SURVIVING (TWO)
"So you really are a traveler? Where do you come from?"
Only Clio's voice filled the tunnel ever since. Her voice echoed loudly, bouncing around the walls of the tunnel they were passing. Colman was still cold beside her, walking calmly down the path of the ruined underground tunnel to reach the exit that Clio said.
Until now, Clio still can't see what Colman's face looks like. She hoped they would find a crack in the tunnel wall that emitted sunlight from outside so she could see Colman's real face instead of guessing what he looked like instead of feeling how strong Colman's chest muscles were.
Ughh... Clio groaned inwardly. Her brain was starting to go insane. However, she is still a young woman who sometimes feels fascinated by some of the things that a man has. Even she sometimes feels angry at the universe because she was born as a woman. How nice it would be if she could be born a boy. She will not always run to avoid the pursuit of the Hyperion army and feel anxious all the time if one day they take her to serve as the general's slave.
She does not want to!
She wanted to be a tough and strong man. Their tough muscles always looked admirable in her eyes. And if only she could have muscles as tough as them and not the soft and smooth skin that was too fragile like hers right now.
"You're suddenly quiet. Are you thinking about something?"
Clio turned her head only to see the darkness and heard Colman's cold, heavy voice beside her. She thought Colman's voice was sexy, the kind of voice that would stir her cells and her heart.
"I wonder if we're on the right track or not," Clio lied.
"By the way, you haven't answered my question yet."
"You're asking too many questions." Colman snorted.
"That's because you didn't answer any of my questions, except for some of the questions I asked at the beginning. But you still don't give me any clue."
"I come from a broken place. The great war has destroyed my home and my folks. I don't want to talk about where I come from."
The man's tone of voice showed intense bitterness. Clio could feel what the man was feeling because she was going through the same thing as him.
A place her parents call home has been ravaged by a group of evil soldiers who love to shoot bullets and throw grenades. She didn't really remember how her house was or where she came from because she was only two years old when her house was crushed to dust and her mother died in the rubble of their house. That sad story was always crammed into her brain from the time she began to understand what other people were saying until she was nineteen, three years ago. Her father always told the same story about their house and how her mother ended up in it trying to protect her. Her father never stopped grieving for her mother and the only woman he loved the most.
"This war is truly terrible and destroys everything. I heard this war has been going on for a hundred years. A president of a country betrays a treaty. He carried out attacks and sparked wars in other countries. And from then on everything became chaotic, and the war seemed unstoppable. Children and women are slaughtered just to stop the population from growing in the country that is being attacked. But then the invading country received a nuclear bomb shock that in an instant destroyed almost the entire country. Then things got worse because people were attacking each other and nothing could stop them."
"Sshhh… we're not alone. There's someone else in this tunnel."
Her arm was suddenly pulled by Colman. Clio's body hit the man's hard chest, and something warm suddenly ran down her cheek. She had never felt so secure in the arms of a man. Since childhood she has been educated by her father to be a strong independent woman. She had never been in the arms of a man like what Colman was doing at this time. And get protection like what a woman like her should get.
"Stay close to me. If it's one of Hyperion's troops, we have to kill him."
"My gun is out of bullets. I only have a penknife as a weapon."
"You can use it to injure them."
"How to?" Clio frowned deeply. "Their armor is impenetrable, solid, bulletproof. They have all the advanced weapons we really want."
"Just crush their backs of necks and you'll destroy their sophisticated outfits. It was a place where the system for their sophisticated attire was hidden. You can hit them really hard or stab them with your knife."
"How do you know?" Clio was stunned, trying to find Colman's face among the blinding darkness. She was really frustrated to see Colman's face.
"Ssshh… He's getting closer."
Clio tightened her grip on the left pocket of her pants and gripped the knife tightly. If Hyperion's troops came, she should be able to strike them at the nape of the neck as Colman had told her. But it was really strange that she trusted someone she had only known no more than thirty minutes ago.
Colman heard the footsteps getting louder and closer. Clio tried to sharpen her hearing to get a clue where the person came from. This tunnel has several confusing branches. Some Hyperion troops who get lost in this tunnel can appear from anywhere and at any time.
"From the left," Colman whispered very close to her ear.
