After Kayden passed out while holding on to Cruz's corpse, his colleagues saw them and brought him to the camp. His body jolted, waking him up as if he had just had a nightmare. A nightmare could be nice, but it wasn't that far from the truth.
His body was aching all over, and he couldn't move; his upper body was covered in bandages. All he could hear were the cries and moans of pain by fellow survivors and those who were fighting at death's door to survive. Reality hit him like a bullet to the heart. The fact that he wasn't dreaming, he almost died, and his family is dead was very much real. But something was strange, everything was supposed to be in chaos and destruction... but why was it so quiet?
The once ominous, red sky mysteriously returned to its beautiful blue color, accompanied by white clouds and a bright yellow sun. He then heard muttering voices behind him and secretly listened. Two men wore tattered clothes, with one man having his face covered by bandages, while the other man's whole torso was covered. Bandage face kept whispering loudly, and Kayden listened.
"Yeah? Well, I heard from the guards who were whispering their conversation loudly like idiots that the red sky won't return for another six months, which means they have information about what's happening! The government is keeping secrets from us..."
Kayden raised an eyebrow and immediately became skeptical. The military responded really fast when the red sky happened; it's as if they were prepared or knew it was coming. They haven't made any announcements yet or updates regarding what's going on...
"And you know what else?" Kayden's ears perked, wanting to hear more information about their current situation. "There's this one lady that's wearing a super cool military suit, you know, like from the movies, and she's smoking hot!" Kayden frowned, disappointed with where the conversation ended up. He stopped listening to the two creeps behind him and observed his surroundings.
Kayden looked around and saw family after family. Some families were fortunate that all of them survived; some had lost someone or more, and there were people like Kayden, lonely and had no family in sight. He grimaced. His face turned dark remembering the tragic incident that had killed his family, but no matter what, he couldn't cry. He was sad, but not a single tear escaped from his eyes.
And suddenly, the ground began shaking, slowly getting intense as seconds passed. Medical equipment fell, and the beds began to shake like a strong earthquake. Once again, people began to panic, and everything was turning into chaos. All of them are on the ground covering their head, and some were hiding under the beds.
Moments later, the shaking stopped. And people slowly calmed down; they all slowly rose to their feet with fear and curiosity on their faces. Soon, a beautiful, short-haired woman came out of a large green camo tent. She was wearing a fitted military uniform with a pistol holstered on her waist. Her face was smooth, beautiful, but intimidating. Her eyes were sharp, and no sign of worry on her face.
She took out the pistol from the holster, aimed it upward, and shot.
The loud sound of the gunshot immediately scared and drew the people's attention towards her. People looked at her, scared and intimidated. She then put back the pistol in the holster and cleared her throat. The people remained quiet and surprisingly calm. Of course, they were still scared, but they were just scared of being shot if she heard them.
Soon, the woman spoke.
"Good evening to you all. I am Captain Nicole, and the one responsible for this camp. Now I'm sure that you're all scared because of the recent unexpected events that have happened, and are full of questions. However, I cannot answer any of them right now. There are other important matters to discuss."
Noise emerged as people muttered, and some nodded in agreement. Nicole then took out the gun and shot upward at an amazing speed, and they all went quiet.
'That was fast. I didn't even see her take out the gun...'
Nicole then added.
"If you all look at your wrist, you will all see a symbol engraved on it. You might also notice that your symbol's color is different from other people. From our observations, the colors differ in five colors: White, Green, Orange, Red, and Gold. And you also might notice that the symbol itself looks different from the others."
Everyone had a random symbol and a random color; some were the same, and some were different from others. But there are only two things on everyone's mind, and that is, whether this was a curse or a way to their salvation.
"Of course, there will be some of you who do not possess these symbols on your wrists or any part of your body. And we still also do not know what it does and what it is. So for now, please relax. We'll all be fine as long as we don't do anything with it for now."
The people were shocked and scared that a symbol had mysteriously engraved itself onto their bodies. While some were scared and cautious, there were some who were curious and some what excited.
Meanwhile, Kayden was confused and a little surprised that when he looked at his wrist, it did not have a symbol engraved on it. He couldn't help but scratch his head, but he was also happy about it. It just means that he won't be dealing with whatever those symbols bring. Kayden saw it as a curse and wouldn't want anything dangerous anymore happen in his life again.
***
One week into the camp, Kayden was out and fully recovered. Captain Nicole had announced that it was now safe to go outside and go back to their homes. They were reluctant, and some had lost their home to the attack and had nowhere else to go. All they could do was stay inside the camp and settle for now. A few dozen homes were destroyed, leaving those who owned them homeless.
While Kayden was walking down the road to their home, he spotted some suspicious-looking people. They were neatly dressed, disguised soldiers wearing sunglasses, armed with weapons behind their clothes. Though he couldn't see the hidden weapons, he just knew there were.
He scoffed.
'Safe she says... But how come there are still soldiers disguised as civilians scattered around? Don't tell me I'm the only one who noticed this?' In fact, he is.
Nearing his destroyed home, Kayden dropped to his knee, seeing five gravestones standing in the middle of the living room. Sudden memories of his family flashed before him. Their laughter, their bonding, and their love. Tears dripped down from the ground, coming from Kayden's eyes. He was able to shed tears again. And soon, rain fell.