His hands rummaging through the bloody guts of the zombie, Mark pulled out a white bead from its innards. Gary and Kevin also joined in, pulling out the beads from the motionless corpses. Five minutes or so passed, the three gathered their loot. From the seventeen zombies that they slaughtered, the managed to collect seven of these white beads that looked like tiny pearls.
As much as Leo wanted to ask what the shards were, he hesitated. He remembered the sensation of when the information flowed into his mind when he focused on the awakening crystals. The three probably got their knowledge from when they awakened, arbitrary asking a weird question could possibly blow his cover. Tossing one of the beads to Leo, Gary said, "Newcomers gift." The three split the remaining six beads amongst themselves, which Leo thought was pretty fair since they basically all the fighting.
Although curious of what the weird bead was, he quickly slipped it into his pocket looking unfazed by it. He could feel the three observing his actions, they were still probably not convinced about his prowess since he contributed nothing to the earlier fight. The three began to leave, heading towards what Leo deduced would be the shelter.
Passing through the ruins, Leo was quite surprised to see the surroundings tidied up. Getting closer to the shelter, he could see some people carefully hauling debris into a pile, clearing out the space in front of the entrance. The people working saw the group return, they quickly greeted them. But from the gestures and their tones of voice, Leo somewhat felt a sliver of fear. Deciding that it was none of his business, he ignored the oddities. They arrived at the entrance, a large steel cellar hatch that lead underground.
The air was stale, the lights were quite retro. But possibly due to the simplicity of the old fashioned technology, they managed to survive the disaster. There were cracks running through the concrete walls, but there were vines that were stabilizing the whole structure. Judging by the fight earlier, Leo guessed that the vines were probably Mark's work. The yellow lights really gave the whole shelter an apocalyptic feeling, especially the cracked concrete and steel structures that weren't that common in day to day life.
"Food and water? I haven't eaten since disaster struck," Leo asked, looking around the space that was quite large since it was meant to house a thousand people. There were roughly two dozen women and children working indoors, who were carefully unpacking supplies and arranging the area. Leo observed the people, who looked quite gloomy. "Why are they hurt?" Leo asked, noticing some abrasions and bruises on some of the women and children. "Arriving here wasn't easy," Gary said in a cold voice. Looking at the wounds, Leo wasn't convinced, but he simply chose to move on.
"We are quite hungry, may someone prepare some food and water?" Mark said, walking over towards a steel table that the old school cafeterias had. Seeing that the group was also seated, Leo sat down on the opposite side of where the other three were seated. A few people scrambled to prepare something to eat, as if they were afraid of something. Soon enough, cups of those powdered orange juice were brought to the table. Taking a sip, Gary spat out the juice. "How many times do I have to say that I want coffee, not this bullshit," Gary said, irritated. "Calm down boss, it's only their second day," Mark said, his tone was clearly not trying to calm Gary, but to appear as a well-mannered man.
Keeping his pokerface, Leo had a rough idea of the power structure of this group. He made up his mind on the spot that after some food and drinks he'll leave right away, he didn't want to mingle with these affairs. The meal was really bland, but that was normal since the food was for emergencies, the fact that he was almost starving to death probably also helped with him devouring the food. Having a basic understanding of the dynamics of the group, he acted more dominant than he normally would.
"Lead me to a room," he said to one of the women that was idle. Although she didn't know who the new person was, judging by how he was eating with the awakened, the woman thought that Leo was also a awakened. "This way sir," she said meekly, quickly leading him to a vacant room. After leading Leo to his room, the woman quickly left, rejoiced that nothing happened to her. The room had a bunker bed, metal cabinets and a desk. The room also came with a bathroom, which was pretty uncommon for a shelter to have. There was no bathtub in the bathroom, only a simple metal toilet and a shower head. Searching through the cabinets, there were a couple pieces of clothing and pouches, a steel water canteen, and a couple bars of what looked to be granola.
Finally reaching safety, he felt like a big burden was lifted off his chest. He suddenly began to notice many things he hadn't notice before, like the putrid stank from his body. Stripping, he put the crystals and bead into a little polymer pouch. Giving himself a thorough rinse, he felt like he was reborn. Feeling his squeaky clean skin that was finally void of all dust, he was ecstatic. He drying his body with a random shirt, he shook off the water in his hair. Rummaging through the clothes, he first chose a pair of boxers and a thin shirt before putting on cargo pants and a denim jacket.
Sitting on the bottom bunk, he began to examine the white bead salvaged from the zombie. He tried to focus on it, and just like the awakening crystals, information began to flow into his mind. The white bead was called a soul shard, used to enhance the powers of an awakened once absorbed. "What if I absorbed this without awakening any powers?" he thought, a crazy idea forming in his mind. Heavily contemplating for roughly a minute, he decided to risk it. "This will give me an edge over the other awakened," he thought, trying to convince himself.
Staring at the white bead in his hand, he focused on absorbing it. Sharp pain shot through his head, worse than any migraine he had ever had. This was probably the body's way of warning Leo to stop what he was attempting. But being the stubborn person he was, Leo gritted his teeth while continuing. The power from the soul shard pulsed through his body, enhancing his cells. However, since he was not an awakened, the energy contained in the soul shard was too powerful for him to handle. His skin began to crack, blood slowly seeping out from the fissures in his skin. His vision turned red as he temporarily went blind. Unable to withstand the pain, he passed out on the bed. While he was asleep, the body undergone some major changes, his cells multiplied before they condensed, greatly increasing his bone and muscle density and mass, his eyesight improved to that of a normal person, and his skin became tougher.
Leo woke up in what he thought was a pool of sweat, but smelling the rusty odor, he instantly sobered up. The first thing he noticed was how clear everything was, it was as if he was wearing glasses. Looking around, the whole bed was stained red, so were the clothes that he was wearing. Since he was underground, he had no way of knowing how much time had passed. Deciding to quickly wash off the dried up blood that formed a thin shell on his exposed skin, he took long shower and quite a lot of scrubbing.
Putting on the same kinds of clothes he chose yesterday, he heard knocks on the steel door. Not even drying his hair, he quickly slid the pouch that contained his crystals into his pants. It was the woman who led him to the room, who had a severely bruised eye. The woman didn't say a single word, she just gestured for Leo to head outside. Walking through the main hall, Leo could see the three awakened "enjoying" breakfast. "How was your first night?" Mark asked with a warm smile. "Pretty decent," Leo replied, still following the woman. "Where do you think you are heading?" Gary asked, looking at the woman. "I asked her to take me outside for a walk to grab some fresh air, is there a problem?" Leo asked, irritated. The atmosphere instantly became tense, as if a fight was brewing.
"Of course it's alright, don't forget to bring a weapon," Mark said, de-escalating the situation while tossing Leo a spear. "Thanks man," Leo said, as the two exited the bunker. With all the essentials on him, Leo was prepared to leave right away, but first he had to hear what the woman needed to say.