Chapter 6: Ruins
The streets of that city were an absolute ruin. Withered trees, rubble, pieces of metal and glass everywhere, garbage, papers, the streets, and roads had large sinkholes and holes in the bitumen and tiles and the buildings were devoid of their facades that stood up showing the nakedness of their insides. and its foundations. Every hint of progress made by humanity seemed to have been diluted like some sugar in a coffee; there was nothing left. What was once a prosperous city was now collapsing under its own weight as the immensity of the desert devoured it little by little, as if nature were reclaiming a land leased in the past.
"It's as if the echo of a war still resonates through the streets of the city," Newt stammered as he looked everywhere, as if trying to find signs of life and civilization.
"I don't understand why WICKED would release us into this damn joint, without even knowing if we're in danger from a war or not," Minho blurted out as he clenched his fists.
"Calm down Minho," Aris snapped.
"I can't! I can't calm down when we are about to perish from starvation and dehydration! These shucked shanks only want to kill us" the Asian boy was angry, "they don't care what happens to us, and they must also revel in our suffering since they are watching us, I'm sure.
"That may be true, but we can't let panic take over now," Newt intervened to try to lighten the matter.
No, Newt, no. You can't come and tell me to keep my composure when you know very well that you think exactly the same as me.
The wind began to blow lightly through the streets of the ruined city devoured by the desert. The small grains of sand rose with the blow and scratched our skin like small sharp, prickly crystals.
We were on a wide avenue with two lanes for each direction of traffic, raised sidewalks and sections of garden and trees on the same sidewalks. It was a rather gloomy panorama, and a dark aura embraced the confines of the ruins that still stood, marking the last vestiges of ancient humanity.
"Minho, listen to me," Newt repeated, putting his hand on her right shoulder. You're still the leader, do you understand me? If you collapse, the platoon will collapse with you, so do me a favor and try to calm down, open your mind and relax a little," Newt finished. Let's rest for a while and eat something.
"You go, I want to take a look around the scene and make sure no one is ambushing us," he stated as he walked towards an intersection, which had several traffic lights down on the ground.
"Where do you think you're going?" Minho asked, startled.
"I think I said it very clearly," I said with my arms open.
"You can't go on an adventure out there alone".
"Of course, I can."
"You stupid slinthead," the leader growled as he murdered me with his gaze.
"Don't worry, Minho, he has more field experience and will be able to examine the terrain and determine more threats and details that we would miss," Newt said, trying to calm things down.
"Yes, listen to Newt and don't worry so much, because in the end I'm going to start thinking that you do care about me, in a minimal way," I said between mocking laughs.
"You're stupid, but I don't see why you shouldn't go alone," Minho growled, "well, with any luck we'll end the day with a mouth to feed."
"Whatever you say, Minho."
"Bah, you get on my nerves. Let's see if your circuits don't rust with the sand or something similar," he said in a frustrating and angry way.
I began my march along the city avenue, toward the unknown. The cloudy landscape imposed itself before me, between the buildings, as if it were warning me that the enemy was prepared for a preemptive attack. I didn't like that situation, but I had no other choice.
Several minutes passed since my departure, about fifteen or twenty, more or less, although I could not determine the exact time because a strange fog had arisen in the city, dressed with dark clouds that crowned the city from above. I was probably very far from the town center, from the most central area of the city, but I was still looking for clues in case there were unwanted people, like zombies or someone who was hostile towards me or my companions. But nothing. The city was dead. Dead in life. Only remnants of leaves, papers and dirt moved, moved by the wind that continued to rise with intensity.
"This place is an inert wasteland devoid of anything of value," I murmured with all five senses on high alert.
I continued my march towards the interior of the city, strolling through the streets and trying to avoid the main avenues and large esplanades. I continued to look at the ruined skyscrapers and all the destruction that was making its way before everything my eyes could see. From left to right and from top to bottom. The skeletons of the skyscrapers only accentuated the tacit memory of the destruction that had occurred in this place, long ago, from my deductions.
The alleys looked like they were taken from a horror movie. Supermarkets, clothing stores, entertainment venues, a cinema and many offices and residential buildings. I was trying to imagine how life would develop in this place before Armageddon loomed over the world. Comings and goings, hustle and bustle, very dense traffic and with nerves on edge because, probably, more than one person would arrive late for work. There could also be fruit sales, moving, construction work and people entering and leaving the cinema to see the occasional uninteresting film, for which they would put a sword in your wallet for the price of the ticket.
I approached one of the establishments, which had the glass shattered and the interior seemed to be the memory of a powerful tornado that had crossed the floor of the establishment. It was a supermarket. It was completely vandalized: shelves on the floor, shelves broken and distributed randomly, electrical cables on the ceiling, which was in poor condition, as well as the walls, with bullet holes and several holes in the floor. There were also remains of the fluorescent lamps, some of them hanging from the ceiling and others destroyed and also scattered everywhere.
