Doomed

Chapter 3

"My name is Stacy. I have been living here with my daughter since last one year. Before that we used to roam in the jungle and stayed in a self built tree house for eight months. But it was not safe for my daughter. So we moved back to the city. And since then this church has been our home." The lady said putting her beautiful five years old daughter Sara on her lap.
It was the old St. Anthony's church situated on the suburban corner of the city. I was amazed to see that she has been living above ground for so long and yet managed to get not caught by them.
Mom stood up to look around the church brushing the old furniture and asked "How did you end up in the gutter?"
"I always move out to search for food after dark. I was new to that area and was not aware of the open manhole, so unfortunately fell into it in the dark. I waited there for almost around 36 hours. I heard the aliens enter the building near the manhole and shout at each other in the morning as well."

'She must have heard them when they came after Ravi', I thought.

"God has been merciful to send you people for my help, otherwise I can't even imagine what could have happened to my daughter" she said kissing her daughter's hands. I could see tears in her eyes. Mom moved forward and put her hands on Stacy's shoulders consoling her.

"Have you met or seen other survivors?" Asked Ravi without thinking twice about Stacy's emotional breakdown she just had a second before. 'He will always be a jerk'.

"Yes, I have seen a few while stealing from the Alien's residence. But could not speak for the fear of being caught. In fact, I saw you once. You obviously didn't see me as I was at your backside", she said pointing at Ravi.

'No wonder the Aliens saw him the other day. He was anyways never good at hide n seek'.

As I was moving around the area I came across a corner where I could see a huge number of Jars filled with grains and cereals. "Wow, where did you find such huge stock of cereals?" I asked.

"I stole it from the Alien's residence. From their granary" said Stacy.

"Granary? Where?" I was surprised to know that she dared to enter the alien's residence and steal from them.

"You might not have seen it probably because it's situated in the interior under a lot of protection. But I know a secret way to that area. I found it accidentally while trying to escape once, when I was caught"

"What? You were caught?" Although question was asked by Ravi but I had opened my mouth to ask the same.

"Yes, I was stealing some milk and fruits for Sara. She had not eaten anything since a long time. I was desperate, so I took the risk and entered much interior. But when I realised my mistake, it was already late by then. One of those bastards saw me and shot me. " She showed us a bullet wound which seemed 6-7 months old.

"How did you escape?" I asked.

"I ran for my life when I was shot. Some alarm went off after that and that created a kind of havoc there. Those few seconds gave me a chance to escape. I ran where I could find least amount of light and accidentally entered a passage which seemed some kind of secret passage, although I am not sure but I haven't seen many Aliens using that passage so I guess it's not known to all of them. The passage had two ways at the end one was a short one leading to the Alien's torture chambers and the other led to the Slaves' cell. I chose the second one. I even saw the slaves but could do nothing for them. Then from there I could find a way out. The granary is situated in a room next to the slave's chamber. I have been using the same since quite some time to steal food."

I could see in her eyes that she was not very proud to use the passage which had slaves' chamber, not able to help them and steal food. But I guess any mother would have done the same.

'Wait did she say Torture chambers'? I couldn't wait but asked "Torture chambers?"

"Oh! So you don't know what they do to slaves?" Stacy said in a low voice.
I had mixed feelings about what I must assume of the "Torture chamber" but definitely wanted to know about it, no matter how horrible, out of curiosity. But suddenly Mom interrupted "How did you treat your bullet wound?"

"I had to take it out myself and stitch it".

It was quite obvious. I think mom deliberately diverted us from the topic as she didn't want us to hear the stories of torture on humans by Aliens.
'My typical overprotective Mom'.

We kept chatting for the rest of the night. It felt like an absolute necessity. We had not seen or talked to anyone else, other than the three of us since quite a long time. It felt good, satisfying actually. I don't remember when we I fell asleep.

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