>>6339136You decide you'll search the bedrooms along the hall. Hassan catches your drift and heads to the kitchen instead.
The hallway leads to two closed bedrooms on its right, while a pair of windows look out to the Condemned Zone on its left. You're surprised by the amount of flora in here. Large, turgid vines run along the ceiling and walls like veins. At the end of the hallway is a small table with an empty flower vase. You almost feel like you're inside the bowels of some great monster. If you concentrate, you can hear something like blood pumping... or is that just your own, racing heart?
You cautiously open the door to the first bedroom... it leads into a small room with a double bed, presumably where the parents slept. Everything is still in relative order; it doesn't seem like the wild animals have gotten here yet. What's more, the closet is still lined with clothes and small belongings. It doesn't seem like the former residents were given much time to evacuate, or perhaps they felt compelled to leave immediately.
You begin to feel somewhat guilty... You doubt the former residents will ever get a chance to recover their possessions, but, isn't this basically stealing? Stuff like this is how bounty hunters earn their reputation. Still, since you're already here, you browse the drawers and closet compartments... behind a stack of dusty shoeboxes, you catch the glimmer of gun metal. You clear away some debris: it's a hunting rifle.
You grab it and pick it up from the barrel side. It's an older model, not meant for anything more than small game, but it might still come in handy. Of course, you were never known for your outstanding marksmanship, but you do know how to load and fire a gun... Speaking of, you open the barrel to check if it's loaded. No such luck. But if they owned a rifle, they must've kept the ammo somewhere...
You check the bedside table drawers and the other closet spaces, but don't find anything useful. Finally, it occurs to you to look under the bed, where you find an additional shoebox. Inside, there are family pictures and a bracelet that appears to have been made by a small child in school... but also a box of ammo. You load the four remaining shells into the rifle and throw its strap over your shoulder.
The metallic scratching sound you heard suddenly picks up again. It's coming from the adjacent bedroom.
"You hear that?" Hassan's voice floats in, presumably from the kitchen.
