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Chapter 1 - Where do we go now?

"Lola, wake up." A soft voice murmurs next to me.

I groan and roll over, ignoring my brother's desperate voice. He is probably hungry and so am I but I don't want to be bothered right now. I need space and time to think.

"Lola, we need to leave now."

I know he is right but I don't want to get up. I want to lie here forever and never get up again.

"Lola!"

"Shut up Josh. I don't know whether you've noticed but I was actually asleep." I huff, my voice filled with sarcasm.

"Yeah, right I can tell whether you're asleep or not because when you are, you snore like a pig," He comments.

"No I don't,"

"Do too,"

My back cracks as I sit up and turn to face Josh.

"Do not. Now shut your hole and go back to sleep." I tell him satisfied at the words as they come out of my mouth.

"But it's day time now and I'm bored," Josh whines.

I decide to ignore him and I lean back against a rock.

I breathe in too quickly and choke on the air in my lungs. Josh slaps me on the back and is rewarded with a scowl.

"I was only trying to help," Josh states and pulls a face at me. A hint of a smile crosses my face but is wiped away when my stomach starts to growl.

"I'm hungry," Josh says.

"Then find some food," I reply.

"Oh yeah, let me just pull a banquet out of my pocket and then we can tuck in."

Josh's heavily sarcastic reply makes me feel even more hungry.

"We'll have to either scavenge or hunt then," I say as if I know what I'm doing. I wish I did, I wish I knew what was going to happen to me and Josh, what was going to happen, where we were going to go and how we were going to get out of this mess. But for now I had to be the older sister and look after him.

"Get some glass from the broken window and attach it to the end of a stick and you can use that as a weapon for hunting or fishing." I say.

Josh does exactly that and sets off to hunt.

He comes back half an hour later with nothing to show for himself.

"Did you not catch anything?" I say, stating the obvious.

"Why don't you try if you think it's so easy!" Josh snaps back.

"Alright, no need to be so uptight! Why don't you go down to the river and try to catch some fish instead. I'll light a fire."

Josh stomps off and starts his downhill climb to the river.

Starting a fire is harder than I think. In movies and books they can just rub two sticks together and they have a perfect fire in front of them just like that. I start to get annoyed and throw the sticks as far away from me as possible and start to sulk.

"OOOOOWWWWW!"

My hand flies to my mouth as I realised what I have done. Shall I climb down or shall I stay and hope for the best? Just as I am deciding, an angry Josh appears, carrying five fish in his hands.

"What was that for, dummy? My head is bleeding!" Josh shouts.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't light the fire and I got annoyed. But anyway, you seem to have done well." I nod towards his hands piled with fish.

"Yeah." Josh puffs out his chest and I roll my eyes.

We light the fire with a scrap of metal and we start to cook the fish.

"Are they ready yet?" Josh asks.

"No, for goodness sake I just put them on!"

After a few minutes of impatient moaning, the fish are finally ready and we tuck in.

Both of us sit in thought as we eat and stare out at the hills surrounding us.

"Where do we go now?" I ask, even though neither of us know the answer.

Josh picks up a stone and throws it in the river and a small splash echoes around the valley.

A sudden screech that breaks into sobs makes both of us jump. I sigh and glare at Josh as he raises his hands.

"No. No way. You're the girl here so it's your job."

"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean that I have to do it." I groan but I have already made my way over to the cloth.