Hyperthermal Hell || Apocalypse Paradise #1 [Complete]

11: The Person Behind the Door

"What's that? Didn't you say that there was nobody else in the supermarket?" Marcie spoke very softly as her body tensed up.

"There was really nobody before. Who knows where they came in from?" Luther scolded back quietly.

At that moment, the three of them were all holding kitchen knives. The group was led by Luther, followed by Lin Sanjiu, then Marcie, who was keeping a lookout for anything that might come from the side. They headed slowly toward the direction where they heard the collision.

Getting the kitchen knives was Lin Sanjiu's idea. They managed to find them at the Ready-To-Eat section. Perhaps, because they'd been used for cutting braised meat, they were not that sharp—they carried a faint stench of rotten braised meat even though they had been wiped. Nevertheless, with the knives, the three of them felt much more confident.

"Bang!" Another dull sound rang out through the air.

This time, the three of them immediately pinpointed the direction where the noise came from and headed in the upper left direction. "It's here!" Marcie pointed.

Not far from them, under the dim light of the candles, they could see a door with the sign "Staff Only". The three of them looked at each other. Lin Sanjiu nodded and started to speak—it didn't matter who the person was, a young female voice would almost always let the other party lower their guard. "Who's inside? Come out now!"

The air stood still for a few seconds.

After they waited for a while, and just when Lin Sanjiu was about to impatiently ask again, an unmistakable sobbing sound came from behind the door. They heard a bright, timid voice say, "Who are you?"

The three of them looked at each other with some astonishment. Feeling slightly relieved, they lowered their kitchen knives. This was not only because they could clearly tell that it was a female voice, but also because the voice sounded child-like—the person behind the door was definitely no older than fourteen.

"Hey, little girl? How old are you? We are not bad people..." Lin Sanjiu cautiously followed with a question, "Are you alone behind that door?"

The little girl muttered a "yeah" with a sob and replied, "I am eleven."

Hearing this, the three of them placed their kitchen knives down. Marcie even went so far as to grab a towel from one of the shelves and covered them. Almost as if she was afraid of scaring the little girl, she asked in a gentle voice, "Why are you here alone? Where are your parents?"

The little girl's sobbing suddenly intensified. "My, my... dad works here. He brought me here last night. Afterward, many people rushed into the supermarket and started fighting over items, so my dad locked me here and told me not to come out..."

Sympathy flashed across their faces. Needless to say, the little girl's father must be dead—he might even be one of those dead bodies that they carried outside.

"Little girl, what's your name? Why don't you open the door first?" Marcie knocked against the door gently.

"My name is Wang Sisi. My dad warned me that I shouldn't open the door unless it was for him..." the little girl sobbed again, "but he hasn't come back yet..."

The three of them could not help feeling emotional. She was just a little girl; they did not even know how she managed to survive through the night...

"You should also say something. Comfort her," Luther hinted softly to Lin Sanjiu.

For a split second, Lin Sanjiu had a difficult expression on her face. Marcie, who was still speaking softly at the door, gave Lin Sanjiu a look of encouragement, so she had no choice. She coughed and steeled herself to say, "Wang Sisi, stay strong!" Just as these words came out of her mouth, the other two immediately looked at her as if she was some freak.