I Have Lost My Humanity

Feedback On The Outside World

The others had been holding their ground, determined to keep the infected from getting through the barricade while I tried to get one of the doors open.

"Is there anyone who has another keycard?" I shouted above the din.

"Take my own! It's in my right pocket!"

The voice came from the man in front of me who was joining the others to hold the forte.

I recognized him as the man who usually came to visit Mr Badmus on breaks. They mostly gossiped, but at that moment, I didn't care. I just wanted to live.

Quickly, I grabbed the keycard from his pocket and ran towards the last door. With a prayer on my lips, I hoped the door would open. With determination, I slid the keycard into the door's slot, and the red light turned green. With a relieved sigh, I turned to the rest.

"The door is open. Let's get in!"

Instantly, we all rushed inside, but unfortunately, not everyone made it.

The barricade came toppling down the instant everyone let go of it to turn around, and loads of infected crawled their way through.

Paul, who had been the first to properly injure an infected, was bitten among the few others.

Emma, who was closer to him, grabbed his metal bat from him and repeatedly slammed it against the skull of the infected who had bitten him.

Unfortunately, Paul, who happened to be one of the most popular workers on the lower floors, wasn't going to make it.

We, the living, had to save ourselves by shutting the door before they could get in.

Immediately, the door was shut, I heard nothing more, but I knew that they were out there, waiting for us.

Heaving large breaths, I looked at everyone around me in this space, hoping a lot of us escaped.

Aside from myself, BJ, and the man who had given me his keycard, the rest were three, which made us thirteen. Eight men and five women. One was missing a wig and had rough cornrows on her head.

Just thirteen. I wasn't sure what we were supposed to do.

"Thank God. We finally reached here," the keycard man said. I didn't know his name.

"Lock the doors and make sure no one enters!"

Beside me at the door, BJ hissed while shooting a ridiculing gaze at this man like they had some prior beef.

The man called his name and asked how he could disrespect him.

"Who are you hissing at?"

"Who are you ordering around?"

"I am still your superior,"

"Look around you... your title doesn't matter here,"

As they began an argument, I used the opportunity to look around.

The room was a long rectangular chamber, illuminated by a soft blue light emanating from the walls.

In the centre were numerous boxes that were labelled with the company's name. Some of them were open, and there were objects on the ground that told me that we weren't the first visitors there.

There were technological objects stored around, ranging from small, portable devices to larger, more complex pieces of equipment.

At that moment, I realized why the other doors hadn't opened. Long ago, I followed one of my superiors to the top floor where he opened a door—one I couldn't remember—to reveal battle, QUAXs lined behind the walls.

Now, there was nothing there. Aside from the boxes and a few tools that lined the shelves, the room was bare.

It meant that we were in the wrong room.

The room we could only access was full of scraps. The battle QUAXs that could have helped us were in the other rooms. At that moment, I wished I had been promoted long ago.

Still, we needed to do something. There was no way we could sleep in that room, and arguing wasn't going to solve a thing.

"You all, please be quiet!"

We were truly in a soundproof room since no sound could be heard coming from outside.

I looked up and saw a CCTV camera placed in a part of the room. Upon tracing its connection route, I found out there were four CCTV monitors at the back of the room.

Quickly, I walked towards it, and the rest followed me. Fortunately, the monitors were on and showed various angles of the outside of the room, allowing us to see what was going on outside.

There were new people outside being attacked and killed by the relentless infected roaming the corridors.

Though the audio was off, we saw them desperately trying to get into one of the rooms.

They banged on the door that barricaded the entrance of our current hideout as well.

They also knew that the only hope of survival was to stay in the safe confines of a soundproof room.

With combined strength, we helped prevent any infected from getting in while trying to help some of them.

Unfortunately, we hadn't been able to help at all, and the three people who managed to get in didn't look happy about it.

"What do we do now?" The second woman who hadn't spoken since asked.

The others didn't seem to have a clue. We were safe for the moment, but if we didn't do anything, we were going to be in a lot of trouble.

With a sigh, I returned to the boxes. I had a feeling that they had been opened because their contents were valuable. If we checked them, we might see something that could help. Immediately after I touched a box, I heard the annoying voice of Mr Rotimi.

"Young man, what do you think you want to do? Don't you know those boxes are more expensive than your life?"

His statement was hinting at the precious materials within these boxes and on the tables scattered around.

Hours ago, I wouldn't have tried such since it was out of my jurisdiction but after watching people turn into monsters I didn't think anyone could ask me questions when I was trying to save their lives.

I turned back to the man. "If we do nothing, we'll die. We are more than ten here. If we all work together, I guess we will find something to help."

"Help?" The man screeched. I immediately imagined him as an owl.

"What do you think you can do? I know you and your friend..." He pointed a finger at BJ, who scowled at him.

"You two don't know your place. Mr Badmus always complains about you coming in late. You wanna do something to help? You who can't even stick to time? How do you intend to amount to anything?"

I sighed upon hearing that. I was top of my class in university, graduated at the age of 18, and got a job here without any connections, but I wasn't ready to correct Mr Timmy's misconception.

"That is the only way—" In the process of responding, he cut me short again.

"The military are surely on their way. You don't need to do anything."

As he muttered more words, I decided to ignore him. He truly had an unlikeable personality. It was no wonder BJ acted that way with him.

I took my phone out of my pocket, realizing I had been preoccupied with trying to get somewhere safe and hadn't called my family.

BJ and the rest were also doing the same thing when someone shouted with joy on his face on reaching his family.

It made me optimistic about mine. After two rings, my mother picked up.

"Finally, are you okay?" I inquired.

"We are! What about you? Where are you?" She asked back, her worried tone sending chills down my spine.

I could already imagine the infected outside our apartment door, struggling to get inside.

There was no way my mother could only fight against them. I pressed the phone closer to my ears so I could hear her.

"Are those creatures there? Are you sure you're okay? Where's Sofia?" I threw out a succession of questions.

"They were, but we are safe now, and Sofia is here too. She is a little shaken up after what happened, but I'm sure we will be okay," She answered each one of them, which made me less worried.

They were in Sofia's family house at the moment as they had gone there after getting attacked by a couple of infected back at our apartment.

Since there was strength in numbers, I agreed it was a good thing.

"We are just waiting for you to get here!" My mother shouted again. I guessed there was a lot of noise around her.

"Where are you right now?" She questioned.

I couldn't tell her that I was in a room surrounded by the infected. It was sure to hurt her fragile heart, so I gave her a half-lie.

"Stuck at work with Emma and my colleagues. I'm so glad you're with the rest there. Just try to stay safe until the military appears, okay?"

My mum sniffed over the phone after hearing my response.

"Alright, we'll wait. Sofia is still very scared, and I… don't know what to do too. One of them came to the window, and although Bella's dad shot at him… it's still terrifying." She voiced.

I understood her. Having killed some of them and staining my outfit with blood had their blood, I knew how terrifying it was to have something like that come at you.

When we were done, I looked at my side to see BJ with relief on his face.

He mouthed some words at me. "My family is at Bella's, too." It was good news.

That meant they were all congregated in one place, and it would be easier to get to them.