The airport is not far away, in terms of how close we are, we are eight ninths of the way through. We are approaching the final shopping center, so we will find different cloths there.
"come on guys, remember what will happen when the first ray of sunshine hits the city" the announcement was clear about the danger in the city and what is going to happen at dawn. We run into the broken doors of the shopping center and run to the nearest cloths shop.
"find anything that is your size and put them on. Grab a few items if you want. Just do not take too long" The bomb is something which I fear the most, I wanted time to loot from the shops, but now we have to rush. So I jump into a phone shop and take a new smart phone, now I can get cloths like the others. I walk into the men's section and stare at the range of clothing I can wear. Immediately, a pair of long, black pants stand out to me and I place them on quickly. I looks over to the button-up shirts and grab a plain white one, I think I should put something underneath it so I can have it unbuttoned. So I walk over to the singlets, a navy blue singlet looks the best to me, so I put that on under my shirt. So now all I need are sports or jogging shoes, a hat, bag and a vest or coat. It kind of reminds me of school. I walk over to the bags and look at the choices I have. I grab a large, over-sized bag to carry everything I possibly can into it. I continue over to the hats and pick out a red hat with blue waves on each side, not what I would normally pick, but it is enough for now. I look in the shoes for my size and feel which is the most comfy, and the most reliable. I pick a pair of red and black shoes and replace my weak prisoner shoes. I walk over to the nice coats, suits and vests, I find a nice black, winter vest to wear when it gets cold. Now that I have everything I need, I walk into the shop that 7P and Alice walked into. 7P is waiting outside a dressing room with her new cloths on. She is now wearing a winter beanie, with her hair also let down below the beanie and down her neck. She has a fiery, red shirt with extended sleeves, they look like something in a fitness store. She is now wearing shorts with expensive sports shoes. And I only just noticed her sun glasses on her beanie.
"looking good 7P" 7P looks over to me casually and waves.
"hey 17C, you look ready for a harsh winter. It is already the end of winter anyway" I laugh it off, but I did not realize what the date was, so I thought it was still the winter season.
"so where is Alice?" 7P points to the opening door of the dressing room.
"hey 17C. How do I look?" Alice is standing in her new outfit, just beside us. She has sunglasses on her head, which have a purple tint. She is wearing a nice white shirt with a long white skirt to match it. She is wearing joggers, which throw off the theme, but are practical in this situation. She looks like a half-athlete, half-princess.
"you look good Alice" Alice blushes and skips over joyfully to grab another few piles of clothing.
"you can put them in my bag if you want Alice" I bend over and open up the bag. Alice claps her hands happily and walks over and grabs her cloths. There are not that much in the pile, so it should not be too heavy-a sudden weight nearly drags me to the ground, and my bag is now extremely heavy.
"how much did you take?" Alice giggles and puts her hand on her face.
"only enough for me" she sure does wear a lot then. We walk to the men's clothing shop and meet up with 11O. He is wearing a nice, formal suit and has a large over-sized bag too, but his already looks full.
"what did you fill yours with, men's bricks?" 11O laughs at me and walks slowly towards the exit, with us following behind.
"I filled mine with clothing of other sizes that fit others in our group. Just in case they do not have the same chance as us, I am going to provide them with other clothing besides prison cloths" Smart thinking 11O!
"thank you for thinking about the rest of the group, even though you are newer than me" 11O smiles and pulls out bottles of water from his bag.
"these are for you" he hands one to each of us and takes a sip out of his own.
"I have also taken numerous water bottles from different shops. Some are for refilling, while others are single use. Just in case we do not come to a healthy water source, I will supply our group with proper water" 11O is thinking quite far ahead.
"thank you 11O. You will very likely save us in the future" 11O laughs it off and we exit the shopping center. The airport is just past the park we are about to pass through.
