Journey Into The Aftermath |✔

Chapter thirteen: Welcome to Esmeraldas, Ecuador

I ran after the mysterious buggy driver in a full out sprint. I knew that even after three years, people have still survived in the most random of areas no matter how rural or secluded, but this place seemed pretty abandoned at first. I have to assume that there is some sort of gathering or camp nearby.

Once I made it up to the curb the person passed, I saw them make a right in the distance and I got moving. I took off across the street and made my way though a couple backyards. There was a type of apartment complex behind a fence that completely blocked my way and to move around would definitely mean losing the chase.

There was a kiddy slide sitting in front of a high picket fence that was way too high for me to jump over. I planted on foot on the slide, jumped off and repeated the wall-jump process on a dumpster that was a couple feet away to the left. It was much higher than the slide and allowed me to race over tips of the pickets. When I was expecting to land on the ground, there was actually a building right underneath the fence and I rolled on the tiled roof instead that connected to the huge apartment building.

Keeping my momentum, I got to my feet and pushed myself to pick up the pace. I looked over to the left to see I could get a visual of the buggy driver as I ran, just giving me a moment's glimpse before they disappeared behind a distant house. I turned back around and put my hands up to shield my face right before I smashed into glass sliding doors of the apartment. As my arms took most of the damage, I didn't feel any cuts of serious bruises so I kept running through the shattering mess. I blasted past a dusty dresser, a set of tables and chairs along with a filthy mirror that was sitting in a corner with some shelves. I kept focus on the window in front of me as I leaped onto the bed sitting below it and bounced through the glass window.

Shards of glass flickered and flashed in the air behind me as I realized that there wasn't a roof top waiting for me on the other side of this window like the fence from earlier. Instead, it was a fifteen-foot gap/drop in between the building I just leaped out of and the next one. My arms failed wildly in the air as I tried my best to put my strength into my legs to push them forward.

I was able to grab the ledge of a window on the next building as my legs crashed into the brick wall below it. Brick and gravel dug into my fingernails as I gained grip and saw that this window was open. After a spit second of gathering breath, I swung into the window and literally shouted in concentration as I continued my sprint onward. This time I could see the rooftop of the next building through the adjacent-and wide open-window as I jumped through it.

I could hear the grinding of rocky gravel on the rooftop I just landed on underneath me as I rolled back onto my feet and picked up my sprint again. It seemed to now to be a game of rooftops as I jumped from the one I was on to a slightly higher one. However, the next one wasn't so easy.

I had to jump onto the top of a narrow telephone poll and land into a roll on the next building. I barely made the last jump, but with my heart pounding and throbbing like it was about ready to give in and explode, I was able to keep going, striving for my every muscle to push further and faster.

Feet pounding and stomping causing the maroon tiled roofing to rip away underneath me on every step, I looked over to see that I was making good progress on the mysterious buggy driver. But right then was when they took a turn to the left, away from me. I was running up a slanted roof side and swung onto the higher half of the roof and looked for a direction I could make.

Taking a drastic turn to the left in attempt to follow, I had to leap onto a lower house that had curved sheet metal for a roof. I was already sweating in every crevice of my body and my main concern was not burning my arm on my landing.