10.01 AM

I exited the restroom, walking past someone who was washing their hands. I covered my face as if I trying to yawn politely, although I was actually trying to conceal the redness on my face after my emotional sobbing session. I headed back to the main refugee area, where everyone was sleeping at.

I stepped over many refugees carefully, making sure that I wouldn't ruin their comfortable slumber by accidentally stomping on them. The previous night, we had picked an outermost location of the refugee area, making our sleeping bags the easiest the access. However, as we weren't quite the latest to arrive at the camp, others quickly flooded into the area as well, setting up beyond our sleeping bags.

Consequently, we had ended up near the centre of the rest area. I didn't expect the refugees to continuously pour into the oversized basement, although the directors eventually pulled the plug on accepting everyone. Eventually, only groups with elderly persons or children were allowed into the camp to prevent overcrowding, I suppose.

After much cautious walking, I arrived back at my sleeping bag. Beside me was Jennifer, who was up already. She scratched her frizzly hair, wincing as if she was experiencing another hangover. "What time is it now?" she asked tiredly as he failed to face my direction properly.

"Close to 10. You should wake the others so we can reserve a place to eat at the cafeteria," I suggested pointing to Veronica and Tara behind her, who were sharing a large sleeping bag for two. However, as I looked closely, I realised that the girl's eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling eerily. "Or just Veronica, actually," I corrected myself.

Jennifer turned to look at them, watching as the girl kept her eyes open, although with much refusal to get up. She looked back at me, sighing. "I have no idea what is stimulating their... insatiable bond. They're like sisters at this point. I'm pretty sure they know everything about each other now," she whispered discreetly.

"And the kid hasn't even told you or I where she's from," I spoke loudly, prompting Jennifer to shush me with her finger to my lips. I snorted inconsiderately, waking some refugees around us as they got up and glared at me. I cleared my throat, for the purpose of acting like I wasn't the one who was making the noise, and also to genuinely hydrate my dry throat. I pushed Jennifer's finger away from my lips in attempt to further prove that I didn't just laugh loudly.

"I'm from Singapore, if that's what you wanted to know," Tara spoke for once, which stunned both Jennifer and me.

"And so, the girl speaks," Jennifer praised, giving an impressed look on her face.

"That's like beside Hong Kong, right?" I asked jokingly, a clear smirk displayed on my face to show the satire in my question. "No wonder the accent."

However, the girl simply ignored me, sitting up without looking at me. I figured that my joke wasn't as funny as it was in my head, as Jennifer nudged me, giving me a glare.

She then turned towards Veronica. She prepared to crawl over to her, getting down her belly. However, Tara held her hand up, gesturing to Jennifer that there was no need to. "I'll get her up," she whispered quietly as we struggled to hear what she had said. She tapped lightly on Veronica, murmuring what sounded like, "Auntie V, it's 10 and it's time to wake up."

Jennifer and I turned to face each other for a moment, exchanging confused looks. "Auntie?" we both muttered subtly, hoping that the girl wouldn't hear us.

However, she seemed to have rather sharp ears, as she easily heard what we retorted. "It's how one refers to a woman older than themselves back in Singapore. She said she was fine with me referring to her that way," she explained as we turned back to her.

"Alright, no judgemenr," I stated, nodding my head as I drooped my lips. "It's just that... Veronica's kinda too young to be someone's aunt, even in whatever context you're using it in."

Tara sighed, finally look at me as she responded. "It kind of is," she admitted as she probably thought about what I said.

"Why don't you just call her "V"?" Jennifer suggested, simplifying everything. "It's much easier to say, anyway."

"Good idea," Tara acknowledged, accepeted the idea. Turning to the still-sleeping Veronica and tapping her lightly on her shoulder, she said, "V. Come on, let's get up."

Finally, Veronica seemed to show some signs of life. She moved her hands up towards her face, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. Stretching her eyes open, she looked around, realising that all of us were already awake. "So, you're finally up, sleeping beauty," I snickered as she got up from her sleeping blanket. "Come on, let's go get something to eat for breakfast."

As such, we all brought our food cans over, saving the rest for dinner and possibly lunch if we had enough. We walked towards the cafeteria, which was already flooded with people. Most had already gotten up at that time and had proceeded to begin eating. Thus, we struggled to find a spot to sit at for a moment.

As we trudged along the edge of the cafeteria, we peeled our eyes open for an open space for us to gather at. It was pretty damn difficult to see anything, thanks to the large masses of people scattered everywhere. Howeverc I started looking out towards the ends of tbe cafeteria, close to the corners. Eventually, we found a spot near one, with enough space for two groups around the size of ours.

Veronica, Jennifer, Tara and I settled down at the cosy spot. We laid out a thin blanket to at least cover up some of the unusually cold concrete floor beneath us. Jennifer and I grabbed out the canned foods that we had collected the previous night and placed them on the blanket-turned-picnic-mat. Meanwhile, Veronica used her sweater to cover Tara as they stuck together.

"You know, I only knew Ricky for one night," Jennifer said, suddenly bringing the topic up, "but it already feels so weird without him, even after a day has passed."

I refused to respond to her statement ar the moment. I found it quite insensitive, as she didn't seem to realise how she was casually mentioning the absence of my closest friend without tying it to my feelings or asking me about how I was regarding his departure. Nevertheless, I attempted to keep a straight face.

I pried open the cans with a can opener as she handed hers over to me. As I opened them one by one, and held onto each of them steadily, ensuring that the contents wouldn't spill out. After finishing up, I brought a handkerchief out of my pocket to dry my eyes, unable to keep rhe tears hidden behind my eyes. This instantly drew attention from Veronica, who had been observing me for a while.

