56 A place I never thought I would go 4

Lazar stopped running when he found himself near a baseball field from which he was separated by a barrier reaching the same height as the base of his neck.

He pulled the file he had taken from Buren out of his inventory and went through several pages before stopping at the one he was interested in; the page representing a map of the MIT campus.

'It's a little fuzzy, but I have no choice, I have to deal with it.' His night vision wasn't very handy for seeing all the details on the map, but he didn't want to attract attention by using the flashlight he had borrowed from the woman who had tried to kill Amandla earlier.

This baseball field in front of him was part of the campus and although it was one of the places farthest away from where he thought he would find people, Lazar had choose it as a starting point for 2 reasons.

First, to the left of this baseball field was a football field surrounded by an athletic track and to the right was a soccer field. Lazar thus had a clear view of what was around him, if monsters tried to encircle him, he would see it coming.

Apparently there were no survivors of the first attempt to exfiltrate, so it was normal for Lazar to be apprehensive, 'There are so many possible scenarios jostling in my head right now. If I had to choose the most plausible, it would be that the soldiers who came here all fell into a trap simultaneously and that retreat was no longer an option at that time but...'

Lazar didn't like hypotheses but certainties and what he knew for sure was that it was the fucking Apocalypse. Everything was possible, little could be predicted and there was no point in racking his brains to come up with an explanation that would surely turn out to be false.

The second and final reason why Lazar decided to go through this place first and that he was also going to avoid areas of the campus where people might hide was simply that he didn't want to run into anyone.

On the one hand, finding people might help him understand what was going on here, but on the other hand he couldn't predict all the trouble it would bring him.

Let's imagine that he comes across people who have hidden in a place where there is no access to food. It was now more than 3 days since the Apocalypse began, so potentially 3 days that they are hiding; it's enough time to go crazy for weak-minded people who are deprived of food.

'I would rather worry about that when I will come back with Amandla.' Lazar thought coldly as he stored the file in his inventory.

---

The closest place Lazar intended to avoid was a gymnasium just to the left of the football field since it wasn't the worst place to hide...

And Indeed, he would do well by avoiding this place.

About 50 students were barricaded there and since yesterday they had run out of the food they had taken by breaking the vending machines around them.

This was exactly the kind of thing Lazar wanted to avoid and yet sooner or later he would have to deal with this tricky situation because in that gymnasium there were two of his targets.

One of the 20 targets that were indicated in the file as well as his 21st target whose photo and informations weren't in the file.

---

Lazar didn't even had to climb the barrier, he easily jump over it.

When he landed on the other side of the barrier a strange thing happened in his body; a kind of unpleasant wave was propagating everywhere in his body.

'My energy is running wild.' Although this was the first time this has happened, Lazar knew that it was an phenomenon in relation with his energy and not just a bad feeling.

He had managed to achieved the first of the two phases necessary to control his energy when he practiced in his room, which allowed him to better understand it. And what he understood about what was happening was that his energy was resonating with something here.

Something almost similar and yet particularly different. Something almost similar and yet diametrically opposed. Something almost similar and yet particularly hostile.

Knowing that he had to start moving forward to cover as much ground as possible before returning home and thinking that this wave would eventually fade away, Lazar took a step forward. But as soon as he did, the unpleasant sensation became several times more intense.

"Beuargh", Lazar found himself on his knees, vomiting a substance that was neither the contents of his stomach nor blood as far as he could see and smell. He would bet on the same substance that he had vomited when he was evolving but couldn't be completely sure.

If his energy was trying to send him a message then it was clear, 'don't go any further.' And as a result, he took a step backwards.

Indeed, Lazar didn't cross back over the barrier, he took what happened as a warning and not a command to run away, because although his energy seemed to appeal to his prudence, 'I feel like I'm boiling from the inside as if my energy couldn't wait to be used.' Lazar thought while smiling excitedly and bringing out his blade from his inventory.

...

For almost 10 minutes, Lazar didn't move from where he was, staring at his surroundings without really knowing what he was waiting for.

On this one, he was totally reliant on what his energy seemed to be telling him and that was to wait, just wait.

Then the reason for his wait appeared to him.

When Buren had described to him what had happened to his soldiers, Lazar was convinced that it couldn't have been the Ganipotes and the Garaches, and now he had the confirmation.

Although he couldn't see clearly the features of the several dozen of silouhettes which were slowly advancing towards him from all sides, he knew he was going to have to deal with another type of monster with the little he could see of them.