Apocalypse City Part 1

Although there was a barrier surrounding the camp.

Was it to stop people inside from escaping or was it to prevent whatever was outside from getting inside?

Whatever happened outside was far worse than what happened in the camp.

The city was in complete tatters, it was as if a nuclear fallout had taken place, and people went underground. there were no people in sight. As I walked through the deserted streets, I saw not a single person; it was as if they all had disappeared into the thin air.

Even the cars were left running with their keys still in ignition with their doors open, the stores were still open, the roads were congested with cars. Even if you wanted to take a car you could not, there was no space, the only way was to walk.

I stood there in the middle of the deserted street looking around me thinking

"What Happened Here?"

[System is currently Offline]

<<search feature is limited in offline mode, would you like to go online?>>

Two prompts floated in front of me, "YES" written in green and "NO" in Grey.

I chose "NO"

Since that woman gave me The System Fragment I didn't need to close my eyes to see the status or anything. windows just floated in front of me even with my eyes open.

Although the status system was not there anymore and it showed me [connect] when I tried it.

From what that woman told me it was in my best interest to remain offline.

I continued on my way following the map. The tall glass skyscraper at the distance glowed orange in the setting sun under the orange sky...

My tummy growled although I didn't have an appetite, I did feel thirsty.

I didn't know how the night would be, or what it would bring, so I decided to not spend the night outside as it was also getting colder.

[System has located a place that might have food there]

<<Would you like to go there?>>

"Yes"

The route changed, pointing to a different location.

I walked through the congested road, in between, and sometimes through the cars.

[Turn right in 100 meters]

It was a superstore, as the name sounds it was not one of those normal departmental stores you did find, Superstores are huge stores that popped up in the last decade after one of the major e-commerce sites bought a major retail chain and turned them around, you could find even the most niche items in a superstore even if you don't even know about an item that existed, as long as you could imagine an item, you did find it here, they have everything.

and this superstore I stood in front of looked like even among the superstores it was certainly one of the larger ones.

My goal was to get food that would last long without refrigeration, Lights, a backpack, a Sleeping bag, fire, one of those mini camping stoves, batteries, and a phone, and warm clothes. I did not know if the power still worked or not.

I always thought escalators were useless but that day I realized how convenient they were to have them when the power goes out and you can't use the elevators and you need to go from 1st to 8th floor, it's certainly not an easy task to go looking up and down around all the floors using stairs.

[you can't use escalators if the power is out]

I had to use a torch of how dark it was.

"I Know, wait...did you just read my mind? STOP READING MY MIND"

[I Didn't.]

Although it took a while in the darkness till I found the torch aisle, I was eventually able to find everything I wanted after that one by one. Since the sun was already set by the time and it was dark outside, Thus I decided to set my camp in the camping section of the store. By that I mean I used a preset camp that was already there.

I used one of those remote-controlled battery-powered studio box lights to light the place around my campsite. I carried a few of them over from the photography section, which was on the same floor as the camping section. I had discovered them while checking the floor.

I sat in a camping chair with a camping stove cooking meat I got from the food section.

"What a waste it would go waste, if not eaten"

I had thought when I saw them while looking for foods that would last long. So I bought them with me. So to reduce waste.

[Liar]

"What? Did you just call me a liar?"

[NO, you heard me wrong]

"No, you totally did, I even saw it here"

[Captions turned OFF]

The system remained awkwardly silent and so did I. I silently put the meat on the skewers and cooked them.

It would not have been bad if the system talked now, without the internet, without electricity it was getting boring, and when I checked the outside through the windows. It didn't seem like any threat was there. In Fact, it felt eerily silent. So, I turned on one of the portable radios you did take on camping as the static sound in the background even gave some comfort compared to the total silence.

After eating I ended up laying in a tent inside a sleeping bag, it was cold without the heaters working. I could see my breath cold

The system's windows were floating in my vision just like those VR game HUDs. It was completely different from what I had gotten after the training level. It was much better also my skills were unlocked, although some skills like <System Editor>, <Admin Panel> were limited, and the skill <System Builder> Functionality was grayed out and unusable when I tried it.

But finally, I was able to check what skills I have, when I scrolled through them, it just kept going and going. So, I gave up on checking all of them. Instead, I checked skills by the category they fell in <<Combat, Defence,...trade, utility…>>

I found skills that could be used offline like spatial related skills such as <Item Box> I could use them, although at first space was only limited to 10 items with the help of <system editor>, I thought of trying if could change the values of the <Item Box> to get additional space as I did back in the days with video games save files when I was a child to get additional stuff, thankfully after a couple of attempts trial and error, I was able to change the values giving me enough space.

Thus, I was able to carry more items than I thought I would be able to and I did not need a bag.

I put everything I wanted in the <<item box>>, and still, I had enough space left, at least I would be able to carry those lights and a tent with me, I thought.

With that I went to bed, as I was about to sleep, the static changed, into some noise

A Voice of a Woman?

"Hello Anyone there? Hello? HELP ME? Anyone HELP ME? HELP ME! AAAAAAHHHA"

A woman cried and screamed.