R&C: Anomaly
3. Scavenge
Disclaimer: I do not own Ratchet & Clank
His eyes open.
Eli groans as the sun blinds him. He groans as he rolls over to the side a little, he blinks his eyes open a couple times, finding the new unfamiliar room a bit of a panic for his character but suddenly remembers the situation.
"Great." He mutters annoyed. He groans as he slowly swings his legs off the side of the bed and sits up. His body is sore but that's about it.
That's it.
That's… it?
"Shouldn't I be worse off?" His body still feels pretty sore off but he doesn't feel as much in pain as he was last he remembers. He looks at his arm that was bitten into and unravels the bandage and gauze. Besides a fair amount of blood that accumulated and is now dried up, he doesn't find a gashing wound he has before. Just a large nasty pinkish-red scarring where the bite wound was. "What?" He mutters in confusion as he carefully touches the wound.
*SSSSSSSSSSS*
Eli quickly grabs his pistol and aims in the direction of the sound. It's coming from the bathroom. He slowly gets up and carefully makes his way towards the bathroom with his weapon in hand and ready. His strides are slow but careful. After the day he had before, he's not going to take any chances of getting ambushed again. A quick view around his room he makes it to the door of the bathroom. Ever so slowly he moves towards the door and confirms that the sound is something akin to water running, like a shower. The door is slightly ajar and he notices steam emanating from it. Being as quiet as can be, he pushes the door open with his free hand but keeping his gun up and trained towards the door. The waters sounds mask the sound of the door opening and gets a good look of what's going on.
It's as simple as one would think: someone is in the shower. Through the shower curtain it's a female person from the silhouette he can tell but he also notices the tall ears and tail she has, which is similar to the creatures he was attacked before by. The female is standing under the showers spray and is oblivious to Eli's presence. All thoughts of decency and being embarrassed go out the window as the memories of the creature from before hit his mind like a ton of bricks. He narrows his eyes and slowly moves forward. They got the jump on him before, now he will do it this time.
The female continues as he slowly moves forward until his left hand slowly reaches for the shower curtain. Just before his hand grabs the curtain, he tightens his grip on his pistol.
With a flourish and pull of the curtain, he yanks it open and aims inside.
"…"
Theirs nothing. He looks on confused and shock as theirs nothing. The shower is running but the figure he saw on the other side of it is gone. He quickly leans over and looks at the bottom of the tub, including elsewhere in the just on the off chance she pushed herself to the side. Theirs nothing as he looks around, although he does find it weird just how immaculate and pristine the shower looks considering everything he saw before of how bad the city looked.
*Eeeh*
Out of habit he leans over and turns off the water in the shower and stands there staring at the bathtub. He sighs as he rubs his head. "This place is getting to me." He mutters as he turns around.
"Help me."
A woman stands behind him. The same furry creature he saw before from the other creature that had attacked him. Only this one is female, naked, with dark brown fur with lighter stripes on her body and is clean with nice kempt fur.
The only thing out of place for her… is the hole in her skull right where her right eye should be.
"What the fu—?!"
*CRASH*
"Aarhh!"
The sudden appearance of the creature that should be dead freaks out Eli enough he steps back, falling over the edge of the bathtub and falling in, tearing off the curtain and its pole from the wall and causing dirt, dust, plaster and drywall to fall down and get kicked up, coating the human in the debris, including the shower curtain. A few seconds pass, the crashing noises settle down before Eli annoyingly tears the shower curtain off him. He groans at the tumble he took but looks around surprised at the room he's in now. Unlike before the pristine white room he was in before, the place has been restored to the state he was sure it was supposed to be in: a decrepit, broken, rotted and dust covered bathroom. Aging grey tiles, broken, chipped and dusty drywall and plaster, cracked glass and scattered expired meds all over the place.
