The Last Plague

Chapter Nineteen: The Tour

The place was huge. I had a 360° view of the outside. I looked around every window and found what seemed like an entire civilization. There were several apartment-looking buildings, stores, one place even looked like a restaurant. There were dozens of people walking around doing various things. I just watched everything they did. Seeing this many people alive and thriving gave me hope; hope that I didn't intend to lose.

"You like it?" Xavier asked as he smirked, catching me off-guard.

I turned to Xavier as he fully smiled. "This is amazing! How did you pull together all of this?" Everything I had seen was quickly made and run down, except of course the underground base. This looked like it had several years of planning, several people working on it for large periods of time.

"Well, a few years ago, when we first learned of RADD's intentions and knew what they were doing. We—"

They weren't the only ones that knew, I remembered from The Underground.

"—started building this place. We bought this plot of land, mostly because it had a hill and we knew that was good for fighting, and started working. We were teased about building a city on a hill, but I knew what we were dealing with. Before we knew it, the apocalypse had struck and we were surviving with what we had. At first, we were trying to stop RADD, but they kind of fell apart. We should be fine now that they're gone."

"So, you founded this place?" I asked him.

"You could say," he said with a proud smirk. "Not too long ago I convinced a few richies to fund us."

"Did you say 'Richies'?"

"Yeah, you know, rich people," he said, explaining the obvious.

"Nevermind," I sighed as I motioned him to keep talking.

"Anyway, they gave us the money we needed to build. We had our entire civilization set up pretty soon. It felt good to have it ready once the plague started."

"Did you try to warn people?" I snapped, taking advantage of the moment.

"Yeah, it was like Noah warning people about the flood; nobody listened, and everybody died," he snapped back.

An awkward silence followed, and by the looks on Xavier's face, he didn't want to talk; I didn't either. He motioned for me to walk out of the room and led me back into the elevator. We walked in and he brought us down. Walking out the door, he diverted the conversation.

"This is the hospital," he explained, motioning to the building I was in. "We have a few apartments with residents, but you'll probably be staying near us."

The words seemed like they were meant to be comforting, but they came out creepy. Something about Xavier, besides the obvious, felt creepy. It might have been the way he looked at me, but I wasn't entirely sure.

"Come with me, I'll show you where you'll stay." Xavier started walking away from me, and I ran to catch up to him.

The pain in my leg came all too soon. I had almost forgotten it was there when I ran after him. I almost fell over, but regained my balance. It was just an initial shock, and I was able to walk soon after. I caught up to him in a moment. He hadn't seemed to realize I fell behind him, or that I even injured my leg. He walked inside a small building and led me up another elevator. He showed me inside a hotel-looking room and showed me everything.

I looked at the wood boards around the small kitchen area and carpet in the bedroom. I felt human again.

"Wow, how haven't I smelled that yet? You reek," Xavier said, coughing for effect. "Go take a shower and get comfy, I'll be back in an hour for dinner. See you then!"