Forest of Skyscrapers

The man from my group took a desert eagle, so did Four, the white collared shirt guy took two daggers and Two was armed with an assault rifle.

My expertise in shooter games reached even international levels, but I was hesitant and before I know it, all the guns I'm fond of was already taken, thus I ended up with a revolver.

This was my first time holding a firearm, my fingers were trembling as I was loading the cylinder of the gun with bullets.

"Nine, just two daggers?" Four questions.

So the white shirt guy is the Nine of Diamonds.

"Yeah. I think I prefer these more than guns."

What? No one will prefer knives over guns, not even video games should have knives that's more effective than guns in combat.

Four didn't care much about the peculiar choice of weapons, he just shrugged his shoulders and walked with us towards Two, who was at the very front of the crowd of armed soldiers.

"Today we march East, our priority is to search for survivors from Ace's team that got ambushed yesterday, and of course carry any resources you find that can be helpful, food, supplies, clean water, anything."

Two announced confidently, her hair was tied back in a ponytail, with scars of her face indicating battle experiences.

She then turned to a guard next to the gates and nodded, signaling the opening of the gate.

"Reignite humanity's hope!" She yelled while thrusting her weapon upwards, and the crowd followed suit.

"Reignite humanity's hope!" Weapons of all sorts were raised with full spirits, I guess this is a slogan to motivate the people, so i just followed along their action.

Without any transportation, Two lead the team of around 40 soldiers out, marching by foot, this is gonna take quite the toll on my body due to my gamer's stamina.

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After what feels like hours of marching, every step feels like needles inside my thighs and feet, it's been so long since my legs were this sore...have I ever marched this much before?

What's really fascinating though, is that no matter how long the march goes on, the environment remains the exact same. It's like in a desert, or in a jungle, it's always surrounded by the same structures, it's difficult to differentiate one place from another.

Instead of being constantly surrounded by fields of sand or clusters of plants, I'm constantly surrounded by dilapidated skyscrapers.

It wouldn't be the same if it was a lively city, as there's different people and different atmosphere in every corner of a prospering city.

In this one, the atmosphere is dry, dead, dark, all throughout.

I felt lost wherever I stand, and felt the threat that something will come out from anywhere at any time, it's like a forest of skyscrapers.

Two of Diamonds, still at the very front of the formation, stopped when she arrived on an orange sticker on the ground. She knelt down to pick it up, stood back up and turned to us.

"From this point forward the buildings are unexplored, you may disperse and begin searching, come back after around an hour. Ensure your own safety during your search." She commanded.

The team disperses and started ransacking through the buildings within the area. I followed Four and the man from my group into a building, Nine says he will search with men from his group and left us.

Before he left, I noticed something about the dufflebag he was holding, everyone else's was empty at the start of the search, his seems to be already partially filled.

"Captain?" The man called out to me when I was still staring at Nine's dufflebag.

"Yeah?"

"You alright?"

Oh right, I'm supposed to be searching the building for useful resources, not just find the spy.

"Yeah I'm fine, I'll begin searching."

Four and the man from my group began searching the bottom floor, ransacking every cupboard and drawer.

I who had another objective, finding the spy, decided to ascend the stairs. The furthest I could reach was the third floor, as the stairs to the fourth was obstructed by rubble.

From the broken windows of the third floor of the building, I could observe quite a bit of activity of the entire search team.

No signs of a Clubs ambush attack yet, everything seems normal, everyone was doing their job searching the buildings.

Since there wasn't signs of suspicious activities, I thought maybe coming out on this expedition was a mistake, the spy could still be in Diamonds territory, and I'm out here just exploring the map.

When I turned to descend the stairs, I heard distant gunshots.

"AMBUSH ON FAR WEST SIDE!"

I heard the loud scream from a man and quickly took out my revolver and descended the stairs.

I exited the building just about at the same time as Four.

"Didn't Nine walk that way?" Four asked with urgency in his voice.

"Yeah, west."

"Shit."

We began sprinting towards where the rapid gunfire are coming from, so did most of the search team.

"Fourth time in a row already, they just won't quit it will they?!" Four ranted in annoyance.

Fourth time already? Clubs really need the food, don't they now?

Everyone in the search team brought along a small portion of food with them in the expedition, not enough for a full stomach, yet enough for Clubs to kill for it.

I kept sprinting without any experience in a real gun fight, there is no indication like in a video game when you get shot, you just run out of lives like that, a human's health bar is pathetic. Although, this is a game too, so maybe I can indeed tank a few bullets?

"No, you cannot." A cold answer from the telepathic earpiece.

Then, as if in slow motion, a bullet flew right pass my right ear, scraping the earpiece.

"Get down!"

Four pulled me down to take cover behind a huge piece of rubble.

I've experienced death, even accepted it, but it doesn't get easier. My heart was beating so fast that it may jump out at any time, the metal scraping sound when the bullet and my earpiece made contact is now engraved deeply in my memories.

"Goddamn it they already got a few of us!" Four said with a grimace.

From time to time he would abandon cover and shoot at the enemy before kneeling back down.

I looked around to see two bodies covered in blood not too far away from where we were, guess that's what Four meant by "got a few of us".

"You alright?" Four saw my flabbergasted expression and showed his concerns.

I took a moment to take in a few deep breaths, remembering that dying isn't a big deal to me in the first place, then answered, "Im okay."

"I see Nine! Two o'clock stuck in the alleyway with his subordinate! On my count, we shoot at the enemy right ahead to cover their escape!"

"Huh...huh?!"

What the hell, you want me to shoot? I've never even used a gun before.

I guess I don't have much of a choice, I gathered myself together and imagined this situation as one of the shooter games I used to play, which isn't that far off, this is also a game after all.

"On my count!" Four was screaming his lungs out just trying to communicate with me, if he didn't, his voice would've been covered by the sound of rapid gunfires and I wouldn't have heard him.

"Three! Two! One!"