"Damn… what…? I don't know." He murmurs in confusion to himself. He takes in a deep breath before he starts coughing from the dust in the air. He coughs a bit before he spits out whatever was in his mouth before tries to pull himself out of the bathtub in frustration. When he tries to pull himself out, its then he notices that theirs something else in the tub as well.
He looks to his left. His eyes widen as a dried almost skeleton body is in the tub with him… staring right at him… with a cracked and broken right eye socket.
It's jaw falls open.
"FUCKING HELL!" He shouts and scrambles out of the tub. He's careful of the disturbing the body but completely tears apart the curtain to push himself up and out of the bathroom. He sprints into the main room and knocks down the barricade he placed and throws himself out side. As he falls into the sand he aims his gun into the building and almost hyperventilates as he tries to get his breathing under control. It takes a few tense seconds of silence before he realizes where he is and quickly pushes himself up and aims around him. "Ahh." He mutters in annoyance and covers his eyes with his free hand. It's no longer nighttime and is actually day with the sun fully out and blaring down at him. He shades his eyes a little with his hand as he tries to get his vision and his eyes used to the glaring sun. He still looks around and thankfully finds himself alone without anyone or anything around and bearing down on him.
He breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes a little when he finds himself alone and out in the open. He takes a few calming breaths and just takes moment to gather his thoughts.
'Okay… okay. Don't know what you just saw, but forget about it. That's not your focus. Focus on surviving. Surviving… where the fuck you are?! What the hell is this place?! What the hell are those things?! And why the hell were you thrown here?!'
"…" He breathes in deeply before exhaling, reorienting himself again.
'Stop that. That's not going to help you right now. You need to find shelter. Proper shelter. A proper place to hold up without any chance of those… things getting to you.' He groans a little as he rubs his stomach. 'Better see if there's anything to eat as well. As much as some good shelter will keep me from being dried to a husk and chipping my skin, as well as keep me from being torn apart by these denizens, it won't matter if I end up starving to death in whatever shelter I find.'
Eli sighs and rubs his forehead with his forearm and blows out a long breath of air. "Fuck this." He curses to himself and looks around him. "I need to move. Need to find something. Get moving." With his choices limited and what little time he has, he starts moving forward through the destroyed city, keeping his gun at the ready just in case.
Almost an hour passes he goes through the city searching for any supplies he can use to help. With it being brighter out, he was able to see more of the city a bit clearer. Many of the roads and paths he takes are in large open sections with dozens of large either square but mostly circular buildings half a dozen stories up of grey or silverish grey color are around him but the majority are almost completely destroyed and dilapidated to the point no one can stay in them, feral creatures or not. With many of the rooftops torn off, light is filtering through them immensely. Still Eli will not take the risk of going inside them for fear of a collapsing wall or floor to kill him. The other main problem is that most of the stuff he has looked at for supplies has rotted away, worn out from the elements, destroyed by one thing or another, or straight up expired and no longer useable.
On a plus side he quickly found out: he can read.
Whatever language he saw before he can either understand it now, or he's moving his way into another section of the city that he can actually read whatever he sees. He's not sure exactly how it is but is not going to complain and just keep going. He keeps going around and making his way through the dead city. He's still happy that the harsh sunlight is keeping the creatures from swarming out and on him. From what he was able to properly gather, the creatures are blind and sensitive to light, so that means he will be able to at least sneak past some of the creatures if need be. For now though, he decides to keep going around and sate his curiosity of the weird and highly advanced city. To add onto the advanced state of the city is the fact that anything he spots that looks like a vehicle have no tires, tracks or anything of the sorts. Most of them are buried in piles of dirt and sand but still doesn't see any tires around, which leads him to belief they have some sort of rocket or hovercraft technology.
He also spots a few cars that were crashed into and around the fifth floor of more than a few buildings.
