18 Floors Above the Apocalypse



As night enveloped everything in an inky blackness, Jasper and his loyal companion, Cooper, were on their patrol rounds. Meanwhile, Stella trudged through the snow, collecting the dense white blanket and storing it in Arcadia.

She had cleared out a two-story section of Arcadia, tirelessly shoveling the icy snow into it. And don't underestimate a two-story space-it can hold a lot.

Once she was done, she strategically placed a few spike strips at key locations around Union Base. By morning, they'd be hidden beneath a fresh layer of snowflakes.

The next day at noon, Stella and Cooper were out on patrol when the distant echo of gunfire reached their ears. Pulling out her binoculars, Stella spotted a group of ragged individuals being herded like livestock by a ragtag bunch, undoubtedly from Union Base.

The prisoners, a mix of men and women, around seventy in total, were dressed in rags, shivering uncontrollably as their breath fogged the air. They all had Eastern features, but their language didn't sound like Chinese.

Curious about the commotion, Jasper emerged and after a brief look, commented, "That's Belarusian.”

So, they were Belarusians.

Suddenly, chaos erupted. A few Belarusians tried to make a break for it but were quickly subdued by their captors, who grabbed them by the hair and started beating them mercilessly. Slaps across the face, kicks to the stomach-the whole nine yards. The captors' faces twisted with rage as they cursed and beat the prisoners as if driven by some deep-seated vendetta.

Interestingly, those delivering the beatings were also of Eastern descent. It seemed like the more brutally they beat, the greater their perceived merit. Meanwhile, the tall, blonde, blue-eyed captors stood by with arms folded, grinning. Their smiles were warm and friendly, like the benevolent smile of a god, full of mercy and pity.

Stella's gaze grew colder by the second, her grip on the binoculars tightening.

One of the blue-eyed men turned and looked in Stella's direction. He pulled off his mask and greeted her with a smile, "Honey."

If they weren't so far apart, Stella might have given him a piece of her mind in a more physical manner. This whole display was a show of force meant for her.

They had done their homework on her group and weren't in any rush to make a move. Bored with the mundane, their leader needed an entertaining game to pass the time. And this family, with their medical skills, weapons, and animals, provided just that. There was no need for immediate brute force.

After the greeting, the blue-eyed man finally stepped in to halt the brutality, and the Belarusians stopped their assault and led the “sheep" back to the base. As they left, the blue-eyed man waved at Stella, blowing her a kiss through the cold air.

Stella remained unfazed, but Jasper, standing right beside her, narrowed his eyes.

Back inside, warming up by the fire, Stella couldn't help but laugh at their pathetic attempt to intimidate her. It was laughable, really. Russia had decimated them from over twenty thousand down to a mere three thousand, and yet they still had the audacity to threaten others?

They were bursting with overconfidence.

The day after the “sheep-herding" spectacle, Union Base came knocking, armed to the teeth. Ten blue-eyed men with submachine guns, followed by fifty others of various ethnicities, approached with an air of arrogance.

Dillyn again, his smile as polite as ever, asked, "Have you considered our offer?"

Stella nodded, "We've given it some thought."

"Back in Australia, we've got a saying 'A wise man adapts himself to circumstances.' Looks like you all are pretty smart."

One day as vicious as a storm, the next as meek as a lamb. Stella's compliance delighted Dillyn, who found both satisfaction and scorn in her response. Satisfied that he had completed the task set by their leader, he scorned the hypocrisy of Australian civility. They were nothing but craven cowards. All talk and no action. What a performance.

Next, Dillyn instructed Stella and her group to pack up and head back to Union Base with them. As punishment for her defiance the day before, all their supplies were to be surrendered, and they were to obey the base's commands unconditionally. Otherwise, the blue-eyed men's raised submachine guns could turn them into Swiss cheese in seconds.

Stella lifted a megaphone, "You're too far away; I can't hear a word you're saying. Come closer and let's talk.”

She glanced at Jasper, receiving an affirmative nod before standing up. To show her sincerity, she laid down her weapon and advanced towards the trench with determined steps, standing right before the spike strips. Stella beckoned them with a come-hither smile, "Come on over, why don't you?”

Dillyn frowned, sensing something was off. Then one of the blue-eyed men brushed him aside and strutted forward with his gun, his smile brighter than ever, "Honey."

Life at the base was dull, and it had been a long time since they'd seen a woman as vibrant and beautiful as Stella. A rose had to have its thorn's to be truly beautiful. Overconfident, they marched towards her, one by one Dillyn and his men followed, nodding and bowing with

exaggerated politeness.

In no time, sixty Union Base survivors stood before Stella, mere feet away. Stella flashed the blue-eyes a mysterious smile and said simply, "Fuck." The men were baffled, thinking they had misheard, "Honey, what did you say?"

Before they could finish, their world turned into a blinding white. The accumulated snow from the two-story building descended like an avalanche, burying the sixty Union Base survivors in an instant.

As she gazed at the mound of snow before her, Stella turned and walked away leisurely. Back on a snow-covered hill, she sat beside Jasper, pulling out two steaming cups of coffee, "Sugar or cream?"

"Black, thanks."

Stella, never one for black coffee, decided not to indulge Jasper's preference and dumped a generous amount of sugar into his cup, "Here's your coffee, Jasper."

He was used to it by now, smiling as he took a sip, "You put too much sugar in it."

She glanced at the snow pile, "How long should we let them stew?"

“Medium-rare, half an hour; well-done, an hour."This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

There was no rush. Stella finished her coffee and began to snack on the pastries. The cold was biting, so she didn't bother setting them out on the table, but fed them directly to Jasper instead.

Shrimp dumplings, beef balls, pork buns. Jasper, his mouth full, could only respond with a muffled, “.....”

He wrapped an arm around her, and they huddled together for warmth in the snow. To ensure they were "well-done," Stella waited a full 80 minutes before rising to her feet.

Ensuring they were free from prying eyes, the duo approached a mound of snow. Stella couldn't be bothered with the tedium of shoveling; there was always the chance that one of the seemingly dead had a stroke of luck and would spring an attack from underneath. Content belongs

Without hesitation, she used Arcadia's The Garden to swallow the entire pile-corpses and all.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Arcadia forcefully expelled three lumps. Two with icy blue eyes, one with dark skin. Tsk, tsk, some folks really do have nine lives.

The blue-eyed pair were deathly

pale, still clutching their submachine

jet

guns, while the dark-skinned one gripped an axe. In a base of over twenty thousand souls, now reduced to a mere three thousand, not everyone had a firearm to call their own. Either the base was low on arms, or perhaps the Caucasians, with China at the helm, looked down on the other races. Content belongs

Jasper confiscated their weapons, "What about their clothes?"

Stella pondered for a moment, "Yeah, take them."

She didn't need them, but who knew what the future held? Best to be prepared.

They scored an axe, two submachine guns, and four grenades. Jasper stripped them down to their underwear.

Just then, one of the blue-eyed survivors groggily opened his eyes, whispering faintly, "Help..."