After a few minutes, they unreasonably decided to trust their friend. He said he had a very good reason using some strong words like 'apocalypse' and 'a matter of life and death'. Since a few other people in the group agreed to the plan, it seems reasonable to regroup with them.
"Do we really need to steal a car?" suddenly question Roger.
Nobody answered. Obviously, nobody wanted to steal a car but how were they supposed to go to the city centre?
City Square Mall was about 5.5 km (3.4 miles) away and River City condo more than 3 km (1.9 mi.) further. On a peaceful day, it would have been possible, but Nicolas seems to press everyone saying this is a life-or-death situation.
"Let's go outside first, we'll decide how to proceed from then." Baptiste was a strong promoter or the step-by-step approach.
"Good to me," answered Delphine, and the others nodded.
They went outside the bomb shelter and started to pack a few provisions before leaving the condo.
They walked south toward Upper Serangoon Road, the stress making them quieter than usual. They could see fumes all around the city. When reaching the road, on the left, the viaduct was destroyed by a meteorite. The vision matched Nicolas words, it was apocalyptic.
Luckily, they had to go right.
Baptiste stopped them, "Good luck! They are quite a few abandoned cars with no driver here." He was pointing in front of them.
Indeed, not able to move forward, the few cars brave enough to drive in this dire situation where stuck. And some drivers decided to drop the idea of continuing forward and decided to hide somewhere leaving their car in the middle of the road.
"Hey! look they are a lot of people at the crash site. They seem to be fighting." Geoffrey was pointing in the distance.
Indeed, a group of people were fighting and shouting.
"Maybe we can go the other way?" Roger was already moving while suggesting his idea. He was quite scared and taking risks was not something he enjoyed.
"Wait, look these two cars are still running. Why not pick them?" Baptiste was next to a white sedan and a black van.
In the confusion, Baptiste took the wheel of the first car while Geoffrey took the van.
Jiajin, Roger and Shiny went inside Baptiste's car, and Delphine joined Geoffrey.
Stealing as never been so easy, and after a couple of minutes of riding the car, they started to relax. For the next few minutes, they did not encounter any trouble besides a few cars abandoned on the road and a few fire trucks speeding in the streets.
"Pipou, can we pick up Rika?" Jiajin asked while typing on her phone.
Rika was an ex-colleague and good friend of Jiajin.
"Where is she?" Baptiste knew he did not have too much choice in this as he would hear Jiajin pestering until he agrees.
"Almost on the road, she is close to Aljunied MRT."
"Ok, can, but we also need a new car we won't be able to transport everybody with only two."
Arranging everything with her phone, the two cars took the direction of the MRT station.
A few minutes later they were seeing Rika waving her hands on the side of the road.
"Look she's there" Jiajin was enthusiastic to meet her friend.
"Yes, I saw her." Baptiste was more preoccupied to find another vehicle.
The moment they stopped the car they saw a light in the sky, the face of Rika was changing from happiness to horror. She ducked beside the car and the second later a meteorite crashed dozens of metres away.
The blow of the crash made the cars move, and lots of rocks and scrap were raining all over the place. Hopefully, the meteorite was quite small, the explosion was quite harmless for our group barely denting the car. But the building on the other side of the road was not spared.
The group was petrified, Death just made a joke to their lifeline, showing up just in front of them. Only after a minute they recovered from the shock and started to move, slowly going out of the car.
On the other side of the street, a couple of incoming cars stopped, and people were coming from the MRT station to check on the impact site. Some were curious, others were wondering if they could help people in need at the crash site.
"What should we do?" asked Delphine, looking at the smoke. She wanted to help but at the same time was terrified.
"Not sure," answered Geoffrey and Baptiste at the same time.
"This is not our problem, we should go, no?" Shiny intervened for the first time in the past hour.
"Exactly, this is not our problem, should we not meet with Nicolas and his friends? Let's go!" added Roger, holding Shiny in his arms.
"Hey! what is happening?" Geoffrey was looking at a few persons that fell on the ground upon coming closer to the meteorite crash. They were the drivers and passengers of the cars that stopped a moment ago.
"I am not sure, but it doesn't look like a good thing!" added Rika.
"See, we should go!" Roger was almost panicking.
"Can you stop insisting! Wait until we know more!" Jiajin agreed with him in her heart, the situation was dire and they should leave, but she started to feel annoyed by Roger always pressing them.
"If you want to go, just go, take a car, look this one is free to take!" she pointed to a luxury sedan on the other side of the road, close to the crash site. The driver was lying on the ground a dozen meters away close to the building where the meteorite landed.
Roger hesitated, this was an idea that was seducing him, as he badly wanted to leave the place, but it meant going closer to the crash site where weird phenomenons were happening.
"Let's go, we need another car anyway, right?" Shiny was agreeing to the idea.
Boosted by the expecting eyes of her wife, Roger took her by the hand and said, "Ok let's go! See you at the River City condo!"
They ran toward the car.
Just at this moment, some people were waking up.
The group was a bit far to see clearly, but it seemed that a few of them were now fighting among themselves. From this moment, things escalated quickly. While Shiny and Roger were rushing to the car, some people were coming out of the ruined building. The scary part was most of the bodies were mutilated but it did not seem to be bothered by the injuries. On the contrary! They were starting to run after a few other people.
"What in the world is happening..." Geoffrey was dumbstruck by the scene unfolding in front of him, this was unbelievable!
"Do you think it is the news Nicolas was supposed to tell us later?" Delphine said.
"Probably?" Baptiste was not sure what to say.
They felt like assisting to a live version of one of their favourite TV shows, Running Dead, only with slower zombies. On TV, it was a fun and thrilling experience, but live, this was only terrifying.
The numbness of the surprise was vanishing slowing. Jiajin pulled Baptiste and Rika "Let's go, now!"
Rika did not wait to be asked a second time and open the door of the car.
Baptiste was hesitating, "should we not help Roger?"
Roger was struggling to adjust the sit and all other items of the car. Bad luck for him, the former driver was at least 30 cm taller than him and this high-end car had so many buttons that what was supposed to be a simple action seemed to need an engineering degree to understand.
The scream of Shiny was not helping him at all to keep his cool.
Then in the following moment, something unexpected happened. Instead of moving forward, the car went backwards at full speed. Under the pressure he made a cruel mistake, crashing on the car behind. The shock stunned the couple, and most of the windows broke open.
A minute later it was too late, a couple of zombies reached the car. Assaulting the married couple through the windows.
Jiajin not giving a second look answered coldly, "They chose to go there, this is their problem, he just needed to take the car and leave, no?"
Geoffrey, Delphine and Baptiste were not sure how to answer this cold remark. But in this situation, they knew better than being righteous. Without saying anything, the group got into the cars and left without looking back.
The journey to City Square Mall was uneventful and quiet, especially inside Jiajin cars where Baptiste was pondering about the coldness of her dear one. He knew that from a survival point of view she was right, but he could not understand why she so easily abandoned Roger and Shiny.
Suddenly the phone of Jiajin rang, it was Lexie. She put her phone on speaker.
"Allo? Allo?" the stressed voice of Lexie was looking for her friend answer.
"Hello! You're on the speaker!" Jiajin answered.
"Where are you? We are at the meeting point," asked Lexie.
"Yes, we are almost there, just need to turn the corner," answered Baptiste.
"Great!"
Upon reaching the back street of City Square Mall, they saw 3 persons waving energetically at the two cars, Lexie among them.