Wilderness Survivors

I came to with a start, feeling a pounding ache in my head. It felt like someone was trying to drill a hole through my skull.

Fortunately, the pain abated and I felt a warmth suffuse me. The agony transformed into comfort and I felt like drifting off again…only for a familiar voice to wake me up.

"Zhi Ming! Are you all right?"

Blinking, I sat up and looked around. Adjusting my glasses, Lisa's concerned face came into clearer view. Her hands were glowing with evolution energy and I understood that she was healing my injuries.

"Thanks. Yeah, I feel better now. What happened?"

"You protected me," Lisa replied with a smile. She cradled me, stroking her fingers across my bloodied face. I could feel the cuts closing up and the bleeding stop. "Thank you."

I coughed, trying not to feel embarrassed. "It's my job." Then I remembered where we were. "The commander ranked mutant…is it…?"

"Looks like it was destroyed." Lisa glanced over the horizon. She helped me up and I adjusted my glasses once more to magnify the view. A colossal crater spread out across where an entire district of the city had been, two miles in radius, the rock still glowing and molten from the raw heat. There was nothing left within the sphere of destruction, nothing except massive fumes of smog and smoke particulates. The zombies, mutants and even the commander category mutant that had called of them there were gone, completely disintegrated by the sheer firepower of the cruise missile.

I shuddered at the devastating sight. Even pushed and cornered to a single vast fortress-city, humanity was still capable of such wanton destruction. I wondered how it was back when we were at the peak of our technological prowess, where such weapons weren't rare. How did we ever fall to these mutants?

No…the destruction caused by our own weapons that we unleashed upon both friend and foe alike probably led to the apocalyptic state of our world in the first place. We ended up destroying ourselves just as effectively as the mutants did.

"At least we don't have to worry about that commander ranked mutant now," I remarked. Then my eyes widened. "Lei Shu! Lei Shu, where are you?"

"I looked around earlier, but I couldn't find him," Lisa said, distraught. "I think he got blown off by the blast in a different direction."

"Let's start searching for him. We'll need you to heal him if he's hurt."

"Yes!"

The both of us began rummaging through the debris. I relied on the sensors built into my glasses, scanning the surroundings and looking for any sign of life. There were zombies buried beneath the rubble, which we avoided, but there were no signs of anyone else living.

This couldn't be good. I shouldn't have dragged Lei Shu into this.

At that moment, my smartphone beeped as it received a call. I fumbled for it and swiped the screen, allowing a hologram of Lei Shu to appear.

"Lei Shu!" I exclaimed, relieved. "You're all right!"

"Yeah. I got lucky." Lei Shu gestured to someone off screen, and then Lou Qian, Nian Qing and Pang Fei squeezed into the holographic screen. The two guys waved at me while Lou Qian maintained her usual serious expression. Lei Shu shrugged with an apologetic grin. "Somehow I got blown all the way toward the rest."

"It helped that we were heading back to check on you guys," Lou Qian added.

"Any injuries?" Lisa asked, concerned. "Are you hurt?"

"A few bruises here and there, but I managed to surround my body with an electric barrier before we got hit by the blast. So nothing serious. Don't worry, I'll get myself checked out when I return to District 4. What about you two?"

"Lisa took care of my injuries," I replied.

"Zhi Ming protected me, so I was unhurt," Lisa also said. Pang Fei whistled.

"As expected of you, bro."

"Anyway, you guys head back to District 4 first. You still have the staff from Bai Zeng research facility with you, right? Their safety is paramount." I checked the global positioning satellite coordinates built into my glasses and my smartphone and sighed when I saw Lisa and my location. "Damn, we're far from your position, it seems. It'll take a few hours for us to meet up with you guys, and I don't think we should delay escorting the regular people back to District 4. We have limited rations and supplies. Plus it's getting dark."

"Even with the cruise missile, there's still a lot of zombies around," Nian Qing agreed, looking around. "The commander ranked mutant woke a lot of them up."

"I guess we have no choice but to return as soon as possible," Lou Qian admitted with a sigh. "With this many people, our group will make for an enticing target for those hordes of zombies and mutants. I hate to leave you and Lisa behind, but we might not have an option."

"Don't worry about me and Lisa. We'll be fine." I glanced at my girlfriend, and she nodded determinedly. "We'll catch up soon."

"We'll be faster since there are only the two of us," Lisa added.

"All right then." Lou Qian nodded. "Good luck, and stay safe, you two. We'll see you back in District 4. Avoid battles if you can."

"We will," I said, and then watched the holographic screen flicker off. I then turned to Lisa and held out my hand. "Let's get going then."

The both of us traversed the treacherous terrain, hopping over the huge mountains of debris that had piled up from the destruction of the cruise missile's detonation. That was another reason why it would be difficult for us to join up with Lei Shu and the others. The wreckage had been blown up and scattered across the city to form new obstacles that were difficult even for us evolvers to climb over. We had no choice but to look for alternative paths, routes that were highlighted through the combination of sensors in my glasses and the GPS map on our smartphones.

