Two days later the next squad finally arrives with more supplies for the base and relieves us of our duty. When they arrive, they marvel at the burnt remains of the building that used to be a rat's nest, even now, a whole day later after lighting the place up, it still billows with smoke and acts a perfect beacon.
With our work done, and the start for the new Eastern FO Base ready, we bid the new team good luck and head out on our long walk home. Everyone is quiet as we walk and is noticeably stressed. It doesn’t matter how many times someone walks through a monster infested city; it isn’t something that becomes any easier. At any moment we could be attacked, and we don’t have any vehicles to be able to drive us away to safety. If things get too dangerous, we will have to fight as we run.
Even for myself, despite how strong I am now, I find all of this to be rather stressful. Sneaking around, hiding from wandering behemoths, and occasionally having to quickly kill anything that get to close without drawing attention. It all wears away at the nerves, knowing that a single mistake could mean the loss of someone’s life. At the very least, the stress from sneaking about is helping to keep my mind from Sky for the most part. Although, I still haven’t found her a present…
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Another day passes on our walk home. Last night the squad, all sixteen of us, camped out in one of the many sites set up throughout the city’s periphery. After a long night of being on guard duty as almost everyone else slept, with a couple switching out to help with the watch and keep me company, we finally got back to sneaking our way back out of the city. A difficult feat when you’ve got over a dozen people pulling themselves through the brush and carrying heavy equipment while laden down with armor. Quite often I find myself being sent out to scout ahead of the group or to quickly and silently kill anything that might be around. On one occasion, a small group of cats managed to ambush us from behind, jumping from the trees, and left some of the soldiers a bit cut up before I could slaughter them. It quickly turned into a melee as soldiers tried to quickly and quietly fight off the raving felines with nothing but knives. Since then, they have all been a bit justifiably jumpy.
The squad had to take a break after that, taking shelter in a building just off of the main road heading east so the wounded could be tended to.
Walking over to Staff Sergeant Haren, I give him a tired salute, “Sir, can I go out and scout a bit while we wait? I want to check that we aren’t being tracked by anything else and make sure our way is clear.”
He thinks for a second before giving me a nod, “Do it. Be back in fifteen and then we are heading out.”
“Yes sir.”
Turning, I go to leave and clap Thomas on the back as I walk out the door from where he is guarding. Not needing to match the slow pace of a bunch of sneaking soldiers, I take off and jump into the shadowed branches of the looming trees that surround us, mingling with and covering the old building of the city. Jumping from tree to tree and from tree to roof top, I quickly do my rounds around the area. Whenever I find a monster or mutated creature milling about on the ground, I will fall on it from above and smash their skulls in with a single blow before jumping back up into the canopy. Everything in the area that I have found so far has been on the smaller side for city monster, which honestly isn’t saying much, but is a good sign that we are nearing the edge of the territory for where the most dangerous creatures roam.
Surprisingly, in the recent times that I have been to the city and during my last mission to the south, I have yet to find any mutated dogs. It's nice, because I honestly don’t want to see them ever again, but at the same time, I have to wonder why it is. They are supposed to be one of the more common kinds of creatures to encounter, especially in cities. So, it is weird that I have not run into a pack or two of them so far. Is something hunting them all or is there some other reason? There are plenty of cats and rats, which the dogs hunt for food, but no dogs. I don’t even hear their howls amongst all the other calls from the monsters of the city…
Shaking my head, I clear my thoughts of those damn things and descend on another beast, a large salamander looking thing with too many legs, before crushing its head and continuing my scouting. It doesn’t matter. And besides, if there are no dogs here, it just means that I won’t have to deal with them. Besides, I don’t want to risk having a panic attack during a mission... Hmm, that is probably something I should share with SSG Haren. If it happens, I don’t want it taking us by surprise during a mission and get someone killed. Maybe he can get me a meeting with a psychologist scheduled or something…? Hells, I probably should regardless…
“Hmm?” I turn my head as a building I was about to pass by catches my attention. Above the front entrance it advertises itself as a jewelry retail store. All of my depressing thoughts about mutated not-good-boys, and probably needing some mental attention from a specialist, instantly gets blown away from my mind by a single thought and goal, ‘Find present for girlfriend!’
Dropping everything, I make a beeline for the building and plow through the front entrance. I only have about five minutes left before I need to get back to the squad, so all pretenses of stealth are getting thrown out the window. If anything is living in here, hostile or not, it getting its ass stomped if they try to get in my way. At the very least, the building is basically completely dark inside, so my weird shadow nonsense should be making me look intimidating and hard to see while I am inside.
