The design was pristine and almost beautiful even if it was mostly made with stone. It was obvious whom this had been previously designed for and paid by; the array of colours of marble that made up the entire sight before Katya was impressive, small narrow streets made for no vehicles were a French vanilla marble while the buildings were a petal pink marble giving a warm feeling. Lights glittered the ceiling which was an empress green marble and water tickled from small pipes along the right side of the set up into a long and thin water hole.
“Well bend me over and call me Sally…” Oliver mumbled softly in surprise at what they were faced with.
“How the heck…?”
Before Katya had even managed to finish her sentence, Lily was running over with her father striding behind with a slightly proud smile on his face. “The water is brought in from the oceans, filtered and then moves through water-powered turbines which generate the power for lights and slight cooling fans. The water can then be used for drinking, or watering plants in the large greenhouses over there by the river so we wouldn’t have to leave here so long as the diet was kept.”
“What about… you know… the need for sunlight?” Zen queried, stunned by the idea of a sub-terrain civilisation.
“And waste disposal” Katya added with a small chuckle.
“The lights above emit UVB, UVA and Vitamin D but at a lower output than the sun, so they look more like stars but they give enough for what we need… as for waste, well, we do have drainage but it takes time to go through filters and treatment to remove water and utilise the rest as fertiliser in the greenhouses” The man explained with a small shrug of his shoulders, clearing not one of the botanists, or the scientists behind those little ideas.
“Wow… well, it’ll certainly do so long as those beasts can’t locate us down here” Katya nodded lightly, still unsure exactly how the aliens were able to locate people, but if Joanne’s family were safe in their little bunker, then this one would certainly do the trick.
Oh.
Joanne’s family and Svetlina.
“I need to go back out there…” The red-head mumbled to herself with a small sigh, she would really have liked to have sat down for a little moment and work out a few things about what she had seen and experienced. “There are a few more people out there in a small safe place, but they’ll do a lot better off here with everyone else.”
“If you are going back out there, could you maybe pick up some seeds for the greenhouses?” Lily’s father asked with a small smile “We have tinned, and long life stored here but it would be nice to start growing some fresh…”
Katya tightened her backpack with a small chuckle “I suppose I could survive that much”
“Especially as you won’t be alone this time” Oliver chimed with his arms folding over his still bare chest. “Plus, I should grab some clothes for myself and everyone else who is lacking… my body may be stunning, but I would like to keep my dignity”
“Dignity? You lost that a long time ago Olli” Katya commented with a smirk on her lips.
“That’s true; I became friends with you… Ow!” Oliver flinched dramatically as Katya reached to punch his arm in response.
“Are you sure you want to go back out there if they are already safe?” Alister had joined them now, his two children stuck close to him. “I suppose saying this to the girl who came into that damned factory is rather silly, but you’ve saved enough to not feel obligated…”
“It’s not obligation Sensei. I would be going out there anyway… that factory must mean that they need humans alive which means that there is a chance my family are alive” Katya explained with a steel voice as though daring anyone to talk out and try to convince her to change her mind.
Nobody spoke for a moment before Alister let out a low chuckle. “You always were hard-headed”
“Probably always will be as well” Oliver added “I’ll be going with her though…” before Katya could begin to speak the male held up his right hand “Oh no you don’t, I’m coming with you. My family are down there as well, plus you’re my best friend; like hell, I’m going to let you go alone”
The red-head could feel gratitude for her best friend swell in her chest in those moments; it wasn’t surprising that he was saying he would come, but it made the whole idea seem less terrifying and less insane if he was going to go with her.
“Would you pair permit me to join you? I’m not a fighter, but I’ve travelled plenty in my time” Zen spoke up causing the actual surprise to flash through Katya, her eyebrows raising as she turned to him.
“But… don’t you have people here?”
“Afraid not, I’ve always been a bit of a loner – moved here for work but then spent far too much time at home with cocoa and books than out meeting new people” He explained with a sheepish chuckle. “Besides… I’m a tree surgeon… there’s very little help I can be down here. At least I can be an extra pair of eyes or a handyman with you guys, how about it?”
“I’m not going to force you to stay here if you want to come, the extra help could be very useful… thank you Zen” Katya smiled lightly as he patted his daggers at his side as Lily’s father handed him a broad sword he had taken which Zen could latch to his back.
“If you guys have that far to go, why don’t you tell us where your friends are, and we’ll get them and bring them back here? You’ve done so much already, it’s only fair that we do some of the work” Lily’s father stated with the little girl nodding vigorously.
“True! The heroes do the big things, but us normal people can keep people safe too!” she exclaimed proudly, the little boy from earlier still lingering with her and holding onto the back of her dress. She had taken that role of keeping him secure very seriously this whole time, and that brought glitter to Katya’s eyes as she bent the knee to move to their level.