'Just where… or when am I? That house was surprisingly advanced. Sliding doors are a thing but they are usually clear and part of major and larger buildings, not your average suburban home. Not to mention that touch pad. Not standard stuff. Who knows what else this city has in store for me? I've already got human-sized cat-like creatures that would sooner rip my throat out than anything else. I doubt anything else would surpr—'
He passes by a corner and comes across quite the scene. "Huh." He mutters as he spots a large, a very large building, or what was once a very large circular building in an expansive open area. Unlike the previous areas this one is specifically setup in a large open area. Kind of reminds him of the area location of the Arc De Triomphe in Paris, not the monument itself. A little bit smaller but this definitely caught his eye more than anything of the whole place considering it looks way way more different than what he's seen elsewhere.
And the scene of carnage in front of him.
"What the hell?" He mutters as he walks forward. Much of the area surrounding the destroyed building is covered in this layer of sand but theirs no covering the large behemoth of vehicles he sees. He's played more than a few video games to know what the general look of a military tank looks like. A large tank, the size of a commuter bus with a turret carrying two of the some of the biggest barreled cannons he's ever seen tipped on its side. "What in all seven hells took you out?" He questions at the large machine. Much of its frame is crumpled from high-velocity impact fire, including scorch marks he can assume is from plasma fire or more than likely fires that broke out on it when it was fire upon. Again no tires or tracks but instead there is eight large plates under it.
A short distance away he finds another tank of the same model except this one has a hole torn in its side and one of the barrels blown off with the other bent at an irreparable angle.
That's not his focus though. It's the body propped up and lying with its back against the war machine. The body is wearing the same armor as the first creature that attacked him. He's cautious at first but the layer of dirt on the body shows it hasn't moved in who knows how many years. With his pistol out in his other hand, he gently moves forward and lightly taps its shoulder.
When nothing comes of it, he holsters his gun and kneels down next to it, allowing him to get a closer look to it without fear of getting ripped apart.
The body is covered in a complete full body armored suit and bodysuit. The armor is large, with a thick torso piece and heavy shoulder pads with some rectangular cracked plates on the upper parts. The chest piece has a decal of a head similar to the creatures he's seen so far. It looks like it's supposed to light up but the power has no doubt been cut for years. The whole thing itself is dark green with many chips, cuts and dents in the armor. A black bodysuit covers the parts of the body that aren't covered by the armor itself. Thick metal layered plates cover the legs and down to the boots. While the armor looks quite impressive, he takes an especially focused look on the helmet and the face of the armored being.
The helmet has the same head structure as the creatures he's seen, including with armored coverings for the creatures ears without crushing them. He nods in appreciation at the ingenuity of the design. A large V strip of orange glass can be seen as the visor the helmet with bits of metal strips along the helmet as armor and for design. Curiosity gets the better of him as he carefully reaches forward and grabs the helmet.
"This is probably really stupid." He chastises himself before he tries to pry the helmet off but finds himself unable to do so. Not wanting to disturb the body anymore than necessary, he feels around the neck for a latch or something but theirs nothing there. With one last option he decides to twist the helmet off instead.
*TSSS*
A small hiss of air can be heard as he unlatches it. With slow and careful ease he manages to gently pull the helmet off the creature. "Nnnngh." He grunts as once its fully off a small tuft of hair blows into his face. He manages to close his mouth and eyes before anything gets in. He looks away and blows air out of his nose and mouth just in case and wipes his face with his forearm to clear his eyes. He looks down at the helmet in his hands for a second, idly running his thumb along one of the edge of the helmet, taking note of how surprisingly light it is, then looks at the creature.
The years passing for dead body was not kind to it, the skin and flesh grey, the sharp teeth still look menacing but definitely aged with time. The fur has mostly peeled off and fallen from the body and gather around the neck or is still gathered in the helmet itself. Once he overturns it lets the mass of hair fall out, he looks inside and looks at the interior. He nods at the piece of equipment and the tech inside, even though its been long unused, but also the padding inside.
