The first thing that I intended to do was searching the dark surroundings behind the destroyed van just on my right side. I decided that it was best to do so since I would not be able to defend myself if I was to be ambushed or cornered by another alien. I reached for a glass shard lying on the ground near me, and walked towards the van slowly and cautiously until I reached the van wagon.
As I stepped to take a look at the other side of the van wagon, something hit me so hard that it made me thrown back to the wall behind me. I lost my sight for a blink second, but I managed to dodge the second hit by strafing to my right side, making it hit the wall. I grabbed its torso, grappled it down, and held it still by using my thighs.
Just as I was about to stab it with the glass shard, it retaliated by hitting hard on my face. It really hurt me that I kind of lost my balance and dropped the glass shard, and it proceeded to knock me down by holding my neck against the ground.
I was stunned, unable to move as I briefly felt blood running down from my left nose hole to my mouth.
Then, I slowly began to see a clearer sight of whatever was holding me down, and for an unknown reason it also held back from attacking me further. Finally, I realized that it was Jonathan Xavier all along.
"You!" I said as I realized that he was the one holding me down.
"You..." he replied as he stood up and helped me got up on my feet again.
"Glad to know that someone survived besides us," he continued "not to mention also from the military base..."
"Us?" I asked as I was confused who else was with him.
"Yeah. Ryan also survived. He is right behind you," he said as he pointed the direction behind me.
"Glad to see you are still in one piece, Ensign!" Ryan said with a smile as I turned back to see him.
"Please, just call me Travis." I said as I implied that our military ranks no longer mattered for us in the situation we were in.
As they explained how they managed to survive in the first place, I began to follow of how they eventually ended up at the canal. Right before the base experienced the sudden blackout, he had just dismissed the bullying cadets after finished filing the reports of their misconducts.
When he was about to exit his office to return to his barracks, the sudden blackout occurred and he immediately grabbed his anti-tank sniper rifle stored in his office right after the alert was sounded.
Then, after he heard the high-pitched screeching noise, and the strange sound by the unknown object flying low passing through above the main building, he decided to exit the building by jumping from the second floor through his window instead, in anticipation if it was an air raid from the object.
Just as he landed on the ground outside the main building, he heard an explosion coming from the direction of the great lakes. Because of that, he decided to head north with the intent to arm himself with an automatic weapon stored inside the port that house the military hovercraft.
Unfortunately for him, the port was destroyed by a second purple beam shot coming from an unknown direction – I informed him that this beam shot came from the unknown flying object that landed on the great lakes.
Realizing that there was no further point in going to the north port, Jonathan decided to head for the armory to gather any men he could while also finding out if there would be any spare equipment left for him to use.
It was at that time that the armory was destroyed by the third shot. With nowhere else to go, he rushed to the northwestern side in order to exit the base through an abandoned entrance.
While he was on his way there, he heard another two explosions coming from behind him – I also informed him that the two explosions were the sound of the central and western wing destroyed. Up to that moment, he still had not yet meet up with Ryan again.
Jonathan eventually reached the abandoned entrance on the northwest side of the base, and it did not take him long to break through it. He followed the path from the entrance, and he realized that the path somehow connected to the alleyway of the nearby house complex as he saw more house as he followed the path.
However, the path ended with a short wall separating it from a canal. It was at that time that he realized someone was following behind him, and it was Ryan. Ryan panicked, and Jonathan tried to calm him down.
Just as Ryan has got his grip again, a strange T-shaped aircraft found them and pursued them. They tried to lose the aircraft, only to end up in a nearby small dam. Jonathan finally decided to take down the aircraft using his anti-tank rifle.
Each of his shot hit the aircraft, but it seemed like all of the shots did no damage at all to it. Fortunately, his last remaining shot hitting the aircraft canopy which finally brought it down, and he witnessed it crashed to the dam, breaking into the ground and surface below it – this aircraft was the one that made a blast in the sewer wall and woke me up.
After making sure that the aircraft was not flying again, they decided to enter the sewers through any nearest entrance from the canal since Jonathan thought it would be safer inside it.
As they followed the canal, they eventually found a rusted gate leading into the sewers, but they suddenly heard a loud banging coming from inside the sewers which led them to wonder if it was the aircraft that they took down earlier, and so they hid behind a nearby abandoned van – this was the location where I met with Jonathan and Ryan again.
Ryan on the other hand, had a quite different story. Right after the cafeteria bullying, he was to head back to his barracks again by going through the eastern wing. Just as he was about to exit the eastern wing, he heard a commotion from the direction of the laboratory.
Apparently, he overheard several high-ranking officers from inside the lab desperately trying to stop the ongoing overall system hacking conducted by an unknown party. Shortly after, he saw three high-ranking officers burst out from the lab and rushed their ways to the direction of the central wing – I asked if one of them were of Navy captain, and he confirmed that it was.
He tried to dismiss it as he headed back to his barracks again, but then suddenly the blackout happened followed by the sound of the alert commanding every personnel to ready for combat. Thus, he rushed to the armory but when he arrived right in front of it, it was still locked.
Desperate to get himself armed, he decided to go for the eastern port instead since he believed that there will be some weapons there. As he rushed to the port by going to the same way to the barracks to shorten his distance, he bumped to several other cadets who were carrying flashlights and rushing to the armory, including the ones who bullied him earlier, in total panic.
When he reached the eastern port, he was surprised that he could not find any spare weapons there except for a medical kit pouch with belt lying near the entrance door. He picked it up to check what were the things inside it, and found some gauze, bandages, canteen bottle, and ointment.
He decided to take the medical pouch with him, and was about to rush back to the armory when a purple beam was shot from the direction of the great lakes towards the port, exploding and destroying it.
The explosion blown him back several feet to the ground, and as he tried to get back on his feet, he saw the second beam shot to the direction of the north port. He ran as fast as he could towards the armory, but he stopped when a third beam shot destroyed the armory, together with most of the eastern wing.
In his confusion, he decided that it was best to head to the north direction with the hopes of the second beam did not destroy the northern port, to which he was definitely wrong. But then, he saw a figure heading deeper to the abandoned section in the northwestern direction – that was Jonathan who was searching for the abandoned northwestern entrance at that time.
With nowhere and no one else in mind to follow with or to head to, he rushed to the direction of Jonathan, and after following him for a while, he eventually caught up with him.
Apparently, the strange T-shaped aircraft was coming from the flying object that landed on the great lakes which also followed him after he survived the explosion of the port. Based on their stories, I assumed that the T-shaped aircraft was deployed to ensure that there were no survivors from the sudden attack.
I also believed that the aircraft did not eliminate Ryan immediately probably because it might thought that Ryan would lead it to a bigger group of survivors, not to mention that it was very likely that the same kind of aircrafts were also spread out in the town.
It was only several hours passed since our first meeting, but we already looked like hell. Nevertheless, each of us were at least a bit relieved to catch up with each other again after the sudden attack.
It was then that I suggested we went to the nearest fire department, to get some protection equipment since we were not wearing any armors that could suppress injuries if we were attacked by the aliens again, and if not also fire axes for melee weapons since using unsuppressed firearms might give away our position to the aliens.
Both of them agreed, and so we decided to head for the Chicago Fire Department which was about forty miles from our position.