“And that makes you a hero as well, remember that”
With a nod, Lily moved forward to hug the red-haired female, whispering thanks for saving her before she pulled back and offered the three a salute. Bowing her head to her in jest, Katya moved to stand back up to hold her hand out to the girl’s father.
“Thank you. They are at the traditional butchers around the corner, there is a bunker in the outhouse which they are hiding in” Katya explained “Please make sure they are safe, and tell them that I will come back and see them again”
“Sure. In return, I’d like you to go to my house.” The construction worker commented, holding out a set of keys that had been in his pocket “There is a safe in the living room, behind some of the books on the bookshelf. The combination is 12093101, it’s got a map in it of all the other locations of bunkers like these… it should help you get your family to a safe place.”
Reaching out to take the keys, Katya passed them onto Zen before smiling brighter towards Lily’s father and Alister-Sensei. “Thank you, for everything… but we should go.”
“Of course, take care of yourselves now. Leave the others, the clothes and the food to us; we’ll put together a scout team, so we can get everything we need” Alister reassured while pulling Katya into a tight one arm hug, his muscles threatening to cause damage even if he wasn’t squeezing hard.
Without further goodbyes or emotions, the three found themselves in the relatively hellish world the destroyed city was compared to what had been designed below.
But there was hope. And that somehow made the sun seem a little warmer, while the breeze seemed to encourage them forward in a gentle nudge.
By nightfall, the hopeful trio had ventured out of the city, and taken up a shelter within an abandoned house. It was a small country house, thatched roof with beamed ceilings that had such a draft due to the front door having been ripped off its hinges. With the chill damp of the night setting in, the three had raided the wardrobes in the upstairs two rooms. This house had belonged to a young family by the looks of the cot in the master bedroom and the young cartoon sheets in one of the other rooms.
It felt
wrong to be in the home of another, raiding their clothes and their food stores. A lot of the food was well past its best by now, but there was enough in tinned form to fill a whole and pack up for travel the following day.
“We’ll take it in turns to keep watch, to keep an ear out for anything that might find us, and we’ll carry on moving at dawn?” Zen, despite his initial cautiousness, had taken quite well to the calm role of making sure all three were on the same wavelength. It wasn’t that he was taking the lead forcefully, but it seemed natural when his demeanour was continuously gentle and understanding.
“Sounds good to me!” Oliver piped up while stretching out on the floor under the duvet and blankets they had brought downstairs for them all to share. His arm slid itself under Katya’s cushion to pull her back to him a little as she drifted in and out of sleep, previously unaware of how much stress the day had put on her.
“I’ll take the first watch” Zen confirmed with a soft smile at the best friends who seemed to feel so much safer with the other there. He felt a swelling of warmth in his heart knowing that even in this kind of situation, there was still that great connection between people that couldn’t be dampened.
Chapter 6
The night passed by smoothly.
When Zen’s watch was over it was Katya who awoke from the sound of his movements closer to where she was spooned closely by Oliver in the giant fandom t-shirt he had raided from a clothes’ store they had passed on their way here. So, the red-head had opted to take the next watch, reluctantly crawling away from the warmed of Oliver and pulling on the thick fluffy hoodie she had taken from upstairs.
Following her, Oliver was woken up for the final watch shift before they would all begin to function.
It was as the pink and orange hues of dawn began to grace the sky, that Oliver got his first real taste of what they were undertaking. The chill damp of morning air clung to the walls of the house they were in, the weak rays of sun picked through the drawn curtains and finally the sound of life in the form of crickets outside sounded.
The peace was shattered in an instant though as a loud, heavy thud against the living room door. It was a sound that shocked Katya and Zen into a dazed state of attempted focus and caused Oliver to jump up on the sofa and turn to the entrance in a fearful but focused state.
With the sofa beneath his feet, Oliver came to roughly the same height as the Nerushi that faced him, the blue of his eyes thinning as his pupils widened in focus. As the being lunged forward to grab the male, he leapt over the side of the sofa with a skilful break fall perfected through years of free running around the cities he had lived in. His feet caught himself and stabilised as his right hand draw the short sword, plunging the metal blade into the side of the alien’s neck. A gurgling sound left the creature as the blue blood dripped from the wound while the Nerushi collapsed to the floor.
“Well…” Oliver swore lightly under his breath as he looked over the blade that was covered in blue gloop “What the heck…”
“They don’t have blood like us; but from what I could tell, that definitely is their blood” Katya commented through a yawn as she walked over to Oliver with a small smile on her lips “Nice aim by the way”
“Yeah, never thought being your sparring punch bag would come in handy…” Oliver sniped. “Are there any more?” He asked glancing around and spotting Zen checking all windows and entrances to see if there were any more out in the world around them.