"there were explosions coming from the park not long ago, so we will have to take our time" we slowly walk through the street and enter the park. There is a wall just ahead of us, smoking and burning, the wall looks abandoned, with only the dead around it. We sneak up to the bottom of the wall and begin climbing up a ladder placed on the front side. We reach the top and are greeted with the sight of hundreds of bodies piled up all over the wall. I spot the stairs down and lead the group to the field below. We walk through the field littered with many dead bodies of both soldiers and the same face is on every prisoner's body. There was a great fight here, but now it is over and we are walking through the remains of the battlefield. We reach a second wall, but there are holes in both sides, so we walk through the debris-covered hole and walk towards the smoke-covered airport. We run through a destroyed gate around the side of the building and enter into the runway. We run into the open and search for the big number two on the hangars. A large, green number two watches over the runway ahead of us, we have found it. We run across the runway and reach the door on the side of the hangar. We enter the structure and look around for everyone else, but the hangar is empty. We gather up near the windows on the side of the hangar and await the arrival of the other groups. I stand with 11O, who is watching the front of the airport with me.
"what do you think happened here?" we look over to the wall and wonder what could have made those holes in the wall. The many bodies create the image of an epic battle in my head, with many fighting and dying to either save, or kill the people in the airport. The airport looks like it was defended to the very end.
"a battle between murderers and soldiers who were trying to protect the innocent from suffering the same fate as they did" death covers the airport from every side. Many gave up their lives to defend this place from a great threat, which eventually won.
"they must have been true heroes" I look towards the ruined building of the airport terminal.
"i do not know if they are heroes, I am just thinking that is how it went" 11O looks over the runway for any sign of movement.
"to me, they would have been heroes. They sacrificed themselves to save people they did not even know" The sky is starting to lighten up.
"they were doing their job. But I have to admit, they did more than great. They held out with all their strength. They died to save many people, they could have ran away during the battle, but they stayed, and they fought damn hard" many helicopters are starting to take off from the city. There is movement on the runway!
"I see something!" we look at the moving people on the runway and try to make out who it is.
"do you think it is the rest of the group?" They are still running towards our building.
"if they run into this hangar, then yeah, we should take the risk" we await as they approach the hangar. If it is the rest of the group, then we are ready to fly out of here and avoid the big explosion. 11O and I eagerly await for them, dreading for them to change their course. But they continue to the hangar and run up to the door. I wave to 7P and Alice and signal for them to hide, they quickly dash into cover.
"now we just have to wait for 17C and his team" those words just sent great happiness and relief through my body.
"we are already here" 16M appears from below and almost jumps out of his skin.
"how did you get here so fast!?" I laugh and walk down to him, it seems he has the rest of the group with him.
"we drove a car halfway and ran the rest" 16M shakes his head at us and walks back to the exit.
"nice cloths. Now all we need to do is grab the helicopter and fly out of here" I turn back into the hangar.
"you can come out now. We are ready to go" 7P, Alice and 11O jump out from their hiding spots and run to meet up with the rest of the group.
"so everyone is here?" 16M turns back and nods happily
"yes. Amazingly, everyone survived" I am amazed we managed to keep everyone alive.
"well, we should get to that helicopter" 16M nods and we run out of the hangar. 16M points over to a aircraft near the third hangar.
"we are going to take that. It can fit everyone, and then some" we run over to the third hangar.
"ah, this is a Chinook. It was created by the New Roman Republic of the Americas" 15G sure does know his stuff.
"how many people can it fit?" 15G looks to me and laughs.
"forty-four according to my sources" that is a lot of people for such a small-looking helicopter. We run over to the helicopter and 16M jumps into the pilot seat. He fiddles with a few switches, stops for a moment, flicking the same switches backwards and forwards and finally hits the console.
"the damn thing is disabled by a weird code on the side" 15G walks over to 16M and gently pushes him aside.
"let me see the problem" 15G presses a few buttons on the code pad and the helicopter lights up.
"how did you do that 15G?" he smirks and presses his glasses.
"I am the smart one after all. I can do a lot" I sure am glad we still have him with us, otherwise we would of not been able to escape in time.
"can you fly it 15G?" 15G stretches his mouth into a giant grin.
