The sun came down low as the day began to end.

A mass swarm of Blackbirds could be seen in the air, they flew too high in the sky, which was how you knew they weren't about to dive.

Good thing too, Alpha wasn't ready for a Scarna outbreak, Buildings were kept in disrepair, and most of the money never left the hands of city council.

Several jeeps sat surrounding a large worn warehouse, on the side read ASDC.

Several men in long white and gray uniforms stood, securing the perimeter.

One of the jeeps came in a little later than the others.

Inside was a man, one of them had and inspector's badge on the shoulder of his uniform.

"So, What do we got here?" the man spoke.

He held a menthol in his mouth, pressing the right corner of his lips together to keep it in place.

One of the ASDC officers, came over towards him.

"Seems as though there were signs of struggle, more than that actually."

"How so?" he took a drag from his cigarette as he spoke, the smoke wafted in the air.

"Couple of bodies, half eaten."

"The Corpse of a mutant, chest caved in, bushes formed around the body."

"Several toppled shelves, and more bush formations surrounding a box near the first two." The officer held out a checklist as he spoke.

"Ah, well, let's see what we've got here."

As they opened the door, a heavy, putrid scent burst out from the building.

It was a strange smell, not like rot, as the day had just set, but fleshy, sickly sweet.

The inside was ruined, several shelves had been knocked over, and in specific areas, bushes seemed to grow.

Red berries, deep black branches.

Signs of Scarna infestation.

"Inspector, over here!" one of the officers called out.

In the very back of the building, in a far corner, sat two corpses, their bodies mangled, chunks taken out of them as they were torn out with teeth.

Next to them was a crate, shattered and covered in black branches.

"So what do we have here?" the inspector spoke, taking another drag of his cigarette.

"Seems like your standard infection," the officer replied.

"Judging by the gun on the floor there," the officer pointed towards the gun sat next to the broken box covered in branches.

"Someone shot the box, maybe it was a misfire, and the splash back caused them to come in contact with the contents inside."

The Inspector stroked his chin.

"That could be, but something seems off."

The officer looked at him, confused.

"How so?"

"Lemme see the gun." he beckoned the officer over with his hand.

With a gloved hand he handed over the gun, a pistol.

He removed the clip from the gun.

Removing the bullets and counting them one by one.

Sixteen.

One was missing.

Which in itself would match what the officer hypothesized.

But the gun was found a little too close to the where the broken crate was in its placement.

He took a look around the crate for a moment.

"Careful!" called the officer.

The inspector raised his hand to quiet the man.

"Look over here."

The officer came closer towards where he stood.

"There is a bullet embedded into the floor right here."

"Well, that just proves my point." The officer spoke.

"Look at its position, from where its embedded." The inspector replied.

The officer stared for a moment.

"It's at an angle."

"Yes, and judging from that angle, the shooter would have had to have been aiming for that spot."

"Not only that, but the angle is too high up for it be shot a distance at this level."

"The shooter would have had to be facing that wall right behind us, which, while not being a a very long distance, would be too far to make that angle from ground level."

"What do you mean?" the officer replies.

"The shooter would have to be standing over the box to make that shot."

"But if it were up there," The Inspector points up at the catwalk above them, affixed to the wall.

"Go and check out that wall farther down there for me."

"Of course" The officer walked down the path facing the right from the box.

"There is a bullet hole in the wall over here!" The Officer called out.

The Inspector pulled another drag from his menthol.

"So, there were two shots, one from up above, and another facing towards the right." He thought to himself.

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"Hmm"

"Look around a bit more see if there are any other guns around here."

The other officers looked around the area as the inspector checked the spot out some more.

In an entrance towards a small niche, two other small firearms, several shots missing from their clips.

The bodies that were laid next to the box also held the same, several shots missing.

Seemingly random fire.

There were two other mutations.

"Someone caught them smuggling in these crates, judging by the bush surrounding this one box, its most likely juice rather than the Scarna berries themselves."

"Scour the building, look for any other crates carrying a sort of berry juice!" The Inspector called out the other officers in earshot.

"Watch for any mutants within the building!"

The ASDC Officers swarmed the building, pulling open crate after crate.

Quarantining any that were broken or covered in bushes.

"Over here!" One of the officers called.

Speckles of blood lay on the floor in a path heading toward an exit.

Small bushes poked out from the spots.

They however led not towards the exit but towards a window farther away.

"We might have a mutant on the loose" the inspector called.

As he moved out to his vehicle, he thought to himself.

Who could have killed that mutant, the corpse that laid in one of the walkways with its chest caved in.

None of the bodies held weapons that could bypass a mutant's healing factor, and no mutants have been known to harm their own.

With a final drag of his cigarette, he tossed it out of the window.

There might be more to this than he thought.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

"Ander?" Alma called out confused.

"Oh right, that's the name I gave you wasn't it?" he had this tone that held this lazy vibe.

"Well, that's not important right now."

He beckoned her up from his position on the building above.

"You think you can come here a sec?"

She looked at him confused, the sirens had finally stopped and the blue sound was fading.

"How am I supposed to get up there!?"

He stared at her for a moment.

"You do recall what you did to that guy over there right?"

He pointed to the corpse of the mutant.

The large open wound in the red mass that was its lower jaw began to trickle blood onto the concrete.

A vibrant, living red scent rose from the body.

Her mouth began to water.

"Hey!" Ander called out snapping his fingers to get her attention, although she couldn't quite hear it from where he was.

She turned to look at him again, focus not quite lost on the body before her.

"You should be able to climb up here!" He spoke with his hands cupped around his mouth for emphasis.

She still did not quite get it, she was just an average person, or at least she thought she was.

Some things that had happened today sought to change that perception, but there was no way that she could be able to scale this building.

