The Hero and I made our way through the many burning and ashen streets as we dashed toward the safe point displayed on the map. Even though the Apocalypse Keeper, which was probably not its name but what I was going to call it anyway, wasn't a system, it still was a little bitch that gave us all this.
"Vincent! There!"
The hero pointed at a dead body on the sidewalk. Behind that burning and mauled body was the broken glass entrance to a thirteen-story building.
We dashed toward the sidewalks, jumping over the cracks in the roads. A light pole had fallen in front of the gate, but we could easily slide under it.
As soon as we entered the building.
[Ding! Safe spot found]
[Detox in process…. Complete!]
I stretched my hands behind my back and looked around. It seemed we were in some office building of sorts as the remains of once a lavish reception room filled my sight.
Couches were torn apart, desks broken, windows crushed.
The passageways leading to the stairs and the elevator block were dyed crimson with blood while a few bodies lay here and there as well.
"This is horrible," the hero muttered.
"Totally, I doubt they have anything edible left."
"No, I didn't mean—"
"Right, let's just raid their coffee machine."
The hero was stupid.
I walked through the passageways. A few sticky corpses were on the ground, but I stepped over them all and ran to the staircase.
The tilted building had the head of another one breaking into the staircase.
With a cautious gait, the hero and I tread our way through the stairs and slowly went further up. On the third floor seemed to be the cublicles and the working part of the office, where we were likely to find some food that wasn't destroyed.
"Vincent, do you think our bodies have grown shorter?"
"And weaker."
The hero clenched his fists behind me, his muscles were long gone, what did he expect?
The red emergency lights flickered as the doors off their hinges creaked. The smell of the dead people merged strongly with the air.
"Tsk, tsk, so gnarly," the hero said. Both of us were rather accustomed to this, so we didn't care.
Soon, I found a security guard with a pipe driven through his head, and his bloodied hand gun on the ground.
"Neat!" I said as I picked up the handgun and checked for the bullets. I had been shooting like a normal school child since I was a kid. After checking the gun, I moved over the gored guard and checked his pockets and shirt.
"Robbery?"
"I am just looking for cigarettes."
"You shouldn't steal…"
"Is he gonna smoke through the hole in his head, you fuckwit?"
The hero bit his lips and looked away, tears in his eyes.
Though not on him, but I found some cigarettes on another dead one's body. This guy had a hole in his stomach which was a tad too wide to smoke through.
Loaded once more, I held the handgun in hand, pocketed the cigs, and made my way through the aisles and the cubicles before finding the office kitchen.
The mordernist place was now rife with blood and a mess of items. Many cabinets were dragged open and many sachets were fallen on the ground.
I pulled open the cabinets on top, some snack bars and a few sachets of coffee, perfect. The machine wouldn't be working without electric, but we'd manage.
"Someone had a donut day," the hero said, looking at a box on the counter. "It's filled with mold, about fifteen days? Fuck they're half eaten as well."
"Could be longer. Ignore that, take whatever you can eat."
I checked the marks on the sachets for the manufacture and expiration date.
The manufacturing was…
2025.
Two years after we had been summoned to another world.
Our location was already clear with everything written in English, this was the same country as before, Ternet, but to think two years had gone by.
It was then.
A rattle sounded from the cabinet below.
Half eaten.
Bloodied kitchen.
A mess.
A smile spread on my face as I slowly grabbed the handle of the rattling cabinet.
"Surprise, surprise,"
The cabinet swung open.
And inside, was a stout old man, quaking in fear.