TROA) It's Really Cold

“Alright, I will leave it to you then.” I reopened my portal and stepped back through it. I wanted to check more of the city. With my drones spread out, searching every nook and cranny, I was hoping to find some people who were still alive.

While my drones were roaming through some of the high rises, I went down to the main street to see Amanda’s body still strung up. It was now burnt to a crisp. I felt no pity. She had basically enslaved little kids. I could not let her off easily. Now, these same little kids were plumping back up and had smiles on their faces. They ran through the house all day and played in their play area.

I walked to the nearest building close to my left and entered through the shattered glass doors. The dead bodies of the people lying on the floor filled the whole lobby with a pungent smell. A smell I was long used to. I stepped over the bodies, sometimes on them if there was no spot to walk. I know it is disrespectful, but I have no choice.

I made my way to the stairwell and tried to open the door, only to find that it was blocked. “Hmmm? Is there a body in the way?”

Using my strength, I forced the door open to find that someone had put a large barricade up. Things fell to the floor, causing the noise to ring like an alarm through the stairwell. “Not a bad idea. At least it will be an early warning sign. But where would they go in such heat?” 

As I asked myself this question, I turned around and closed the door. I even went through the trouble of putting the barricade back up. I was not going to leave these people hanging if they decided to stay. 

After cleaning up my mess, I listened for movement downstairs. I did not hear anything, but I decided it would be beast to not have some form of protection. In the apocalypse, many people shot first and asked questions later. 

I slowly made my way downstairs. When I finally heard some noise, I came to a stop to listen carefully. “What should we do!?” I heard a girl ask.

“What can we do? We are stuck down here. There is no escape. If what we heard was actually one of those robot things breaking through our barrier, then we are  as good as dead!” Another girl replied.

“Is there only two?” I pursed my lips and scanned the area below with my infrared sensors and really could only see two heat signatures. It did not seem they had weapons, so I was a little more at ease walking down the stairs. Not that I would get hurt if they shot me, but still. Being shot at was no fun. 

I got to the bottom of the stairs and looked into the darkness of the basement. The basement was much cooler than up top, around eighty degrees. Compared to the ground above, it was like winter. I took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “I know you are here. Do not worry. I am not here to harm you in any way.”

“How do we know you are not lying!?” A voice came from the darkness. I turned and looked at the two people standing by the back wall, huddled together. 

“You don’t. You can only give me a tiny bit of trust that I will not harm you.” I replied. There was no way they would be able to trust someone who just showed up out of the blue. “You have no weapons, and from the look of it, your food and water supply will last a few more days to a week at most. If you want to live, you can come with me. I have a base set up with plenty of food and water. You can take a shower and even wear clean clothes. It is a place I had long prepared.”

“What proof do you have that what you are saying is true?” One of the girls slowly got up and stepped out of the shadows into the dim lighting. “We have worked hard to survive this long. There were once four of us, but two of our friends were tricked into following a group of men with the promise of food and water. We saw them not later naked and dead lying on the side of the road!” 

I could see the girl’s tears streaming down her face. This was the hardships of the apocalypse. Those who were not careful would have bad ends. Those who did not give in to their hunger and strived to survive on their own would either die without shame, knowing they did their best, or live on for years before dying to the robots.

“I can promise that you will not need to worry about any of that,” I said as I reached out into my inventory, and right before the girl’s eyes, I pulled out two bottles of cold water. “Here. Warm water is not good in this heat drink. This to lower your body temperature.”

The girl did not move closer to me. It was her friend who suddenly jumped up and ran over and took both bottles before stepping back to her friend’s side. “It’s really cold!”