ꜰɪɢʜᴛ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴇ || ᴀᴘᴘʟʏ

Chapter 3

It is quiet, no one says anything and only the quiet breathing of those present can be heard. Ruby watches Devon, hoping that at any moment he will start laughing and explain to her that it was all a joke. But he doesn't. He looks at her seriously with his blue eyes. Every sentence, every word that just passed his lips was the truth.

"So you want to explain to me that the virus was created to minimise humanity?" she asks after a while. "Yes, he does," Oakley says from the side, looking up from his book for a moment. But before Ruby can say anything, he looks back down at his book.

--Emily, Juniper, Jacob and Scarlett--

After a few minutes they arrive at the back entrance of the shop. "Emily and Juniper you get all the canned goods you can find. Jacob and I will look for edibles that haven't expired. We'll meet back here in thirty minutes," Scarlett explains, looking at each of them in turn. Emily, Juniper and Jacob nod.

With a pin, Scarlett opens the door and is the first to step into the shop. The shelves look the same as always, filled and neat. But the whole shop is quiet, there are no lights and the freezers seem to have been turned off too. The cash register is open and it looks as if someone is about to come out of the common room and serve the customers. But neither customers nor shop assistants are in the shop, just four teenagers in search of food to survive the upcoming time in the bunker.

Scarlett and Jacob run to the shelf with the fruit, vegetables and breads. They take large bags and pack everything they can find that still looks hablbwegs tasty and durable. "Take care of the boxes of fruit, I'll pack the vegetables," Scarlett says and walks around the table. Jacob just stays spinning on his own axis and starts packing everything into more bags.

Meanwhile, Emily and Juniper make all the tinned and shrink-wrapped stuff disappear into bags. They quickly clear out shelf after shelf, filling the bags like there's no tomorrow.

"Hands up and drop!" a female voice calls from the emergency exit. Startled, they all turn around; standing in the doorway is a girl, dark skin and dark hair cut short. She looks at the four teenagers and points a gun at them.

"Are you still okay?" shouts Scarlett, looking at the unknown girl with an angry yet somewhat intimidated look. "Put the gun down." The girl looks from the youths to her gun and back to the youths. Then she slowly lowers her gun again and puts it back in her pocket.

"It wasn't loaded anyway, but you should have seen your faces. I don't even have any ammunition." she says and a small smile forms on her face. "Are you crazy?", Emily's voice quivers as she looks up behind Juniper.

Terrified, she had moved behind the other to avoid being seen. Wouldn't do much good if Juniper got hit, but she had to do something in terror.

"Who are you and what do you want?" asks Scarlett, walking towards the other girl. "Josphine, and I just wanted to look in here," she explains, looking around.

"Ok, then you've done it, so you can turn around and go back the way you came," Juniper says, turning back to the shelves to continue packing. "Are you always like this?" laughs Josephine, looking amusedly at Juniper. She groans in annoyance but says nothing more.

"What are you doing here anyway?" "What does it look like? Sleeping or more like shopping?", Juniper's voice sounds annoyed as she rolls her eyes. "Mhm..., I wouldn't call it 'shopping' so much, because I don't see a vendor here. Or do you just put the money in the till and leave?"

Juniper turns around annoyed, "Can you keep it down now?" She hates it when people can stay so quiet, while she can barely contain herself and would love to personally escort the girl out. "Calm down." says Jacob, looking pleadingly at Juniper. "And you, what do you really want?" he asks, looking at Josephine.