35 Hey John How's It Going?

"Hello! Sorry for intruding, but we just want to grab some stuff and we will get out of here. We are armed, but we have no intention to harm anyone," Jay declared right as he carefully walked through the front door, checking his surroundings for any traps.

"You think someone's in there?" Alex found the place a bit creepy.

"Well, supposedly, a place like this can be the ideal place for people to set up their new home in since there are many supplies. However, the doors aren't barricaded, and the shelves aren't moved around, so maybe no one had thought about making this place home yet," Elon looked around and said as he set up his QBU-88.

The other three quickly went to work. Well, people already took all the brands of bottled water. The drinks aisles were basically clean, but the group was lucky enough to find still a couple of 2L sodas on the top shelves, which they could dump out and use to contain filtered water when they get back.

Jay then led the group to the other aisles.

"Hey, there are a few bottles of the good old organic smoothie," Alex exclaimed as he began filling the cart. Unfortunately, the tasty ones like strawberry and banana flavored ones were already gone, leaving just "healthier" ones in the cold storage, like those organic ones with kale, ginger, chia, spirulina...

"Making healthier decisions, for our body..." Christian tried to hold in his tears and tried to convince himself through singing as he painfully stocked up his cart with them too.

After a few minutes, all 3 carts they brought along were quickly filled with juices, fruits, eggs, raw fish, vegetables and meat. It was legit the healthiest grocery run they have had yet, because those people that came before them already took all the cans, packaged food, and ready meals.

"F*ck this, let's just go home." A bit depressed by their harvest, Christian led the group towards their car. Elon's jaw also dropped when he saw the carts, and how there were even bok choy leaves and asparaguses popping out from the side of the cart.

To save time, they directly pushed the three carts onto the trailer, buckled it down with the straps found on the trailer, and was getting ready to leave.

Suddenly, Elon remembered something. "Did you guys check the back?"

Alex: "What back?"

Elon: "You know, the back."

Christian: "What back?"

Jay: "Oh right, the back, we haven't check it yet."

Alex: "What back?!"

Jay: "Where the supermarkets store their stuff before moving them to the shelves. There might be more supplies there because most people tend to overlook that area."

Alex quickly drove to the back of the supermarket building, and there was a large shutter door that seemed to be where the supply trucks would unload the products. However, they had a bad feeling when they saw the shutter door not locked nor closed completely.

Elon pulled up the door while the other three had their guns out, reloaded and ready to fire.

Rumbling noise -

As the shutter door was lifted up, it was as if the atmosphere froze from sheer awkwardness...

Inside, there were 5 people loading boxes of supplies into a truck, and they all froze as well, looking at Jay and the others, dumbfounded.

On the other side, the squad also felt the awkwardness lingering in the air. After about a full second of silence, Alex broke the ice, "Don't reach for your weapons, we mean no harm. We are just here hoping to get some supplies."

After about a full second, someone snapped back to his sentences and immediately tried to reach for his gun which was placed on top of a shelf, but Jay fired a bullet in his path and stopped him right away, showing that they really meant business.

"Oh hey John, how's it going?" Jay immediately recognized one of the guys that was paused in the middle of lifting a box of feminine hygiene products.

"Well, this is awkward... Hey man, how's it going? Guys, don't worry, these are the people I told you guys about that gave us the 7.76 mm bullets," John dropped the box and said as he scratched his head.

"Ohh, really? Nice! Thanks yo, the bullets really came in clutch!" One of the gang members finally let out a sigh of relief and began chatting, and so did the other guys.

"So... what's with the box of tampons? You guys got women to take care back home?" Alex tried to push down his urge to laugh when he saw what was inside that box.

"Oh, that's part of it. You guys should get some too, these are great if you apply pressure with it on wounds to stop bleeding and not make a mess, works a lot better than those bandaids you can get at the supermarket," John said as he grabbed a small box of night-mode tampons and began demonstrating.

"Oh we also found a lot of water, let me bring some to your car," one of John's man said as he went to retrieve more water, thinking that he should repay the favor for those bullets they received.

Jay gestured at John and the two went to a corner.

"You only told them about the bullets, not what happened before that?" Jay whispered.

"Well, there's no need, why try to feed to the cycle of hate? Besides, we both did what we had to do, but in the end, you showed us kindness even though you had every reason not to. Those bullets you gave us are life-saving," John smiled.