I noticed how some glass fragments broke and creaked as I stepped on them. The crack, crack, crack got on my nerves, although that was not what scared me the most, within normal standards. I found the site very interesting, and it kept calling me, internally, as if it wanted me to explore it. It is a very strange sensation, which I had not experienced previously. I approached the curb, which lacked glass, and crossed the threshold of the store. My heart raced pretty quickly, and adrenaline began to rush through my bloodstream. I noticed it. I closed my eyes to switch to a dark-adapted vision mode. It wasn't a big deal, since I hadn't updated that feature in a long time, but it worked for me.
I unholstered the gun from the belt where I had been keeping it these days ago. I don't think I would need it, but all help is little, especially if you don't know what place you are entering. I continued walking for about sixty or seventy meters, until I stopped in front of one of the shelves that were destroyed. Although there didn't seem to be anything of value in its surroundings, something caught my attention. I knelt down and looked intently at the corner, which showed that someone had recently gotten a wound, since the blood that was adhered to that lower area revealed that something or someone had been there. I ran the index and middle fingers of my right hand, passing the gun to my left hand, to touch the blood. It was warm to the initial touch. I sniffed it and then rubbed my thumb in circles. I sighed when I noticed that there were some marked shoe prints on the dusty surface of the floor.
"Something's not right in this place," I murmured to no one in particular. "This place gives me a very bad feeling," I outlined as I slowly got up and continued the exploration.
After several minutes I arrived at a kind of poorly constructed tunnel. It was made of many pieces of metal, as there were a lot of sharp iron sticking out of the walls. The constant dripping of various traces of water could be heard in the various puddles on the floor. I went into it. My sense of hearing was more than sharpened because I always liked to train that sense, especially on missions where I had few or no support personnel. I heard a couple of quite unpleasant sounds at the end of that sinister tunnel, as if they were laughter. I walked a little longer until I reached those sounds, trying to be as stealthy as possible. "I notice someone is following me," I thought as I holstered the gun in my belt.
I arrived at a large room with a huge hole in the wall that gave a glimpse of the main avenue of the city. The light was intense, especially with the lenses that amplified it. I deactivated the program by touching the right area of the back of my neck. I heard several inhuman screams in the distance, dark sounds that made the hairs on my arms stand up. The piercing sound caused me to be distracted for a few seconds, long enough to lose the shadow that was following me.
"Shuck!" I exclaimed and covered my mouth ipso facto.
"Wow, wow, wow, what do we have here?" said the voice of a man, hoarse and imposing. He seemed to come from the upper floor of that room.
I ignored the voice and headed towards the sinkhole, an action that did not go unnoticed by the man who had spoken to me a few seconds ago.
"It is very rude not to experience the hospitality of someone who opens the doors of their house to you, kid," answered the voice from afar.
I continued on my way, ignoring him, but casting glances behind me out of the corner of my eye, placing my right hand on the handle of the gun.
"Boy, don't be rude, I just want to talk," that voice used again, which seemed much closer.
"Well, not me, I have more important things to do," I stammered. Talk to your shadow and get lost," I finished as I walked, ignoring that hoarse voice.
"I can't allow that," the voice replied.
In a second, I noticed someone pressing the barrel of a gun against my head, causing me to stop in my tracks, remaining calm. The person holding it activated the hammer of the weapon, making that characteristic 'click' that indicated that it was loaded and ready to fire.
"Well, kid, I have been very generous, I have even offered you my hospitality, in an impressive act of solidarity with you," the voice spoke in a haughty tone, this time, it was right behind me.
"It's funny that your definition of 'hospitality' and 'generosity' is pointing a gun at my back," I replied with a slight laugh at the end.
"No, honey, it's not from behind, I'm right on your right," said a feminine voice, sensually.
The girl approached, although I did not pay attention to her nor did I make any effort to reveal the face of any of my captors. She just ran her left hand over my chin.
"You are very handsome for being so young," she continued.
She felt her nails slide down my neck to end up on my cheek. She scratched me quickly and unexpectedly, eliciting a soft whimper from my mouth. She ran her index finger through the gushing blood before bringing it to her mouth.
"You have very sweet blood," she whispered in my ear.
"Stop your crude tricks to intimidate me and explain what you have to tell me, I don't have all day," I replied angrily.
"You're not from around here, are you?" the voice asked.
"You know the answer very well".
"Kid, I'm allowing you to stay alive for a few more minutes, if I were you, I'd stop with the bravado and start showing a little more respect," she replied aggressively.
"Well, ask questions that make sense." I answer, you receive your information and we both continue on our ways. "Easy, right?" I reprimanded him with the same aggressiveness.
"Tell me, why did WICKED send you to Phoenix? Answer!" the man shouted.
"I don't know anything about the people you mention," I responded in a calm, but somewhat nervous tone.
"Okay, maybe I haven't been clear enough with the question, so I'm going to say it again, why did WICKED send you to Phoenix?!" He shouted angrily. "Answer or I'll blow your fucking head off right here, and I don't care if you're a damn kid".
"Okay, I'll tell you what you want to know," I snorted, but with a knowing smile.
