Chapter 3 Preparations

As I closed the door behind me, I began to realize the scale of this event.

“What would happen if they didn't regain their mind and remain in this state? What exactly was the state they were in? What did they loose exactly? What exactly is the function of a soul?” I questioned myself.

I didn't arrive to a conclusion. But I know that in this state this city will not regain its order and if I want to survive I have to act. My first priorities are food and water. My safest way for acquiring water would be to get a water filter from the camping and outdoor store in the nearby mall, since there is a creek in the park of my apartment complex. It would provide me with a long lasting and transportable source of clean water.

But first I should stop by a depot farther in the outskirt of the city. I learned of it by chance when I went shopping with one of my reenactment friends, we needed barley corns for one of the meals and since it was hard to acquire it in normal stores we went to the source. In this particular depot there were tons and tons of grain, potatoes and beets waiting to be processed or sold. If there is any place in this city with an abundance of food it was there, maybe I even could find a water source there.

Deciding that I should take whatever I could need with me, I began to pack my backpack. I packed some of my clothes, especially my reenactment clothes, since they were more adept to long lasting outdoor sessions and were easy to repair should they tear. I was really surprised how useful and dry a felt cloak is in heavy rain.

I also packed a few pots and a grate, to cook over a campfire, since if the worst-case-scenario occurs, electricity will fail. A few tools also went into the backpack. Needles, cloth-patches and twine, a small saw, a metal-file and a collection of small wood and leather working tools. Ruefully I left the few forging tools I possessed behind. They are too heavy and useless without a forge or an anvil.

Lastly I armed myself. Thank god it is November. I wear so many clothes right now. Clothes under the armour, to not get sore from it, a layer of padding to lessen impacts, a cuirass of hardened leather and a few metal-plates on the inside and another layer of clothes to hide it. I also wore leather braces which had two iron thin rods in them each and quite a lot of belts to carry some tools and weapons. And finally above all that I wore my cloak, which I could drop with a quick pull on the brooch at my neck, to conceal how heavily armed I was, should the civil order have returned.

I didn't want some rumours spreading of a guy that was armed with a hatched, a long-axe, a dagger and a sax. I left a hand-and-a-half sword behind. It needed too much space to wield it and was overall a quite unhandy weapon, especially in crowds. I choose my long-axe over it. It also needed less maintenance and was actually useful without me grinding down its thick edge, which both of these weapons had since they were only for show-combats. My sax was actually sharp, since I learned how to grind a big blade with it.

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After a hour of preparation I was finally ready to face that changing world and so I left, while feeling like I would never return. As I am on the way to the depot, I am surrounded by silence, there where no people on the street. Even on a normal day that would be strange and there weren't any emergency messages on the radio or TV, I checked that while packing, so an evacuation is unlikely. And then I reached the place of the car accident from before. There were no wounded or corpses here, I doubt that they walked away, so who moved them? Those apathy filled soulless people?

A bad premonition filled me as I walked past the puddles of blood, that were all that remained of the incident.

It took me half an hour to reach my first destination. I checked all the rooms for people but found none, but at least I found some spare keys. I also found a stray cat and as I inspected it it was filled with the soul-mist and a tiny spark of a soul, much smaller as it should be. Could it be possible that it regained a soul, that was formed of the soul-mist? If so could the humans also regain one?

With that though and the conclusion of my business here I left behind some of my equipment to make space in my backpack for my visit to the mall. It bugged me that I couldn't find any humans. I decide that I should expand my soul sense, even though it is taxing to my mind, and was surprised by how far I could feel. The soul-mist seems to amplify my reach.

As I came closer to the mall I picked up some souls with my sense, like the cat they were tiny and they were filled with primal urges, hunger, the need for warmth and even the desire to mate, it was easy to read them. They were so small and defenceless that they seemed to shout out their thoughts.

Not once did I get close enough to identify what the source of these thoughts were. But as I entered the mall it became clear to me. It were the missing humans. In the mall there were hundreds of them happily gorging away on everything edible in reach. I guess there instincts took over and used their acquired information to search for whatever they needed, in this case food.

They mostly ignored me as I passed them but I still got ready to defend myself. As I made my way to the camping equipment I came across less and less of them, I guess there isn't much they desire there. I hoped they would not start to cannibalize when the food runs short or else I would have to leave the city. Sure I could beat quite a lot of normal humans, but what if they swarmed me?

On full alert I packed what I came for, a water-filter, a camping-spade, a sleeping bag and a small tent. As I finished I felt something that seemed out of place. A normal soul. I took all my stuff and hurried to its location.