Chapter 5: The Oasis
December 26, 2016 – Night
We ran until the sound of Courier's rifle was a distant, forgotten echo. Our lungs burned with the cold, polluted air, and our legs felt like water. Ngozi was sobbing with exhaustion, her small body leaning heavily against mine. Chidi, carried by Ade now, was silent and wide-eyed. The city's skeletal skyline began to thin, replaced by the low, sprawling shapes of industrial warehouses. We were reaching the outskirts.
"There," Papa finally gasped, pointing a trembling finger.
The Oasis Bottling Plant rose from the gloom like a fortress. A high chain-link fence, crowned with barbed wire, surrounded a complex of large, windowless concrete buildings. The main gate was chained shut, but through the links, we could see the familiar, comforting shapes of delivery trucks and stacks of plastic crates. It was a place of industry, of order. A relic of the world before.
"Uche!" Papa called out, his voice a hoarse whisper that carried in the dead air. "Uche! It's Emeka! Emeka Okafor!"
Silence.
Then, a beam of light stabbed down from a watchtower near the gate, blinding us. We froze, a huddle of terrified ghosts.
"Emeka?" a voice, rough with disbelief, echoed from a loudspeaker. "By God's grace... is that really you?"
The heavy chains clanked and the main gate groaned open just enough for us to slip through. We scrambled inside, and the gate slammed shut behind us, the sound of the lock engaging was the sweetest music I had ever heard.
A man in a stained security uniform descended from the tower, a heavy wrench in his hand instead of a gun. It was Uche. He was older, greyer than I remembered, but his eyes held a fierce, resilient light. He embraced Papa, a quick, hard hug of shared survival.
"You made it out of the city," Uche said, his voice full of awe. "Most didn't."
He led us into the main facility. It was a cathedral of industry, filled with the silent, towering machinery of the bottling line. But it had been transformed. Cots and makeshift beds were lined up along the walls. A few families—perhaps thirty people in total—huddled together, their faces gaunt but their eyes alert. They watched us with a mixture of curiosity and caution. This was not just a hiding place; it was a community.
The Rules of the Oasis
Uche showed us to a corner where we could claim a space. He brought us warm water and some stale bread—a feast.
"The fence holds," Uche explained, his voice low. "The creatures... they don't like it. The metal, the hum of the backup generators—it seems to disorient them. We've had a few try to climb, but..." He gestured to a dark, oily stain near the base of the fence that hadn't been washed away by the rain. "We deal with them."
He laid out the rules of the Oasis. The Crimson Hour was spent inside the main building, doors barred. During the day, scouts would venture out for supplies, always in pairs, always armed. Everyone had a job. Everyone contributed.
For the first time since Christmas morning, I felt a flicker of something other than sheer terror. It was hope. Fragile, desperate, but real.
That night, as the others slept, I stood watch with Ade by a second-story window that overlooked the main gate and the dark expanse beyond.
"You think we can really stay here?" Ade asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "It's better than out there."
We lapsed into silence, watching the moonlit landscape. Then, we saw it. A flicker of light, far in the distance, near the city's edge. It wasn't the random fire of looters or the harsh beam of a military spotlight. It was a steady, pulsing, crimson glow. It flashed once, twice, three times in a deliberate rhythm, then vanished.
"What was that?" Ade breathed.
Before I could answer, a movement closer to the fence caught my eye. A lone figure stood just outside the chain-link, cloaked in shadow. It was too slim to be Brawler, too still to be Cutthroat. It was Hacker. He was looking not at us, but in the direction of the vanished crimson signal, a small device glowing in his hand. He seemed to be... listening.
Then, he turned his head. Even from this distance, I felt his gaze sweep across the Oasis, pausing for a fraction of a second on our window, as if he knew we were there. A smirk touched his lips, visible in the pale moonlight. He gave a lazy, two-fingered salute in our direction, then melted back into the darkness.
My blood ran cold.
"They know we're here," I whispered.
Ade's face was pale. "It's not a sanctuary, Emeka. It's just another piece on their board."
The Oasis was safe from the monsters of the crimson sky. But as I stared into the darkness where Hacker had vanished, I understood the terrible truth. We had escaped the hunting grounds, only to find ourselves in someone else's territory. And the most dangerous predators of all had just marked their claim.