"Wow." Eli mutters as he looks at everything around him once he's done looking. Several more bodies can be seen littering the area, all covered in various states of decomposition and armor but most are almost completely covered in years of sand and dirt accumulating on them into mounds. He looks down at the helmet in his hand and sighs. He places the helmet down on the lap of the long dead creature and pats it. "I'm sorry." He apologizes and goes to stand up but something in the sand gets his attention. "Hello? What's this?" He mutters as he fishes something out of the sand. "Huh." He mutters as he looks at the thing.
A wrench. A massive double-ended wrench that fits the shaft between the two wrench heads in his hand comfortably. The shaft is black but both wrench heads are dark green for the clamps. "What… is this?" Eli mutters in curiosity as he looks at the oddly made tool. "it's a wrench but… wow." He continues speak on it before looking down at the body. "Were you an engineer or something? Mechanic? Were you trying to repair this tank?" He asks questions out loud. He may not be getting an answer anytime soon but its still interesting to piece things together.
Unfortunately for him one part of the wrench breaks off and falls to the ground. He sighs at the decay that the tool has been subjected to for years. Without much use he can make of it, he places the tool back into the hands of the armored individual and looks on at what they were apparently defending.
It's a building, or what used to be a large building. As he steps forward, he looks to see that in the center of the area is a large circular piece of a building slightly larger than that of grain silo with broken monitors all over and shredded pieces of wiring and cables handing off it. Cement, metal and concrete struts and wall connections can be seen jutting out from the ruined building that were supposed to extend the size of the building. Looking around shows the mangled but still recognizable metal frame of an entire building around him. Bits and pieces of concrete and stone can be seen stuck to the metal frames but overall the whole place was blasted and torn apart. As Eli walks forward he takes note of the faint metal flooring under him covered in dirt and sand, further confirming his suspicion the building was supposed to be almost five times bigger and wider than the last standing piece of a structure in the center.
"You all have a war or something?" He quietly questions. From everything he's gathered so far, something came in and absolutely destroyed the entire place. Most likely multiple troops, bombings and who knows what else. He wants to begin to surmise exactly what was going on and how things came to be that destroyed such an advanced civilization and turned it so… in ruin and feral. "And still no place for me to take cover in." He says glumly as the building is absolutely in no shape for him to hunker down in. He begins to think on what other places he can look into for him to stay in at night but most of what he's seen is not good, nor safe as he gets the feeling he might get crushed in his sleep. He walks around the structure as he tries to keep himself occupied. 'This is getting bad. I still have plenty of time to find something but at this rate and the state of the entire city how the hell am I going to find a place structurally sound enough for me to lockup and barricade, but small enough that I don't have to endanger myself with clearing it out with what little ammo I have left. And theirs no way I'm going to go back to that haunted-…'
His thoughts come to a halt as when he gets to the other side of the building, theirs a large set of steel double doors in front of him with no handles. It takes him a second to realize what it is exactly as he looks up and sees more of the same double doors on the other destroyed floors of the place in a line column.
"No way." He mutters as realizes its an elevator. Ideas crop forth as begins to think on what to do. "Okay, while the rest of the city has been destroyed, this part of the building actually looks pretty solid despite the rest of the building almost having been destroyed." He walks up to the elevator and begins wiping down the door of the layer of dirt on it as well as the frame and sides of it. "If I can get inside, climb on top of the elevator, then I might be able to find a safe spot to stay in. It'll be uncomfortable trying to sleep there most likely but if it means I can sleep without getting torn apart then I'll take it." He speaks out loud and brushes his hand on a panel.
*Ding*
He steps back and quickly pulls out his pistol as he aims at the doors as they open up. His heart is beating like crazy out of his chest from both being startled at the still working structure and the potential of something being hostile inside said elevator. It takes a second and some creaking and screeching of metal for the elevator doors to finally peel themselves open. When the door finally opens Eli is focused on staring inside and is ready just in case things go really bad really quickly.
