As we neared the area where I had stashed my haul, I decided it was time to tell Noah about it. I tapped him on the shoulder as we jogged side by side.

“Noah, can we take a detour?” I spoke, my voice betraying my slowly building fatigue.

“A detour? Sure. For what, mate?” He turned to face me while reducing his pacing.

“I… look, there isn’t an easy way to say this. On the first day, I spent a few hours looting and I hid what I found. I was afraid that your group might try to take it from me for whatever reason. I know I was being selfish, but I had to be prepared for anything.” I admitted. As I said it, I realized I felt more guilty than I had thought.

Noah kept quiet for a few moments while slowing to a stop. I grew anxious at the man’s silence.

“Mate, I’m not going to tell you what is right or wrong, aight? Let’s just say that whatever you got there, we brought from our recon mission. That good?” Noah's serious tone was something that I found to be unusual. In the hours we had spent together, not once had he been this serious. It really didn’t feel like we had just met, I felt this strong kinship with the guy.

“That… works for me. Thanks, Noah.” I felt relieved. I didn’t want to be talking about my reasons openly in the group. It would, at the very least, be embarrassing.

I took point and led us to my stash. On the short distance trip, I caught myself thinking. Not even once had I called Noah ‘Mr’, and somehow it didn’t feel weird. I wasn’t sure if it was due to how informally he had approached me or because he didn’t look like someone who would care about this sort of thing.

As we arrived on the street of my stash building, we passed by the one that I had fought the little green fuckers. Noah saw the inside of it, and took a long hard look at it.

“Was that you? Did you fight here?” He asked as he stopped and pointed at the broken glass window. I halted and backtracked closer to him.

“Yeah. I was afraid of being caught halfway to the auditorium, so I barricaded myself there. The barricade wasn’t as useful as I wanted, it was overrun quickly. To be fair, it was a lot of space for me to cover alone.” I spoke, remembering how the fight went down. I hadn’t thought about it much since it happened. So many things were happening in such a short amount of time, and I had lost perspective of how fast events were unfolding.

“You built this barricade after the monster showed up? That isn't possible, mate. You had this thing built yesterday, didn’t you? You are one prepared wanker, aren’t you?” Noah said laughing. “It’s just impressive, dude. Out of everyone in that building, not one of those dickheads thought about building one. Even the bigger dickheads Mister John and Mister Johann, didn’t have this idea. Congratulations my dude.” Noah was very sardonic when speaking of John and Johann. I wondered if he had a problem with the two of them specifically or authority in general. Maybe a little bit of both?

“I appreciate the words, Noah. But it’s just easier to make decisions when you are alone or in a small group. I am sure someone must have thought of that in the group, probably more than one person, but no one had the courage to bring such a wild idea, at the time, and risk being ridiculed.” I didn’t want to quietly take Noah’s compliments and pretend I was some sort of genius.

“Yeah. You might be right. But either way, dickheads.” Noah smiled. I laughed.

I am sure he understood what I meant, but he was more worried about taking a jab at the people in the group for some reason. Noah seemed satisfied with our exchange and I motioned for us to keep moving. The stash was very close. We arrived at the building and soon made our way up, towards the couch. I was a bit anxious, even though I knew the chances of someone coming here were relatively low.

I lifted the couch’s pillow and saw my untouched stash. I pulled the four backpacks out and hesitated before retrieving my briefcase.

‘Did I really hope to eventually go back to normalcy? Where these papers would have any more value than kindling?’

I ended up grabbing it anyway.

“Quite a lot of stuff, Leo. You sure did a good job at looting.” Noah whistled teasingly.

“Yeah… I just kinda went a bit overboard. Look, this has…” I started telling Noah the contents of my haul. Twenty cans of assorted protein; Eight bottles of water; Twenty snacks; Three jackets; A denim pants; Two small hammers; Three ropes. He looks pensive for a while.

“Yeah, I thought you would have more food. I think you were not as lucky as I thought. Or maybe you were, with that hammer there of yours. Anyway, let’s haul this back.” Noah wore one of the backpacks and carried the other. I did the same, but I also grabbed my briefcase. I probably looked funny, by the way he was trying to contain his laughter.

We made our way to the auditorium. Not much talking this time, the weight seemed to finally put some strain on Noah. As for me, my leg started throbbing again. By the time we reached the building, I was already huffing aloud. There was no movement on the entrance, and the bodies had been moved somewhere else. Two burly dudes that I hadn’t seen earlier in the meeting stood by the door.