"It's good to hear you cooperate, kid," the man said, laughing.
"WICKED has ordered us to carry out several tests for his personal studies," I outlined without looking him in the eyes.
"Listen, kid, I don't know if you know how things are right now. You are trapped in this place; a horde of zombies is stalking any sound produced that goes outside the canons they usually hear. What do you gain by lying to me?" that man snapped at me again, this time a little closer to me.
"I have my techniques to make fools sing who, like you, dare to waste my precious time," he said angrily as he unholstered his gun, loaded a couple of bullets into the chamber and activated the hammer. Well, would you rather lose an arm, or a leg?
"I'm not afraid of you," I spat out the most absurd words he had ever been able to utter.
"Shut up, you fucking bastard!" He replied in a scream lacking sanity and with his eyes still not being visible.
The man pulled the trigger and fired the gun. I didn't blink. The bullet hit my right shoulder squarely, causing an agonizing scream to slip through my mouth, as if I were looking for a nook in which to hide. My ears were ringing, and I could barely hear anything. I fell on all fours to the ground while, by reflex, I brought my left hand to the area of the wound. The moans and cries of pain continued to fill the room, showing the pain, stabbing, and penetrating, that he was suffering at this moment. The crimson blood began to drip down my shoulder, turning my arm reddish, my blue shirt purple, and banishing any symptoms of hesitation and provocation from my being.
It had only been a couple of minutes, but the intense pain caused my breathing to become labored, I began to cough, and gasps took over me. The blood was once again generating a feeling of hatred and rage as it dripped from between the fingers of my left hand while I was still on all fours and unable to sit up.
That man began to laugh in a macabre way, as if he was gloating over other people's pain. He seemed to feed on my agonized gasps and weakness. It seemed that he was dominated by a morbid spirit that only wanted to see his victims suffer. Not even the most ruthless of animals could end up like he was.
"Come on kid, get up," the man shouted. Get up and make me enjoy. Make me have fun with what little life I have left.
His voice drove me crazy. Whatever it was, it wasn't human. It was nothing like what I had faced lately, nor was it like anything I had seen in other parts of the world. They were undoubtedly infected, but the level of sanity they expressed denoted that for several days now they had only enjoyed activities that caused pain and despair. It was like a merciless torture machine to satisfy his hunger and madness.
"Get up, I said!" He screamed again in an inhuman scream.
The girl grabbed my hair, pulling it up and eliciting more moans and groans of pain from me. The wound stung like hell, she could barely keep me standing, limping. It seemed as if someone was pouring a lot of salt on the affected area, causing the intense pain to worsen.
The man continued his macabre laughter while I gasped, limping like jelly, and sobbed from the pain. He felt hundreds of knives sticking into my shoulder area. I had to endure no matter what or it would be the end of me. The girl continued controlling me with the gun she had, because she felt the barrel against my temple. She had to be my escape route, she had to take advantage of her moment of weakness to be able to get out of this situation and turn it around.
Several minutes passed. I heard the dripping of blood into the puddle on the floor. That reddish color, that incessant pain and the look of hatred that I had fixed on my captor; those were the signs of that scene. A while ago the man turned around, as if he had forgotten everything that had happened.
I recovered and managed to adapt to the pain in my shoulder. The wound was still open, but I felt a kind of ecstasy in that area. I felt a sensation of intoxication, as if someone was inoculating me with a drug to calm or inhibit the pain. Whatever the case, I felt a little better, not much, but enough to put my plan into action.
In a matter of a few seconds, I hit the woman's chin and grabbed her right arm to get out of the barrel's sights, using a key and hitting her calf with my left knee, causing several screams of pain and gasps that were outlined by the woman. girl. This improvisation ended with several shots fired into the air, colliding with the walls of the room. I suffered pain in my shoulder again.
I bent her arm towards her back, making it turn abruptly, breaking it and causing the girl to scream heartbreakingly at the situation. I wrapped my left arm around his neck, squeezing it, while I grabbed the gun with my other free hand, and drew it to point it at the man. The man also took out his gun and fired, but the bullet barely missed me. He stopped short, after three more bad shots, when he noticed that he was using his friend as a human shield.
"What the hell?!" exclaimed the man surprised.
"How many infected people are there in this city?" I asked aggressively as he backed away little by little with the girl. My voice was aggressive, at the same time as the pain of the wound was afflicting me, but I had to maintain my composure.
"I don't think you're in a position to demand anything from me, kid."
"I think so."
I took two short steps back again.
"I won't repeat it to you, boy, answer me or I'll kill you right here!" the man emphasized. "You've already seen how your shoulder turned out."
I looked at him intently and could sense nerves in his position. His hand with which he pointed the gun at me was shaking, and it was clear that he couldn't let the opportunity pass. He seemed to be afraid of my reaction, as he was not expected to have a high enough pain threshold to sustain me after the shot.
"Now you are going to taste my hospitality. Either you leave me alone or I kill her," I warned, pointing at the girl. "You choose, shank, and I don't have as much patience as you do," she concluded angrily.
