Duplus (Ongoing editing)

Chapter 28

Third Person's POV:

Even though Amaani was feeling confident before, she was starting to falter. She was never the overthinker but she had never been in such a situation either. Right then, everyone was depending on her. They were trusting her with their lives and she knew that if she let them down, the consequences would be much worse.

They crept down the steep path, keeping behind the green bushes and trees that were aligned at both sides of the smooth black road. Amaani's feet were the loudest as she was not used to the boots they gave her to replace the broken sandals she had on earlier.

The plan was already in motion.

Another crunch of leaves made Eileen look towards Amaani, mouthing something that seemed like she was telling her to be quiet. Amaani gave her an apologetic look and they continued trudging ahead.

45 beckoned everyone to take a turn to the right where the forest was denser. They did and finally, after fifteen to twenty minutes of walking, they reached their destination.

It was a remote area, quite far from the residential site at the fringes of Megmel.

"Where did you park the motorbikes, Junior?" She turned to Sufiyaan's lookalike and asked. Everyone looked at him as he pointed at the front towards a mountain of ruins and trash. "Right there. There aren't many people that come here other than the cleaning bots but I did it just in case. Our motorbikes are also registered like our bracelets." he told us quickly.

Amaani inspected the area one time. "What is this place anyway? It's just heaps of trash and wrecked buildings." She questioned. "All the factory waste is dumped here. I've heard there were buildings but some natural disaster destroyed them."  Eileen replied. Even though it intrigued Amaani to see such ruins right outside an advanced city, she let it go because they weren't on a picnic there.

"Let's get going, guys." 45 brought them back on track. "We don't want those bots coming after us again." He said. At that, Amaani was the first to start walking. They passed the piles of trash, smashed bricks, and cement. The base of some buildings was still intact with metal rods sticking out of them.

Then came the stench.

Amaani pinched her nose to block the awful stink to enter while the others held in their breaths. "This place smells." She couldn't help but comment, earning her an agreeing nod from all three of them. Suddenly the familiar sound of sirens rang in their ears, making the smell the least of their worries.

"The robots! There're at least fifteen of them!" Eileen's shout of panic acted like a trigger that made everyone start running. Junior led the way as they tried to move between the debris to avoid making them visible. Amaani felt a little less scared than last time as she knew that the motorbikes were parked right where she wanted them to be.

A wave of relief washed over her when she made a turn which revealed the motorbikes standing by a literal trash can. She looked towards Junior as he was the one who drove them there. He gave her a look of apology before looking back at the front.

"We're doing it like last time?" Eileen asked about who would sit with whom as there were only two bikes when they stopped running to get on. Amaani quickly shook her head, remembering last time when she had to completely ignore the fact that Junior wasn't her Mehrem. She didn't know what Islamic scholars said about it and she wasn't willing to take a risk.

She was already compromising on her niqab as the hoodie hardly covered her hair, let alone her face.

"Can I go with you, Eileen?" she asked nervously, knowing that to them it wasn't important whether non-blood-related boy and girl sat together on the same ride or not. Eileen raised a confused eyebrow but because the distant sirens were getting closer, she nodded and hopped on.