Appearance wise, the front entrance is a nice area, or at least was a nice area, where they used to apparently have a little area off in the corner with plants growing. Now the entire entry way is a small forest, plants growing in and out through the broken window and slowly spreading into the rest of the building.
I ignore all of this as I walk into the main area through the archway on the left, only stopping to quickly loot the little coffee corner and managing to score a bag French Roast that I quickly squirrel away into my pack. Can never have too much coffee for home.
Within the main area is a show room, made to be a hall that wraps around a central pillar with display cases on both sides. Further back into the building I can see where the offices are and that is probably also where the safe with the rest of their stock is kept.
Walking through the wrapping hall of display cases, I am initially dismayed by the lack of stuff on display. Most of the cases have already been broken into and emptied out long ago, so I only do a quick check and snatch up anything and everything that hasn’t already been looted. A couple of bracelets, a gaudy looking necklace with way too much going on, some rings; simply loading them all into a pocket in my pack before moving on to the next case. Even if nothing here is something that I would like to see Sky wearing, I could still use them for trading, gifts, or just simply give them all to Sky as a small pile of treasures for her collection. Even if she can’t wear them, they are shiny and pretty, so she would love it regardless. The girl loves her shiny treasures.
After I sweep through the store and finish emptying everything out, I head into the back area like a woman on a mission and kick open doors and flip tables, storing away any wayward pieces of jewelry, metal bands, or just plain jewels that I find until I happen upon the safe. Stored away in the rear most room, it is about as big as a man is tall and looks to be pretty solid. I don’t give a shit about how solid it is though, and immediately swing at it with the head of my hammer, with everything that I have. I'm getting inside that safe even if I have to tear it apart!
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My hammer quickly smashes into and through the combination lock, and the door gets dented in as the bolts holding the safe to the floor fight for their lives so as to not get torn from their seats. The concrete floor cracks from the effort of holding the safe in place and the whole thing rings out like a gong.
Wrenching my hammer out from the steal of the safe I set it aside and work my hands into the bent door. Planting my legs and digging in, I put my everything into tearing open the door as it fights to stay closed with the groaning of bending metal. With an angry yell and a strong pull, I manage to rip the door open as the last lock and bolt finally gives out under the pressure and bends with the grating sound of metal grinding on metal.
Smiling like a mad woman and celebrating with a little hop, I dig into the guts of the safe. Inside I find a couple of bags of jewels, both cut and uncut, mostly diamonds. There are bands for wedding rings, chains in gold and silver for necklaces and bracelets, and a couple of boxes, some wooden and others being metal lockboxes. I open all of them, the small locks being easily torn open, and empty their contents into my pack, sorting through all of them as I go until I find one piece in particular.
It is a simple necklace made from silver adorned with three small sapphires surrounding a reasonably sized blue diamond, all set-in silver. It is not gaudy or overdone with swirls and twist or weighed down with oversized rocks. The whole thing is simple but elegant.
I hold it up and examine it lovingly from every angle. This is the one. She will look beautiful wearing it. I hope that she will love it.
Carefully and gently, unlike all the other pieces that I simply stuffed into my pack, I take and place the necklace into a small velvet bag and tie it shut before safely packing it away separate from everything else. A small pile of jewels is nice as a present, but this one is special.
After safely storing away her gift, I continue to empty out the safe and decide to look for one last thing while I am at it. A pair of rings.
At this point, I honestly can’t say if I intend to marry Sky. I don’t want to rush our relationship after all; we haven’t even officially started dating. But, if in the future I decide that the time has come to tie the knot. It would be much better if already had a pair of rings ready for us. It is better to be prepared and it is only going to get harder and harder to find nice jewelry in the future.
Picking out two rings that look nice together, I go over to a shelf and grab two of those velvety rings boxes that are fun to open and close, that are in good condition, and get the rings sorted away and packed away safely with the necklace. I can get someone to resize the bands for us later after I get Sky’s measurements, when she is done growing. Will have to be sneaky about it…
After finishing completely emptying the safe, I grab my hammer and quickly go to leave the store. I am cutting it close to the fifteen-minute time limit, but I leave the store with a smile on my face and a high off the excitement of looting a small pile treasures. I don’t even lose my smile as I have to smash in the skull of a big gopher looking monster with six armored legs and for some reason crab pincers, that came to investigate what all of the noise was as I left.
