||Series Removed|| OTB

12 - Big Shot Leader

12

The rest of that night was a complete blur. Despite all of the raised voices and tears, nothing actually got resolved… In the end, Blessing and her twin brother ran out of the church before we could consider taking evasive action ourselves.

Elizabeth Boudica’s connection started to fizzle out on the laptop, but she managed to give us one final instruction; we were to stay put until she could track down the exact location of Patch. After travelling half-way across the world just to catch word of her whereabouts, we were finally going to meet the woman who could lead us to victory over Telos.

I tossed and turned in my designated apartment’s bare bedroom all night long, having been forced inside Tower Block C by Alisha as I was prodded towards my new home. Well, it was my home until the superwoman resistance leader would eventually come and rescue us from this dreary settlement.

Every position felt uncomfortable, and I knew that it wasn't down to the lumpy mattress or the humid air. I should have been ecstatic about the tremendous news we'd recieved, but all I could think about was how I reacted towards Blessing earlier that night.

She was reaching out to us, to me in particular. Everything she had done was fixated around The Found, the survivors of Telos’ wrath, building up to this very moment… and I couldn’t even bring myself to look into her eyes. Those terrifyingly-cold Lost eyes, that once housed one of my very dear friends.

It was all a ruse, from the beginning. ‘TS-19’ was never human, and she knowingly exposed us to the risk of turning rabid and infecting every one of my friends. I understood that it was appropriate to hate her for that… but I couldn’t turn off my other feelings. The ones that empathised with her sense of emptiness, the longing for an identity.

I wasn’t anybody special either, until the outbreak. Slowly I came to understand the power running through my O-Negative veins, the value of true friendship and most recently, the sacrifices of leadership. I was a survivor now, and I couldn’t see myself ever going back to the boring, work-a-day Daniel Walker from the dullest corner of Danderhall.

There was no kidding myself, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep with so much grief swirling around inside my head. Stepping up from my mattress on the floor, I grabbed my sweaty shirt that had been recovered from the bathhouse and pottered over to the window.

The town centre was barren, and trickles of light were starting to seep through the giant gated walls of scrap metal far off into the distance. Dawn was steadily approaching, which provided the first clear view of Patch I’d had since we were forced through the induction process.

Everything seemed to be limited to these three towering skyscrapers, surrounded by many shoddy huts that were already crumbling away due to the unforgiving summer weather. No one had bothered to repair them, probably abandoned since the early days of Patch.

Outside of the metal barrier, I could see the impossibly-green grass and crops on all sides, forming a perfect square that could be visible for miles above the Earth’s surface. It really was a patch of life on the face of our ruined world, a hub for all of those passing through America to sustain the energy contained within.

My eyes drifted downwards to see a familiar blue jumpsuit, and before I knew it, I was stumbling my way down the many stairs of Tower Block C and throwing myself through the doors into the town centre, only to freeze and wonder why I had rushed so desperately. Maybe I just wanted answers…

Tossing an apple from hand to hand, Harry took a juicy bite and held out the other side for me, leaning against the empty vendor’s stall that he stole it from. “Hungry?”