Friends

Lucas slowly regained consciousness, his body was shaking and swaying a lot. It was a horrible feeling to wake up with a vibrating body; his head was hitting something hard and metallic. He tried to open his eyes but couldn't.

Moving his hand toward his eye region, he realized that it was tied with a soft handkerchief. At first, he couldn't see much, as his head was still aching, his memories were a little blurry, and he felt a slight discomfort in the region of his eyes, as well as a stark hunger.

However, as the seconds passed, he finally remembered the fight with the snake, the loss of his eyes and those ghostly skulls. When he remembered that, he realized he wasn't alone. How then were his eyes tied with a handkerchief? What's more, the vibration he still felt belonged to the movement of a car on the road.

While he was gathering his thoughts, the car stopped and he heard some voices.

"Look, he woke up!"

"I thought he would never wake up again."

The first voice sounded in his ears as belonging to a woman and the second voice that of a man. Needless to say, he was very happy to notice that there were other human beings alive, of course, undeformed humans.

He turned his head towards the voices and expressed his thanks:

"Look, thank you so much, I thought I would never find other survivors."

After saying this, he started to untie the scarf to open his eyes, but quickly the female voice stopped him.

"Hey, stop! You were really hurt when we found you, you better not take your handkerchief off now. Wait for your eyes to improve and then take it off."

The male voice nodded:

"Ruby is right, you were missing your eyes, so definitely if you take your handkerchief off, the blood will leak and the wound will get worse."

Even with these warnings, the 'injured' young man continued to untie the knots in his scarf. His rescuers didn't try to stop him again and just watched him. The young man finished untying the bandages and took off his handkerchief. Both the man and the woman, Ruby, were speechless. Where before there were not even signs of any eyeballs, now there were not just signs but eyes!

"My god…" Said the man. Ruby couldn't even express her astonishment through her voice, she just stared in amazement.

Lucas slowly opened his eyes, but the sunlight assaulted him, forcing him to quickly close them. After a few more seconds of trying to get used to the light, the young man finally opened his eyes and could see what his rescuers looked like.

The man was tall, almost six feet tall, his skin was brown, his hair was shaved and his physique was well defined; His eyes were light brown and he wore a gym outfit, sweatshirt and baggy pants. He saw no other details as the woman's appearance almost made him drool.

Ruby was much shorter than the man, she was about 1.70 tall, her hair was short shoulder length and black in color. Her skin was supposed to be white, but due to the sun exposure, it turned pink, she definitely got a lot of sun these days. Her eyes were blue. Her body curves would surely make any man, straight or not, stop to admire her beauty. There was no exaggeration in her sizes, both front and back and sides, the graceful shape of Ruby's body was perfect.

After seeing them, he naturally falls apart a bit to get back to normal. Realizing that the mood had turned strange, the tall man snapped out of his astonishment, approached with a smiling face, saying:

"Oops, it must be hard getting used to the light, since you spent two days sleeping."

This revelation shocked Lucas. Did he really spend two days sleeping?

"Well, that explains my hunger."

With that thought, he turned his eyes to the man and said:

"Thank you so much again, my name is Lucas and yours?"

He apparently shifts from the woman's name, her beauty must have overshadowed his thoughts.

The man still said with a smile and waving his hand:

"Oh that! My name is- "

When he was about to say, his face creased and frowned. It seemed very painful for him to talk about it. Ruby said this and took the floor:

"Oh, don't be surprised, his name is Acelino, but it's better to call him Ace, mine is Ruby, it's a pleasure to meet him!"

Even as she spoke, her surprise at the 'hurt' young man's eyes was still written on her face. However, it soon turned into a smile, which as Lucas saw, was quite welcoming.

Acelino, with his head slightly bowed, replied:

"Yeah, I don't know what my parents had in mind when they gave me that name."

Talking about him made Ruby smile, Lucas seeing that, was enchanted again by his beauty. However, this time he knew how to control himself and remembered something, saying:

"I was walking close to the road just to meet other survivors and also to get to some town. What is the closest city? "

Acelino and Ruby's expressions closed and they looked at Lucas in confusion. It was as if they had heard the craziest thing in the world. Lucas joked that he had said something strange and asked:

"Did you say something wrong?"

Still with a confused expression, Acelino replied:

"Where were you? I mean… Why do you want to go back to town? Don't know what happened? "

Ruby also expressed her confusion.

"Aren't you afraid of those things? The city is all destroyed, why go back? "

Hearing this, he was touched that there was a lot about the world that he didn't know; at least the monsters part he could understand, but is the city destroyed? What really happened?

He then decided to tell about himself before asking for more information. He talked about the bunker and resuming his fight with the mutants. That way, Acelino and Ruby understand why he wanted to go to the city. Lucas just didn't know what was going on. So Acelino took the initiative and explained everything:

"After the star beam, we apparently slept for 4 days before we woke up. Ruby and I are…"

Acelino hesitated and scratched the back of his head. The girl, in turn, hurried to explain.

"We are cousins, my aunt is his mother."

Lucas found this interaction strange, but then he threw the thought away.

Acelino promptly regained his posture, nodded and continued:

"Yeah, no apartment from her when the beam arrived, we slept and stuff. Oh, when we woke up our parents were dead, in fact they were torn apart, impossible to recognize. Beside the bodies was a kind of yellowish ooze. She and I, after finishing screaming and shaking, left the room on duty. "

Taking a breath to continue his explanation, Acelino now wore an expression of fear and helplessness. As if there was nothing he could do and totally helpless.

"We went down the stairs of the building, there was nothing strange there, but when we approached the exit…"

His breathing got faster and more tense. Ruby also had a sour expression.

"We started listening to the children. We would never have listened to them as they were children. There was a giant rat, its legs were insects, its head was filled with multiple bodies of children and adults, they were embedded in its entire form… "

The more he talked, the more his voice trembled and weakened, so much so that Lucas was barely able to hear him. Ruby then took the line.

"Summing up what he means, that thing eats everything and everyone, luckily it doesn't come close. We managed to get this car and some groceries. Since then we have been traveling, currently aimlessly, just trying to live. We passed through some cities, but we didn't dare enter any. We could hear the cries for help and pain from miles away, those animal grunts and everything. We were just on the outskirts, looting some greengrocers to survive. "

Hearing all this, Lucas understood why they were shocked when he said he wanted to go into town. No doubt there were many risks of going there. He then asked:

"Well, what do you guys plan going forward? Can I join them for a while? "

Ruby and Acelino looked at each other, Ruby said:

"Wait ae, let's think."