After a couple of hours, it was clear that we were going to need a much longer time to reach District 4 than the other half of our group. Fortunately, evolvers didn't need as much rations and supplies as regular people – we could live on less food and water over a longer period of time. That didn't mean we were immortal – we still needed food and water to survive, and we would eventually need to consume a lot to replenish our lost biological stores of water and energy, but in the short term, we should be fine. Or so I hoped.

"Let's try that way," I suggested, hopping over a slab of fallen concrete that had broken apart from the wrecked building it was from. It wasn't as steep as the other pieces of wreckage that dotted the landscape, so I hoped we could climb over it and shave off an hour or so from our journey back home. Stretching a hand out to Lisa, I helped her up over the rubble.

Then we carefully made our way down. Even as evolvers, it wouldn't be wise to take our increased endurance for granted and move carelessly. Falling down the pile of debris and injuring ourselves would still hurt like hell. And it would be a waste of Lisa's evolution energy to heal these injuries, no matter how superficial they were. And that was assuming they wouldn't be debilitating – sometimes we might break a bone or sprain something, which would render us unable to walk. So yeah, we needed her to heal those types of injuries.

Good thing Lisa was with me, so I didn't have to worry about needing healing.

While we descended, I suddenly heard sharp, metallic retorts. I recognized them immediately as gunshots, and my pace quickened. Why were there people shooting here? Were they being attacked?

Rushing over, I caught sight of a group of people cornered by a mob of zombies. Armed with guns, they were firing repeatedly at the encroaching horde of undead, whose numbers were far too many for them to cut down totally.

"You want a piece of me!?" One of them yelled, firing with his automatic rifle. "Come and get me! I dare you!"

"Ugh! There's too many of them!"

"We don't have much ammunition left! What do we do?!"

"I can't believe we're going to die here today…"

"Keep fighting! Fight to the very end! Don't give up!" The leader was yelling furiously, a red-haired guy with muscles and wearing a black singlet and military fatigue pants. He was blazing away near recklessly, shells streaming out of the chamber of his automatic rifle as he mowed down zombies. "Aim for the heads!"

"We should help them!" Lisa said. I nodded, my plasma rifles already hovering above and beside me.

"On it."

Whoosh!

The plasma rifles opened fire, torrents of superheated matter washing over the zombies. Entire mobs were incinerated by the sheer heat, and the blinding flash temporarily caused the regular survivors to recoil.

"What's that?!"

"Evolvers?!"

Lisa and I landed between the ragged group of survivors and the zombies…or at least one portion of them. I continued bombarding them with my plasma rifles, taking advantage of my increased willpower to unleash a lot more destructive energy than I would normally be able to before. Thanks to that, I was able to clear a route for the band to move through.

"This way!"

"You guys…" One of the survivors gaped at me and Lisa, but the red-haired leader smacked him in the back.

"You heard them! Go! Move, move, move!"

The survivors broke into a run, surging through the place that I had just bombarded, avoiding the glowing crater that my plasma rifles had blasted into the road. Even with boots or shoes, their feet wouldn't be able to withstand the intense heat still emanating from the molten concrete. I took out whatever zombies that infested the sides of the crater with precise shots from my pistols, though the survivors mowed down most of them with what remained of their dwindling ammunition.

Lisa and I fell back, forming the rearguard. Whirling my plasma rifles around, I decimated the pursuing horde of zombies. By now, the sun had set and night had fallen, which meant the zombies were a lot more active than they usually were. They were rushing toward the retreating band of survivors at breakneck speed, heedless of the damage they were doing to their own bodies, their joints bent unnaturally and tendons tearing from the exertion.

They were also coming at us from a straight line, which made my job easier.

With a mental squeeze of the triggers, I launched two gigantic volleys of plasma that seared across the road and obliterated the pursuing horde of zombies, turning them into another glowing crater. Lisa kept up with the survivors, using her ability to heal those who were wounded. A limping refugee was suddenly able to run again, his leg no longer bleeding and sprained. A gunman whose arm was hanging broken by his side was able to make full use of both hands, hefting his slung rifle up to fire into the chasing crowd of undead.

"Thanks!"

"No problem," Lisa said.

"Man, are we glad we ran into you!" The red-haired leader exclaimed, relieved. "I have no idea how you found us, but if you didn't, we would be dead!"

"We might still be, if we don't get out of here," I warned, glancing warily at the night sky. In the distance, I could hear moans and shrieks from the now active zombies. My glasses' sensors indicated that they were closing in on us, a fact backed up by the ever louder noises. "We need to find a secure, defensible location and camp there for the night…"

"Nah, we have something better," the red-haired leader interrupted with a grin. "Follow us. We'll bring you back to our camp."