She spoke with empathy, understanding the fear and desperation among the captives and hoping to reassure them.

“Miss, there are many teenagers locked up here, even boys as young as 13 or 14 years old. Do you have any additional description of the boy you’re looking for?” asked the woman who had spoken to Kisha earlier. Her voice carried concern and curiosity, echoing the sentiments of others in the dimly lit dungeon.

Now, as Kisha turned to look at the woman’s face, she appeared to be around the same age as Kisha herself. Her long brunette hair, though possibly muddied by dirt, was still discernible. Her face, while not as sunken as the others, suggested she might be relatively new to the dungeon, her mental fortitude still intact. Her eyes were a striking emerald green, contrasting with her pale, chapped, peeling lips.

“I think he arrived here just a few days ago. He has a teardrop mole under his left eye and pale skin. He used to be a teen idol,” Kisha repeated the description that Reeve had given her about his friend who was captured.

“Ah!!!” The woman exclaimed. “Yes!! Yes!!! There was that boy!!!”

“Do you know where he is? Is he still alive?” Kisha asked tentatively, moving closer to the woman’s cell.

“Yes, if he’s the one you’re looking for, he’s here with me!” The woman exclaimed with excitement, pointing to the far corner of the cell where a bundled shape covered in a blanket lay. Kisha initially mistook it for a mere bundle of cloth due to its small size. According to Reeve, the young man was quite tall, and Kisha couldn’t imagine how he could fit into such a small space. The woman struggled to stand up, stumbled around the bundle, and slowly pulled back the blanket, revealing a sleeping boy inside. His breathing was shallow, as if he might take his last breath any second.