"You won't be able to. You're not stupid enough to shoot it," he replied as his nerves got the better of him.
It was clear that this man was neither a warrior nor a soldier as he lacked the discipline that was usually taught in the academies. He didn't seem like someone with a relatively important position either, but my instinct reminded me that he should keep his distance or take action, because I didn't know if the man was really trying to set a trap or an ambush for me.
"You know, you're starting to piss me off," the man said as he took a couple steps forward.
"And you have exhausted my patience," I replied angrily and growling.
"It's time to end..."
That man could barely finish his sentence when I aimed the barrel at him and shot him directly in the forehead, blowing off his head and covering the floor with a large puddle of blood.
"What have you done?!" said the girl exasperated.
"I have shown him my hospitality, as I previously warned him," I replied without showing any emotion. "Now do me a favor and shut your mouth, you can't cause me any more displeasure than I already have in you."
The girl began to scream and kick without rhyme or reason. I let go of her to prevent her from hitting me and she collapsed and burst into tears. She touched her broken and bruised arm, especially the area around her wrist. I looked at her without any compassion, especially after noticing a dark spot that stood out on the girl's neck. A kind of number three in Roman, three sharp sticks drawn in dark ink sticking out on her neck.
I ignored her tattoo at first. I took off my black jacket first, and then my T-shirt, leaving my abdominal area exposed, with the old dressing from the burns from the previous day. I grabbed it with my teeth and then tore it in half, making the resulting piece of fabric longer than the original width of the garment. I bent down and cut a piece of fabric from the bottom of my pants. I had to make a dressing so that the wound would not bleed more, since it was deep and dangerous. "Don't worry, it's one more bandage for this week's collection." I thought while I folded the fabric of the shirt and rolled it up, placing the fabric of the pants in the affected right shoulder area. I pressed very hard, making grimaces and some moans of pain, but leaving the bandages firm enough to put pressure on the wound and stop the bleeding. I put my jacket back on. At that moment, as a result of the latent pain, I remembered again:
I had Gazzel and Valir covering my back, fighting side by side with them. The trust was complete. The sounds of firearms were strident, but there was no choice but to hold on until reinforcements arrived.
"Gazzel, cover me, for whatever you want," Valir exclaimed from my right side.
"I do what I can," he replied reluctantly as he shot at the zombies in front of him.
I also shot at the zombies that approached me, although the magazines of the double guns were emptying, those creatures did not give the slightest sign of wanting to retreat, surrender or anything similar.
"Jay! Where are you? I need air support in sector 4 of the city, for yesterday," he shouted into the communicator on my right wrist, which I had glued to my lips at the same time that he fired, with many failures, with his left hand.
"Calm down, Eli, if they eliminate you, I won't have anyone to rub the victories in Europe against, try not to get killed," he replied while controlling the controls of a military fighter.
"We're not going to make it, guys!" Gazzel shouted.
"Don't give up on me now, Gazzel, this is not the time to lose morale," I replied angrily.
"Guys, who covers my left?" They are flanking us, Valir replied.
"I can't be there for everything!" Gazzel continued the discussion.
"Fuck, stop it, it's an order!" I said on the verge of losing my nerve.
The three of us continued to retreat little by little until we were cornered between several hordes of undead and other types of soldiers who seemed to have no sanity whatsoever.
"It's the end," Gazzel muttered in a dull tone.
"Jay!" I screamed in agony and throwing the gun at one of the zombies, which was already out of ammunition and was useless.
One of those filthy things fell on me. He was dripping with a kind of black slime, he had many rashes on his skin, as well as a multitude of burns. He had no hair, and his eyes could barely be made out. He had part of his skin necrotic and smelled strongly of decomposition. His clothes were in tatters, and she was trying to scratch me with his sharp nails. I dodged his first attack, causing him to remain behind him and him against the wall. The lack of sanity that he had caused him to deal a fatal blow to him from behind, when he had barely been able to reorient himself. He collapsed in front of the wall, limp, and rotting. I noticed that he had the Roman three mark on his neck, the symbol of the Umbrella spy squad.
After several minutes of uncertainty, Jay swept the western perimeter of the sector with the fighter. Several bombs hit a building that ended up giving way and collapsing due to the action of the dark-haired young man. He opened a window for us into the enemy ranks so that we could make a retreat in time to fight another day.
After returning from the memory, the girl had let go, but, to my surprise, she had not tried to escape, it was as if she was waiting for me, or something like that. I regained my composure, slapped my cheeks twice and intoned a more serious tone, appropriate to the moment in which she was present.
"Who do you work for?" I asked the girl, with the memory of the half-hidden symbol of the Roman three. Tell me or I'll blow your head off, and you've already seen that I don't hesitate in making my decisions.
"Seriously? I thought your intelligence was more remarkable than I had heard," she said, laughing.
Her ineptitude and sarcasm were causing my blood to begin to boil. I wasn't very inclined to play guessing games, so I decided to point my gun at her chest and operate the hammer to charge the spring.