To his relief though nothing seems to come of it and with the light flickering a little before staying lit, he lowers his gun a little and carefully steps forward into the elevator. It's relatively small and more so for a few people to stay in and ride at once but he still quickly scans left and right to make sure theirs nothing hiding. He even looks up towards the ceiling to make double sure a vent isn't open for him. Once its clear, he steps into the middle of the elevator and turns around so he's staring out the door. "… Huh." He hums curiously at the dusty state of the elevator but also that it's still operational, despite being rusty to all hell. Taking a quick look at the buttons panel, he makes an interesting discovery.
The building he's currently in has a basement.
"Okay… this could be really good, or really bad." He comments to himself before taking one last look outside and shrugging with a frustrated sigh and tapping the button for sublevel B1. 'If this works, and theirs no other way in, I might have just found my safe haven.'
He has to grab onto the railing on the side of the elevator when the lift shifts roughly, and loudly from the screeching of metal. It's a bit rough as he feels the vertigo of going down but it takes a little bit more time than he thought to go underground. Eventually it comes to a stop, making Eli get ready again with his gun and ready to fight should he need to.
*Ding*
The chime is starting to annoy him as the doors open, a little smoother this time but still tense for the human. He is fully ready for anything as the doors open, mentally thinking of what happens if anymore creatures rush elevator and opts to try the ceiling hatch to get away.
"…" Darkness greets him as theirs nothing attacking him, nor does he see anything as the room in front of him is almost completely bathed in darkness, with a little bit of illumination right in front of him from the elevators light. Carefully and slowly he moves forward out of the elevator, quickly sweeping left and right for anything hiding around. He angles his left leg back in the elevators doors to make sure they don't close behind him. When he sees nothing but darkness still, he begins to think on some options for him to do. He doesn't think long as he finds some switches on the wall next to the elevator. He idly crosses his fingers as he reaches for the switches. 'Please work.'
*Click*
Flipping the switches, he tenses up as the lights in the room begin to flicker to life above him. Some actually turn off but immediately break when activated but the majority of them are lit up, albeit with some of them a little dull and buzzing but still working.
The rooms is large and wide with silver almost reflective metal tiling on the floor. Well it would be reflective if the floor wasn't covered in over a dozen years' worth of dust and some of the ceilings tiles having fallen down and broken on the floor with some small chunks of dirt and concrete. Some of the walls are also silverish metal with a thin layer of dust but theirs many computers and what looks like large computer blocks resembling servers lining much of the room. Many of the servers begin to flicker to life as well with everything trying to come online, albeit slowly. Tables can be seen pushed against the walls with some metal chairs against them but theirs a few chairs that were knocked onto the floor haphazardly. In the center is a large computer setup with a column of stone and concrete with wires going into the ceiling and along said ceiling, some of the wires even going along the walls. "Whoa." Eli mutters in wonder as he looks at the place. His curiosity spikes a little as he walks forward to the computer. It's a similar general setup for a computer with a screen setup and imbedded inside the large column. A desk with a large keyboard and even a mouse is there for him to use.
He does note the larger keyboard and mouse than a standard human setup, no doubt for the larger almost feline clawed creatures he's seen up top. "But what are they?" He questions. He'd still like an answer as to who tried to kill him yesterday exactly. He presses the button on computer and watches as it begins to run itself online. The background is grey with an orange head like the creatures he's seen with eyes appears in the middle of the screen, making him flinch to actually seeing something look at him, even if it is in digital form. A small green bar appears under and slowly begins to fill up. Theirs a small line of title text in orange with black outlines appears above the face. Eli leans in and wipes the screen of dust to get a clearer picture of it all.
CENTER FOR ADVANCED LOMBAX RESEARCH
"Lombax?" Eli questions as he says the name. "Ngh." He groans as he gets a small headache but it quickly subsides and he turns back to the screen as the bar fills up. "Is that what they are? Lombaxes?"
*ZZZT*
The screen freezes up, turning static for a second before what looks like a blue screen of death appears on the screen.
CORRUPTION…
CORRUPTION…
CORRUPTION…
...RECOVERING…
Numbers begin flying onto the screen as different loading bars appear.