"You were crying, weren't you?" she asked, seemingly concerned. I covered my nose conspicuously, hoping that she wouldn't notice that it was red and swollen, just like my eyes. However, it was all futile, since she immediately sensed that I was off. "You can't hide it. It's okay to take some time to let it all out. I mean, after what happened to Ricky—," she attempted to comfort me, although I pushed away her help.

"Can we not talk about that shit right now?" I pleaded in a rather rude manner. I fought more incoming tears as I sniffled, rubbing my eyes again as I squeezed my nose.

"I'm sorry," she apologised, giving me some space for the moment. "We can talk about something else if you want to," she spoke after a minute, probably hoping that I would go back to my usual self.

I guessed I was ready to get back to my regular mood. I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat was dry as hell. It was as if I had been choking on my tears, literally. I began clearing it blatantly, which I didn't quite realise that it could have proved to be an annoyance in the worst-case scenario. Just then, a group of refugees settled down beside us, right at the corner of the cafeteria.

I turned to face them, noticing that one of them, an African-American woman, was staring at me. It was as if her gaze was unbreakable, which was fixated on me. However, I interpreted it as a way of showing her contempt for my lack of manners, and thus needed to think of a false reason for it. "Oh, sorry. I'm probably dehydrated or something," I excused myself with a white lie, causing Jennifer to nudge me again. "Hope it doesn't disturb y'all. Y'all newcomers?"

The only woman in group continued staring at me intently, signalling that she probably wasn't exactly annoying by my throat clearing. The man beside her was doing the same, although his eyes showed much detestation for some reason. "Well... you could say that. We arrived here a day ago, and honestly, we're pretty puzzled by what's going on here," the last group member finally responded to my question.

I was about to continue the discussion, but felt that my throat was getting dry and itchy once again. Thus, I cleared my throat yet again, before going on. "Excuse me," I apologised. "Sorry about that. Anyway, we're all as confused as y'all are. We're just tryna figure out how long we're going to last here."

The trio of refugees displayed confused looks on their face, probably a response to my rather strange comment. However, after a few moments, the woman's expression changed sharply, while the only member in the trio who had spoke so far attempted to clarify with me something regarding my statement, before getting interrupted by the sole lady in his group. "What do you mean by last here—"

"Oh my God," she gasped, moving her right hand onto mouth. She held it there for a while, pointing at me with her left index, before lowering her right hand. "You're Larry! My big "brother" when I first moved to South Kimbark!" she exclaimed, freezing in her exact spot after making a shocking revelation.

This came as quite a shock to me as well, as I never thought that I would see her again. I had barely mentioned her recently, only bringing her up as the retelling of my past whenever it was brought up since the attack. Back when I was released from juvenile, she and her family had already moved. I had never expected to see her again after she left.

To see Zoey Taylor.

I had some trouble trying to match her looks with that of the Zoe I knew from my childhood. It was as if she had an entire glow-up since then, which should have been unsurprising. She had gone from a young teenager to an adult over the entire course of being separated from me. Despite trying to process this fact, I leaned forward, inspecting her curiously to see if my mind wasn't playing tricks on me, and that I wasn't hearing things.

After coming to the conclusion that she was indeed Zoe, I gasped quietly just as she had done. "Z-Zoe?" I called out, still unable to etch it in my head that she was my long-lost childhood "sister". She then reached out to me, giving me a hug as we both enjoyed the reunion. Unfortunately, the joy proved to be short-lived, as she quickly retreated, wincing in pain.

As she moved away from me, I instantly noticed her arm, which was severely swollen. It moved unnaturally, as if it was fractured or something. "Oh, I'm sorry," I apologised once more, concerned about her wellbeing. I didn't want to physically hurt her more than she already was. "You injured or somethin'?"

She grabbed onto her arm, squeezing her eyes tightly, hinting that the pain was excruciating. "Yeah. One of those creatures attacked us two nights ago, and one of them used its arms to pin my arm down. It nearly crushed my bone," she explained, elaborating on one of her encounters with the nasty alien creatures.

I grimaced in response to hearing her experience. I shook my head as I focused on the bruising of her jelly-like arm. "That's some bad shit," I remarked, coughing again. "You got that checked up, right? They got medics over here. Your arm's gotta be vulnerable to infections in this state."

"Not as vulnerable as this camp is to being attacked again," one of the members in the trio said, speaking the last in the group as he grabbed onto her intimately. "I'm Jake, by the way. Her fiancé, just so you know," he added on as he directed his introduction to me specifically, reaching his hand out to shake while putting on a sarcastic smile. I kindly declined the handshake, returning the fake smile and pushing his hand back to himself.

Meanwhile, Zoe sighed, ignoring Jake's statement. "I'll go check in with the medics again, after we eat," she reassured as she dropped her arm down gently to rest.

Just as I was about to continue with opening the food cans forcefully, I noticed something peculiar. And I was pretty sure that the last member in the trio who I didn't know his name, noticed it to. I put down the can opener so that I wouldn't make so much noise, allowing me to focus more clearly and also reducing the amount of background noise.

I closed my eyes for a second in hopes of strengthening my hearing. In between the layered sounds of people talking, chewing and handling food was quite a mellow racket. It was almost impossible to hear, but I could make out a rapid thudding sound. It was like the footsteps of someone who was sprinting, but even quicker.

I peeled my eyes back open, looking around me. I realised that it was no longer just Zoe's friend and me who had noticed the sound. A small minority began looking around consciously, going silent to hear for the noise. Eventually, others noticed, proceeding to zip their mouths. By then, the cafeteria was like a peaceful library. However, the sound that we were hearing still made our surroundings far from tranquil.

Thesound of gunfire.