"You will know more about us very soon. You will soon have the answers you are looking for. You will soon return to the fold," she snapped as she slowly raised her hands. "Even if you don't want to. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about."
Those words echoed in my head, one after the other, as I tried to orient them towards something more concrete. "Return to the fold?" Obviously, she belonged to Umbrella, to the group of deserters, but she couldn't know if she was in that section that she worked for and for them independently.
"It seems that the corporation's darling is beginning to use his 'prodigious little head,'" she repeated sarcastically.
I bent down to adjust the laces of my boots, hiding the noticeable lack of ideas, and replied:
"You know that, right?" I asked. "He was the head of this cell."
"Indeed," she snapped after another sarcastic laugh that drove me crazy. "In fact, both you and your friends are in danger, not only because Umbrella is on their way but because the zombies are already flanking the building."
"Stop uttering fallacies!" I shouted back at him.
"You know that's not true, besides, you have killed my partner, so the beacon that is integrated, to receive and study brain waves, has stopped, which will cause the employees to notice and send a team to investigate why their toy has broken down. You're really screwed, kid."
A kind of mixed sensation boiled inside me, on the one hand, I was invaded by the classic, but pleasurable, sadistic sensation of tearing out her eyes with my own hands, of torturing her in a thousand possible ways in order to enjoy myself or simply shoot her in the head. and end this. The counterpart was the latent worry and panic for my new colleagues and friends. I felt desperation overcome me, as if I were training with my old friends, at Umbrella, a couple of years ago. He had to act because time was short.
I couldn't continue thinking because I heard the same inhuman screams again, getting closer and closer. It was time to get out and not look back. I ran towards the edge of the building, towards the sinkhole, but was stopped short by my own momentum, which slapped my face to bring me back to reality. Nerves and tension had prevented me from seeing that the avenue was further away than it seemed, since the building was at a height of a second floor, more or less.
"Are you planning to leave without telling me anything?" —replied the woman.
"I don't want to stay to be devoured by a horde of hungry and bloodthirsty inhumans," I answered, looking at her out of the corner of my eye, at the same time that the voices and screams were sung in a terrifying echo that bounced through the pipe that served as access to the great room. hall.
I looked over the precipice again to contemplate my options. There wasn't much height, although it was enough to break any limb in a bad fall.
"Okay, I don't dislike this option at all," I said into the air, to no one in particular.
I looked at the drop again, it was not one of the highest places I had jumped from in recent months. Time was closing in on me, causing the options to escape from this place to be scarce and gradually reducing. I scanned the place again, catching a glimpse of a row of streetlights, at a distance of about five or six meters, maybe a few more. If I wanted to survive, I had to use all my strength, despite the injury, to get out of this place.
I ran to the opposite side, towards the tube, from which the screams of the horde seemed to be amplified, as if it were a megaphone. Along the way I picked up the weapons that the two enemies had left and holstered them in my belt. I continued to examine the terrain, but everything converged to a small entry point, which would serve as a passage for the horde roaring in the distance.
"Bad idea, Elian, it's a terrible idea to go here," I said, again, to myself.
Then suddenly appeared, first a couple and then another small group, leading to a herd of zombies that roared and let out inhuman screams. The hairs on my arms stood on end and, seeing them running so much, crashing into the walls, hitting each other and roaring at me with their dark, black eyes, I ran away, drawing energy from where I didn't have any. Running wasn't my strong point, but my life depended on it.
I snorted. I snorted again as I thought about nothing in particular. Only the screams of the zombies echoed in my head, their agonizing screams, which stabbed into my head as if they were surgeon's needles. I moved as close as I could to the opening of the tunnel, in the direction of the horde, to make sure I had enough space to run with all my strength and generate as much inertia as possible.
I felt the horde closer and closer, as well as an unparalleled shot of adrenaline. I got ready to run as soon as I saw the shadows on the wall. I accelerated with all my might, ignoring both my fatigue and the pain of the gunshot wound, as all my concentration was on gaining enough speed to reach the streetlights, minimally safe.
The thirty or forty meters I was traveling seemed like an eternity. My blood boiled as the distorted images of those stone walls, shattered walls, and chaos flashed before my eyes.
I continued running to the ledge, without looking back. He was panting a lot, but he didn't have time to stop. I reached the edge. It was now or never. I rushed forward and jumped with as much momentum as I could muster. Time seemed to slow down in the air. Many of the zombies fell into the void, not high enough to kill them, more to maim them. The girl succumbed to them, in a scream that ended up being drowned among those monsters.
I stretched out my arms to grab the streetlight. I was barely able to grab the area holding the bulbs when I slipped and fell face first onto the floor. I was stunned by the blow, gasping and bruising a few screams of pain.
After several minutes of daze, I was able to sit up. I sat on the floor, noticing how the pain began to stab me incessantly in the shoulder area. I could only bring my left hand to the injured area. I glanced from the ground at the building I had jumped from and smiled a macabre smile, perhaps because the Umbrella employees were dead.
