Jonathan was walking in front of me, with a quicker pace and the young nurse on his left side while I followed right behind him. As they were walking away from the room, I tried to take a rough guess regarding the creature's overall appearance. I recalled clearly that the creature seemed to have its left arm ended with a mace-like hand, similar to the other aliens.
If there was one thing that I really noticed the moment we saw the creature, it would be its considerably louder footsteps compared to the other aliens. Therefore, I could quite assume that aside from the former being heavier, it would also be bulkier than the other ones.
That being said, the large bladed object held on its other hand could most likely be some sort of huge and very sharp cleaver, as it definitely used it to end the poor patients' life by penetrating hard through the back of their heads, very easily.
With those speculations in my mind, I had two other questions that would perhaps remain unanswered until we saw it directly during the day. What about its face, and the size of its head? The aliens so far that we had taken down all have the same size, and one or two fired .30-06 rounds were enough to penetrate their heads. Should the heavier counterpart have a larger head size, would the rounds still be effective in taking it down swiftly?
The second question that I had was the weapon it held on its right hand. So far, the methods that we used to take down the aliens were either to use a powerful enough round to penetrate their heads, or to blow up their own weapons, and making them engulfed in flames. Should the heavier counterpart do not bring the same kind of weapon, what would be its weakness?
While it could be sick of me to think about it, I was also curious to know where they could have brought the extracted brains to. Would they just take the brains out just to consume them, or that they used it for other purposes of their own.
However, I quickly brushed off my curiosity as it would remind me again of the horrifying sights back at the street and inside the room. When I got my mind focused back on our current situation, the three of us were already at the hexagonal shaped room on the same floor again.
There did not seem to be any more problems ahead of us, and so we head back to the emergency stairs to go down to the first floor. However, just as I opened the emergency stairs door on the first floor, I noticed that the doorway to the morgue was widely opened.
Jonathan must have definitely noticed that too, but I assumed that he decided to not care much about it. Since I had also wanted to get back as soon as we could, I followed behind him again and heading towards the same entrance we used to get inside.
I realized how wrong I was to assume that there was only one bulky alien nearby, as I suddenly heard another heavy thudding sound from the direction of our front, which would mean that another one was outside. Even though there was no light and it was very hard to look at our surroundings, I was quite sure that Jonathan could see the alien clearly as he crouched a bit earlier before the sound was heard.
To make our problem worse, another faint thudding sound was heard from behind us, indicating there was yet one other alien of the same kind at the first floor. At first, I was not really sure if it could come from the one we saw at the third floor. However, should that was the case, then the sound would be coming from above us instead. Jonathan seemed to realize our situation too, as he was grouching about it.
"Tch, great… So it is not just one, but three instead…" he said with a low voice.
I had to admit however, that for the first time I felt a bit relieved to know that one of us was in the state of shocked, as the nurse seemed to still have an empty stare on her eyes. If she was not in the state of shocked, she could be panicking towards our imminent threat. We stopped and were literally not moving for a little while, until Jonathan started to crouch and walk towards the left direction from the entrance door very slowly.
At first, I was so confused about his decision to walk away and get a bit closer to the alien, as it could spot us easier. However, since I also did not have any other choice I forced myself to follow right behind him by crawling. Little by little I crawled while also thinking if the alien would notice us, then it would all be over for us. I had even started to ask myself if they managed to catch and kill us, what they would do to our brains.
"Travis, that is enough…" Jonathan's voice suddenly reached out to me.
That was when I finally managed to get back to our situation again, and that was also when I realized that we somehow managed to get away from the bulky aliens. I could still hear the thudding sounds, but very faintly. I was really surprised that we were able to escape the imminent threat, despite that the odds seemed to be against us.
I quickly reached for the flashlight, only to realize that both Jonathan and the nurse had stood up again. I felt a little bit embarrassed for a little while as I stood up again, because it was very obvious that my fear had gotten the best of my mind.
Both the feeling of calm and clarity immediately filled my mind again, as the thudding sounds were no longer heard. I took several deep breaths before I could completely regain my clear mind again, and began to lead the way back to the station. I had also wanted to discuss about the bulky alien with Jonathan along our way back, but then again I believed that it would be best to focus on our way back completely and mentioned it with the rest of the others when the daylight came out.
Fortunately for us, the nurse also seemed to have calmed down as she no longer had the same empty stare on her eyes anymore. For a brief moment, I had wondered if she would panicked again once she saw the dead bodies that were still scattered on the street, but it seemed that she had started to get used to it. Then, she started to ask us where we were taking her to.
"Wait, where are you both taking me to?" she asked in confusion, but without the hint of panic in her voice.
"To our current hideout, I guess you can say that it would be probably one of the few places out here that could guarantee more of our safety." I responded to her while also giving out a little smile.
Jonathan did not say a word, and she only nodded twice as a response. As we had finished talking, I felt like the atmosphere of exhaustion was present around us, but I had this feeling that I would prefer to be surrounded by exhaustion rather than fear, at least for the rest of the time being.
It might take us a bit more than five minutes, when we reached the station again. I let out a louder sigh as we walked up the stairs to the second floor. Once we finally reached the platform again, I released my backpack and sat down on the ground as a reflex and panted heavily. I also noticed that Jonathan walked to one of the platform corner, before slowly sat down and released his backpack on the ground there and also seemed to be panting.
"Ah… you both saved another one I see…" said a familiar voice right in front of me when I was still looking down at the ground.
"Well, we also obtained some medical supplies, sir…" I said, "I hope it will be enough for now…"
Captain Quentin smiled warmly before he patted my back once as he was walking towards our backpacks, and back inside the train car, with the nurse following him inside. When I felt like I had a sufficient amount of air in me, I slowly walked towards Jonathan and sat down there beside him.
"We owed you back there, Jon…" I said to him, "Who knows how long we would be stuck there if you had not initiated to retreat…"
"It was more or less a gambling actually…" he said, still panting faintly.
I realized just from his words that he had some suppositions regarding his decision to flee back at the hospital. Nevertheless, it would be best for both of us to rest until the daylight came up again. I realized that I had not checked my watch again, and so I took out the flashlight and saw that the time was 01.34 a.m. Had I not decided to check the time, I would not realize that the year had in fact turned to 2033.
'What a way to celebrate the New Year…' I thought to myself, as I sighed.
"Oh yeah, happy New Year, Travis…" Jonathan said, before he closed his eyes while still folding his arms.
'At least I was not the only one who realized that the year had passed on to a new one…' I thought again, as my sights were getting darker rapidly…