Survival in the Wasteland

It was the morning of the third day when we set out.

"Finally," I sighed with a smile in my helmet. "Ready for some action."

I looked at the vehicle in front of me, one that we had salvaged from an old satellite image. It was described as a four-seater, and that's just what it had been; something big enough to carry all four of us, our supplies and weapons, and yet small enough to be easy to navigate over the broken roads that lead to the town where they said the artifact was hidden. We bought this thing at a bargain price, but I wasn't sure how long it would last - we had gotten it working well enough, after all, but a small part of me worried that it might break down in the middle of hellhole.

I saw Bryce take his place on top with his rifle ready. His nickname was "The Sniper". He used to be in Special Forces, so he could handle himself in any situation. He was also more than happy to skip out on the idea of using any kind of protection against radioactive fallout; his suit was covered with more holes than most people's skin. I wasn't sure why he did that; maybe he thought he looked cool or something. Hell if I know.

I took my place next to him, and we waited patiently while Chris entered the driver's seat and started up the engine. The three of us were pretty much veterans of whatever war humanity went through - at least, that's what everybody else called it - but Chris was still new to this whole thing. He'd only been there for two missions; this would be his third. He seemed excited about it, though - especially since everyone else said he'd perform better outside of the base than inside it. Personally, I thought that he might slow us down once we got there, but he insisted on coming along anyway when we told him about it so now here we are.

When he signaled Bryce by waving him forward, Bryce signaled me, and we moved our rifles up and into position behind what little cover there was on top of our ride. Chris slowly put power to the wheels and began driving towards their location as we surveyed our surroundings for any signs of trouble. The road itself was cracked and rough; even after all these years, there still weren't enough people around who could fix roads like this, so they remained as they were before whatever happened ten years ago - which is why Chris had chosen this route instead of going through open savannah or somewhere else where somebody might have seen him and gotten suspicious. Not that anyone would do something rash anyway nowadays - nobody wanted to end up like a lot of those poor bastards who went crazy because they felt abandoned by whoever made off with everything during whatever apocalypse happened back then. Most people nowadays were content living their lives without any outside help for fear that these same people would come back for them too if they tried anything smart like looking for them directly or attempting to leave wherever they lived now so they could try finding them elsewhere.

After five minutes, we arrived at our destination uneventfully and stopped just outside of town as planned so we could get out and scout ahead first before deciding whether or not entering the place was actually worth risking our lives for this time around. I turned my head towards Bryce as soon as I felt myself hit solid ground beneath my feet again and gave him a nod when I saw him look towards me as well; everything seemed clear up ahead, so we decided to move on inside town together while Chris headed back home with our ride until later when we called him again via radio to tell him where we were heading next so he could go pick us up afterward.

We walked carefully through streets littered with debris from buildings collapsing long ago until finally approaching an intersection where everything suddenly came crashing down around us: buildings collapsed into each other from all sides, fragments flying everywhere, almost cutting us off from each other as rubble flew towards us from every direction - but mostly in front and above. I looked up quickly as soon as I heard something crash into my helmet hard enough to make me see stars for a second before falling over backward; another building had fallen right on top of me! Everything went dark around me while I heard my friends shouting in surprise somewhere nearby - but not close enough to help me get free from under this thing!

Then suddenly it stopped moving! A few moments later I heard some sort of humming noise above me before realizing what it must be: someone had put it back onto its foundations somehow! That meant... Oh, no! Could somebody have survived whatever happened here? If so, could they have also survived whatever caused whatever happened here? More importantly... Were they friendly? Or unfriendly? Or somewhere in between? Too many questions without answers made my head hurt! But that didn't matter now... What mattered was getting out from under here before being crushed by more rubble or eaten alive by whatever mutated creature might crawl up into this