I stood up and touched my abdomen a little. It hardly hurt, but I still felt the burning sensation, less intense, but as sharp as if I were being scratched. The pain was a slap in the face of reality, reminding me that I was not immortal and that I had to be more careful. After reflecting, I prepared to return to my companions, because, sooner or later, we would be in trouble again.
I wandered around for more than twenty minutes until I once again identified the same traces, buildings, signs and ruins that I had previously passed by, until I got lost in the alleys of the city. He heard the voices of a couple of people whom he associated with Newt and Minho.
"Newt! Minho!" I shouted from afar.
I rushed to join them as quickly as I could, only to end up falling in front of them, panting and with high symptoms of fatigue and hunger.
"Elian!" —Minho said as he bent down to try to help and interest me. "What the hell happened?"
"You're in an awful state," Newt snapped, looking worried.
"It's... a long story," I said as he looked at the ground, his voice tired.
"We had heard gunshots and we ventured to investigate as well," Minho explained in a worried tone. "I'm glad to know that you're alive, even though the bullet hit you squarely."
"Well, I know how to spend it on my own, although I have to admit that those people surprised me," I responded, getting on my knees and complaining a little.
"We have to heal that wound," Newt said with obvious signs of worry.
"Don't worry about me, we have more urgent things to worry about right now," I replied, avoiding eye contact.
"No!" Minho shouted airily. "Enough of being a lone wolf. You have to start adapting to the situations of group living," the leader continued with a haughty and imposing tone of voice. "You went on your own and they almost killed you, don't you understand? Damn slinthead," the Asian finished as he gesticulated, crossing his arms.
"Minho is absolutely right, Elian. Surely you have obtained valuable information that will help us live another day, but we cannot risk losing more people," Newt asked, worried but convincing.
"Yes, I understand, but I..." I couldn't finish because Minho interrupted me.
"There are no ifs or buts, Elian. Newt has made it very clear to you and so have I. The priority is to heal your wound and continue our march to the safe haven in the mountains that appear northeast of the city," Minho replied.
I nodded, without saying a word. I remained silent as if I were a grave. Minho, Newt and I prepared to return to the camp, which was no more than a ten- or fifteen-minute walk away.
The wind blew and withered leaves, fallen from the trees, swirled in the areas of the currents. It seemed like it was getting cloudy, more so it looked like some kind of sandstorm. Only our footsteps, the whistling of the wind and the rustling of leaves and other papers could be heard. The dirt of the city was latent, after so many years of neglect, since the ravages of the war and that terrifying virus made the resulting image a nightmare scene.
Minho broke that pleasant silence:
"Look, the headline says the world is ending," he said as he pointed to the front page of an old newspaper.
"What year is it from?" I asked, because curiosity had taken over me. "Just the fact of being able to find out what had happened in the world made me feel very morbidly curious."
"It says it's from 2020, but the exact date must have been lost due to the passage of time," the leader answered as he folded the cutout.
"Doesn't sound very encouraging," Newt joked.
"And you say it," Minho replied, "because even you decide to make jokes," he concluded between mocking laughter.
Newt just looked away, perhaps embarrassed. He didn't know him well, but he had been able to notice certain patterns in his personality, as with the rest of the boys in the group.
After a pleasant walk we arrived at the camp. The boys had settled in the ruins of a kind of supermarket, similar to the one I had seen a few hours ago. Newt motioned for one of the boys to help me with the wound. The young man seemed to know, all too well, the techniques to treat these types of wounds. I was still experiencing pain, although it seemed that the area had become much more sensitive. He made grimaces and gestures of pain with his eyes.
"Come on, put this on," Thomas said, throwing me a blue t-shirt, very similar to his own.
"Thanks, I guess," I said with a smile.
"You're welcome, more than anything it's so you don't distract anyone with your iron abs," he joked.
"Very funny," I replied angrily.
"Don't be like that, Elián, you'll start discovering the bad jokes and jokes, both Thomas's and Minho's," Frypan snapped, slapping me on the left shoulder.
I got up and put on my shirt. I looked around the place and walked a little further, inside the building, to explore a little more. Aris approached and offered me some water and a piece of bread.
"Here, it will do you good," Aris told me, accompanied by a kind smile.
I took the piece of bread and bit into it. I chewed it little by little and drank some water to help swallow. The truth is that it was a simple piece of bread, but it tasted amazing.
We ate for about half an hour, while the day continued to fall upon us. The dust clouds were noticeable as the atmosphere was beginning to turn reddish and orange, accompanied by a torrid touch of a hot, arid wind that accompanies the dust. Minho again signaled for us all to approach a kind of circle led by him, Newt, Thomas and Frypan.
"Well, Elian, again, tell us what you saw, because a while ago you seemed very upset," the leader concluded, turning towards me.
"Okay," I started to speak. "I have seen a lot of hordes of zombies, people with black eyes, veined and putrefied bodies, lacking common sense and with an apparent madness that turned them into a kind of inhuman animals," I uttered, to no one in particular, before the stunned gaze of the group.
