W Cermak Rd, 9:03 PM

I looked at everyone around me, checking to see if they were physically fine. All of them had gotten up already, which probably meant that they were all in the state to move normally. However, I still wanted to confirm that they were all able-bodied and didn't have any invisible side effects from the blast.

"Is everyone alright?" I asked.

"Yeah! We're good!" Jennifer raised her voice unnecessarily, clinging onto Veronica by wrapping her hand around her shoulder.

"You don't needa speak so loudly, you know?"

"Well, you're kinda shouting too!"

"That's because my ears be ringing right now."

"Well, ours are too!"

"Alright, aright, let's just huddle together a little more so we can lower our volume!" Enrique ironically suggested by shouting, before we came closer together. Eventually, we were packed so closely to the point that we were like sardines in a can.

While making our way towards my car, however, we started to hear some sort of faint, high-pitch noises. As we advanced towards the vehicle, the sounds became much clearer, however. The noises turned out to be the horrifying screams of people, as we watched them run down the street towards us in the distance. However, there were some other figures following not far behind them.

At first, I wondered why one group of people were chasing another so desperately. Those in pursuit seemed to be rather rabid, moving around in an erratic manner. It was just so unusual to see people acting aberrantly as if they were zombies. I hadn't even seen anyone going that crazy during riots.

It was only after some time that I realised that the figures at the back weren't just not humane, but not human.

Things became much clearer and obvious when the unidentifiable figures overturned cars just to get to their potential victims in front. No human would have the strength to uproot a vehicle that was planted firmly onto the street. Only someone, or some thing else would have the ability to do so.

An alien.

"Holy—are those the UFO aliens?" Enrique exclaimed as he squinted while observing the people and aliens ahead of us.

Veronica turned towards him, snorting sarcastically while grimacing. "Wow, 'UFO aliens'. How creative. We don't even know if those things are even extra-terrestrials yet. Even so, they can't have reached this area that quickly—," she snickered, before stopping herself the moment a car came rolling down the road by its side, towards us. "I change my mind. Get to the side!"

Thus, we all ducked by moving to the sidewalk, avoiding the continuously overturning car which had yet to arrive at our previous spot. However, I watched as some other people who weren't as fortunate as us get caught by the rolling car, before they themselves rolled under the vehicle to become bloodied human pancakes. The car finally stopped, however, and had not even reached where we were standing at just seconds ago, making our efforts to dodge it look ridiculous. However, we were mostly too caught up with the fact that some innocent people had just been smashed to death by the car to think about the embarrassment of our rumination.

Jennifer gagged as soon as she noticed the aftermath of car on the people who couldn't escape from it. She swung her head away from the sight of the car as she did so, cupping her mouth with her hand as she prepared to throw up. As soon as she spotted a garbage bin, she immediately headed for it, before pulling it open and letting it all out from her mouth.

I watched as she vomited into the bin, which was somehow still more pleasant to look at when compared to looking at the mutilated bodies on the road. Of course, I still had the choice to completely look away from both detestable sights, which I did.

However, as I looked away, further down the road and slightly away from the bodies, I noticed that some aliens were already making their way towards us while pursuing the last of their victims. We were clearly in their line of sight, which meant that it would have been best to hide somewhere. However, it didn't help that my car was still further down the road, and that if we tried heading for it, it would have been suicide.

Therefore, I observed my surroundings briefly, hoping to find somewhere that we could take shelter in. However, it only ended with my eyes landing back on Jennifer and her garbage bin, as she wiped some disgusting remains off her mouth. Nonetheless, it wasn't a bummer for me to notice that. Seeing that it was our only way to hide from the approaching alien creatures, I proudly brought up my highly controversial suggestion. "They're coming! We have to hide now!" I warned them first, as none of them, other than Enrique had seemed to notice the approaching aliens.

"But where?" Veronica questioned, looking around before focusing on Jennifer, who was waving to us from afar. Veronica then looked back at me, sticking her tongue out in disgust.

"Right where you were lookin' at," I answered, pointing at the garbage bin that Jennifer continued to stand by.

Enrique frowned and drooped his mouth in response to my suggestion. "In the vomit garbage bin?" he asked while shrieking. "You've gotta be kidding me. That's just distasteful."

"We don't got a choice, and neither do we got time!" I cautioned them. "Let's get our butts in there or get them ripped apart by those alien beasts!"

Hence, we sprinted towards the garbage bin. Meanwhile, Jennifer waved at us once again, giggling as we approached her. After a little bit of exhausting dashing, we arrived right in front of her, before heading for the bin behind her.

"I hate you," Veronica protested as she jumped right into the garbage bin, which was surprisingly empty apart from the fact that Jennifer's vomit was sitting at the bottom of it.

"How was I supposed to know you were gonna do that?" Jennifer argued as she rolled her eyes. "Anyway, why are we jumping into garbage bins again?" she asked as I entered it after Enrique did. She was so slow to catch that I would have been better for me to just update her about it after she had gone inside the bin with us. And that was exactly what I chose to do to save her life again.

"Just get in here first," I groaned as I grabbed her by her hands and pulled her over the edge of the bin. She then let go for some reason and fell into it clumsily, landing on her own vomit.

"Ugh, I can't believe how disgusting it is to touch my own puke!" she cried as she looked at her dirtied hands.

However, as she was making too much noise, we all collectively shushed her. She could have compromised our safe spot if she had caught those aliens' attention. Then again, she hadn't even understood why we were stupidly camping in a bin, and neither did she notice the nearby alien creatures.

