"Uhm, hi. I'm Charlotte. I'm Zeek's childhood friend, and, um I like spring the most. That's it."
As the girl awkwardly introduced herself, I noticed that she seemed to have a slight accent.
"Nice to meet you, Charlotte. You probably already know my name, but it's Shion. I enjoy winter and summer equally," I flashed a smile at her.
After I said my piece, the awkward silence started to settle in.
"Okay!" Keith clapped his hands together and proceeded to say,
"I'm glad you two introduced yourselves, but it's getting so awkward I'm about to die! So how about we get acquainted a little better?"
As Keith said this, a small smirk formed on his face.
Now, I haven't known Keith too long, but I could already guess, that he was a lot more mischievous than I had given him credit for so far.
But since I could kind of guess what his personality was, both me and Charlotte sighed.
"What? Why are you sighing like my mom when I broke all the windows in an entire building?!"
I did a double take at Keith. "Wait, you what?"
"It's a long story, don't bother asking Zeek. You wouldn't want to know anyways."
Now, I don't know why. But at this moment, all three of us ended up laughing like the funniest thing in the world had happened.
I have a good feeling about these people.
***
After we got all the laughs out of our system, Keith continued where he left off.
"Hrmhm! Anyways! I was thinking we'd all go on a little shopping spree. Just think about it! Getting stuff for free, nobody to stop us. I mean, it's the Apocalypse, the Ragnarok of the world! Let's have some fun!"
Charlotte seemed to have a different idea on fun, because after Keith said this, she replied with
"Seriously? Robbing stuff from a store is not exactly my idea of fun, why don't we go somewhere free instead? Like the park to the south? Or we can at least pay for the stuff we find in the stores."
"Come on! This is literally the end of the world! We don't have time for unnecessary rituals of the past. We don't need to pay and stuff, everything is a free for all! Don't you get it? Come one, back me up Shion!"
Not knowing what to do, I said
"Just give me a second!"
I didn't know what to do, I don't want to steal but getting supplies is good, and just as I was about to walk away from the whole situation, I got a notification.
「 Steal what needs to be stolen, but do not cross your own morales. To survive, you need to retain your humanity. Don't become what you're avoiding. 」
"Hey; how about we just steal weapons and stuff that we'd need to be over the legal age to get. Pay for the rest like clothes and food."
"I guess that a good compromise. Better than stealing nothing."
"I'm fine with that."
Luckily, it seems like Keith and Charlotte are fine with my idea.
"Alright then, let go shopping!"
As Keith started running down the northern street called "Thorn street", Charlotte and I began to follow him while making small talk.
"How did you endure this for however many years?"
"I didn't. At some point I start just following Zeek wherever he went. Although I did witness almost every single one of his shenanigans."
"Like the time Keith broke a bunch of windows?"
"Keith?"
"The nickname I use for Zeek."
"Heyyy! Get over here guys! I found a cool weapon store!"
Looking at the weapon store, it looked a lot like just a door in a dark alleyway.
The only thing giving a hint that it was a weapon store, being the neon sign above the door reading "ᴡᴇᴀᴘᴏɴs sᴛᴏʀᴇ".
Personally, in my eyes, this store was the exact opposite of "cool". I mean, who even uses those old neon signs anymore?!
The last time I saw those was in my dead great great great grandparent's house! I hate the look of those bright glowing things, and I read that they slowly hurt your eyes over time if you see them a lot.
Especially if you're a store owner!
No. Enough ranting. I've gained a searing headache now.
***
As we entered the store, the first thing that Keith was drawn to was a gun that looked like a thicker version of a pistol.
After taking a closer look at the price tag, I learned that the gun was called an uzi. Or, more specifically a "Mini Uzi".
On the other hand, Charlotte didn't seem to like any of the guns. I glanced over in her direction to check on her.
To my surprise, I noticed that she had been looking over at me.
I was a little confused but then I noticed the gun behind me. She was just looking at the pistol on the wall behind me.
I took the gun off the wall, reading the tag as I took a closer inspection. The tag read "Ruger 1707 GP100".
Now, I have no idea what that means, but it seemed like Charlotte was interested in it.
I walked over and handed it to her.
"Huh?"
She didn't seem interested in the gun now that I handed it to her.
"Do you not like this gun?"
Charlotte seemed startled that I had asked her anything, considering how Keith was too distracted by the guns to notice any of his surroundings.
"Uh no. It's not that. I was just thinking."
Charlotte didn't seem to want to talk too much about what she was thinking of, so instead, I just lifted her arm and awkwardly said as I placed the pistol in her hand,
"Uh okay then."
I'm not good with people, or conversations. Or anything involving socializing with the rest of the world, for that matter.
