ROTWOTA: Book 1 - The Beginning of Extinction

An Old and Lonely Friend

An entire day passed as Eric and his crew grabbed some coaches and traveled down the line while finding nothing on the area and nothing going on except for experiencing near close calls. Cody and his friends were in the vans with the workmen and it was getting very cramped with this many people in one van.

Soon enough, Eric lashed out at his crew. "Ok, this is getting out of hand, we need to stop somewhere. We've been going around for more than an entire day with no stops! And I can feel my fuel tanks getting low!" Shouted Eric.

Carter and Seth knew they were wearing their engine out and did their best to apologize, luckily resulting in Eric calming down and sighing. "Sorry you two, I didn't mean to get aggressive there. Just got mad that we haven't found or seen anyone in a while," he said.

"It's alright old boy, but it looks like a small neighborhood is somewhere around here." Said Carter. Sure enough, down the hill was a neighborhood that looked like it was still habited. "I think we should check around here somewhere." Said Seth.

Eventually, Cody, his friends and all the workmen began searching all of the houses for people to save. Most houses went by and after searching about 20 houses, none of them contained any humans that could be rescued by the survivor group.

It seemed as if while searching a house near the outskirts of the area, Cody and his friends found someone hiding in the backyard of another house. He was wearing a dirty red shirt, dirty black shorts, and looked like he had brown hair with brown eyes along with an age of what looked like 14.

However, barely anyone recognized him, but it seemed like Oliver and William knew who he was. "Hey Noah, you ok buddy?" Asked William. The boy didn't seem to respond, he just stared blankly at the ground. "You know him, you two?" Asked Jenny. "Of course, he and his sister were friends with us both long before this all started." Explained Oliver.

"Hey Noah, is Samantha alright?" Asked William. Noah just simply looked up at him and then back down to the ground, Jenny noticed a tear trickle down his right eye. "Ok, William and Emma, take him back to camp. We'll search the house." Instructed Jenny.

Once Noah was added to the list of human survivors, Cody, Jenny, Ivan and Oliver proceeded to search the entire house but nobody was to be seen. However, just as they were about to leave. They heard noises coming from below them. Ivan uncovered the rug to reveal some sort of hatch. Just then, a man opened it up to see the 4 teenagers who he presumed to be there to rescue his family.

"Everyone! Come out! There's people here!" Shouted the man. Just then, another person leaped out of the bunker and was happy to see the other survivors. Two kids and a pregnant women then followed the two men out of the bunker and house.

"Who are you all?" Asked Cody. "I'm Ian, my wife's Vanessa, our children are Zach and Mia." Said the man, who introduced his entire family to the friends. "Call me Russell and I presume you've found the other boy named Noah right?" Asked Russell. "Yeah, I was friends with him a couple years ago." Said Oliver. "Do you know why he's acting so strange?" Asked Jenny.

"Well, yesterday I went on an expedition to find survivors and supplies and bring them home where I found Russell and we were chased into an old abandoned warehouse by some sort of animal-like humans with the boy and another girl who was with them. We tried to fight them off, but they eventually captured the girl and left us alone. Noah began acting up and left the bunker this morning and I presume that you guys found them." Said Ian.

Cody and his friends fell silent, but Ivan grabbed the courage to ask their final question. "Is there anyone else here?" Asked Ivan. "Probably not, everyone started running like mice once the alarms began blaring and we managed to make it into our bunker just a few seconds before the blast. We haven't heard from any of our neighbors since." Said Ian.

After their little discussion, the family and the stranger were led back to the survivor group. That night, most of the people inside Eric and his coaches were asleep, but everyone in Cody's group except William, Emma and Jenny were still awake.

Ivan, Oliver, and Cody couldn't really sleep, they were too busy trying to figure out how to help Noah. "He's so depressed and it looks like he's kind of unstable. Maybe we could try and give him a "get well" card or something." Said Cody. "That wouldn't work, he and Samantha were really close and a simple card will not solve the problem." Explained Oliver.

"Maybe we could reason with him and tell him that she would want to keep fighting. After all, I heard it worked with you Cody." Said Ivan. Ivan was right about that since Cody was depressed about failing to save Justin but Louis made him feel better before he revealed himself to be a traitor working for the anthros.

When the three boys went over to meet with Noah, they found him standing up and staring at a small cloud of mist that was about 8 feet infront of them. The trio of boys then hid behind one of the coaches as they saw what looked like a young female anthropomorphic possum looking straight at Noah with a calm and reassuring face. "Come on brother. It's ok. I am safe. There is no need to worry, follow me and I can take you someplace safe." Said the opossum.

Noah decided to listen to her without any hesitation, it was like he didn't even know he was talking to an animal. He ended up walking away from the camp into the woods. "We gotta go after him. I'm not sure what that girl's power or magic is, but I'm sure that it cannot be good." Said Ivan.

"What not being everyone we can?" Asked Cody. "Because nobody will want to help us save him and by the time we've recruited at least 5 or 6 people they'll be long gone." Said Ivan. "He's right, we'll need to go after them now unless we want to lose him." Said Oliver.

Once they were fully prepared, the three boys ran off after Noah and the opossum.