Chương 4: Friend or Foe

As hopeful June felt, he was just as ragged; he had never been the type to care deeply about his appearance, but he felt that during good moments he should at least look presentable. To his disappointment, June was caked in blood and a mix of soppy bandages and crusted clothing; even the janitorial jacket he was using as a makeshift blanket didn't escape his filth.

'A shower would be nice.' June sat for a while pondering things of how, why, and when things suddenly became this way; he was just at home one second, and then in the next he was tumbling in an alloy coffin that someone may have used as housing once. He was wondering why he hadn't died yet of blood loss or why he wasn't feeling as lethargic as he thought someone who had leaked litres of blood should have been. Did the iron deficiency gummies seriously work?

He had really just consumed them for the flavour; with the amount of blood he lost, he should not be able to move about. One consistent thought did continue to resurface: he did not know where he was, and everything seemed unfamiliar; luckily, he had people who were going to save him. His eyes were focused on the handgun beside him.

'Surely I wouldn't have to use it?' No matter how much he tried to convince himself that he would not need to protect himself, a gnawing piece of him had a feeling that things wouldn't be as simple. The blasts, the shockwaves, the lack of people, the left-behind luggage, this place might be a warzone. The question is, what are they fighting? The tear in the entrance felt inhuman; machines didn't make claw marks. Maybe there were giant mechs fighting.

'That would be cool, but I wouldn't want to be in a mech fight without a mech of my own.'

It's been about 15 hours since he arrived in this strange ghost building; he hasn't looked outside or been near any windows or entrances. He was both too tired and not willing to be torn apart by the monstrous storm that was raging. It had long cleared up 3 hours prior, but even then he didn't want to test fate. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

June was never superstitious, but he learned from mistakes, and his mistakes taught him harshly: if things can go wrong, they will go wrong. The walkie-talkie communicator device was silent; June decided not to fiddle with it or change channels just in case his potential rescuers needed to contact him. So he waited until now. He had grown tired of being patient. He found some warm clothing in a staff lounge and wrapped a large coat around himself, trying not to pressure the broken hand.

He wasn't sure if the hand, wrist, or entire arm was broken, but it was swelling and hurt, so he put it in a makeshift sling using a forgotten bespoke handbag. He tried to holster the handgun he found in his shorts, but unfortunately it kept on slipping through the elastic waistband that held the shorts in shape.

'I really liked these shorts.' These shorts were one of his luxuries; they were comfortable to say the least, but they also made sleeping exquisite. Now they were sopping with enough blood that he had to constantly pull them back into place. His T-shirt, on the other hand, was stuck to his skin; the blood crusted the shirt onto his wound, and when he tried to move it, it hurt like hell, not to mention the shard of the terminal was still sticking out.

He just used the bandages to keep it in place; he has neither business nor expertise in dealing with stab wounds. Moving was incredibly uncomfortable, but staying still was more suffocating; if he died in the pursuit of curiosity, he wouldn't mind it as much as dying in a puddle of his own blood. The frown on his face deepened. The harsh thought crossed his mind.

'Why do I care if I live or die? Nothing would change either way' He chalked it up to innate human behaviour instead of thinking too deeply on it.

The idea of getting a bird's-eye view seemed great, but the building he was in was still groaning and occasionally screaming as it actively collapsed. Luckily, the bottom floors remained more intact and structurally sound than the higher ones. The stairs weren't too vast between floors, maybe fifty to a hundred steps per floor, but in his condition, June decided against it. The elevators, on the other hand, seemed to work. June pressed the elevator button and looked at the number on a digital screen.

Seventy-five Seventy-Four Seventy-three Sixty Forty-Three The sound of wires snapping echoed down the shaft with a piercing twang. -- Error -- June wasn't near the elevator after pressing the button; the paranoia from earlier still remained. At first he thought the interface was broken; his immediate second thought had him stagger away from the elevator faster than he would like to admit.

The elevator crashed into the main floor, and a plume of dust and debris exploded from the chamber, and within the plume of dust obscuring the doorway, a large humanoid figure appeared.