I couldn't help but feel paranoid that every step we took would be our last. We kept moving forward making sure that we were completely covered in every direction. Doing so had slowed us down and I kept wondering why we weren't getting swarmed with guards.
They managed to swarm us quickly last time and now that we've slowed our pace we have yet to see anyone else aside from random citizens who took cover in any nearby building or started walking with us because they were here to help.
I made sure to keep checking behind us every other minute to make sure we were not getting snuck up on. The only times we stopped was when Mikasa had stopped walking to ask me which way she needed to head.
This time when she stopped I was confused since I had just given her directions. She came back towards the barricade and leaned in to talk to me.
"Somethings off," she kept her voice low to not scare the others. "Why aren't they attacking us?"
"Maybe that was all of them?" Levi said more optimistic than usual before shaking his head, "no that's stupid, there's no way that was all of them," he mumbled to himself.
"Maybe they are dealing with some of the other squads and forgot to send more troops our way?" I said with a shrug.
"Or maybe the last squad didn't have time to call for backup," Rico said looking at us. "Or the snipers told them what I did. I mean I left them a big mess and maybe no one else is willing to stand in our way?"
"Maybe, but they seemed more stubborn than that?" Mikasa mumbled.
"Maybe they are trying to come up with a plan to counter whatever we did, I mean they still don't know what exactly happened," I said looking at them.
"That's a good point," Levi mumbled.
"Whatever is happening, everyone keep your guards up." I don't trust them and Mikasa is right. The silence and lack of resistance is rather suspicious, but we did just wipe out an entire small army with an unknown method so maybe the silence is to be expected.
Everything looked so strange. It was eerily quiet aside from the sounds of our footsteps, and the occasional whispers as we tried to figure out exactly what they were planning. The rest of the world seemed to be standing still as we walked down the empty streets. The only sign that time was still moving was the rustling of leaves, the occasional birds overhead, or the moving of blinds as people's curiosity got the better of them.
I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, and not just by the people in their houses. Everywhere we stepped I felt like there were a million eyes on us. I mean I know the world is watching, but how much are they watching? We've heard them talk about cameras, but where are these cameras? How many are there?
We had made it down several streets now and still not a single sign of resistance. I never thought I would be this worried about the lack of fighting. I wonder how the other teams are doing? Thomas, and the other's connection abilities, had timed out ages ago. We have no way of knowing if they are struggling or if they are even alive anymore.
The last thing I know is that they had started fighting using lethal methods before our group. We knew they were a little ahead of us when it came to making progress, but that was ages ago. Now we are probably way ahead of the others since we have no one standing in our way at the moment.
We walked down the last few streets before we saw our target location in sight. We closed the gap and surprisingly we had still yet to see any resistance. We kept waiting to see more guards, an army, hell anything but there was nothing.
As we approached we saw a crowd of hundreds, maybe even thousands of people swarming the building. Once we had a closer look we noticed they were civilians who came to help us.
We saw several groups of people approaching from every direction and we all got ready to fight as they closed in. We had almost started attacking when we realized they were familiar faces. Zahra and her group were the first group we recognized and looking around we saw everyone else. We had all arrived within a few minutes of each other, that's strange. I figured we were way ahead of them by how little resistance we were met with. Then again they were ahead of us at the start, maybe we were just that far behind them at the beginning.
Xander and Seraphina's groups stopped a little ways away from us as the two of them started to head towards us. The other group leaders joined. I watched as they all walked over to talk to me.
"Did you guys have any issue getting here?" Seraphina was the first to ask.
"We lost one person, but other than that they just let us walk straight through."
"I lost three from my group, but after the first few fights we didn't really have any issues either," Xander said looking around.
This is strange. I don't have a good feeling about this. "How about your team?" I asked Leroy who had come from a different direction from the rest of us.
"Same here, I lost four people, but after pushing through it's almost like they left us alone and we were able to walk straight in."
I found Hassam who seemed to be waiting for us at the edge of the crowd with his contacts to see if he knew what was going on. When I made eye contact with him he started walking and met me halfway.
"How did you guys all get in? Did you have to fight your way through or what?"
"No, believe it or not, we just walked straight in. No-one stopped us. When we were passing the army of guards they didn't say anything, they didn't shoot anyone. They acted like we didn't even exist. That's why I was waiting for you guys to get here. I can't tell what's going on or what they are thinking, but it's nothing good. I've warned everyone to keep their eyes open for anything out of the ordinary."
"Good, everyone needs to keep their guards up. You're right, it's definitely strange, and you're not the only one that they did this to. After putting up a small fight we were able to basically walk right in."
Something's off about this. Everyone is saying the same thing. After the first initial fights, we were all met with little to no resistance. Something is definitely wrong here.
I looked around to see what they might be planning. The building in front of us even had no guards defending it. Actually, no one was defending it or even walking by it. The only thing keeping everyone out was a gate that the citizens had already started jumping over.
I know they didn't evacuate the city but they must have evacuated the building, even so, they wouldn't let us take it over this easily unless-.
"It's almost like they wanted us to get in," Hassam said right as it all clicked in my head. They never wanted to stop us in the first place.
I felt a sickening feeling in my stomach as my chest tightened. "EVERYONE, GET OUT OF HERE IT'S A TR-!" I was cut off when my body was thrown backward with a loud bang. My ears were ringing and everything started fading out. The last thing I saw was bright flashes of the explosions going off and buildings around us crumbling down on top of us.