Followers of the Light

Chapter 10 - Eighty-Five Hours Past the End (6AM)

My palms felt cold. I folded my arms to put my hands in the underarms, but then I woke up. I opened my eyes slowly, turned my head over, and got up from that red sofa I lied on. I fell asleep as soon as I hit it last night. I brushed my hair backwards and looked around the room in the blue misty morning with coffee aroma in the air coming from the cup at Jorne's table. There he was sitting, facing me with sinister eyes while he stirred his black coffee. He looked like as if trying too hard to be fierce. What an annoying to be had in the morning. Then I took a deep breath, stood up on the gray ceramic floor cluttered with tiny glass shards around. The morning was bright enough to see how messed up it was. At least the food counter was safe from the beatings. I was excited thinking about a nice breakfast with chicken sub that morning, but I got to hit the toilet right up ahead first. When I pushed the door in, I thought seeing Jorne's face was the most annoying thing to be greeted with in the morning. I was wrong.

"Jorne, did you use this toilet?"

"Yes. What?" Jorne answered half-heartedy.

"Then flush it now!" I raised my tone. "Please?"

"W-why can't you do it yourself?"

"This is your stuff, Jorne. Do it!"

"Y-you can just flush it yourself!"

"Did you listen to me? You used it first! So flush it!"

"Don't - tell me what to do!"

"Flush it!"

Jorne finally got up from his seat to flush it only after I shouted at him. That was still outside the fact that it was still a dirty mess of a toilet that I had to half squat on it. As soon as I was done, I went over the kitchen counter to prepare myself some breakfast with sandwich and a cup of plain water. Jorne himself had switched his seat to backface mine. When I was placing down slices of cold turkey cut over cabbage shreds, I asked Jorne whether he heard some gunshots earlier or last night. He answered no without looking at me. I thought it was still early, so I slowed down a little. I brought my breakfast back to my seat and took a magazine that was released seven days ago. Flipped the pages open, I came across an article mentioning about a bunker somewhere around Gobbelt District with suspicious activities Followers of the Light higher-ups going in and out of the shops there. I was guessing that might be where Grote's team was going for, so I told Jorne that we might be going there. He asked why should we and I told him about the article.

"L-lie! It's a lie." he said.

"Why is that and what's your source?" I asked.

"B-because that's what we at The Republi reported," said Jorne sounding somewhat annoyed.

"FYI, Jorne, The Republi has been known for being a bucket of false news themselves! We're going there today, if Grote's team goes there!"

"Why do you keep telling me what to do?"

"Again, Jorne? Do you have any better idea outside being useless?!" I stood up from my seat, heading for the entrance. "You ruin my breakfast!"

I looked at the bar across where The Greens camped last night, nobody was there. "Jorne? Jorne, where's Grote's team? Did you see or hear anything?"

Without burden, he said, "T-they left."

Felt like my heart fell of my chest. "Why didn't you wake me up?! You...

You fucking useless!"

"I-I'm not allowed to say this, but fuck you, woman!" said Jorne with trembling voice.

"That's great, I hope you are satisfied! Now get the fuck up and-"

An explosion happened somewhere far away. I immediately ran towards the staircase to get to the roof deck. From up there, I saw a cloud of black smoke rising in the air with over gunshots. Alas, the sky started to drizzle. I ran back downstairs, picked my backpack up. But before I left, my mind told me to grab some kitchen knives, just in case. I told Jorne that we were leaving, but he started to act up again.