"can I!?" he jumps into the pilot seat eagerly and flicks all the switches.
"let's go guys!" we exit the cockpit and enter the cargo hold of the helicopter. The rotors start spinning and the helicopter starts to lift off the ground.
"here we go!" the helicopter leans to one side and we move out of the airport. The helicopter ascends into the sky and we fly out of the city. The skyline is nearly reduced to rubble now, and the fighting has nearly passed. The sun is getting close to rising, and luckily for us, we have reached the safe zone before it blows up. With our escape all but guaranteed, we cheer as the city gets further away. Now we are going to look for Alice's parents and help her find peace with the eventual truth she will have to face. Then we will head for Greece and hide from Ismilda there. We fly across the highway that I expected to be empty, but it is filled with many military vehicles heading out of the city. They must be evacuating from the city because they have heard about the bomb. We fly away from the highway and fly towards the train line and follow that out. But there is a dead monster with wings beside the tracks.
"we should just fly over the fields and hills. We should avoid all roads and tracks where people could see us" 15G laughs from the pilot seat, somehow hearing me.
"they are tracking us in the sky anyway. That is why we are going to ditch this thing when we land it somewhere" I guess we have no choice if we want to not be tracked across the world. Alice and 7P are grabbing cloths from 11O's bag and are handing them out to everyone. The rest of the group seems happy to be given at least some form of clothing other than the prison cloths we were provided when we were placed in the facility. 11O is looking out of the window in the side of the helicopter and is watching the city shrink and get further away.
"Can you believe it is finally over?" 11O shakes his head at me and looks around the helicopter.
"no. I can not believe everyone survived both the facility, and the city" yeah, I am still amazed at that too. Although a lot of people still died to the water and to the fighting in the city.
"do you think we will hear about those water monsters ever again?" 11O places his hand on his chin and thinks while looking out the window.
"I hope not. If it were to get out, the world would be in danger. But I trust that the brutal woman known as Ismilda has already stopped it from escaping" she is quite the fan of keeping things away and in small spaces.
"can we escape her influence? Can we get out of her reach?" 11O sighs and looks down to the fields below.
"not forever" in the end, Ismilda is very likely going to control most of the world, so we should prepare for that.
"how long do you think we have?" there is a short pause.
"I hope we have at least half a year" I will try my hardest to become powerful and be able to stand up to Ismilda by then.
"I hope by then, we will at least stand a chance against her" 11O nods.
"one day we will be able to stand against Ismilda and fight back. I just hope we can live long enough to reach that point" our hope to beat Ismilda rests on how long we have until we have to fight her directly. We will require a lot of training and experience to fight her, but where are we going to get that?
"the problem remains. How are we going to train and build up our power?" 11O looks at everyone in the helicopter.
"with great effort" 11O continues to look out into the fields surrounding the city. I walk over to 7P and Alice, who have just finished giving out cloths to everyone and are now talking quietly.
"how did the distribution go?" Alice and 7P smile and look towards Kranter, 16M and 13D.
"13D said she likes to wear pretty, pink dresses in her spare time and wants to become a model. 16M was very reluctant to take an item of clothing, so we gave him some pants. Kranter likes to wear pants that he can pull up to his lower chest" those, are some unique tastes in clothing, except for 16M. Alice and 7P look happy with themselves. Which reminds me of where we are going next.
"how far away are you parents, Alice?" Alice lightens her smile and points her finger up.
"up north, at Teathergen" I nod and walk to 15G, who is in the pilot seat. He seems to be enjoying himself, flying up in the sky.
"hey 15G, we are heading for Alice's home first right?" 15G nods to my question.
"yep, but first we have to make a detour to avoid any patrolling jets and helicopters around Edvardshagen. We are going to have to turn back and move along an area close to the city" I understand.
"once we are done with that, are we heading for Germany?" 15G nods and moves around in his seat.
"yeah, we are going to stop in Toulouse and hide out in France to avoid Ismilda" Great. We are out of the worst of the journey to safety, now we just need to reach Toulouse.