Followers of the Light

Chapter 6 - Eleven Hours Past the End (4AM)

 "Some band-aids, Getaheal, that's what I can find in this bag."

I unloaded a small bag that Grote gave me earlier.

"That's all?"

"Anything you can expect from a mother would prepare," I said. "A caring one, at least. Wait, you snatched this bag from the wife?"

"Well, she dropped it on the floor..." Grote said.

"Well, you forgot your backpack."

"And you forgot your jacket."

I just realized I did after he said it, honestly.

Grote sighed. "So where are we now then?"

After running away blindly, we were once again lost, except this time in deeper slum jungle. We were standing in front of a calmly flowing river, that stank like garbage and blood.

There were hardly any landmarks we could pinpoint on, especially in this darkness. So we followed the river line. But after walking for a while, the sky was gradually turning blue behind us.

We decided to keep following the river line, until we finally stepped our feet on a concrete tiled lane. That was the sign that we had arrived at the Old Town. Located in northern central area, this was the historical part of the town that used to be the only Prosperistus. Unfortunately, beauty is no longer a part of its equation.

As we walked out of the narrow path, we found ourselves a lot of bonfires in the main street. Those old shophouses were not burned, just heavily vandalized. On my right, there was a bridge with tall barricades made of junks. I thought it was a bad idea to enter this place. Though the street, however, was empty. Were they inside those buildings or had they moved somewhere else? Nobody could guess. But there was no turning back. We decided to just carefully enter the area like two lost cats waltzing in between crackling bonfires at the dawn of the day. Then suddenly we heard a chatter coming from one of the buildings ahead. Luckily it was still rather dark, so we still could cover ourselves behind a wall. Someone then walked out of a shop followed by two others. They were stretching the arms up, one of them faced a wall and took a piss. Not good! We were deep inside there and turned out people were staying there. I told Grote that we gotta step back out. But nope, I heard footsteps coming from behind. I whispered on Grote's ear, who was crouching in front of me. He told me to stay quiet. I asked him what was the plan and he said there was no plan. The footstep was getting closer and I was getting nervous. And – uhk! Somebody pulled my hair.

"Stand up! Slowly!" shouted the man who wrapped his arm around my neck. I could hear that creep laughing when I did as he told me to. He then pointed his machete at Grote as he moves to stand up and turns around slowly with both hands in the air. Alerted, the other scumbags rushed out of the shophouses and grabbed Grote. They took the bag, his knife, and removed his jacket.

"The Greens?" said one of them. "You guys are troublesome bunch!" He slapped that green jacket on Grote's face.

Grote spat. "Do you want to hear what I say?"

"No."

He then wrapped Grote's face with the jacket and punched him dead straight in it. Grote grunted and they did it a few more times before they took the jacket off.

Grote took a deep breath.

"That jacket is thick enough to damp your baby punch, man."

The hooligan aggravated. He started striking more punches on his face and stomach.

"Did somebody say The Greens...?"

There came another old man wearing dirty white wrinkled shirt, a black beret, and a scarf hanging on his neck. He walked to Grote and asked if he was The Greens. Grote said no. And that man responded by shaking his head.