"Do you mean the cranks ones?" Snapped a boy from the group, whose name I didn't even know.
"Cranks?" I rephrased the question, intrigued.
"Yes, we had a run-in with them in a kind of booth, owned by WICKED, before crossing a Trans-Plane that led us to this desert" Thomas inquired assertively. "They were exactly as you described them, so you must be talking about the same thing."
"Well, but these cranks, undeads, zombies, or whatever you want to call them, aren't the biggest of our problems," I continued.
"It's a joke?" Aris replied with crossed arms.
"Aris, let him talk," Thomas scolded as he took a seat on the floor.
"At least for me, the biggest problem has been two former Umbrella employees. "I found them in one of the buildings I explored," I continued with an apparent nervous state. "They were infected with the virus, in an apparent advanced state of the disease, but sane enough to be able to perceive reality and, to a lesser extent, the decision-making they were making," I continued, addressing no one in particular. Those people have surely alerted the Corporation, and, at this moment, they will be on their way here," I concluded while he clenched his fists in rage.
"And what do you think will happen now? —Minho asked, in an apparent state of concern.
"They will come for me, that's obvious, but I don't think we have many options in the face of it. I have only been able to collect the two guns that those renegades had, plus the one that I took from that kind of simulator a couple of days ago, prior to our first contact." I addressed Minho effusively.
"That's positive, isn't it?" He replied to me.
"I only have three magazines with twelve bullets each," I said, crestfallen.
"That's not very encouraging."
"Thank you for your encouragement, Tommy," Newt scolded him with a murderous look, "but we have to adapt to what we have, that's what we've always done since we came to the Glade." Keep in mind that this is our way of life, giving everything with the little we can get, and that will be what gets all of us slintheads out of this shucked mess," Newt concluded in a haughty and motivating way.
"Okay, okay, Newt, but I'm the leader," Minho growled, crossing his arms, making a face of disagreement.
Newt and Minho fought for a few minutes, in a friendly manner. It was fun for me to watch them argue because, in the end, they always end up reconciling and returning to good form. The bonds of friendship that all the boys in the group had managed to awaken, within me, a flame, as hot as the Sun, which encouraged me to want to open up and let the new emotions flood me.
The sandstorm grew worse with every step we took. Although it was not very intense, it was enough to blur our vision and slow down the group's progress. Minho and Newt led the way, while I was with Thomas and Aris, teaching them the basics of handling a weapon:
"Okay, and just when you run out of bullets in the magazine you press this button," he explained while pressing a small button near the handle, on the left side, to remove the magazine, and you get rid of it, do you understand?" I finished.
They both nodded and did the same as me, in addition to replacing the magazine and activating the hammer to make way for the bullets.
"Congratulations, you have passed the basic course on how to use a weapon, now, you cannot miss even one of those bullets in the magazine because we do not have any more ammunition," he continued while holstering the weapon in the belt he had attached to the hip.
"And what will we do if one of those hordes of cranks attacks us?" Thomas asked.
"The truth is that I would prefer to avoid them at all costs, we won't have many options to survive other than running away to find a safe place," Aris said thoughtfully.
"True, plus night will soon fall and we will be even more exposed to all the dangers out here. We would have to find an alternative route or find some kind of shelter, preferably away from the larger areas of the city," I contributed as I tried to keep up with both boys.
Minho and Newt stopped dead, squatted next to one of the corners of a ruined building and murmured a couple of things that I couldn't hear.
"Listen, we can't go much further here, and I'm afraid we won't be able to take an alternative route either," he told the group as he signaled for everyone to stop.
"True, that wall blocks our path, and we don't have time to go around the entire city, plus we need to find food and water," the blonde added, with a tone even more worried than Minho's.
It seems that those words had penetrated the group like a bucket of ice water, because everyone collapsed. The feeling of failure must have overwhelmed them, seeing themselves so close to their goal, but at the same time so far away.
"I think we have to go through the sewers," he proposed.
"And why not between the buildings?" Frypan also proposed.
"That's also a possibility," I agreed convincingly.
"What do you think, Minho?" Newt snapped to address the leader.
"We must cross those walls, so we should go through the sewers, in a straight line, plus we will be less exposed to the cranks" Minho declared as he began to search on the opposite side of the wall.
I leaned out a little to observe the extent of the obstacle. At first glance, the structure of wood and various pieces of metal stood about three or four meters high. It didn't seem like something very elaborate, but it was strong enough to prevent the 'odd ones' from entering that perimeter. Probably, within that perimeter, there were some small groups of humans left uninfected or, to a lesser extent, with a very early phase of the disease. Either way, we had to get to the other side, so we could get supplies and water.
I retraced my steps, just a couple of them, until I rejoined the group. Minho, Newt, and Thomas were talking among themselves, Frypan and Aris were also listening and evaluating the options. However, I noticed Thomas and Minho were a little worried, so I joined the meeting.