"Well damn. Guess I shouldn't be surprised it wasn't going to be that easy." He mutters in annoyance before running a hand through his hair. With nothing else but to wait for the computer to figure itself out and possibly repair it, he walks deeper into the room and scouts the place out some more. More of the underground building is in relatively good and structurally sound condition barring the small patches here and there of some pieces missing from the ceiling and fallen on the floor. Not to mention he begins to find more tables littered with documents of different kind, file cabinets, more computers, some empty beakers, test tubes and other items around that one would find in a building meant for the research, chemistry and development of science in general.
Theirs is just one question that still lingers in his mind as he sees more and more of the advanced technology. "What happened to the Lombaxes?" Eli mutters. Everything he's seeing from the infrastructure of the buildings, certain items, and even the vehicles he saw outside all pointed to him standing in what is essentially some of the most technologically advanced civilization he's ever seen. Something straight out of science fiction. "And yet for some reason they fell and the people turned into those… blind… feral creatures." He steps up to another and much larger set of double doors. "Just what happened to you all?" He wonders quietly to himself. Before he goes in he looks to the side and finds a plaque for the label of the room.
After wiping it down of its dust, holding his breath for a second as he does so he doesn't straight up breathe in years old dust, he looks at the next area he is going to enter. "Forge." The letter angles seem a little odd for him but he's able to at least tell that's what the general word is for him to read. With another closed door, he readies his pistol again and swipes the panel on the side. Just like before it flickers to life and the doors slowly open on their own with a bit of strain. Again, the room is bathed in almost completely darkness but thankfully he doesn't hear any shuffling, movements or screeching's coming from within. After passing through a small hallway, it opens up to a much much larger as he steps onto a metal catwalk. Like when he got off the elevator he finds some switches on the wall. He flips them on one at a time and watches the magic happen.
The room is big and takes up about two floors of open space. The center of the room is filled with large machines and computers with glass cases attached to them. Theirs close a dozen of these apparatuses littered along the bottom floor of the massive room. Several metal catwalks are placed around the room above the machinery but some of them have collapsed and been broken, along with several of the glass cases and computers.
Carefully Eli makes his way down some metal stairs to get onto the ground floor and goes about examining the stuff in the room. From what he can tell the glass cases are meant to make some things as he spots what look like laser bits, molds, and even some claws. Much of the tools he spots inside the glass cases are broke though, as well as some of the computer terminals attached to them broken too so if he wanted to try to get them working, he couldn't access their functions.
Except one.
After examining most of them, he manages to find one terminal still intact with the machinery still in good shape. He smiles and goes to power on the terminal.
...INSUFFICIENT POWER…
The red words appear on screen before it promptly shuts off again.
Eli sighs in frustration as he lowers his head. "Of course." He groans and pushes himself off the terminal. With the machine unable to be turned on, he looks around the room some more until he finds a smaller attached at the back of the larger forge room. No doors separate into it as he goes in and finds dozens upon dozens of wooden crates stacked into the room around it. He looks around at them all until he finds one crate with its top popped open. Curiously, he goes over and looks in.
"Bolts?" The contents of the crate seems to be filled with an exceptionally large amount of screws, bolts, lug nuts and other type of miscellaneous bits.
He looks up in confusion and spots the name of the room on a plaque on the side of the room. "Materials." He states the name of the room. "Huh, okay so this place is used to hold the items they use for manufacturing and experiments.
Another crate is open and he looks in to see this one filled with metal bars of all the same type. He's not sure exactly what the metal is but theirs a lot of it in the crate. On a nearby table he finds a silver and black painted crowbar and takes it. With his low ammo, he feels comfortable having a melee weapon at least to hopefully take out anything silently. Using his new tool, he pops open another crate and finds a plethora of wires and cables.
"Lot of stuff." He mutters silently as he walks about the room some more and takes note of the piles of crates all over. He freezes soon after once he realizes that theirs another room to the place.
