As night approached, they decided to stay in the old supermarket. The east side of the building was completely destroyed and buried under the sand, but the west side could still be used to spend the night.
deia looked around at the empty shelves that had been destroyed. After the apocalypse, people must have gone to the supermarket and looted every bit of food and clothing to survive.
Just by looking at how chaotic the supermarket was, deia was sure that these people had to risk their lives to fight for food.
"I won’t be surprised if I find a skeleton under these shelves," deia muttered to herself.
As she continued walking, her feet accidentally tripped over sothing. Lowering her head, she found a box of train toys on the floor. The box was covered in dust, but the toy was untouched.
Didn’t one of the gremlins like train toys?
Should she take the toy back? She grimaced quietly, afraid of her own thoughts.
Since when did she care about the kid’s favorite toys?
She grumbled before finally taking the toy. She didn’t take it because she cared about this kid---Jeremy, right?---but simply because she had promised to give him a new toy.
’Hey, give points for keeping my promise,’ deia said to the system.
[If the system gives you points for keeping a promise, the system is afraid that Hosts will take advantage of it.]
deia sighed heavily because the system had already guessed her initiative plan. She put the toys into her backpack, then approached Lucian, who was standing in front of the window, looking out with an expression that was hard to interpret.
"Are you all right?" deia tapped him on the shoulder. "Is sothing troubling you?"
Lucian smiled imdiately as he turned to face deia. "Nothing," he said. "Let’s make a bed."
Since they entered City J, Lucian beca quieter, even responding to deia with only short words.
Sothing was wrong with him, but deia couldn’t guess what it was.
"Where do you want to make your bed? Tian and Ren decided to sleep in the staff area." deia pulled his hands and made him follow her steps. "Maybe we can sleep in the manager’s office."
"Okay," he replied indifferently.
Really, what was wrong with him? He had never used that tone with her before.
Should she force him to spill his guts? No, that sounds too harsh.
Let’s just wait for him to open up on his own.
When they opened the door to the manager’s office, the dust imdiately hit them. deia found a lantern lamp near the door, maybe others had been there for a while.
She lit the lamp before entering the office. Papers were scattered on the floor, and an overturned chair lay by the desk. It seed like a normal broken room, but there was sothing that bothered her.
Her eyes were drawn to the corner of the room, where a small mattress lay on the floor. It was thin and worn, with a blanket thrown over it. Near the mattress, she noticed a scattering of items: so drawing paper, a stuffed bear, and a bag filled with children’s and adult clothes.
She knelt down and picked up a family picture among the drawing papers. A father and a daughter were smiling in the picture, standing in front of the supermarket. It looked like the father was the supermarket manager at that ti.
But the important thing was why would soone leave their family photos behind?
Wouldn’t people cherish their family photos because it would be hard for them to retake family photos in the apocalypse?
Unless ...
Bang!
deia imdiately turned around when she heard a loud noise behind her. She thought it was mutants sneaking in, but it was just Lucian tripping over sothing on the floor and falling to the floor.
His eyes fell on the frad picture on the office desk---the sa family picture deia was holding.
"Lucian, what’s wrong?" She rushed to him, noticing his hands trembling slightly. She patted his cheeks, trying to wake him from his reverie. "Lucian!"
Lucian gasped and imdiately shifted his eyes to deia. He looked like he wanted to say sothing, but his mouth remained silent.
"What happened?" asked deia.
"I have to go." Lucian stood up quickly and left the manager’s office.
He was about to leave the supermarket, but deia grabbed his hands in ti. "Where are you going? It’s cold outside!"
"I have to go," Lucian repeated his words. He wanted deia to let go of his hands, but he didn’t dare push her away. "Please, I can’t ... I can’t be here."
Lucian said these words over and over again, acting like he was having a panic attack. When his breathing beca labored, deia imdiately hugged him from behind, trying to calm him down from whatever he was thinking.
"Breathe, Lucian," deia whispered, her voice guiding him to calm down. "Just focus on breathing. In and out."
For a mont he seed unresponsive, but slowly his breathing began to normalize, though it was still shaky. deia didn’t let him go, her arms wrapped around him.
deia tightened her grip. "It’s okay. You don’t have to explain anything right now. But please stay here with ."
deia just had a feeling that if she let Lucian run outside, sothing bad would happen to him and she didn’t want that to happen.
"The city is quiet." Lucian began to speak. He leaned his back against deia as he gazed out at the endless desert through the broken glass door. "Because I was the one who silenced it."
deia’s eyes widened for a second, but she didn’t loosen her embrace, instinctively tightening it as if to tell him that she wouldn’t leave him even if he had done such bad things in the past.
She was a demon after all, what kind of sins had she never seen?
"I was just following orders," Lucian continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "That’s what I told myself, and I blad myself for blindly following orders. They lied to . They said the people who beca the Lost were the ones affected by the virus."
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