Surviving the Apocalypse: All I Want Is to Find a Husband
Chapter 75: The Quiet City

Chapter 75: The Quiet City

As night approached, they decided to stay in the old supermarket. The east side of the building was completely destroyed and buried under the sand, but the west side could still be used to spend the night.

Medeia looked around at the empty shelves that had been destroyed. After the apocalypse, people must have gone to the supermarket and looted every bit of food and clothing to survive.

Just by looking at how chaotic the supermarket was, Medeia was sure that these people had to risk their lives to fight for food.

"I won’t be surprised if I find a skeleton under these shelves," Medeia muttered to herself.

As she continued walking, her feet accidentally tripped over something. Lowering her head, she found a box of train toys on the floor. The box was covered in dust, but the toy was untouched.

Didn’t one of the gremlins like train toys?

Should she take the toy back? She grimaced quietly, afraid of her own thoughts.

Since when did she care about the kid’s favorite toys?

She grumbled before finally taking the toy. She didn’t take it because she cared about this kid---Jeremy, right?---but simply because she had promised to give him a new toy.

’Hey, give me points for keeping my promise,’ Medeia said to the system.

[If the system gives you points for keeping a promise, the system is afraid that Hosts will take advantage of it.]

Medeia sighed heavily because the system had already guessed her initiative plan. She put the toys into her backpack, then approached Lucian, who was standing in front of the window, looking out with an expression that was hard to interpret.

"Are you all right?" Medeia tapped him on the shoulder. "Is something troubling you?"

Lucian smiled immediately as he turned to face Medeia. "Nothing," he said. "Let’s make a bed."

Since they entered City J, Lucian became quieter, even responding to Medeia with only short words.

Something was wrong with him, but Medeia couldn’t guess what it was.

"Where do you want to make your bed? Tian and Ren decided to sleep in the staff area." Medeia pulled his hands and made him follow her steps. "Maybe we can sleep in the manager’s office."

"Okay," he replied indifferently.

Really, what was wrong with him? He had never used that tone with her before.

Should she force him to spill his guts? No, that sounds too harsh.

Let’s just wait for him to open up on his own.

When they opened the door to the manager’s office, the dust immediately hit them. Medeia found a lantern lamp near the door, maybe others had been there for a while.

She lit the lamp before entering the office. Papers were scattered on the floor, and an overturned chair lay by the desk. It seemed like a normal broken room, but there was something that bothered her.

Her eyes were drawn to the corner of the room, where a small mattress lay on the floor. It was thin and worn, with a blanket thrown over it. Near the mattress, she noticed a scattering of items: some drawing paper, a stuffed bear, and a bag filled with children’s and adult clothes.

She knelt down and picked up a family picture among the drawing papers. A father and a daughter were smiling in the picture, standing in front of the supermarket. It looked like the father was the supermarket manager at that time.

But the important thing was why would someone leave their family photos behind?

Wouldn’t people cherish their family photos because it would be hard for them to retake family photos in the apocalypse?

Unless ...

Bang!

Medeia immediately turned around when she heard a loud noise behind her. She thought it was mutants sneaking in, but it was just Lucian tripping over something on the floor and falling to the floor.

His eyes fell on the framed picture on the office desk---the same family picture Medeia was holding.

"Lucian, what’s wrong?" She rushed to him, noticing his hands trembling slightly. She patted his cheeks, trying to wake him from his reverie. "Lucian!"

Lucian gasped and immediately shifted his eyes to Medeia. He looked like he wanted to say something, but his mouth remained silent.

"What happened?" asked Medeia.

"I have to go." Lucian stood up quickly and left the manager’s office.

He was about to leave the supermarket, but Medeia grabbed his hands in time. "Where are you going? It’s cold outside!"

"I have to go," Lucian repeated his words. He wanted Medeia to let go of his hands, but he didn’t dare push her away. "Please, I can’t ... I can’t be here."

Lucian said these words over and over again, acting like he was having a panic attack. When his breathing became labored, Medeia immediately hugged him from behind, trying to calm him down from whatever he was thinking.

"Breathe, Lucian," Medeia whispered, her voice guiding him to calm down. "Just focus on breathing. In and out."

For a moment he seemed unresponsive, but slowly his breathing began to normalize, though it was still shaky. Medeia didn’t let him go, her arms wrapped around him.

Medeia tightened her grip. "It’s okay. You don’t have to explain anything right now. But please stay here with me."

Medeia just had a feeling that if she let Lucian run outside, something bad would happen to him and she didn’t want that to happen.

"The city is quiet." Lucian began to speak. He leaned his back against Medeia as he gazed out at the endless desert through the broken glass door. "Because I was the one who silenced it."

Medeia’s eyes widened for a second, but she didn’t loosen her embrace, instinctively tightening it as if to tell him that she wouldn’t leave him even if he had done such bad things in the past.

She was a demon after all, what kind of sins had she never seen?

"I was just following orders," Lucian continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "That’s what I told myself, and I blamed myself for blindly following orders. They lied to me. They said the people who became the Lost were the ones affected by the virus."