Clio shivered once again at the sound of Colman's voice playing very close to her ear. Maybe this is a forbidden feeling between a man and a woman that she should stay away from. Her father strictly forbade her to be attracted to a man. No man can control her heart. Until she was seventeen her father had always protected her from the men who were attracted to her and prevented her from having any interest in any man in their group. But unfortunately Colman was different from all the men she had met so far. Colman protected her in a way she had never had from any man.
"Get your knife. We're getting closer."
Clio kept her pace close to Colman. The sound of that person's footsteps was getting closer and closer. But Clio felt the footsteps sounded too weak and filled with fear. The Hyperion army shouldn't be that weak. Even the sound of their soles tapping can send an intimidating fear to anyone who hears it.
In a count of one to three, Colman ambushed the man. He dropped the person on the ground easily and pinned him down. Directly above them was a crack in the wall that gave Clio some light to identify the people around her. The most familiar face in Clio's eyes is now groaning weakly in the confines of the body of a strong and mighty man.
"Vella! Vella you survived! Colman, she's my friend."
Clio quickly jumped at the man, unraveling his hard arms and wrapped in black long-sleeved clothes. For a moment she wondered why Colman was wearing such a long, very thick garment in the midst of the crazily hot weather out there. Even this tunnel felt like a furnace to her. But Colman looked fine in his thick black clothes, compared to her skin which were sweating profusely under the very dirty ripped clothes.
"Oh Vella, I'm glad you survived the Hyperion army."
Vella's body collapsed in Clio's arms. The woman looked very weak and exhausted to support her own body. The injuries she received today worsened her condition so much that she couldn't stand up and just let Clio support her body.
"W-water. You have water?"
"I still have water," Clio said quickly. She grabbed the waistband of her pants and removed the plastic water bottle that had always been securely attached to her waist.
"Open your mouth."
Clio helped Vella drink the water slowly. The wound on the corner of her lips made Vella groan in pain every time water seeped out of her mouth and wet the wounds that were still bleeding.
Clio grimaced slightly, feeling the pain that Vella was currently feeling because she had been in Vella's position when the Centurion camp was attacked by Hyperion troops some time ago.
"You know her?"
Clio had almost forgotten the figure of Colman next to her. The man was tall, well built, his entire body draped in black cloth— a black long-sleeved shirt and black trousers. Very shiny black boots wrapped around his strong legs. Colman looked more mighty than she had imagined for the last few minutes. His face had a stern and cold expression, his lips were pressed together and looked as stiff as barbed wire. But more amazing than all of that, Colman has really amazing green eyes. Green eyes that radiate a mysterious and dangerous side in him.
Clio knew her attitude was very disrespectful. She stared at Colman's figure like she was devouring the tulumba tatlisi that her father had always made during the seventeen years they had lived together. Colman looks as delicious as fried bread covered in liquid sugar made by her father. And she was quite aware that she was looking at him with admiration for a woman who rarely interacted with a man.
"You are the first man I have ever seen wearing such thick and neat clothes. There are no rips in your clothes at all. Don't you feel hot?"
Colman looked at Clio's tattered clothes. A stark contrast to his.
"I'm fine," Colman replied coldly.
"This earth is getting worse and worse. It always gets very hot during the day and sometimes it snows at night. The Centurions never had clothes like yours."
Now Clio was embarrassed to be stared at by Colman intensely. For the first time she felt very inappropriate standing in front of a man in only trousers that had been ripped at the knees and a thin white short-sleeved t-shirt that was now almost grayish black in color. She got the clothes about a week ago when she looted a long abandoned super market. She thought she was lucky enough to still be able to find clothes and a little bit of expired grain. However, she is grateful for her current life.
"You know this woman?"
"She's one of us. Her name is Vella."
Clio looked down in concern to see Vella who was weak and kept moaning in pain in her arms. She still couldn't stand on her feet and just leaned her body weight on her.
"We have to move before the Hyperion army finds us."
"Vella, please hold on. We will immediately find help and treat your wounds."
Bella nodded slowly. In fact it was so slow that Clio could barely see the movement of her head. But she gently stroked Vella's shoulder, and put her arm around her shoulder to help her walk down the very dark underground tunnel.