4 - Lo

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My feet sank way too deep into the sand for me to run properly and I muttered the worst curses I could think of as I fell to the ground for the sixth time, in far too short a time

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My feet sank way too deep into the sand for me to run properly and I muttered the worst curses I could think of as I fell to the ground for the sixth time, in far too short a time.

My lungs screamed and it felt like my muscles would soon give up, but if I slowed down they would take me. I knew it.
Damn if I was going to let them catch me and sell me as some miserable miner. A life in the Wilderness suddenly felt a thousand times better than a life underground in a coal mine.

"Come on! Get your ass back up Lo!" I hear him shout as his hand grabs my upper arm and pulls me out of the sand that start pour off my clothes.

Seconds later, my worn shoes fly over wreckage and rocks and as I run, all my focus is on the ground, keeping myself upright and not thinking about who's chasing me.
Even so, my gaze wandered to the right side of me every now and then, just to make sure my brother's still there.

I was close to falling again, but not because I was clumsy. No, it was because my body just could not take it anymore, not without water. My head began to spin, sweat dripped from my forehead and my breathing became heavier and heavier.

I didn't even notice when I stumbled forward, but suddenly I was held up by a supportive hand "Over there," he pointed and I followed his gaze. In front of us was a pile of old debris, if we were lucky we could hide there and wait them out and it wasn't very far.

A sting of hope hit me. There was a slight chance that we were going to make it, I thought as we zigzagged between car parts and sheets of metal scrap, all to get their eyes off us.

"Duck!" he shouted and with no hesitation I threw myself into the sand and rolled around a few laps.
The distinctive noise of machine guns echoed through the air and the terrifying sound as the bullets hit the plate caused my heart rate to increase for each hit.

My mouth filled up with sand and my eyes stung, but my only option was to eel on towards the nearest cover.

"Are you okay?" Hannes asked in sign language, when we managed to get out of their field of vision.
I breathed heavily from the exertion and dehydration but nodded and gave a thumbs up.

We sat with our backs leaning to the part of an old airplane wing and suddenly my thoughts slipped away from the chaos around us, as it hit me that people actually had flown around the world in these things in the past. I'd read about something called vacation and that people used them as they moved to another country.
"I would like to fly away from this hell hole", I muttered to myself and glanced over the edge to see if I could spot our enemy, vacation sounded really tempting right now.

"How many?" he asked as he moved towards me, and I held up my hands and showed seven fingers.

He sank down on his heels and sighed deeply, I knew he only had one magazine left. That was it, we had to leave the big weapons behind when we ran.

He nodded his head towards the radio and I understood exactly what he wanted, so I gave him a little nod before I started searching for a signal. But it was as pointless as two hours ago, the Harrows knew exactly how to block radio signals and they did a frustratingly good job at it.

I looked around, Hannes irritation soon grew unbearable next to me and I knew I needed to come up with a plan before he would do anything stupid. Like risking his life for his little brother's.

I quickly unbuckled my backpack and started rummaging around among its contents.
Most things I needed was there I realized triumphantly, I just needed a container and some scrap metal.

"Give me five minutes" I signed in the air and snuck away to a pile of scraps others would call rubbish.

"What are you going to do?!" his hands moved quickly when I met his skeptical eyes.

"Just cover me!" I replied with an eye roll.

"Lo?!" his hand pounded hard against his chest to get my attention as he signed my name.

"A bomb" I showed and grinned wide.
With a nod he turned and put the rifle barrel against the wing and got ready to do as I asked.

Shooting had never been my strong side, I was honestly awful at hitting things. A very bad quality in situations like this, but you learn from your mistakes, and instead of tormenting me with more shooting lessons, Carl would offer me some other choices.

It turned out that I was a awesome hacker, he gave me a computer and soon I learned everything from taking down security systems to reprogramming someone's electric toothbrush. And a plus of sitting hooked in front of a screen all day is that you learn a hell of a lot. For example, how to make bombs from scrap.

When the shooting started, I was pulling duck tape around my beautiful creation to seal the rusty tin can.
My stomach protested loudly when I saw the picture on the label. Strange really that my body reacted like that, I thought. Because I had no fucking idea how neither ravioli nor tomato sauce tasted.

Carefully I crawled up to my brother and tried to overpower the clatter from their heavy artillery "I throw and you shoot?"

He nodded "aim at the guy with the horns" he shouted back and got ready with the rifle.

"Three ... two ... one ... throw!"

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