Quickly heading back to camp, I meet up with everyone and give the all clear. Sure, I spent a couple of minutes looting, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t properly do my job and scout like I was supposed to.
Reporting, I salute the Staff Sergeant, “Sir, the way is all clear. I left plenty of bodies around the area, the food should be enough to distract most things in the area and give us some breathing room for a bit.”
“Good job.” He says with a nod before tilting his head at me quizzically, “What has you in such a good mood?”
“Hmm, oh… Uh, just looking forward to getting back and seeing my girlfriend. I found a gift for her…” I say with a shy laugh.
“Oh? Well isn’t that lovely. You hear that everyone? Lain here is missing her girlfriend. Well, hop to it! We don’t want to keep the two love birds from each other. Come one hup too, hup too!”
Thomas from behind just groans, “Will you stop raising death flags already? I already came too close to getting my eyes scratched out by those cats...”
Another guy pipes up in the back waving a bandaged arm, “Ya! Stop bragging about having a cute girlfriend; you’re going to bring the rest of us down!”
“Speak for yourself you virgin. Most of us here actually have someone waiting for us at home. Hell, even Sanders got himself a girlfriend somehow.” Another cuts in.
A bunch of hands go up in confirmation with an accompanying nonchalant ‘Yup’ and ‘Same’ as everyone gets their stuff together and ready to go.
Sanders, “Hey, fuck you, Coal. I was just waiting for the right one.”
“Hahaha, no offence intended Sandy's Boy.”
The guy that spoke up earlier, who I haven’t learned the name of yet, looks shocked as he looks at all the raised hands, “Wait, I am the only one here without a girlfriend!?”
“Yes, you are. Now everyone cut the shit and get moving. Come on, everyone but Jason over there has someone waiting for them. Let’s get to it!” Calls SSG Haren.
Oh, his name is Jason… poor bastard.
As everyone else passes by and files out of the building, I walk over and pat him on the shoulder and say, “Hey, don’t worry. I’m rooting for ya!”
He drops his head, “Uhh, ya… thanks.” He says a bit depressed until he perks up a bit a turns to me, “Hey uh, Lain… You have a sister, don’t you?”
I simply give him a smile and clap him hard on the shoulder, knocking him a bit off balance with a short laugh, “Ya... No.” I deadpan as I look him dead in the eyes before then turning and walking away back to the front of the line. Behind me I can hear as the other soldiers giggle a bit at his misfortune.
I may pity him, but it doesn’t mean that I am just going to give away my sister. If someone wants her, they are going to have to earn her! Nobody is taking my sister without my permission!
Soon enough we are back on the road and slowly heading toward the border of the city. If we manage to stick to the schedule, we will be back home in two days.
It would be during the final stretch of our walk home that we would come across something that would make for one more perfect gift for Sky. The others are apprehensive about me taking it home with me, but the Staff Sergeant says it is fine so long as I am the one that carries it home and not his troops. I simply laugh as I drag it behind me, home not too much further away.
Ahh, I can’t wait to get back. She is going to be so happy!
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It was a cold day nearing the end of summer and the beginning of fall that many refugees would find themselves marveling at a single Humvee driving towards the center of base from the eastern gates. If they were to look through the windows of the vehicle, they would have maybe been able to spot a mysterious figure in a black cloak sitting between two armed guards. But the vast majority of people that had witnessed this vehicles' passing were far too distracted by what was strapped to its roof and being hauled away to be able to look anywhere else.
From a short glance, most would assume that it was a dinosaur. Many had to do a double take as it passed them by, checking to ensure that their eyes weren’t deceiving them. Those who got a better view of it before it passed would later tell others of what they saw that day.
It was a giant chicken. Mutated and seemingly reversing the course of its evolution to return to its ancestral heights. Still covered in feathers from head to toe. Its tail had grown out, its legs had developed and filled out to no longer be sticklike, but had now become constructs of muscle for carrying its massive weight. Its head, while still holding the distinct appearance of a chicken, had changed somewhat to return back to the iconic image of every child’s imagination, almost resembling that of a T-Rex with a maw full of dagger like teeth. Even its winged arms had begun to shrink and move forward, new claws growing in the place of where useless flight feathers had once used the reside.
After the shock of seeing such the massive creature being carted away passed, many cheered and celebrated. It would take no less than a day for word to spread and for rumors to become over exaggerated and blown out of proportion, and soon enough, everyone on the base knew. The army had killed a dinosaur. Man had killed a T-Rex.
Even if some people say that it looked a bit like a chicken…