Outbreak: The Extinction Chronicles

Chapter 5 Lucid Dream

As soon as I hauled myself into the main hall, the living room as we call it, I immediately groped for my bow and arrows around my back. I had thought of setting my weapons down at the center table, when suddenly I noticed that they weren't there.

Crap! I forgot, I just lost them. And that includes my friggin gun! Ugh. I told myself, my hand scratching my forehead. Dante will be really pissed.

Well, it doesn't matter. What's done is done. And I still have a news to break.

I knew Doc was usually busy jotting down research notes at this time of day; so I immediately headed down to his rat hole - the underground research lab. It was that room at the end of the staircase at the very first right corner after the main entrance.

After a couple of steps on the concrete staircase, I arrived in front of the lab's double door. It was wide open, as usual. He never closed it whenever he was inside. He said it was his only means of escape, if ever one of his test subjects managed to break free. Yeah, I couldn't disagree more.

With just one of my foot stepped inside the lab, I immediately spotted some of the sophisticated science machines, Doc had been working with long as I could remember. They all looked cramped together as the lab was actually quite small. It would hardly fit more than ten people working at the same time. And if there was, they'd puke in their own smell.

I remember the first time we moved here. This lab lacked some of the tools and equipments necessary for research; so we had to salvage parts or the whole equipment themselves from abandoned labs miles away. I swear it wasn't easy with a couple of roadblocks we had to clear, and all those infected lurking around. The task took us half a year to complete. After that, Doc did his wonders.

Wise and adaptable, these were my two best words to describe Doc.

A couple of days passed after he had finished setting up his lab, he told us he needed to study a live infected up close. We were well aware of how important the research was, if we wanted to learn more about our enemy. So, Dante and I decided to get him a live and healthy one just as he requested.

That mission had almost gotten us screwed by those sons of... friggin infected, when the snare trap, we prepared had failed. There was chaos and stupidity written all over our faces as we started running and playing hide-and-seek with the infected. Still, after a few horrifying hours, we managed to get Doc a live one, in which he immediately started to study.

After a few months then, when we had thought that one infected was duly enough, Doc requested for another, and that time, he required the opposite gender - a female.

Dante and I were hesitant at first, after all, it was our butts on the line. Yet, after hours of convincing and strategic planning, we had finally come to an agreement.

If Doc needs another, then we give him another, period. Dante said.

So, after a day of scouting and setting up traps, and after learning from our previous mistakes, we had finally accomplished that task with perfect execution.

Those days, we were like city boys lost in a deep, dense jungle. We had no idea what to do. One day we had food and were living our lives, the next day we were fending off a horde. There was no perfect security in this world anymore; so we had learnt to watch each other's backs, and rely on each other's strengths.

Yeah, it was most unpredictable first days of our stay in here.

Back inside the lab, I recognized Doc at the nearest research station, busily hitting the keys on the computer keyboard.