Fear

A cold sweat runs down Artur's face, completely paralysed from the shock, it's the first human he encounters since his awakening, "who is that person?", "why is it here?" and "why hold a knife to my throat?" are the questions Artur asks himself but is incapable to ask, fearing death.

"Do as I say and maybe I'll let you live but try to do anything funny and I separate your head from your shoulders", said the person in a cold and serious tone. The human was standing behind Artur but he could notice that the person had a female voice. It was muffled, like she was wearing a mask. No other solution presented to Artur but to obey, in a trembled voice "F-fine I'll do as you say, and you let me go." he said, "You're not the one making rules here, but we'll see" replied the woman directly. "Now stand up, quick", she took Artur's arm and moved him up while still holding the knife closely to him.

On his both feet, Artur felt strange, tired and umbalanced, he was about to fall but the woman caught him and restabilated him. "Come on, on your feet and follow me" she said in an irritated voice, "We need to get out of here". Artur looked perplexed but followed anyway, he coughed feeling an irritation in his lungs, "Hold your breath and hurry" ordered the woman.

Artur didn't say a word and tried to hold his breath as much as he could, they arrived to a building, the masked woman closed the door behind them or what's left of it. The woman turn on a lamp she had on her belt and puts it in the middle of the room, the building seemed to be some old store, old molded wood is seen everywhere. She sits down on a fallen fridge, not leaving Artur unseen even for a second, "You can breathe safely now by the way" she said.

"Right" replied Artur, still nervous and keeping a distance from the girl. With the light of the lamp, he could finally see her, she was wearing a stripped black coat, short brown hair but the most noticable detail was the mask she was wearing, it seemed like a long used gas mask. "Why the mask?" asked Artur naturally, she was looking out of windows while trying to find curtains to cover them, she was barricading the door with a shelf.

A nervous look could be noticed on her face, then she looked at Artur with a confused look "To not make the same dumb mistake like you" she replied, "What were you thinking, sleeping next to a mirage tree? You want to die or something?" she asked, casting a judgmental look. "A what tree now?" asked Artur confused, "You must be thanking me for not letting you die there like a..." she stops herself, "Wait you don't know what a mirage tree is?" she asks raising an eyebrow surprised.

"I suppose it's the tree i was sleeping at but why did i need to get out of there?" he asked, "Were you born yesterday or something, how did you survive here if you don't even know that?" she asked, surprised and doubtful, "A mirage tree releases hallucinogenic spores to attract beings and slowly kill them with an overdose of substances flying through the air, they can then slowly consume the organism and get energy" explained the woman, "You must have smelled quite a lot of those spores if you decide to sleep there to second you saw the tree, or you're just very stupid" she said with an annoyed look on her face.

Artur was surprised at first, he thought to himself a little, "I suppose... yeah it was a little foolish of me, i should be more careful but..." he looked up in her eyes and smiled, "That also means that you saved me, thank you very much, I owe you" said Artur. The girl eyes lit up a little, surprised with that reaction, "Well i couldn't just let someone die like that if i can do something about it, but you're right you do owe me" she said with a proud look. Artur coughed a little still feeling the effect of the tree, "You should be careful with what you breathe here" she sais , the girl hesitated a little before taking a small mask from her belt, "Here put it on, should protect your lungs enough" she says while handing cautiously Artur the rudimentary mask. He takes it without any question. "Thank you, it's really hard to breathe here" he says while putting it on.

"So if I may ask, what's your name?" asked Artur hesitating if some trust is starting to build. She looked at him with doubt, she couldn't sense any danger from Artur and after thinking a little, she finally says "Stell... you can call me Stell, and you are...?", "Artur, at least i think that's my name..." he replied. She looked at him with a confused look, Artur sensing a doubt, takes a deep breath and starts:

"Listen... Stell, I know it might sound strange but..." Artur chose his words carefully, "I don't remeber anything, not this place, nor how did i get here and not even who am i" he said, "I've only woken up not too long ago in some sort of laboratory, everything is destroyed and I don't know what's happening.", he looked at her with desperation, "I need your help, I know I'm already asking a lot since you already saved me but..." he pauses "Can you please explain to me what happened here ?" he asked.

Stell looks at Artur with confusion, she was starting to doubt Artur's sanity: "I... I don't..." she stops, looking at the window, her eyes widen showing stress and fear. She grabs Artur's shoulder and pulls him down "Get down! Hide!" she shouts. A loud and imposing buzzing sound blast to Artur's ears, a bright flash of light gets through the closed windows. Stell and Artur hide behind the fridge, both afraid but Artur is also very lost. "THERMAL IDENTIFICATION SCAN" said a loud robotic voice. Artur tried to ask about the situation to Stell but she lifted her hand, showing a sign to stay silent "Don't make a sound" she wispered. The buzzing sound only gets louder, showing that the thing is only getting closer, "Move and you die" she said in an intimidating but mute voice.

