Ellie stared into the horizon, admiring the waves of sand and dirt that stretched for miles in all directions. For all the time she'd spent here, Ellie had never spared even a second to appreciate the world she was in, all she ever did was look down on it. While the wasteland was a horrible, dangerous place to be... There was beauty, too. Not a lot of it, but it was still there.
A loud slamming noise came from behind Ellie. She turned around, watching Ruben slam the same piece of pipe he'd been using for the past ten minutes into the side of a door. They had made it to the Genetec launch site, but couldn't find a way to get inside. Ellie watched the young boy slam the pipe again and again, but he clearly wasn't built for this kind of job. Although Ruben had the brain power of a college graduate, he was physically both short and thin.
"Ruben, what's taking so long?" Samuel asked impatiently.
Ruben prepared the pipe once again. "The door is just a bit stuck-" As Ruben slammed the pipe once again, he lost his grip, and the pipe flew into the ground behind him. Ruben banged his head on the door and sighed.
"Oh for god sakes, let me do it," Samuel yelled and picked up the pipe.
Ruben retreated from the door, stepping back to stand beside Alisha. Samuel pushed the pipes in the gap of the door, wedging it inside and creating a makeshift lever. Twisting his shoulder, he shoved all his weight into the pipe, and it opened after a few more pushes.
He threw the pipe to the side and brushed his hands together. "What did I tell ya? It's an easy job," Samuel smiled.
"...What? You didn't say that?" Ruben panted.
"See you guys down there," Samuel shouted as he rushed down the staircase, with Ruben chasing after him.
Ellie started down the stairs, but looked back to see Alisha staring off into the distance blankly. "You coming down?" Ellie asked her.
Alisha kept her gaze on the wasteland. "I'll be down in a second," she replied.
Ellie nodded and followed the others down into the station. Ever since Leo died in the rain, Alisha had been acting strange. She would remain quiet, stare off into the distance, and fall behind quite often. Something was bothering Alisha, and Ellie wasn't sure how to help.
Death does that to people.
"GUYS! THIS PLACE IS FREAKING AWESOME!" Ruben exclaimed loudly, his voice echoing up the tunnel.
Ellie thought he was exaggerating, but once she reached the bottom of the staircase and joined Samuel and Ruben, she realized he couldn't have been more right. The lights in the ceiling flickered on, revealing a massive space filled with multiple laboratories.
"This Genetec must've had a lot of money before the Deathwave... Rich bastards..." Samuel noted as he stared at the confounding contraptions which filled the room, indecipherable arrays of coloured lights and buttons across nearly every wall.
"Where are they now?" Ellie questioned, before eyeing multiple skeletons by one of the desks.
"Dead. Like every other corporation besides NEXUS." Samuel replied, a hint of sorrow in his voice. "Then again, if they were anything like NEXUS, maybe we dodged a bullet there."
"But surely with technology like this they could've done something to survive..."
Samuel faced Ellie. "NEXUS is the only corporation that survived the first year of the Deathwave," he explained. "NEXUS even outlived the government! Can you believe that?"
"I'd say they were a little too prepared..." Ellie mumbled to herself.
So prepared, in fact, it was almost like they were the ones who started it.
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Into The Unknown
الخيال العلميAfter a catastrophic war and a deadly virus that plagued the world, humanity is left divided, hunting each other down and murdering for vengeance... Or purely for fun. With humanity on the brink of extinction, and another war on the rise, a survivor...
