Echoes 2 – Shopping

Little Elijah opens his eyes just as Layla finishes putting her coat back on. Getting up sleepily and rubbing his eyes, he looks at her silently, the warm covers over him falling to the wayside as the radio carries on with its little jingles. She opened the outside door, Elijah darting back under the covers from the cold air. He peeked out, causing his dark brown eyes to meet her stern red ones.

“I’m going out to get food. Wait here, and don’t open the front door for anybody.” she said, stepping out onto the balcony.

Elijah slid the outer door closed behind her and waved, his expression as dead as usual. Layla nodded, and within an instant she was on the ground floor, having used magic to teleport. The only noise now was the howling of icy wind, and her own footsteps as she trudged through the alley to the main street. Closing the giant coat to keep herself warm, Layla looked into the road, seeing no one but a couple of guards walking around in power suits and big cloaks. How they got those hunks of metal to work again was anyone’s guess, but the fact that they had them meant she should be safe as long as she kept to herself. The laws in most towns were the same; don’t cause trouble, or you die. With that in mind, Layla stepped out from the alley and started walking around, looking for any form of general store. She kept going for quite a while down the street before coming upon a little place with a sign outside, icicles forming on the railings it stood on. Food and supplies. Perfect.

Stepping out from the thick snow and onto the deck of this rugged old building, she went inside to find quite a lot of shelves stacked with ingredients, bowls and other miscellaneous things that were useful on a trip to the outside. A man with an old fashioned oil lantern was at the table, reading some kind of book while wearing a thick coat. Guess the insulation in this place wasn’t that good. Closing the door behind her, Layla began to walk around, grabbing a few tins of flavoured soup here and there. It wasn’t going to be a pretty meal, but it would get them by. After filling her coat pockets, she walked up to the dimly lit counter where the man looked at her. Seeing that he had an old twin barrel shotgun, Layla pulled out four twelve gauge rounds and placed them on the counter, then opened her coat to reveal the supplies she had taken. The man looked it over briefly and then took the rounds, nodding at her and then going back to his book. Upon stepping outside, Layla noticed a few people looking at her from across the road. They quickly approached and pulled out guns, pointing them at her.

“Drop your food and we won’t shoot.” one of them ordered. The ringleader.

One, two three... five of them. Layla’s sharp eyes counted five men, but she wasn’t scared in the slightest. Instead of doing as told, she reinforced her coat with a bit of magic to ensure the food didn’t get pierced, then looked around for any guards or cameras. Nothing in the vicinity stood out to her, so she looked back at the leader who was now getting impatient.

“Didn’t you hear me, bitch? Drop the food and-”

“I heard you. Just one problem. I got a mouth to feed.” said Layla, her voice colder than the world around them.

Within a split second, she was in front of the leader, and she’d grabbed his gun, kicking him clean off the deck and into the snow. Using one shot to nail him through the head, Layla ducked as the rest of the men caught up and turned to her, all guns drawn and aimed. They evidently didn’t know the first thing about combat, because when they instinctively pulled the triggers, they shot each other, having never staggered their positions. They all screamed out in pain and fell, one of them dead from a shot to the heart. Layla finished off the other three with one shot each and collected the magazines, glad to have another gun on her and more clips for it. The smell of gunpowder was fresh in the air, and the guards would soon arrive with those powered suits, so Layla stored the gun in her coat and quickly teleported a short distance away, her feet falling back into the snow as she landed and started running back for the hotel.