Or their was. At the end of the room is a doorway Eli would compare to that of a garage doors setup, except this one is completely collapsed and blocked off from a cave-in.
"Well that's good for me then." He says, thankful as that would mean if the way did lead outside, theirs a good chance those things may have wondered in at any point in time. Not wanting to dwell on the idea of more of those things casually making their way in, he heads back in the main room and heads back into the hallway. "Now where to?" He questions to himself and looks around. He is in four hallway intersection, one he came from the entrance with the main computer to the south, he came from the west hallway leading to the forge. To the north he's not sure what it is because that area has been blocked off with immense debris. His last area to check out is to the east so he checks out the sign to know what he's to expect.
"Generator. Okay that should be good to know." He smiles at it and makes his way forward, tightly holding onto his crowbar and going forth. It's not a long trek before he makes it to a set of double doors for him to open. With another room for him to scout out, he takes a deep breath, readying his crowbar in one hand, and opens one of the doors. "Ughh…" Eli groans at the stagnant stale smell and air that hits him once he opens the door. He gets his flashlight and turns it on but also using his forearm to sort of blocking out the smell as he makes his way inside. The room has a small hum coming from it like a machine whirring as he goes in. Soon enough he's in a larger room and begins looking for the light switches.
He shifts the light to the left side and—
"Fu- Fucking hell!" He about jumps out of his skin as he sees a face, although what was once a face from what he can tell. Once he calms down he leans forward a little as he examines what he is seeing.
From the left of the doors he entered through, it's a body, a charred body that looks like it was burned a long long time ago as it's pretty much almost completely dried out. It's charred and burned beyond recognition, no smoke so it was definitely not a recent death. It's one of the Lombax creatures he's seen but it's hard to completely tell from the burned away fur. The body is also stuck to some kind of machinery and from just what he can barely tell the face is contorted horribly in a scream, having captured the moment the person died in agony.
"Oh god, what happened?" Eli asks. He's not expecting an answer but he still wonders what happened. To the side he spots the light switches on the walls and flips them.
*Click*
"…" But nothing turns on.
*Click*… *Click*… *Click*Click*Click*
Nothing still turns on when he flicks the light switches several times. He looks up and shines his light to find the reason for no overhead lights. They are all blown out. Every single one of them. "Damn." A quick look of the room and he finds a couple more of the machines with him. They are giant, over a dozen feet tall and almost as wide. The top and bottom of the machines are wide with a small glass strip going around them completely. The middle of the machine narrows to the point it's a fraction of the width to the rest of the machine but it stays together with several metal struts connecting both the top and bottom. To the front the machine is shut off and inactive but the one to right is active and working. He can tell its working because the glass strip he saw on the other ones, this one is lit up and has something spinning inside it, the top part of the machine has something spinning along the right direction while the bottom is going to the left. "So these are the generators. Okay these should help if I can get them work—"
It takes him a second to realize what happened before. He turns back around to the body to see it still stuck there. Stuck to the other generator with all of its glass paneling's having been shattered and blown out.
"Oh no. You were… electrocuted, weren't you?" He surmises as he looks at the body. From what he can tell, whatever happened forced the poor bastard to be thrown into the power generator. He was alive when it happened, hence the frozen agonized expression on his face, and the short circuiting blew out all the lights in the room too. "Goddamn." He mutters, feeling almost sorry for the creature.
He starts to get a little sick from the state of things and makes his way outside the room and closes the doors. He takes a deep breath and is happy to breath air that's not in close proximity to a dead body. He shakes his head and starts making his way back to the computer terminal. 'Hopefully its done fixing itself.' He clicks off his light as he walks, idly swinging his crowbar a little until he makes it to the computer.
