The middle-aged man cleared his throat and looked up at Julian and Rayne.
"My na is Michael. I'm a research scientist here," he quickly introduced himself.
"Are you the one who sent the rescue mission to the governnt base?" asked Rayne.
Michael's eyes lit up. "Yes! That's ! Are you the ones the base sent?"
Julian walked over. "Yes, we're part of the scouting team in charge of finding you. But I'm curious as to why you're the only one here? The rest of the lab seems deserted."
Michael looked down at the small fire pit he had made inside a tal bucket. "So of us died during the earthquakes, while others fled. By the ti the hurricane ca, there were only a few of us left. That's when they ca..."
Julian looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
"It was a small group of people. They ca quickly and managed to kidnap my remaining colleagues in broad daylight. I was lucky because I decided to dig through the small supply closet, sohow managing to avoid detection," said Michael.
"After that incident, I tried leaving the lab, but I was greeted with a group of lions, so I holed up in here until I managed to get a radio working... which was how I managed to contact the governnt base."
Julian frowned upon hearing this. He sohow felt that the only person bold enough to kidnap scientists was Damien.
"You wouldn't happen to be a chemist, would you?" asked Julian.
Michael shook his head. "No, I'm not. I specialize in plant science, but one of the people who was taken was a chemist, a really good one."
Rayne was saddened to hear this news but was even more disturbed by the kidnappings. She couldn't believe that people would resort to sothing so inhumane.
"Well, is there anything you need to grab? We should head back soon."
---
At the governnt base:
Ella woke up and quickly ran to see if her father was back. She walked into the living room only to see her mother sitting on a fold-out chair with dark circles under her eyes.
"He didn't co back?" asked Ella, doing her best not to worry.
Her mother looked over and quietly shook her head. She hadn't slept all night and decided to sit in the living room the whole ti. With every passing hour, her worry only got worse.
"Mom, give the car keys. I'm going to look for him after stopping by the job office," said Ella with determination. If the base wasn't going to look for him, she would go herself.
Her mother didn't refute and quickly fished the car keys out of her coat pocket. "Here, please be careful, honey," she said quietly. The exhaustion was taking over her, causing her to slowly shut down.
"Don't worry, Mom. I'll be back soon. I'll bring Dad ho," said Ella, doing her best to stay positive.
She took the car keys and stord out of the room. Her first destination was the job office to see if they had any new information.
As she walked inside the office, she noticed the sa older woman who was wailing last night about her missing son. She was a lot quieter this morning, sitting silently in the corner.
Ella walked over to the counter, noticing that it was the sa recruiter she had spoken to last night.
"Is there any news? Did the base send anyone out to look for them?" she asked impatiently.
The man shook his head. "I'm sorry, miss, but we still haven't heard anything. The higher-ups are currently discussing if we can afford to send another team out to find them."
"You're only just now discussing IF you can send soone?" she exclaid, raising her voice.
The recruiter sighed visibly. "Miss, I understand that you are concerned, but I'm only a small-ti worker. I don't make the decisions, so please spare from your anger."
Ella clenched her fist. "At least tell where they went. I'm going to look for them myself."
The recruiter was relieved she didn't explode with anger and quickly gave her a printout of a small map, marking the location of the scavenging destination.
Ella took the map without thanking him and ran to the car. Before driving out of the base, she looked at the map, plotting her route, trying to go via the shortest route possible.
Once she had an idea of where to go, she quickly made her way off the base, driving full speed on the highway.
---
On the other side of the base, Rico and his gang were nonstop fighting over the toilet. Tee even had to run out to the forest behind the building to relieve himself.
"What the heck is happening? Why have we all been shitting ourselves all night?" cried out Randy, holding his hands over his sore butt.
Rico glanced at the small pot of soup that Rayne brought over. "Looks like the soup we had wasn't good."
Randy frowned. "How was it not good? It was so delicious!" He couldn't understand how sothing so good could be so bad for them.
Rico was also slightly stumped. When he drank the soup earlier, he didn't think anything was off. If anything, he was slightly surprised that the sparse amount of vegetables seed very fresh. There wasn't any at in the soup either, so it's not like they had sothing rotten.
"It's the only plausible explanation. It's the only food we all ate together, and we are all suffering now," said Rico.
"Tee, how much longer are you going to be in there? I need to shit!" yelled Randy, banging on the bathroom door.
Rico frowned, feeling his stomach rumble. This really threw a wrench in his plans. He noticed that his neighbors were gone, and this would have been the perfect opportunity to break into their apartnt.
He felt like he had missed this golden opportunity thanks to a montary indulgence in a hot bowl of soup. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that his neighbors planned this in advance, foreseeing his plan.
He watched as everyone fought over who was going to use the bathroom next and shook his head. This whole situation had turned into such a headache.
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