Considering how I handled that matter, I felt a little too awkward to be around anyone at the moment. Or, more specifically, like I wanted to dig a hole right then and there, go in it and die where no one could see my shamefully awkward self.
But, I (sadly) couldn't do that because of the concrete floor, so I did the next best thing!
Going into the back of the store and totally not trying to avoid both Charlotte and Keith out of awkward embarrassment.
As I silently stepped into the back of the store, a cold scent of metal filled the air, along with another scent I couldn't identify.
Walking further into the back, I saw some lights still on.
Unlike the neon lights outside, these lights gave off a much more relaxed atmosphere. Although it might've just been their gentle yellow tinting, and under those yellow tinted lights?
A gun, unassembled lay there.
I stepped forward out of curiosity, the unidentifiable scent getting worse, and suddenly, my white shoes stepped in something.
As I looked down, I saw my shoe absorbing a red liquid, crimson trees spreading across the top.
Before my shoe became completely incased in crimson red, I moved my foot back.
But, why was blood here in the first place?
As this question came up in my mind, my eyes began to follow the blood trail, all the way up to a body.
Why was this here? How did it get here? How recent was this? It smells bad.
In that moment, a million thoughts passed through my head. Waves of disgust, fear and other emotions also went through my head like a tsunami.
My head was swirling, I felt sick. Sick to my stomach and, before I knew it, that sickness had creeped back up to my mouth and out.
I threw up, feeling so sick that after I had thrown up, I almost threw up again.
After I had thrown up into a corner, thankfully not multiple times, I gathered my wits, and turn back towards the body.
As I inched closer, I brought myself to look at the now empty shell of a once, living person.
The body had a blue lab coat, and a name tag which seemed to double as some sort of security pass; and, not to mention the wounds on the body were brutal.
Let's just say it's like someone took a shotgun, loaded up pitch black diamond shaped bullets, shot someone a ton of times all over the body, then ripped them to shreds with a dull knife from the dollar store.
I took a tarp from the back and gently covered the body.
"May you Rest In Peace."
I know it wasn't the right thing to do, but after I paid my respects to the corpse, I took it's name tag that doubled as a security pass, which, might I add, was completely undamaged and somehow completely free of blood.
After I took the security pass, I used it on a wall-mounted safe.
When I opened the safe, I found something kind of strange.
A case, it was a case. Why would someone put a case in a safe? Like, I get it might be high tech and all, but what's the point of putting a 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑑 case in a safe?
The hell?! That's just stupid, like putting a taped box in a lesser taped box.
I mean, at that point isn't it just a waste of resources? Like, you could've made a different item with that wasted metal from the safe!
Ehem, anyways.
As I pulled out the case from the safe, I noticed that it had strange divots in the sides, along with a black plate indented into the case.
Taking a guess, I took the pass I stole from the corpse, and placed the pass on the indented black plate.
Tchk! An audible noise of the case unlocking came as I put the card up to the reader.
I was a little nervous about opening the case.
It felt kind of ominous.
But just as my shaky hands were about to to open the case, the door swung open and hit the wall behind it, making a startling noise and in turn, making me drop the case and causing it to lock again.
Now, I don't know why in that moment I decided to hide behind an old crate full of foam peanuts, but I did; and seconds later, I heard heavy footsteps made by boots.
As the footsteps grew louder and closer, my heart began beating faster, the hairs on my neck stood up and I could feel my adrenaline starting to rush through me.
"Shion?"
A familiar voice rang out, washing me with relief.
"Yeah?"
"Whoa! What were you doing hiding around? You look like you've just seen a ghost."
"Well, it's kind of similar."
Keith tilted his head, apparently confused.
"Uhh, I don't get it?"
"It's nothing. Just don't look under that tarp, there's a dead body."
"Wow, for someone who was white as a sheet just a second ago, you seem awfully calm now," Keith just awkwardly laughed at his joke, but all it did was make the mood more uncomfortable.
As I scanned the card on the case again, whom I had gotten from "Quinn" who was apparently a senior tech engineer, I spoke
"I'll probably end up seeing a lot more people dead as this goes on, so the only thing I can do is try to survive. Besides, it takes more than a dead body to scare me!"
"That's good to know. Uh, well, Charlotte left back for the center."
Then, after a while of awkward silence, he left, and as he closed the door he said
"Well, I'm going to head back to center. When you're done here, let's all hang out again sometime!"
"Sure."
Truthfully, I was lying when I basically said I wasn't scared and, honestly, I don't understand how Keith could be so positive in this situation.
I'm envious of Keith who is able to make everyone in a room laugh; and me?
I'm just some socially awkward person who's sheltered herself up in her room whenever given the chance.
***
I gently lifted the lid of the case, which looked like a smooth rectangle with rounded corners and a handle.
