Shadow In Your Mind [ARC 1- 5]

Arc 3 Musihada Laboratory [Prologue]

Author's Note:

Welcome to the third Arc: Musihada Laboratory! The style for this novel is that, for every prologue of each arc, it will be about the 'past' timeline!

Arc 3 prologue

"Assigning the same group to the same place again? We had our rotation schedule! What are those people thinking?!"

"It's useless to argue. The top had passed down the decree for us lowly beings." It was spoken with thick sarcasm.

"But we came back with supplies!"

"Not enough. Our base had more newcomers yesterday."

"Then ask others to go find supplies! Why us? And why that place again! That place is where..." The agitated person that said those words unconsciously glanced at their group leader who had been silent since they had gotten the order.

A man in the same team vowed solemnly. "I will follow whatever captain decides."

The agitated person sniffled and made himself look tough. "Me too!"

Finally, their captain moved away from the window. Her hair consists of two colors, where the bottom was red while the upper was black. The apocalypse had arrived six years ago and there was no time or luxury to re-dye her hair.

"We will take the job." Suzie Yap eyed her group members with dull, tired eyes. "Any objection?"

"No!"

Even if they wanted to object, they did not dare to. It was not that they were reluctant to complete the task and get their due reward, but the place they will search for the supplies was not a good memory for them, especially for Suzie Yap.

Nearly two weeks ago, their team had gone to a supermarket quite a distance away to find more supplies. Their team was originally six people, but one died in that supermarket.

That person was Chen Yibo, a good and strong young man that was hard to find in the apocalypse era. He was also someone that their leader treated as if he was her own son. They knew their leader's daughter had died at the beginning of the apocalypse and mourned for her deeply. Now, she had to suffer living longer than both her children.

With the top specifically asking Suzie Yap to head the team, they were just heartless! They knew going there would rip her heart again! What bullshit excuse of knowing the place better? When they went there for the first time, they went there without any guide!

"If the big boss is here, they would not dare to order the leader around!"

"Oh?" Suzie Yap raised an eyebrow. "Am I not fierce enough?"

"If the big boss is with you, your fierceness will double!" Unfortunately, Charles Wong was assigned to a long-term task and yet to return, unable to support his wife.

No matter how much they grumbled, they still prepared for the trip and set out the next day. The car ride was silent and tense, with no one daring to lower their guard. Their youngest but talented team member had just died not long ago and it gave them slight trauma.

They had experienced countless allies dying around them, but the sincerely nice man's death dealt a heavier blow to them.

"We are here."

It was unknown why, but at the beginning of the apocalypse, riding a car would definitely get the driver and passengers attacked. But as years went on, it was no longer so. Some zombies would ignore them, while some would chase them until the end of the world.

Do humans even need to consider whether zombies have the mood to eat?

They parked their car beside the supermarket, remembering the insane amount of zombies hiding around the area. They were already brave enough to even drive their car this far, taking into account that they could not carry large amounts of supplies and fight at the same time.

"Anything?"

"Nothing... this is fucking creepy." No matter how much he looked around the place with binoculars, he could not see even a sign of zombies. "There is more blood than I remember... and it stinks of rotten corpses."

"Are failures getting even faster to decompose now? It's good news for us."

"Do we still go in?"

"We had to." The last time they entered, they saw there was still a lot of supplies left and they did not bring back even half of it. There might be another group of people that found this place after them, but they would not know unless they see it for themselves.

"The failures must have been lured away by something else."

"Did anyone see the bag I dropped last time? I remember tripping over something and having to let it go..."

"Oh! I saw it!"

"No one had come here other than us," Suzie Yap concluded, also seeing the dropped bag. If there were, that bag filled with emergency supplies would definitely be missing. "Let's go."

They had just gotten out of the car when they saw something move inside the supermarket. Alert, everyone immediately aimed their gun at the figure that was slowly coming out of the building.

"Human or failure?"

"Unknown... fuck. Am I hallucinating?" His voice trembled when he spoke the final sentence.

The one coming out was walking normally, but his hair was completely white and his body figure was very thin. When he saw them, he gave them a feeble smile that evoked many bittersweet memories from the team.

"Oh my God... our kid is alive!"

None of them had dry eyes when they saw with their own eyes that Chen Yibo was still alive. The last time they saw him was falling right onto the horde of zombies. They had even seen him bitten by the swarm of zombies.

"You are Awaken?" Suzie Yap asked as the grip on her gun loosen slightly. No zombies would look this clean and even have the mind to change into clean clothes. His hair was also white, which an Awaken person also has similar traits. His ability must be very strong for his entire hair to become white. "Why did you not return to the base as soon as you are able to?"

"Aunt Suzie..." Chen Yibo stepped out further and his entire frame could be seen properly under the sunlight, even his pitch-black pupils and black sclera. "I'm a failure."