RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

Farther south, another group heard the same rumbling, the same thunderous roars.

They did not see Golden Eagle’s army.

They did not see the armored columns leaving the base, nor the howitzers raising their barrels toward the distant edge of Grefort City.

They only heard the guns, the same scenario as before.

And for people who had survived this long by staying quiet, that was enough to make everyone stop moving outside.

Inside an abandoned commercial building, several figures crouched between overturned shelves, broken office partitions, and stacked plastic crates. Cloth covered the windows. Metal sheets blocked the lower entrances. Every gap had been stuffed with whatever they could find.

From wooden planks to old boxes, to any furniture durable and large enough to block everything from the outside.

A young man near the second-floor window slowly lowered his binoculars.

"They’re firing again."

Nobody answered.

The old woman sitting near the back wall tightened her grip around a kitchen knife whose edge had long since dulled. Beside her, two children hid under a table, their hands pressed over their mouths.

The man near the stairwell raised one finger to his lips.

Everyone understood to remain quiet.

There were no dead crowding the street below.

Not for now.

But sound had a way of traveling farther than people wanted, and the fighting in the distance had been going on long enough to make every survivor fear the same thing.

If the guns kept roaring, something dangerous might answer.

The young man looked back through the covered window.

The street below remained empty except for old vehicles, scattered papers, and a dog-sized pile of cloth that had not moved since morning.

"They’re closer than yesterday," he whispered. "But farther than the other time."

He recalled the sudden, shocking experience days ago where the very quiet and ominous northwestern industrial sector had been assaulted by an unknown military force.

No, these people were not unknown anymore. They had seen enough since then to understand one thing.

They were soldiers that originated sometime in the northwest. Very real soldiers.

The man near the stairwell did not lower his finger.

The young man quickly shut his mouth.

A few seconds later, another shell landed somewhere far north.

The building trembled softly.

Dust fell from the ceiling in a thin line.

One of the children whimpered.

The old woman pulled him closer and pressed his face against her shoulder.

"Oh, dear god," she whispered. "What are those soldiers doing out there this time?"

When the guns had first roared from the northwest, some of them thought salvation had finally arrived. Then days passed, and no rescue convoy came knocking on every door. No announcement echoed through the streets. No flag rose high enough for the whole world to understand.

The soldiers seemed to be hellbent on doing something else instead of saving civilians like them.

Whether that was a good thing or bad, they could only speculate. Each member of this group had their preference about the military.

Some hated them.

Some had neutral views to them.

Some would rather cling closely to them

The young man slowly raised his binoculars again.

"I don’t see infected moving here."

"Good," the man near the stairwell said.

"For now."

The young man closed his mouth, but his eyes said things that words couldn’t say.

"You want to say something?"

"Are we really going to wait for them to come to us?"

"You want to surrender to them that badly?"

"It’s not surrendering," the young man retorted. "We’re just... trying to make our lives better than staying here, all secluded."

"Our little community is thriving on its own. We don’t have to abandon what we’ve built for something we want to leave to chance with."

"And what if they’re not hostile?" The young man argued. "What if, what if they were just waiting for us to come out too?"

"And what if they conscript you the next day you open your eyes?!"

The man charged over, pointing his finger to the young man’s heart. "What if they throw you out like a dog in the frontlines, getting bitten by the infected and turning like a mindless shit only to be killed by them in the end?"

"You don’t know that. You’re just saying that because they—"

A wide palm shot over to his face. The young man fell back, his left cheek blaringly red.

"You don’t talk shit to me, young one. I’ve experienced more life than you could ever be."

The rest of the group were terrified, huddling closer as they watched the man’s anger flare up.

"Please, gentlemen," the old woman shook her head. "Not here, not with the children."

"Hmph," the man glared at the young man. "You better count yourself lucky, kid."

The young man held his cheek, eyes lowered.

His lips moved as if he wanted to say something else, but the old woman’s hand slowly rose from the children’s backs.

"Enough," she whispered. "Please."

The man clicked his tongue and stepped back.

Outside, another distant boom rolled through the air.

This time, nobody spoke after it. The building trembled, but only slightly. Dust slid down the covered window like gray powder.

The young man slowly picked up his binoculars from the floor. His hand shook, whether from anger or fear, even he did not know.

Suddenly, something mysterious converged toward the room. The pressure came inside their heads.

The young man’s knees weakened. He grabbed the window frame, but his fingers slipped against the cloth.

The old woman gasped and pulled the children closer.

The man near the stairwell staggered once, his hand catching the railing before he could fall.

A voice that was not a voice scraped through their minds.

It felt distant. Distorted at one moment. Then angry at the next.

Afraid...

Dying...

The children began to cry.

"Quiet," the man near the stairwell tried to say, but his voice broke halfway.

For several heartbeats, nobody knew what to do next.

Then, the pressure faded as quickly as it came by.

The room remained still.

The young man touched his nose and stared at the blood on his fingers.

"What..." he whispered. "What was that?"

The old woman made a small sign over her chest, her lips trembling without sound.

The man near the stairwell looked toward the covered window. His anger had not disappeared, but something colder had taken its place.

Another shell landed far away.

This time, none of them argued about soldiers.

The young man slowly looked at the older man.

"They’re not just fighting infected, are they?"

The older man did not slap him again.

He only stared toward the distant thunder.

"No," he said after a while. "I don’t think so."

The young man lowered himself beside the window, cheek still burning, nose still wet with blood.

A few minutes ago, he had wanted to find the soldiers. Now, he was no longer sure whether finding them meant safety.

Whatever this thing they were fighting, it surpassed anything he had known. Whether it was from the modern warfare games he had played, or zombie apocalypses from reading books or watching movies.

The old woman held the children and whispered a prayer too soft for anyone to correct.

The man near the stairwell stayed where he was, one hand gripping the railing.

For the first time since the northwestern guns had begun firing, he looked less certain that hiding would be enough.

Farther north, something screamed again, weaker this time around.

The group did not know what it was. And maybe, just maybe, it was better for them to not know so.