I was kind of hesitant to look inside.
I felt fearful. But this won't stop me!
Steeling my nerves, I looked inside and instead found a sweatshirt.
Huh?
A sweatshirt?
All this security for a sweatshirt?
Don't be mad, don't be upset, remain calm. Okay, 1, 2, 3, breath.
As I let out a frustrated sigh, I grabbed the sweatshirt, took the unassembled gun, put them both into the case, and clipped the keycard to the inside of my pants pocket.
I then proceeded to walk out with everything, close both the doors behind me and walked back to the city center.
***
By the time I made it back to the city center, it was already noon.
"Shion! Over here!"
As my parents were beckoning me over, I then heard another voice calling my name,
"Uh, Shion! Can I take a bit of your time?"
Turning around, I accidentally ended up bumping my forehead into Charlottes face.
"Sorry! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it! You just hit my forehead, nothing important."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep! I'm really okay, it doesn't even hurt anymore!" Charlotte said this and then smiled.
I smiled back and then asked Charlotte what she needed to talk to me about.
"Nothing much, I was just uh, wondering if you could help me get something."
"Sure, that doesn't seem like much work. But, if you don't mind me asking; why didn't you ask Keith instead?"
"Well, I um, I- I want to get something sentimental, and I didn't want to ask Keith."
Wow, thats a lot more forward than I'd expect someone like Charlotte to be. Nothing bad meant by that though.
"Yeah, I can help you with that. Just give me some time to get ready."
"Okay," Charlotte nodded and walked towards her family who were also beckoning her over.
As I walked over to my parents, I overheard my mom saying
"Honey, if you could not put your makeshift weapons there, that'd be great."
"Why not? They look nice there!"
"But that's where our sleeping bags are going to go!"
"What do you mean? They can just go somewhere else!"
"But- Oh, Shion! You're here, great! Set these sleeping bags up there," mom pointed to where a box of weapons were.
"Eh? Okay."
As I was about to set up the sleeping bags I got a notification.
Taking my phone out of my pocket, I checked the screen.
「 Setting up camp in a vehicle would be better. Uncomfortable, but more efficient. 」
"Hey, mom? Dad? Don't you think it would be easier to just live in our car?"
"Shion, that's a nice a idea but it's not like we are going to need to move once a week."
"Hmm. Well I like the idea, it would be easier to not have to take the time to set things up anyways."
"Hyein, you can't be serious? Living in our car seems like more work that just setting up camp."
"But I am, and you're just saying that because you don't want to live in our car."
Before they could start arguing even more, I started taking everything and walked sneakily to where our car was hidden and started putting our items in.
Mom caught on after I came back and picked up our sleeping bags, and she too, began moving our stuff.
***
After about twenty minutes, and dad helping up through the last nine of those twenty minutes, we finished making our car, our new HQ.
"You know, now that I'm looking at it, the car isn't as bad as I thought It'd be."
"Wow, would you look at that! You finally came around to Shion's idea, after we put all the heavy items away," Mom spoke while sneering at dad.
As my parents started bickering a little louder, I started to walk towards where Charlotte and her family set up camp.
But before I could even get into yelling distance, Charlotte's parents stepped in front of me.
"Who are you? Don't you think you might be a little lost?"
"Can we help you with anything?"
"Uh, no. I don't need any help. I'm Shion, Charlotte's friend, and I actually came here to help Charlotte."
"Hmmm are you sure?"
"Our little Charlotte doesn't have any friends besides Zeek."
"Oh, Zeek! I forgot about him, you do know that Charlotte used to have a huge cru-"
Before Charlotte's mom could finish that sentence, Charlotte came up and interrupted.
"Oh, is that you, Shion? It's so nice that you, my friend, came here to hang out with me!"
"Wha-"
But before I could say anything else, Charlotte took hold of my arm and dragged me away from her parents.
"Sorry about them, they're kind of intense at times."
"No problem. Should we go get what you wanted to grab from wherever you left it?"
"Oh, that's right! I never told you where it is. Ugh, I'm so dumb, we need to go to the hotel that way," Charlotte pointed towards the west and to the giant white building to the right.
"Kay," I grabbed Charlotte's hand as we started jogging to the hotel. Or, more so me dragging Charlotte as I jogged.
After Charlotte got used to my pace, we started jogging side by side and making small talk instead of me just dragging her behind me.
When we got to the hotel, we stopped to take a water break, taking water from the gift store inside.
We then went up to the 5th floor and to room 523.
"You ready?" Charlotte asked this question, but it felt more like it was directed towards herself.
"As ready as you can be in an end of the world scenario."
Charlotte seemed to relax a bit after hearing my words, took a deep breath and then opened the door.