“No, it seems to be alone” The grey-haired man confirmed as he closed the curtains once more to make sure they couldn’t be seen through. “But we may want to get moving”
“Not yet… I want to check these guys out further.” Katya spoke up as she knelt beside the Nerushi just as she had done with the first one she had killed in her own home.
This one was identical, there was no different in the colour or shape of the armour, the indent for the eyes and the exact same angle that caused the weak points. These weren't armoured plates that were made now and then, they were too identical as though created in an industrial setting. It seemed silly to be surprised that these creatures seemed used for war, but somehow the precise accuracy of each piece compared to the next was scary. It was like they were literally made for war.
This theory in the back of her head was only encouraged with her next actions. Taking the flip knife from Oliver, she carefully etched under the armour of the shoulder. All the armour was fitted and there was no gap for removal, meaning these creatures were likely in them until death.
Did that mean this was all their life was?
Pulling the armour plates away from the body, she found tubes of that rouge pink colour lining the tiny gap between the armour and blue-hued skin.
“Hey, isn’t that pink stuff the same stuff as they were feeding us?” Oliver spoke up looking over at Zen for confirmation.
The red-haired female looked up with that ever-sick turning feeling in her stomach flaring back up. As Zen nodded, his answer was inaudible to her. They didn’t know the horror that she did it seemed, didn’t know what that liquid was and what was the ghastly ingredient within it…
She couldn’t bring herself to tell them.
“It seems to be a food source for them as well, the tubes are inserted into the skin” She would just need to keep that little detail away from them.
Pulling the armour away from the collar area where the tubes split to have some enter the body and the others to continue running the liquid around the armour. The skin beneath was woody in texture but grey with a blue hue from the blood beneath. Like the blood, it was cold to touch, though the pink fluid in the tubes retained a slight warmth indicating it had only been taken out of that tank a short while ago.
When the front area of the armour pulled away, the body seemed mainly made up of muscle; though when she cut through she saw that they did have some kind of internal skeletal system, it was more of a network of cartilage that interlaced with the muscle to add flexible and support. But they were made mostly of sinew, a wiry muscle which gave them their speed and strength.
The creepiest aspect of the Nerushi though was the face which was revealed a moment later.
Under the armour of the face was the same woody skin pulled tight as though it had been stretched to its limit. The eyes were large, that deep red in colour apart from a black slit horizontally across them. These eyes were basically the only feature on the face the three stared down out in mild fear; there were two small slits on either cheek, but that was it. No mouth. No nose.
Nothing.
“What the heck?” Oliver mumbled under his breath.
“They must only have that pink liquid as food…” Zen interjected while glancing at Katya as though realising she would know more about this kind of thing.
The red-head didn’t confirm anything for a moment though; not until she had taken the nice and sliced through the lower part of the face, and the neck. Well, as far as the knife would go through the mesh of muscle and cartilage…
“There’s no digestive system.” She stated at last before sitting back on her knees with a defeated sigh. “I think they are literally made to hunt their next farming prey.”
“What?” the men queried, wishing for a little more information.
“By the look of it they are made purely of muscle and cartilage-like material; probably isn’t the same as what is in our bodies seeing as their muscle is blue and their ‘bone’ is a dark green. They have liquid food in tubes going to their body and no way of eating, therefore, they are not going to be distracted by trying to find food to survive.” She explained as she cleaned off the knife on the carpet beside her. “I’d hazard a guess that they probably don’t have reproductive systems either, which means they are solely built for the strength and agility to take down a planet in an invasion”
Silence fell for a moment as the theories she had sunk in.
“Are you kidding me?! They are just made to kill us?!” Oliver exclaimed with scared anger in his voice
.
“Probably not just humans, it’s likely this isn’t the first planet they’ve rocked up at” Katya commented leaning back against the back of the sofa, the growing scale of this little adventure weighing heavily on her mind.
“What about the others?” Zen asked with a strained voice “They have mouths”
“The Hiko do yeah… but a mouth doesn’t have to mean a digestive system. It could be there as a weapon” her words caused the older man to shudder at the thought. Katya hoped she was wrong, but the body shape of the Hiko was so similar to the Nerushi in the slender, almost skeletal form with intense strength held in their movements that it seemed very likely they're they didn’t eat either.
At that moment she remembered the Hiko she had killed and the pink liquid that had trickled out with the blue blood. A long groan left her lips as her hand raised to her face to rub her temple.
Silence of the Apocalypse- Journey Home Page 5