While Jennifer tried to resist against our silencing her, I lifted the lid of the bin slightly. It was just enough for all of us to peep out of discreetly without risking giving away our position. As I stared out of the slit in between the lid and the edge of the bin, I watched as the creatures continued to cause much destruction on the streets, overturning more cars and stomping against the road forcefully, creating dents in it.

The aliens then came closer towards us as they were coming close to passing by us. Thus, I lowered the lid carefully and quietly, making sure that they wouldn't notice the subtle movement. I then placed my index finger on my lips, signalling to the rest to stay as quiet as possible so as to not jeopardise our safety.

Going forth from this, the ladies covered their mouths to prevent any sounds from being let out. Meanwhile, Enrique and I did everything to ensure that there wasn't any sound coming out from us in the first place—we even stopped breathing for a moment.

While we made all these efforts to be unheard, the aliens passed by us slowly. I could tell they had run out of victims to slay by inferring that their strolling meant that they had no one left to chase, and were on the lookout for more victims. This made us endure the "silent treatment" of our own for even longer. Not long after, the holding of my breath had almost become unbearable.

Thankfully. the aliens had passed at the very moment when Enrique and I had to take a deep breath. I panted for air, which was hella stale and reeked of Jennifer's vomit. Then again, there was no way I was going to pop my head out of the garbage bin and take a loud gasp of air in and bring the aliens back to our spot.

"So, since we definitely can't leave at the moment, why don't we just take the moment to introduce ourselves a little more?" Enrique suggested, as the atmosphere in the room, or rather, the bin, became more awkward.

"Yeah, we don't even know you guys' names," Veronica stated while raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I'll start," I began. "I'm Laurence Jones, but usually, I go by the name Larry. And this is not a "nickname exclusive to some people" situation as with Jen."

Jennifer rolled her eyes, while Veronica giggled discreetly and quietly, toning it down probably in fear of the aliens coming back when they hear us.

"So, anyway, I work at Valour International Military Organisation, which basically assigns its soldiers to fight against unjust coups in states with forcefully overthrown or overtaken governments. I've yet to be assigned to a mission, though."

The ladies nodded with both their mouths slightly open, seemingly interested by my "job". After all, it wasn't a conventional white collar office job, and neither was it like being in the US Military.

"And I'm Enrique Vasquez," Enrique continued after me. "I'm in charge of a campaign fighting for equality amongst all races and preserving racial harmony in Chicago."

"Ay, you got the same surname as me? So, anyway, can I call you Ricky?" Veronica asked jokingly, giggling as she waited to hear his response.

"Oh, please, no. I've heard that way too many times," Enrique declined as he shook his head furiously. "It's gonna be whitewashing if you give me such a nickname."

"Hey! That's a lot coming from someone who takes racial harmony seriously!" Jennifer dramatically stated, clearly acting offended.

"Aw, come on. I was just kidding," Enrique laughed it off.

"Since I'm kinda already having a debate with Ricky over here, I'll continue," Jennifer volunteered haughtily, swinging her hair back as she continued with her ridiculous acting. "I'm Jennifer Robinson, and I work at a bakery. I'm one of the main bakers there, so I have quite some experience in baking."

"And somehow you just be ending up in a Dunkin' café," I mocked, giggling as I attempted not to burst out into complete, boisterous laughter.

"Ugh, their donuts are just good," Jennifer debated. "You can't blame me for being tempted by them.

"Interrupting into this dry conversation with my charisma, I'm Veronica Vasquez. I'm still in college, so I don't exactly have a permanent job yet. However, I work part-time at McDonald's to get that extra money to compensate for my tuition fees," Veronica added on, finishing our session of introductions. Looking back at it, introducing ourselves while waiting for a group of aliens to leave the area was a rather bizarre thing to do. Then again, there wasn't anybody else to judge us, or to be more accurate, anybody else who was alive.

"I'm hoping that after all that time, those extraterrestrial creatures are gone from the vicinity," Enrique commented.

Thus, I lifted the lid of the bin discreetly once more, peeping out of it to check on our surroundings, However, there was nothing left to see. All that was around were the crushed corpses that we had already observed earlier on, and a new set of overturned or damaged cars lying across road. In terms of life, regardless alien or human, however, there seemed to be none nearby.

Hence, I lifted the garbage bin lid up much more this time, allowing my entire head to stick out of it, At first, this alarmed the group, as they were frowning at me and gesturing to me to come back down and close the lid. However, after taking a second look around the area, there were truly no more aliens left scouting.

"Don't worry. There ain't no more of those creatures here. They gone," I reassured them, as I began to stick one leg out of the bin to get myself out.

For a moment, they remained highly sceptical about our safety. The irony, though, was in the way that they refused to see the surroundings for themselves. However, after some time, Enrique finally led the group in getting out of the bin. After getting a look at the surroundings for himself, he became confident that we were safe, hopping out of the bin agilely.

The ladies then followed behind, looking all over the place warily, only to find no dangers or threats around us. Not long after, they both hopped out of the bin. I then dusted myself while scraping my shoes against the sidewalk in an attempt to get rid of the vomit on my shoes as much as possible.

After settling down, I then focused back onto our initial plan. I then led the group down the car-littered and body-filled street, as we tried to ignore the grim sigh of the corpses. Eventually, we finally sighted my car, before stopping right in front of it. Before unlocking it, I turned to the rest to make a vital enquiry.

"So, where we headed to?"