But there were no other choices, she could only hide for so long.

"So how do I do this?" she called out to him.

"you should be a lot stronger than be for, more nimble too!"

"Rely on your senses, especially your sight to help you find a path if need be."

She took a deep breath, calming herself down to focus.

As she breathed in, she could take in every scent that lined this building's walls.

Many of them were foul, fetid, like a slurry of secretions, both human and animal.

She could smell the concrete that made up the brickwork, the rust on the fire escape.

Reddish browns, faded grays, and many other colors filled her sight as she took a deep breath.

There was an intense clarity to her vision, she felt as though she could see everything from a high peak if she were able.

Not that she could test that theory, being on the ground and all.

Though she needed to focus, she was having trouble trying to pinpoint where she should start.

She scoured the wall with her eyes, looking to find a way to climb up.

"Well..." she sighed. "Here goes nothing."

She braced herself as she crouched down, readying a sort of jump.

With all her might, she pushed herself off of the ground, not really expecting much.

Her eye clenched tight as leapt.

Opening them, she could not believe what she was seeing.

She was about 5 feet in the air.

She stared at ground below for a few moment before realization struck.

As she felt herself begin to plummet, her hands grasped out of fear, causing her to unknowingly catch herself on the edge of the fire escape.

Pausing for a moment to see where she was, she gripped the edge tightly as she began to pull herself up.

She clambered over the railing, struggling to keep her nerves in check.

As she finally got on the platform, she took a moment to calm herself.

She looked around the building.

"Maybe I could climb up the fire escape?" she thought.

It was quite old however and horribly maintained.

The stairs only went up to the third floor the rest seemed to be missing, platforms and all.

"Well shit"

For a moment, she thought she might have been stuck, not really much else to climb on, and it probably would not be the best idea to break in to the building.

But then another sent filled her nose.

It smelled of ions, as well as something sweet.

It left a trail in the air, almost the same color as the moon in the night.

The scent trailed towards a neon sign, bolted to the wall of the building.

HOTEL in big red letters.

It sat on the wall's edge, towards the main street.

Its distance and height from where she was was quite far, while not being at the top of the building, she was still a ways below it.

She looked up to see Ander, or whatever his name is, staring down at her, almost mockingly.

Her lip drew a snarl.

With a deep breath, she stepped back as far as she could until her back pressed against the railing.

She readied herself, moving into a running stance.

And with a heavy vigor, she bolted down the platform, springing off the railing.

She could feel the wind in her hair as flew.

The distance between her and the sign was getting closer.

There was a strange tranquility in between the thrill of the leap.

She, however didn't quite clear the gap.

With a quick swing of her hand she narrowly held onto one of the rods holding the sign in place.

Just hanging there sent a shiver running down her spine.

She could feel the rusted metal against her hand, rubbing against her palms as she pulled herself up.

The people on the main road looked smaller from where she was.

It wasn't the highest building, but it was enough of a difference that a fall could cause a lot of damage, could even be lethal.

As she climbed up to the top of the sign, a sense of relief fell over her.

She could smell the air, which despite the smog, had a very calming scent to it, a smell that she had not smelled for as long as she had lived in this city.

"Hey!" Ander called from above.

"You good down there?"

"Seems like your havin' trouble." he had this smirk on his face as he spoke.

She rolled her eyes as he held out his hand.

It was still a pretty high jump, his arm didn't do much to fix that.

"So how is that supposed to help?!" she struggled to maintain her balance as she held herself against the wall.

"Jump up and I'll catch you."

She had thought to say that she wouldn't be able to do that, yet the past few moments climbing this building proved her wrong on that point.

"Just jump up, you can use the wall as a boost if you need, like how you would when you needed to get a specific bar at a playground that was too high."

"That was pretty specific."

He smiled, "just hurry up, we have places to be."

She sighed, Readying herself to jump.

She could feel that her weight couldn't quite hold up the sign she stood on.

With each slight movement, the sign began to creak and rock.

"You better hurry I don't think it will hold much longer."

He was right, the more she adjusted her weight the more the sign would sway, she could swear she could hear the bolts holding it to the wall being ripped from its entry point.

She had no time to just stand there.

She readied herself, bracing her legs so as to keep a balanced launch.

She jumped up, the sign collapsing from beneath her.

Her jump carrying enough force to almost clear the next floor.

There was not enough force to fully clear the jump however.

Due to the sign falling before she fully pushed off, her momentum was shot.

She was once again, about to fall.

"I got ya!"

With a swift catch, Ander caught her hand.

"See, that wasn't so bad." he smirked.

"Just help me up please." She replied disgruntled.

He pulled her up with surprising ease, not that she was really heavy, but one would think that he would at least have some trouble.

"So how'd you do it?" he asked as soon as they were safely on the roof.

"How'd I do what?"

"Well, seeing that you have a massive hole in the front of your shirt, not to mention I saw you being actively hunted by three mutants back there."

She quickly crossed her arms to cover her chest.

"Can you not?"

"Sorry, it just really noticeable y'know" he looked off into the distance.

"Also, you're leaking a lot of Red Aura, specifically in that knife your holding."

Alma looked down at her right hand, the one holding the blade.

The knife was covered in a large mass of bright red energy that swirled like smoke around it.

She didn't quite notice it before, but that energy trailed along her arm, and coated her body.

"I'm honestly surprised that no one saw a massive red beacon just shooting into the sky because of you." he spoke very casually, like it was a common occurrence.

"If the aura gets too thick even normal people can see the red after all."

"Wait a moment," she stopped him after he spoke.

"How did you know I was being attacked?"

He sat there for a moment, "Y'know what? I'll tell you when clear from this area, don't wanna make a scene."