You, the apocalypse and me! [YiZhan FF] Fantasy

Chapter 13 - Creatures everywhere

While I thought about how I could keep Yibo from continuing to run through the apartment as if thunderstruck and pack two backpacks for our "escape" and I wondered where this second backpack actually came from, since I was sure I only owned this one backpack that I got back then in the military, I lacked the right words, since I also had to calm myself down first.

Sure, I could think of a few things I wanted to say, but they were nothing more than a bunch of vulgar words, which I had sworn to myself never to say out loud. Nevertheless, they would have fit the situation very well and described even better what was going on inside me. And apparently also in Yibo, even if he apparently just really went crazy.

Before I could find the right words to tell Yibo that we couldn't just run away, we heard another explosion. It clanged so hard that the walls vibrated and even the dishes in my kitchen cabinets rattled. After that, it was so quiet that I wouldn't have been surprised if I could have heard a pin drop.

But then, just moments later, the fire department sirens wailed in the streets of our town. Yibo had finally stopped and was staring at me. I used this moment of calm to explain to Yibo that although I was also scared and would like to run away, I didn't want to just run headlong into it.

"There is no electricity, the streets are unlit, we have no weapons, and we are unprepared. Even if we go by car, where are we going to go? Where do you think it might be safe? And isn't that what quite a few other people are going to try to do now? I mean, getting out of the city. What if, like them, we just want to run away and then we're stuck in a traffic jam and so we're much closer to danger? Yibo? Are you listening to me? Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?" I had said and asked.

For a moment Yibo seemed to look at me without understanding, or was he perplexed? I don't know. Anyway, it must have been three or four seconds before he took my hands, looked deep into my eyes and said, "Okay, I heard you. I have listened to you. We're staying. But I don't think it's a good idea for us to stay up here in your apartment. Not until we have more information."

From then on, our "agent brain" apparently kicked in and our long hard training we had received finally made itself felt. At least with me, Yibo's agent mode was still on anyway, after he had been away for weeks working undercover. With me, however, that was not the case.

At that time I had consciously decided to serve on the inside. I never really wanted to be in active field service. The thought of finding dead bodies or creating them myself was too disgusting for me. I couldn't even touch dead animals or even kill an animal. And then I was supposed to be able to do that with a human being?

When I was in the military, I was glad that they always put me in front of a computer and said that I was more useful to them that way. Sure I was. On the one hand I knew exactly what I was doing and on the other hand the soldiers were probably afraid of me. Or at least of me with a machine gun in my shaky hand.

But I couldn't always get around field duty. My comrades usually had me placed in the very back when we marched in somewhere. They never wanted me in the very front. Mhhh, I think they were afraid that I would shoot them in case of enemy contact and not my enemies. And who knows, maybe that would have happened.

I probably would have panicked, turned around and my trembling hands would have automatically pulled the trigger of my gun. Rattling, rattling boom and dead they would have been. And then I would have been court-martialed for comradeship murder or something. I don't know, but I wouldn't be able to sit here and write now, that much is clear.

Well, anyway, my agent mode finally kicked in and I was able to put my panic aside and think a little more clearly. This made me remember that I still had my radio, the one I got for patrol duty. I had wanted to return it long ago, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. Probably a stroke of luck, considering the situation we were in.