‘Guards?’

They seemed to recognize Noah, as they exchanged nods. They also nodded at me and didn’t give me any trouble. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the bags or because I was with Noah. Possibly both.

“Urgh. John must be back.” Noah spoke in a low voice, just enough for me to hear. I stepped up my pace and walked conspicuously close to him.

“Do you not like John?” His comments had made me a bit worried.

“It’s not like I don’t like the man. He is just a dickhead, that’s all. A pain in the ass, as the Americans would put it.” Noah spoke dejectedly. “Also, you are too close, dude. Not that I don’t find you handsome or something, but I don’t think it's the right mood.” He joked as we passed the auditorium door. I instantly stepped back and stared at him.

‘Did he just used a pick up line on me?’

I wasn’t upset or anything of the sort. I just didn’t expect it. He was such a natural bullshitter that I couldn’t figure out if he was serious or not.

He laughed. I frowned.

“You were joking?” I asked, a bit irritated.

“Of course I was, come on mate. Don’t be so serious.” Noah motioned for us to keep moving while laughing at my uncomfortable expression. I sighed.

“You overthink things, dude. Just say thank you for the compliment and move on, if you ever find yourself in such a spot. I have been courted by my fair share of men. I don’t mind, I actually like it. If I am desired by both sexes, it means I must be attractive as heck, don’t you think?” Noah’s voice carried a lightness that was contagious. His perspective was surely unique, but he spoke of it like a true free spirit. Although I could understand the logic behind his words, it was somewhat hard to take them to heart.

As we got closer to the group, I realized that some things had changed. First, most of the chairs had been moved to a side of the auditorium. They were haphazardly piled on top of each other, broken or not. A veritable mountain of chairs. Second, the group seemed bigger. I couldn’t make a proper headcount from here, but there was a visible increase in numbers.

Johann and John stood in the middle of the loose circle. We seemed to have arrived at the beginning of some major meeting. Johann was the first to notice us.

“Right on time, guys. We were about to start without you two.” Johann spoke in his usual friendly demeanor.

Noah walked up to him and I followed. We dropped our bags and Noah said it was some stuff we picked up during our recon. Johann seemed happy to hear it, if not surprised. He had a couple guys I didn’t know grab the bags for sorting later. My heart stung a bit as I watched them take away the results of my time spent gathering, but I knew it was the right thing to do. It wouldn’t sit well with me to be in the group and hold back. When I said I was in, I meant it.

“Is that him, Johann?” The deep baritone of John’s voice slightly startled me. I turned to face him. He was casually pointing his hand at me. I hadn’t seen him up close until now, and he was huge. He was easily over two meters tall, and had a width that was hard to comprehend. I was athletic, but John was a bulging slab of muscle. His arms were easily the size of my thighs and his neck as thick as both my arms combined. The muscles on his shoulder were quite developed, they acted almost like protective armor for the sides of his neck.

“Hm?” Johann looked to John and saw he was pointing at me. “Yeah, that’s Leo” Johann turned to me. “Leo, this is John. I’m afraid you haven’t met yet. He is coordinating the group with me.” He briefly introduced us.

“It’s good to meet you, young man. I’m glad you decided to finally join us.” He offered his meaty hand.

“I’m glad to have met you as well, Mr John.” I shook his hand. Although he had poked at me a little, he didn’t seem to have any malice on his words. He didn’t strike me as the type who had ulterior motives.

Johann clapped his hands loudly to get everyone’s attention. He moved away from where we stood and John followed him. They stopped in the center of the loose circle as Johann waited for people to quiet down before he started speaking. I took this opportunity to look for a place for me to stay. I didn’t want to stand out anymore than I already had. I eventually saw Mrs Aya sitting on a chair off to my left. I made my way towards her with a smile. She smiled back, but I could tell it wasn’t the same as when we met. How could it be?

“Hello, Mrs Aya.” I said as I brought a chair closer to her and sat down.

“Shh, Mr Johann wants to speak to us. We can talk later, dear.” Like a mom scolding her impolite child, Mrs Aya gently reprimanded me. I knew better than to complain and just shut my mouth with a smirk. She giggled. This seemed more on par with the woman I had met yesterday.