F0RTUNA

10

About an hour later, the group arrived at the coffee shop.

Pierre, Damian and I were busy talking about each other's lives. Pierre was once a bus driver, as we learnt.

The door swung open behind us and it was Rebecca who entered first.

"Hey Matt, this was the guy you were talking about?"

"Yeah.", I pointed to a nearby chair to signal the others to take a seat.

However, we weren't sitting around for much longer. Pierre had already told us that the campsite was roughly 10 minutes away from here.

"I think we should make a move. It's almost 2pm. Have you guys eaten your lunch?"

We all shook our heads.

"Then, let's go."

Pierre was the first on his feet and the first out of the door. We all followed suit.

It was indeed not a long walk. We had to take a few shortcuts here and there, scale a few broken walls, cross a few oddly shaped canals, but we made it.

The camp was located on an empty space at a park.

Pierre introduced our group to the others there. Everyone looked old. And by old, I meant in their 20s and 30s. Old enough to have children. Then again, so was I.

"Take a seat. I'll get some food.", Pierre instructed us to sit down and left without saying another word. We weren't sitting close to the others in the camp. Fear of talking to strangers.

Pierre arrived back with bowls of rice and smoked bacon. Looked delicious.

Damian was the first to have a mouthful of it. He was also the first to compliment it, and so we all dug in.

The atmosphere was chill. There weren't a lot of trees, probably because most of them were knocked down by mutants roaming the area.

Out of nowhere, a sudden explosion came from the left side of the park. I stood up and squinted in the direction of the noise. A few other adults did the exact same.

Seemed like more mutants. Not many I could spot. Only 3 or 4.

They all looked buff. And they all looked like they had a plan as they immediately scattered around.

"Think we got to fight off these bunch.", I called out.

Faun looked frightened and hid behind Pierre. We all got onto our feet and locked our eyes on the mutants.

One quickly charged towards us and screamed.

"FIRST TO KILL IS FREE!"

The man, who had muscles the size of my thighs, lunged directly at Pierre. Another attacked Damian from behind.

I spotted a few other adults who had a tough time trying to fend off 2 other mutants. The campsite turned into chaos.

Pierre was in quick control of the situation, as he shot one down with a fireball and shot the other that was attacking Damian.

Rebecca spotted a female mutant pulling dirt off the ground and tossing them at the other adults and hurtled towards her. Rose and Angela just stared around, looking for an opportunity to do something.

Suddenly, there were more.

Kid mutants, teen mutants, adult mutants. There were at least 10 others!

Rose pulled one kid up to the sky and catapulted him into a small group of mutants. All of them lost their balance.

Arthur bolted into another group and started throwing punches at all of them. They looked terrified and some even made an escape.