Cold sweats run down Artur's body, paralysed, waiting for new instructions from Stell and still being completely lost about the situation, he stands still, not making a sound, holding his breath for as long as he could. After what seemed like an eternity, the mechanical voice speaks again "SCAN COMPLETE, ZERO DETECTION, CHANGING POSITIONS". The metal voice run a shiver to Artur's spine, the buzzing noise slowly fades out, releaving both Artur and Stell.

"What the hell was that?" whispers Artur still afraid to make any sound, he looks at Stell, she is concerned, afraid even, he was surprised to see her this lost, seeing a reflexion of himself. "It's a SARCO drone, a sentinel..." she looks at Artur with a dead serious look, "If it finds us, we're dead" she said in a trembled voice. After a moment, she recolects, figuring that staying here won't do any good, "We need to get out of here, more will come back," she said seriously.

Artur, realising the danger and the gravity of the situation starts to panick a little, "What do you mean "we're dead"? Why? Who is this SARCO?" questions Artur rapidly. Stell looks at Artur, gets up and opens the back door of the store, "We don't have time for explanations, I'll tell you what I can on the way, try to keep up and don't get us seen" she said with now zero hesitation in her eyes, Artur can see that Stell already experienced those kinds of danger and is now able to be cold blooded in moments like this, even in a situation of life and death, she was able to rapidly takes control of the situation.

He believes it's best to stay by her side by now, atleast, until he gets to safety. He is still unsure if Stell's intention are to hurt him or not but trying to survive alone didn't seem like an option in this moment.

The two quickly rush through the small alleys, trying to stay as quiet as possible, in the distance, the sound of multiple drones fill the roads, setting fear in both Artur and Stell. While running, Artur dodges countless pieces of lither and trash, trying to keep up with Stell. Her movements were fast, agile and show good analysis of the area, Artur was impressed and a little overvelmed by the conditions of speed and discretion needed to escape the drones, who were scouting the area. Stell jumps on a container and reaches to a building ladder, it's rusty and doesn't seem to be stable but she doesn't hesitate and reaches it with a leap.

From the balcony, she helps Artur to climb and they both climb little by little the roof of the building, "Are you sure this is the best to climb high like this? Hiding here will be more difficult than inside the building." Asks Artur in a whispering voice, "We need to get altitude to notice the trajectories of the drones. They all follow a precise route, if we are able to predict their paths, it won't be hard to get past unnoticed" explains Stell in a quiet but clear voice.

They both carefully look from the roof point where most of the drones are, multiple of them fly across the roads, scanning the buildings from outside. It is difficult the differenciate the whole structure of the drone, they have a bug like appearance, glass screens envelop the machine, projecting the environnement to become a camouflage. Their discretion is betrayed by the sound but it would be almost impossible to notice them in the dark.

"They're pretty loud but hard to notice without the lights, i can barely even see them" says Artur discretly, he looks at Stell, she is focused, observing the drones, trying to undestand their pattern. "An adapting holographic camouflage, pretty advanced, those SARCO dogs really can't just leave us alone can they" whispers Stell, irritated. "SARCO, who are those people? Why do they try to find us?" asks Artur, "Not only us, everyone in the underground city need to hide from that cursed organisation, they say that it is an unauthorized area but we don't have anywhere else to go." she mumbles to herself "They try to find "anomalies" here, probably to lock them in cages or just kill them." explains Stell. ""Anomalies"... what's that? and how does that have a connection with us?" asks Artur even more confused than before.

"No they're people, they..." she stutters, "Wait so you don't even remember them? They're..." absorbed in the conversation, Stell doesn't notice her hand resting on the roof side, an old brick crack and falls from the roof. A drone patroling gets hit by the falling debris, no damage is left on the drone but it quickly changes it's attention to the roof, both Artur and Stell lose their breath instantly, still shocked from their mistake.

In a single second, the drone has already reached the roof and seen the duo, a flash of light covers the rooftop and a flurry of wind is caused by the machine, "THIS AREA IS UNAUTHORIZED FOR PUBLIC. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST BY THE SARCO LAW AND SECURITY DEPARTMENT. DO NOT SHOW ANY RESISTANCE OR FORCE WILL BE USED." says the drone loudly, with authority.

