CHAPTER 73: PEOPLE WOULD BE IDIOTS.

Nimo had seen foolish individuals in her life, but some people’s reasoning was truly baffling. The residents of the base had been divided into groups; each group was responsible for applying gel to a different area on the base every after six hours.

With more than 80% residents in hiding, the six hours had elapsed, and a small part of the bubble had evaporated. Luckily, this had happened after the meteor rain.

Thanks to this small gap in the bubble, citrus drizzle had made it into the fortress, in the second wall. The liquid had an attractive citrus scent, like a mixture of oranges and lemons. This coupled with the yellow like lemonade appearance triggered temptation in a few weak-minded people.

A thirsty man had decided to be brave and try the liquid. He had been reported by his wife to a soldier passing by because she was afraid.

The soldier had alerted Nimo, who alerted Sunshine. Without delay, Nimo had bellowed orders for the gel to applied to close the gap in the bubble. Then, she jumped into a vehicle and drove out to the second wall.

As soon as she reached the scene, Nimo shoved people aside and reached the man. He was a ginger haired man in his mid-twenties. His wife was standing by his side, looking anxious.

His sister, who was one of the soldiers on the base was yelling at him.

"What kind of idiot looks at weird yellow rain and decides that they must drink it?" Nimo bellowed as she yanked his arm.

)

The female soldier, Private Pamela gave Nimo an apologetic look.

"Siegfried put together a team and use some drones to inspect every part of the bubble. Make sure that there are no gaps anywhere." Nimo ordered. "Someone should clean up the rest of this yellow liquid before kids come out of bunkers and start drinking it."

Private Pamela run off to start taking care of that task immediately.

"And you sir, you are in trouble." She motioned at the young man to follow her, but he reacted in a different way.

He yanked his arm from her hand and started to laugh like a hyena. As if the laughter was not abnormal enough, he threw himself on the ground and started rolling around.

His wife’s shouts and questions about what was wrong with him attracted a small crowd. Nimo was already calling for medics to rush to the scene.

Sunshine and Hades arrived at the scene at the same moment as the medics. She was the first to reach down and inspect the young man that was being held down by four soldiers.

Sunshine pulled out gloves from her bag and wore them just in case whatever he had been infected with was contagious.

She checked his pupils, breathing, arms and stomach.

"President Sunshine, I will take over from you." A doctor offered to step in.

Sunshine stepped back and the doctors took over. The young man was carried off to the hospital. She followed along with Hades

"What is wrong with him?" Hades asked her.

"Looks like hallucinations, he will be fine in the end. The citrus drizzle is not deadly on its own, but hallucinations are dangerous as one can die without realizing. What possessed him to think that drinking the weird water was a great idea? Did he think God was pouring juice from heaven?" Sunshine spoke through pursed teeth.

Hades squeezed her shoulders. "You gave them shelter, if they die from stupidity, it is not you."

***

The citrus drizzle had helped a lot in extinguishing the fires all over the city. It mixed in with the mist and people did not even notice a thing as they were busy hiding.

Fifi Quinn was one of those in hiding, huddling with her arms wrapped around her shoulders. She was one of fifty people that were taking shelter beneath the broken bones of a collapsed building,

"Can we now go out of here? It has been hours, and no meteors have fallen." A man suggested. He was the closest to the window and he had a clear view of the outside world.

Those around him traded gazes, many in the group were now very conscious about every strange thing that was occurring. They could hear the rain falling outside.

"I think so too." A woman trembled.

A few people stood up and searched for windows or hole to peek outside.

Fifi took one look at the color of the rain and pulled her brows together closely, disbelief enveloped her. "If you want to go out there, you are on your own. Have you ever seen yellow rain before? This is a bad sign." She took a few steps back, hugging herself tighter.

"I have been following all this apocalypse talk closely and read all the booklets and flyers that show all the disasters expected in the apocalypse and yellow rain that smells like oranges is not mentioned anywhere." A man in a nurse uniform with a name tag that read Cole revealed.

He looked around furtively, waiting for volunteers to step up. His intentions were not pure. What he wanted was for someone to go into the rain such that he could see what would happen.

The desperate man who was impatient to leave made a momentous decision to check if the rain was safe or not. "I will test it first, if it’s not hot then I will go." He rubbed his hands together then stretched his arms out of the window.

Water droplets kissed his fingertips. "It is warm, and a little sticky like honey but it does not burn." He shared. "I am out of here." he declared.

He walked out of the hiding place and ventured into the rubble. Others watched until he reached the road and started jumping for joy and screaming.

A teenager displayed the peace sign and ran into the rain as well, pulling his hoodie up.

"Are you going out?" Nurse Cole asked Fifi.

Fifi shook her head vehemently as she watched more people follow eagerly. "This rain is weird; I am not taking any chances." She told nurse Cole.

"But we can’t stay here forever. If acid rain is coming tomorrow, how will staying here help us? We don’t have any food or water."

Fifi and Cole stood by a window looking outside.

Out of a mall that had survived destruction, a woman stumbled out. "It’s over! we survived!" She shouted alerting all those that were still in hiding.

Slowly, like seedling crawling to the surface, people came out from all angles, laughing, weeping, collapsing on their knees in the open.

Some immediately started running to find their homes and loved ones. Others decided to taste the citrus scented rain.

A woman began to giggle endlessly, her eyes rolled back as she tore her clothes off eagerly. A man picked up a large rock and smashed in the head of another.

Two strangers started knocking their heads together like they were on a mission to crack each other’s skulls. They were laughing like fools but showing no signs of stopping.

Everyone that had ingested the yellow liquid started acting bizarre, frightening those that were about to come out of hiding.

"See! I-I knew it had to be too good to be true!" Fifi told Cole, only the two of them had stayed back of the fifty people that had been in hiding so far.

"Damn it! thank God my instincts are sharp." Nurse Cole raised his hands to his head. "What do we do? Are we going to stay here until the next disaster comes?" He fidgeted, his composure crumbling.

Fifi already had her mind made up to run to Westbrook with hope to find shelter and warm food. Hades was her nephew; he would not refuse to take her in no matter what had happened between them.

Her stomach chimed again reminding her that she had not eaten in a while. "I know a place that we can go to."