A Calmer Second Journey

The first thing we did when we decided to start our journey again, was to hide behind the wall and followed to the end of it until we could take a peek at our surroundings. Even though we no longer heard any of the aircraft's sound anymore, we realized full well that we were to stay cautious at any time then. After we were sure that the street was safe again, we headed to our northeast direction, starting by crossing the canal bridge that was just about 100 feet away from our left side.

Even when we had not discussed on whether or not we could run for once in a while as we headed to the northeast, it seemed that we had kept in our mind to not to, most likely because we had our presence nearly spotted by the alien earlier that made us forced ourselves to be as stealthy as possible. It also reminded that we could barely run with slipping at all anyway since the road and sidewalks were slick due to the dense fog in the current season.

As we passed the canal bridge, we arrived at what seemed to be the classic Italian street food district. Only a few buildings however, were still left standing unscathed with mostly that of vintage ones while the rest were nothing but ruins or even just like empty grounds with messy piles of bricks.

"I wonder why they seemed to be very picky on what buildings they would want to destroy…" said Della as we walked at the district's sidewalk.

When she mentioned it, I noticed that the place that I had been into up until the present were mostly of vintage types. From the church, the underground passage, and the elevated train station, even the fire department and museum also had a considerably vintage atmosphere when I thought about it again. Whether she realized it or not, she had mentioned something that made me added my list of another possibility for the alien's weakness.

Just then, we felt another quake on our feet. In an instant, we crouched and continued to proceed ahead with a slower pace. As the quake was getting stronger, I realized that we were getting closer to something that caused it. I signaled Della to stop moving ahead, and hide behind a red brick wall to our right side. It was not too long before I started to hear a familiar rumbling sound, which at first she did not hear, but eventually did very shortly after.

"Do you hear it?" I asked while I was opening my submachine gun bolt cover.

"I hear it now." she responded, "Hey, do not open fire again!"

"Do not worry, I will not." I said, "Unless I have no choice."

When the quake was getting more intense, and the rumbling sound getting louder, we tried to take a peek to in front of us from the wall which was the direction of the sound. Then, little by little, the silhouette of a flying object began to emerge by the dense fog, hovering low just a few feet from the ground.

Eventually, the faint silhouette turned to the familiar narwhal flying object moving slowly while plowing many houses and buildings on the side of the intersecting road with its body, destroying them to ruins in the process. I turned my neck back to the wall as it could notice my presence if I was to look at it any longer. I also asked Della if she had seen the flying object before, to which she answered that she had never before.

"Do you see that flying object?" I asked her, "They are the things that spew out this dense fog."

"This is the first time I see it." she responded.

"But, I do feel the same quake back at the station before we met you three. That was some time before I was…" she continued again, before pausing for a while.

"Yeah, I understand what you mean." I said, cutting her sentence off.

I realized that the time she mentioned was when she was almost robbed by another hostile survivor group. Nevertheless, I began to come to light about the timing when the fog started to envelope the town. Apparently, just as the dawn came, the flying objects started to spew out its fog. Since she felt the quake even though faint, and did not hear the growling sound then the flying objects would most likely were quite far from the station at that time.

We waited until the growling sound were no longer heard from the direction of our backs, as we hid behind the wall, before I mustered up my courage to peek at the intersecting road ahead of us again. The flying object was no longer there, but we could still feel the quake mildly on our feet and the growling sound heard from our right direction was also getting faint.

We crouched first, before heading to the intersecting road while still covering ourselves against the wall, and peeked again to the other side of the wall to make sure that the flying object was no longer heading to our direction. When we looked that it was starting to fly low away from us, we continued our journey straight ahead of the road.

It felt like I was entering a completely different street as we crossed the intersection, because my surroundings were no longer standing buildings but merely scattered bricks and ruins instead. If I had to force myself to find any bright side about our new surroundings, it would only be that the scattered ruins could provide us a better cover should any aircraft or flying object suddenly headed towards us.

"When we arrived at the second store," Della said from behind me, "there better be some kind of a bag there."

What she said was true. Even though we rushed to fill our backpack and bag with ammunition rounds back at the first store, it felt like we had carried enough supplies to take home with us. Nevertheless, we had to anticipate should at any time we were to spend plenty of ammunition to save our lives, and thus we still had to obtain as much as we could. The final decision on whether to continue to the third store or not however, could still be determined later once we had arrived at the second store.

As if the second journey was like a breeze to us compared to the second one, it did not take us too long before we arrived at the second gun store. What disappointed us greatly however, was the sight of the gun store already partially destroyed, particularly two of its walls. Look at the bright side, we did not have to make any unnecessary attention to get into the store.

At first, I thought that most of the things inside the store would also be destroyed or broken as well. However, to the least of my expectation, few of the weapons were still left intact inside few of the broken glass display cabinets. They also seemed to be not damaged, however my instinct told me not to take any of them.

"So? Should we take some of them?" Della asked.

"Maybe we should," I said, "but my instinct told me to leave them be…"

"Well, if you say so. In times like this, when someone has an instinct or gut-feeling about something, then it will be more likely to be true…" she responded.

We then proceeded to enter to a more destroyed room, which probably used to be the owners' living room based on a couple of long couch and what seemed to be a destroyed TV bench in front of one of the couch, and a wooden cupboard besides the bench. Most of the other paths towards other rooms were blocked by ruins, and since even half of the room ceiling had caved in, making a considerably large hole on the roof, I began to drop the possibility of obtaining any type of ammunitions.

"Well, I suppose we can only see what is inside the cupboard." I said, dropping any hopes of obtaining more ammunition.

I was quite surprised to see that there were two 9mm ammunition boxes, one .45 ACP ammunition box, and one 12 gauge ammunition box inside the cupboard. We immediately checked all of the boxes, and found out that all of them had full rounds inside them as well, with each of 9mm and .45 ACP ammunition box held 50 rounds, and the 12 gauge box held 25. Satisfied, we dropped our backpack and bag, and filled them with all of the rounds.

When we finished, we felt like the burden on our backs had become heavier, but nevertheless we also felt a little relieved since we had been successful in obtaining more ammunition for our group. With our backpack and bag already in overcapacity, we decided to skip our journey for the third store, and decided to head back to the station again. As usual before leaving, I looked at my watch to see what time it was, to which it showed me the current time 09.45 a.m.