"I see you're worried," I announced as I joined the circle, between Aris and Newt, who had kindly reserved that space for me.
"Something makes me feel really bad," Minho said, stroking his chin with his right hand and looking down at the ground. "I can't believe we haven't run into anyone in our entire stay here, whether it's cranks ones or healthy people," he concluded.
"It's a possibility," I said, trying to downplay the issue.
"I've had the strange feeling for several hours that someone is watching us, from a distance," said Thomas, who was with his arms crossed.
"I don't know, Thomas, but the fact that there is no one, not even guarding this wall, makes me feel very sick, as if I had been given an electric shock," the Asian continued.
"But that doesn't make sense," Newt interjected.
"Why?" Minho responded, intrigued.
"I mean, wouldn't they have done anything to try to save as many people as possible? Don't you think that staying to watch us is meaningless?" Newt asked again, responding enthusiastically to Minho, and gesturing with his hands.
"Surely they want to understand us, how we act and when we are vulnerable, that would give them an advantage in the face of the unknown," I added in a thoughtful tone.
"It may be, but it still bothers me a lot that we haven't crossed paths with anyone," the leader said again.
"Be that as it may, we need an action plan," Thomas concluded.
"In addition, we have to find supplies as soon as possible, since we are low, since we had not planned one more mouth to feed," Frypan mumbled, also worried, "no offense, Elian," he addressed me in a conciliatory tone.
"Don't worry, Frypan, I know that you are currently in danger because of me, and that it won't take long for Umbrella to get here. You are honored to have welcomed me as one of your own, and I owe you gratitude for it," I declared slowly and with a slight smile.
"That doesn't mean that trust can be broken, and you haven't earned mine yet," Minho replied with a challenging tone and look.
"Stop your little battles, we have a lot to do," Aris proposed, trying to mediate the unborn dispute.
Tempers calmed down, although the tension between Minho and I could almost be cut like a hot knife through a block of butter. I tried to abstract myself from all these new emotions and feelings that ran ardently through my veins.
Minho and Newt were making a plan with Thomas when everything suddenly started to go wrong. Several gladers raised the alarm. Something was wrong.
"Minho, I think we have company!" one of the boys exclaimed and shouted, pointing straight ahead.
Aris and I turned around, facing the frightened gladers, while Newt, Minho, Frypan and Thomas ran towards the area of those screams. Instinct, so active and endowed with greater sensitivity thanks to the injections of adrenaline, caused by the tension of the unknown of this situation, caused him to unholster two of the three pistols and ready them to fire. Instinct, that blessed instinct that had made me survive on so many occasions, did not bode well for me.
When we arrived at the place of the screams, there were several gladers with their hands raised, in sign of surrender. The new contacts were armed with pistols, held in a rudimentary manner, and their clothes were in tatters, as well as looking very unkempt, dirty, full of dirt and with greasy hair because, it seemed, they had not been able to shower for a long time. nor clean up.
"What's going on here?" Minho said hurriedly and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"Who's going?" said a voice, quite hoarse and older, imposing, which sounded somewhat distant, although it came from behind those men.
"That doesn't answer my question," the leader replied.
"I'm asking the questions here," that voice replied, in a more authoritative manner as he made his way through those battered men. And if you dare to make the slightest movement, it will be the last thing you will see in this world, is that clear?
Minho only growled at that man. It was clear that the situation was critical, since we did not have many options other than to listen to what that person had to tell us.
I rushed to aim one of the pistols, but a hand prevented me from doing so. I noticed Newt's warmth and looked at him. He gestured for me to stay quiet, at the same time he shook his head at me. I understood that it was not the time to act, since the surprise factor could be decisive.
"Well, as he was saying, what brings you to the wonderful city of Phoenix, strangers?" the strange man asked again while stroking his beard.
"That's our business," Minho confronted between grunts.
"Kid, I think you haven't realized how things are around here. "In this area of the city we rule, period, everything that happens near these walls is considered part of my jurisdiction," the man snapped aggressively. Now, if you don't want any more problems than you already have, start talking.
Minho was furious, he knew that the situation was beyond him and that he couldn't do much more to protect the group. His nerves were taking over, and he couldn't think clearly.
"I'm still waiting for you to answer my first question," the enemy leader warned again.
"We're just passing through," Thomas responded effusively.
"In passing? Come on kid, I wasn't born yesterday," he replied, pointing a gun at him.
Thomas realized how delicate the situation was and swallowed. However, he was not intimidated and tried to calm his nerves.
"We are going to the mountains. Nothing more than that," he answered, again.
"Good, that's how I like it. However, I cannot let you pass these walls," the man explained in a more affable tone of voice, but still pointing the gun at Thomas.
"Why?" Thomas asked.
"My superiors wouldn't take it too seriously if we let a traitor pass through this area of the city," the man explained with a malicious smile, "since we know that you have an anti-corporatist renegade among your ranks. We have been watching you since you arrived in this city and, evidently, that rebel must be handed over, back, to the corporatists," he explained between ghoulish laughter.