When he makes it there is only one loading bar and is completely filled up. A second later and it disappears before it begins to load up the home screen from what he can tell. "Alright then. Now we're getting somewhere." He pulls a chair up nearby and sits down, lightly brushing away some dust from the keyboard and the mouse and placing his crowbar on a free section of the desk. He begins scouring the computer for information of… anything at this point for him to better understand his situation. Of course its still not going to be easy as he thought because much of the functions are still corrupted and unable for him to use, same with much of the files and documents he cand find. Good news is he just has to leave the computer on and in time it should give him access to more of what he would need.
He groans as his stomach grumbles, the events of the previous day and the fact he hasn't eaten at all in the other day and his present day, he's starting to feel the effects of hunger hit him. "Damnit… I need something. Anything at this point. I can't stay cautious anymore." He murmurs and begins looking some more at the computer, typing away on the keys until he finds one thing that he can actually make work.
The map.
"Yes." He smiles as a map of the entire city comes onto the screen. "With this map, I can focus on an area or building that might have something I need." Again like before, much of the map has parts blacked out or fizzled out and completely unreadable or unseeable. "Whatever. I don't need everything right now. I just need… something." He begins scrolling around and looking for anything that will catch his interest. 'Something for me to get food. A supermarket, greenhouse, a simple store, a place that manufactures food, something. Storage even that should—' His train of thought halts as he spots one location that just might be perfect for him.
The barracks.
He leans back as he begins to think of the implications of the location. 'Barracks… military area. That means it'll have weapons, possibly more armor like the ones I've seen. Most likely ammo and other guns for me to use. But best of all… MRE's. Meals Ready to Eat. If these Lombaxes follow a similar military doctrine like on earth, then theirs a good chance they might have MRE's for me to scrounge up and eat. MRE's are made to have remarkably long storage life, not to mention theirs supposed to be enough variety amongst them to cater to different diets. Not sure how well that will transfer to different species but this is going to be my best chance to get something to eat that I can stomach, nutritional, as well as not be rotted do to age.' He pulls out his phone and quickly takes picture of the screen, taking note to have his current location and the area the barracks are in together. It's not that far away but definitely going to be a trek for him.
He quickly looks at the corner of the screen and spots the clock. "16:32 military time." He takes a second to think on it and making sure he has the right time conversion as he doesn't use military time all that often. "… 4:32 pm. A few hours before it begins to get dark. It would be cutting it close but I think I can get there, scavenge, and get out before it gets dark… provided I don't get caught by some more of the feral denizens there. I could also just wait till tomorrow and go first thing in the morning, but that would leave me very weak, incredibly hungry and not be able to move all that well. I could also straight up collapse and pass out if things are that bad off for me. Then I would be a dead man for sure."
He leans back in the chair and lets out a loud groan before he groans a little sharper as he grabs his head.
"These headaches are also getting annoying. Who knows what those things were carrying after they clawed me and bit me." He looks down at his upper torso and notes the small tears and blood spots adorning his upper clothing. Any more damage and his shirt would be gone with his jacket following soon after.
His options are limited and he doesn't have much option left for him.
"…" He stares at he screen as he sees the corrupted system slowly try to repair itself. With one final breath, he makes his decision. "Fuck this." He stands, pushing the chair back and grabbing his crowbar.
He keeps on surviving. Time is short for Eli as he walks tirelessly in trying to establish a position for himself to basically live. His location is not getting any better as the days pass but he's slowly getting his place setup and right now needs some desperately sought after supplies to keep himself going. Safe to say going into an abandoned military area is not going to be a picnic for himself. We'll see how things go for him then.
Sometimes I bruh: Thanks. I hope you continue to like how it goes.
While this didn't exactly have any action, I was going to focus on more of the world building and setting that Eli has to deal with and how things went for the Lombaxes on the planet. Safe to say things seem a might different than what we've seen in the video games. All will be revealed on what exactly happened as Eli works to set his home up.
Thank you all for your support. Go ahead and fave, follow, review, whatever you wish. Take care everyone and hope the holidays have been good to you all. Have fun reading everyone, but most of all, have a great day each and every one of you.