The Eternal Winter - Chapter 19 - Bunker (Patreon)

                                                                  Alexander North

We talk for nearly an hour to catch up, but I eventually had to end it when a monster showed up.

I took care of it rather quickly though and absorbed its energy.

Once I make it back down to the hallway, I realize that it’s no longer as warm down here as it was. Although on second thought, the heat from the floor is probably just gonna continue being sapped away as more time passes.

I look back and forth between the three doors before walking towards the one that the others entered when I was about to accept dad’s call – which is also the one that I can faintly see heat signatures in.

This infra-red vision is nice, but it doesn’t seem anywhere near as strong as it seems for the monsters. Not considering how they can track like bloody hounds.

Although my sense of smell is also a little bit stronger than it was as a human, so they might just be using their noses.

After opening the door, I find myself staring at a very large room filled to the brim with different living areas, each cordoned off by a wall between the areas, and each with soldiers chatting in them. The rest areas seem to have refrigerators full of food and drinks, along with boxes of non-refrigerated food and plenty of areas to rest including chairs and pillows.

Most of the eyes in the room turn to me almost immediately after I step through the door, and many of the owners of said eyes actually rush over to me – both people that I do know and those that I don’t – before quickly battering me with questions.

“Do you have night vision?!” “How strong have you gotten?” “You’re so lucky, man!”

I blink in confusion before looking around and managing to find the lieutenant colonel, who has a grin on his face and a… is that a beer? A beer in his hand.

Why he has a beer in the middle of an apocalypse as the commander of our base is beyond me.

“I’m guessing he told you about the scientist’s findings?” I ask the group of soldiers and officers gathered around me. There are at least eight of them, but surprisingly, none of them are from my squad.

Although on second thought, I guess they probably wouldn’t want to be pushed around by these idiots.

“Yeah!” one of them – probably the youngest recruit here – says before quickly recapping what I had just heard from dad about how the energy turns people.

I internally groan at the though of listening to these people go on and on for however long they’re planning on doing it, but fortunately, the lieutenant colonel shouts, “Hey second lieutenant North! Come over here!”

And so, I do, quickly making my escape from the eager recruits.

Once I make it over to him, he just smirks at me and says, “For someone so tough, you sure can’t handle being the center of attention very well.”

I glare at him, uncaring at this point that he’s my superior officer as I say, “I just can’t deal with kids.”

This makes both him and major Vaugns next to him raise one eyebrow each before the commander says, “But they’re not much younger than you.”

I just shrug in response.

They certainly feel a lot younger when we talk.

But I guess that was probably due to the sheltered life I had while being raised.

“Dad didn’t really let me have much of a childhood, so I certainly feel older than them,” I answer him before ignoring his surprise to say, “Also, a monster tried coming down here, but I killed it. So you should probably start posting a guard out there.”

Why he’s not already doing that is beyond me.

The lieutenant colonel raises an eyebrow again – which he really seems to like doing a lot, just like dad – likely deciding to take my offhanded offer of a change of subject as he says, “But we did have a guard out there.”

This time my mouth parts open in surprise, just to close again as I understand what he means.

I was the guard.

Which at least shows that he has trust in me. Despite my current condition.

The man smirks before looking off to the side and shouting, “Hey, captain Hart! It’s your turn to stand guard!”

I turn to find the captain of the AZ14 squad saluting and getting up from his place seated on a comfortable office chair, where he was eating chips.

Which is an odd sight to see right now for some reason.

I turn back to the lieutenant colonel to find him looking serious again before saying, “You’re dismissed, officer. Get some rest.”

After saluting the man, I quickly turn around and begin walking over towards where my own squad is sitting.

When I reach them, I find them laughing at some joke. However, the moment Robert sees me, he immediately stops laughing and says, “Excuse me, I had too much to drink,” and he walks away.

I watch him go for a few seconds before feeling a hand on my shoulder followed by Michelle’s voice saying, “He’ll come around.”

The man continues walking all the way to the door before leaving the bunker. But I see his heat signature stop moving after closing the door and instead just moving next to the door.

“He’s just sitting next to the door,” I mutter just loud enough for her to hear before shaking my head and turning around to look at the others. “So how have you all been since we got separated?”

“Well,” captain Andrew begins while putting down his drink, “you know most of it already. We searched through the building for a bit before running into the major, and he led us to the hanger for the hidden stairs located there. Which is also where we found the massive monster eating the ships.”

I blink twice at that before tilting my head and asking, “A monster was eating the ships?”

The captain purses his lips and nods at that. “Yeah, and anything in them. Including the people.”

That makes more sense.

“It had a body similar to an enormous worm, except with four legs and the mouth of a lamprey,” he continues. “But the strangest thing about it was that the other monsters were afraid of it. To the point that even when we made a bunch of noise, none of them would get anywhere near us. Or near it.”

I look down at that while scratching my chin.

The other monsters were afraid of it to that extent?

My only guess for why is that it’s probably been chowing down on a lot of the monsters before they ran into it. But why was it eating metal?

I try to remember each of the other monsters and what I’ve seen them eat, but the only one that comes to mind are the wendigos, that basically eat anything meat.

So maybe the monsters each have their own food source outside of the energy?

But wouldn’t that-

My thoughts cut off as a shout echoes from a couple of rest areas away from me, “A shard!”

I quickly rush out of our rest area towards the shout before finding several soldiers backing away from the wall, where a shard is slowly digging its way out.

A faint grin stretches across my face as I reach out and grab the shard, stopping it in its tracks and absorbing the energy into myself with a sigh at the pleasurable feeling that comes along with it, followed by what’s become a regular notice from my terminal about my stats increasing.

Out of curiosity, and as a way to help me ignore the many people here staring at me for what I just did, I open my terminal to check my current analysis.

/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \

Strength: 1.59
Speed: 1.63
Reflexes: 1.44
Constitution: 2.01
Immunity: ???
Senses: 1.72

Body Malfunctions: ???
Error: Cannot determine Immunity or Body Malfunctions of user’s current species.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats.

\End of Analysis/

Huh. Did that one just raise my constitution? Or was it a different monster I absorbed the energy from that did it?

I stare at it for a few seconds out of curiosity before the lieutenant colonel’s voice snaps me back out of it.

“So that’s what it looks like when you absorb the energy of a shard,” he mutters before asking, “would you mind if our scientists took a look at that shard?”

I look between him and the shard before shrugging and answering, “Sure.”

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