Artur is paralyzed, lost to the idea of how to escape this situation, he looks at Stell "What the hell do we do now?!" screams Artur to Stell, muffed by the wind, she looks at him, panicked as well but regains her cool quickly. Stell takes rapidly something from her belt, looks at Artur and screams "Turn around!! Close your eyes!!", she activates the device and throws it at the drone with full force. At the last second, Artur and Stell close their eyes and turn around, protecting themselves, a huge flash precedes an explosion, the drone is stunned and damaged with a powerful electrical charge. The drone stutters with a laggy voice "Y-yo-OU H-h-HaVE COMItteD a-A GR-ii-ADE 3 INF-FRACTION" the drone is too buggy to understand the rest, Artur opens one of his eyes still cramped from the flash. A second later, Stell grabs Artur hand and starts to sprint, "What was that?!" shouts Artur while running, "An EMP, it'll stop him for a moment but the other are comming as well! we need to get the hell out of here!" responsively shouts Stell while dragging Artur through the roof tops.

Both started running at full speed, sprinting and jumping on different roofs and structures, Artur was praying that it holds while Stelle seemed more confident and focused on the way to go. In the distance a hoard of drones was starting to chase the pair, like predators trying to catch their fleeing prey. "RESISTANCE PERCEIVED, NEUTRALISATION AUTHORIZED" says one of the drones in the distance, sound of rapid buzzing and wind intensifies. Artur does not look back even for a second, knowing that any hesitation will get him caught, his focus was only directed in trying to follow Stelle. Paired with the buzzing, Artur started hearing metal sounds, the drone were changing, he jumps to try to slide to another building but is propulsed with a shock wack caused by an explosion.

He screams in panick and fly straight through a window, breaking it, Stell screams his name fearing the condition of Artur. He fell into an appartment, like everything else, in disorder, he gets up, still shaking from the movement but is not hurt, he looks around, panicked, for a way out. He quickly finds a balcony, "DON'T STOP! GO! I'll catch up!" screams Artur now on his feet, ready to sprint.

Stell stopped for a second, but after she heard Artur's voice she was reassured to know his not injured, she looked back, more and more drones were rushing like a colonny of insects now firing ammunition at the both of them. She hid quickly behind some roof structure, waiting for an openning. Additionally to explosives, the drones shot countless flurries of bullets at Stell, hearing the shooting stop she rushes to the next roof with a jump, she was hoping Artur would escape but knew she couldn't do anything right now except run.

Artur was preparing a leap through the balcony, he started sprinting but before he could jump, a drone blocked the way with a screaching sound, it was about to fire it's wave of bullets at Artur. Artur slides to stop his sprint and jumps to the side, escaping in extremis the bullets, he looks around, feeling the adrenaline pump his heart faster and faster. He is trying to find a weapon to free the way. A quick look and he finds an old toaster layed on the kitchen floor, he rushes to grab it, crouching to escape the bullets.

He waits a moment for the bullets to stop, hiding behing a couch who is being torn apart by the bullets, the adrenaline is overflowing in Artur's head. The hellish sound of bullets stop, he jumps out the destroyed couch and throws at full force the toaster at the drone, the toaster flies through the balcony, he missed. Artur is still in the same pose after he threw the toaster, silent. He is in complete panick now, but with no time to hesitate, he prepares a plan, "... Damnit, well then!" shouts Artur while preparing for another sprint, he runs and jumps at the drone, trying to get on top of it.

Stell is running, dodging the explosions by jumping building through building, with her agility and acrobatic moves, the drones are unable to land a bullet on her. Her breathing gets faster and faster, accelerating her heart rate and her movements. In the distance, she sees one of the drones fly high up, shooting randomly in the air, with something on top of it. The others drones seem to have noticed it as well, she squints her eyes, still sprinting, trying to discern what was on the drone. "What the..." she sees Artur, completely in panick, cramped with all his limbs, trying to hold on as much as possible to the drone who is flying over dozens of meters above the ground.

Her eyes widen, she's never seen anything like this and feels that Artur could fall at any moment, she can hear him screaming in the air glued with all his might to drone who is rolling around in the air. Most of the drones have caught attetion of Artur and started shooting waves of bullets in their direction, with the unstanble movements of the drone, Artur is able to dodge most of the bullets by pure luck. The drone starts slowly to lose it's ability to fly due to the added weight of Artur on in, but right as they're about to fall, an explosion propulses both Artur and the machine in the direction of Stell. She looks at them approaching in panick and jumps to the side to dodge them, Artur lets go of the drone and drops with a bad roll to Stell, she hears multiple sound of cracks comming from Artur. The released drone, damaged, flies and hit multiple walls before crashing into a roof and exploding.

The two look at each other, panting from the panick, "Are you alright!? What the hell was that!?" screams Stell still sitting on the floor, Artur is panting, trying to get his breath back, he looks at her, pale "Y--Yeah I-I'm good" he says while giving a shaky thumbs up and a forced smile. "Can you get up? There's no much road left and the drones will soon be here" asks Stell, reaching out her hand for him while standing up, making sure no injuries will make their escape impossible.

