Turned World (On Hiatus)

12 - Sanctuary E

  The team continued traversing in silence for a long time before Hamil stopped and started looking around.

 “We’re close.”

 “Already?” Sinu asked him, doubtfully,

 “Yeah, this is close to the spot.”

 “Odd… It’s quiet.”

 “Huh?”

 “Keeth said that the fusion core generators are extremely loud when you get close.”

 “He did?”

  Soph looked at the two, confused. Were they at Sanctuary B already?

 “What are you two talking about?” Uri stepped forward.

 “Huh? Oh. Sanctuary E. It should be somewhere around here.”

 “Hey!” One of the backup girls shouted. “Is this…?”

  The team rushed over to where she was and everyone paused for a bit to take in what they were seeing.

  In front of them was the sight of demolition. What were once buildings were now piles of rubble. Flames flickered here and there. The ground was completely covered in broken glass as far as the eye could see. There were large pieces of broken metal all about the place. Pieces of cloth and broken body wear also littered the area. There were paved areas between the piles of rubble that were badly destroyed. Broken fusion cores lay here and there. Right before them, some huge, now crushed, metal forms that most likely had once been the safe doors that kept outside out and inside in. All this was besides the biggest offset of the scene. Blood. Everywhere they looked was covered in blood. Here and there, pieces of clothes and tattered gear were strewn about, surrounded by pools of blood that ran rivers along the messy paths. Mangled flesh and bones stuck out from under piles of rubble. Red flesh of muscles hung off of ledges like flags in the brutality. Soon, whole bodies, with chunks missing from them, began showing up the further they walked into the site.

  Soph gave up and ran back to the entrance where she emptied the contents of her stomach furiously. Both the smell and the sights were too much for her.

  The other members of Team 1 also seemed shaken at the sight as they all went solemnly silent.

 “Rein. Look here” Shama called out as he stood over a body.

  Sinu made his way over.

 “This body, and those,” he motioned to some more ahead of them and to the right, “And some from close to the entrance.”

 “Yeah, what about ‘em?”

  Shama lifts his right foot and taps a large hole in the abdomen of the body.

 “This. This hole. Those bodies I mentioned. They all have at least one.”

 “Oh.” Sinu stoops down to get a better look at the hole in the body. It went straight through to the other side. Around the hole, the skin was also dry as if drained of all its blood. 

 “It looks like it was done quickly as well.”

  Sinu nods. “You don’t suppose a special did that, do you?” 

 “A special? In a sanctuary?” Shama shook his head doubtfully, “I doubt that. We passed some turned bodies as well so this was probably done by turned who managed to break in.”

"Should that be possible though? I mean horde or not, turned shouldn't be able to completely decimate an entire sanctuary like this. And since the majority of bodies are human, you can tell it wasn't a gas breach."

"The other possibilty, though this is stretching it far, is that there was inside help."

"Someone helping the turned? Yeah, right. That's more than a stretch. Next you'll say that there are turned helping humans."

  Shama shrugged. "Do you have any better explanations?"

"Hey, guys, the generators are still functionable!." Uri, who had just approached them, spoke.

"Well that rules out gas breach." Sinu says. "Guess we won't know what exactly happened here then..."

*
*
*

  Soph had finished vomiting and turned to get back with the team when she heard a sound of scuttling in the rubble. She turned quickly to see what it was. Then she heard someone call out.

 “Yo! You found anything?”

  Another voice called out in response.

 “No! This Sanctuary ain’t got nothing! Looks like we came late!”

  A head popped up over the pile and Soph made eye contact with a man in a gas mask. His red hair, wild and unkept, covered the sides of his face. He wore a badly tattered suit. On his back was a large oxygen tank and a carrier with what looked like broken supplies. His entire left arm was red, not from blood, but from what seemed to be the sleeve being made of different coloured material. 

  “Well, wha' do we got here?” The man’s voice came. “You a straggler, huh?”