The days had passed very slowly. Alan had tried to repair the radio, but his efforts were in vain because he didn't have the necessary materials to fix it right now.
A couple of weeks had passed since he got injured. His temperature improved, and thanks to Riya's care, he was able to recover.
All the food was enough for that time, but knowing it would soon run out, Alan had decided to try to do something to solve that problem.
He talked for about an hour with Riya about going out in search of food. As far as they knew, there was a very large town where a supermarket was located; if they wanted food, they had to go to that place that many people shared in common.
Alan knew the kind of relationship he had with Riya; they both felt a mutual closeness that made them feel good. For almost a year since the apocalypse began, both felt that somehow they needed to heal. They were young, and hormones did the physical work for them.
Feelings were forgotten when desire grew stronger and that's where both of them were. The only fear was regretting opening up to each other, since everything would stop being the same if one of them decided to take a step forward.
But nowadays, when death is everywhere, that mattered very little to Alan.
In the end, he could even die before anything else, so he would just let things progress in the best way.
...
"This is the supermarket, are you sure you want to go in?" Riya looked at the large supermarket, which still had many valuable things that would be useful.
Alan nodded and listened carefully to sounds inside. When he was about to enter, he pulled out an axe because the space would be too narrow to hold a sword.
But before he could go in, Riya reminded him, "We have to be careful when we leave; they must not bite us under any circumstances."
Alan's indifference made Riya nervous, so she warned him to be much more careful—something that really wasn't necessary; he knew how to take care of himself and avoid trouble.
When he entered the dark place, Alan's face tensed, so he turned on the night vision on his helmet to observe everything inside.
Alan saw that at the end of this door there was another that looked like an emergency exit, which was a problem if he wanted to enter the supermarket directly.
As soon as they passed through that door, they encountered four infected heading toward them, and they weren't far from their position.
The infected were as fast as when it all began; everyone assumed this was because the bodies of these undead were decaying.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Alan split the infected in two in the hallway with Riya, who had no problem eliminating them because she had trained enough not to be afraid.
Among the best people who adapted to this world, Alan could now say it was Riya. She had done everything possible to adapt and keep up with the same hell, making it clear to her that the world would never be the same.
"This is disgusting…" Riya withdrew her sword from the last infected's skull, looked around, and felt relieved that there wasn't another one.
Alan looked around and said, "They must have stayed here from the beginning. They most likely took their own lives by burning charcoal in this small room."
"They didn't have the courage to go out…" Riya knew there were people consumed by fear, which was a problem because if one didn't adapt, then death was only a matter of time.
Everything was respectable; there was no difference in dying here or there, even if it was at the hands of infected.
"Let's go, we have to keep moving." Alan was ready to continue. He pulled out his short knives for the darker places where he had to be silent.
As soon as they entered the supermarket, he and Riya cleared the nearest shelves filled with canned food. They could find everything; there were many things on the floor that they also made sure to take.
They didn't know how long they would be without communication with the base, so they needed all the food they could get.
After filling several large black suitcases, Alan kept focusing on food, while Riya concentrated on the medical supplies she needed.
"This is…" Riya looked at the boxes of condoms; there were many for men as well as for women, so she took several boxes before resuming her attention on the medicine.
In total, they had filled more than nine suitcases that would be carried to the truck they parked not far from their location.
Although moving all these suitcases to the truck could become a big problem, Alan wanted to take that risk because it was necessary.
But just when they were considering transporting the things back in batches, a sudden noise of things falling to the ground startled them. Both immediately thought it was an infected, so they drew their knives and looked toward the source of the sound. But what they saw surprised them even more: the supermarket's main door was open.
Two young people, a man and a woman, with pale faces, gestured for them not to make any noise, then quickly blocked the door again and carefully observed the outside for a while before turning around and walking toward them.
Probably seeing that they were pointing weapons at them scared them; the boy pulled the girl back and stopped about five meters away. Their hands now trembled, knowing that friendship was not something common like before.
"We mean no harm…" After finishing speaking, the boy paused for a moment.
Seeing no response, the girl now seemed a little panicked and spoke loudly, "We haven't seen anyone alive in a long time... We don't know what to do. What should I do? I just saw you enter the supermarket, you're incredible with those suits, so we thought you were military."
The girl was on the verge of tears, but she didn't dare cry because that would be weak.