Artur grabs her hand and gets up with a silent "Yeah...", he feels pain in his left hand and chest but with the adrenaline still rushing through his veins, he endures the pain. The pair looks in the direction of the drone swarm, now moving in their direction, then at each other and nods. Both of them start running, "Follow me! We need to get down to the road!" shouts Stell, Artur does not say a word but agrees, he looks around for a way to get down, he notices emergency ladder on the side of a crumbled building not too far away, reminded of how they got to the roofs in the first place. "There! Be careful! Looks fragile!" he shouts.

Artur points in the direction of the ladder and starts sprinting once more to make a large leap to the next building. He jumps and barely lands on the next roof, after catching another breath he runs in the direction of the ladder without thinking. A wave of bullets pass next to Artur once more as he ducked quickly next to a vent to avoid the lines of bullet sprays. He is about to reach the ladder but hears a scream, he quickly stops and look behind him, Stell is hanging on the ledge of the roof, screaming in pain.

When Stell saw the ladder that Artur pointed, she quickly changed directions, making her rush her movements. She was about to follow Artur's jump but while in the air, one of the bullets traversed and cut her leg making Stell fail the leap. She instinctively catched the ledge of the building, preparing to climb as fast as possible, the drones were already approaching rapidly and another bullet had connected to Stell. While she was climbing the ledge, she was shot in her arm, the sharp pain made her instantly scream and her wounded arm was now too weak to hold on the ledge. Stell's breathing accelerated uncontrolably, she wouldn't be able to climb back quickly enough to escape the drones with her pierced arm, and droping from the ledge would break her legs, leaving her defenseless agaisnt the killer machines. The ideas in her head were switching rapidly, no plan would be able to save her this time, Stell was out of options.

As Stell was struggling desperatly, barely holding on to the ledge, she was starting to lose her gripp. The sound of the drones behind her was getting louder and louder, they were getting closer, shouting sprays of bullets in her direction. Stell has lost hope, a tear started flowing on her cheek as she remebered about a promise she made long ago. After loosing all the strength in her arm, she finally lets go, accepting her fate. This world was dangerous place and she knew it would be risky to try to be a hero when it's already hard enough to survive on your own. She didn't want to die just yet, not until her promise is fulfilled, but at least, she tried to reassure herself, thinking that her death would at least save someone. As she started to fall, she felt light as a feather, she closed her eyes and accepted her fate.

Until, she felt a strong grip on her forearm, stopping suddently her fall, Stell gasped as she openned her teary eyes, Artur was laying on the edge of the roof, he plunged on the ground to catch her arm with both of his hands. She looked, with a shocked gaze at Artur's face, he was struggling, holding on to Stell with all of his strength, drops of sweat were flowing on his cheeks as he was pulling Stell. "I got you! Come on! They're close, we need to hurry!" he shouted as he encouraged Stell to climb back up. Stell's breathing stopped for a moment, she was lost, this moment had awakenned an old memory in her. But she quickly regained her composure, knowing that no hesitation is possible in this situation.

She gave her injured arm to Artur before quickly climbing the ledge one last time, making a grunt of pain, still feeling the pain of the bullet injury. "Why didn't you just..", "There's no time for that, run!" interrups Artur before grabbing her hand and sprinting to the ladder. They both descent rapidly the rusty ladder, making the structure shake violently. Multiple rusty screws start to fall down, each time they land on the platforms of the emergency ladders. Artur hears cracks on the wall of the building, barely supporting the ladder.

Artur and Stell both rush down while the structure starts to fall under it's own weight, they jump out and land on the road. Still panting from the rush, Artur asks, "What now?" to Stell with hope that security is close. She points to a metal door with her bleeding hand, leading into the entry of the sewers, Artur is annoyed that the only way out is there but is reassured anyway because safety is not far, at least he thinks.

Both of them sprint to the metal door, feeling the multitude of drones approach them rapidly with more and more monstrous sound of buzzing and shouting. They both crash at the door, pushing it with all their strength, the rusty wall moves slowly, the hoard gets closer and closer, shouting flurries of bullets, they both scream giving their last effort, a small opening is finally revealed and they both squeeze inside panickly.

They turn around, pushing the door again to close it, multiple drones bang and crash at the door, creating a scene of horror but Artur and Stell finally seal the entrance and Stell gives one final effort, turning the walve at the center to lock it completely.

They both collapse to the ground, completely exhausted, panting at the same rapid rhytm. They managed to escape the army of drones. They are safe, for now...

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Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed this longer chapter,

Following in Chapter 3: Refuge