promises made, kept, and broken

Chapter 3: Radios are an awesome invention...

Ranboo and Michael are up early in the morning and leave the cinema. Michael is walking in front of Ranboo looking around curiously. Ranboo has told him that it's okay if he does this. He just has to be careful and listen. And the kid does exactly that. Ranboo is surprised at how well Micheal is handling the situation. But then he reminds himself that Michael grew up during the apocalypse. Ranboo is tense. He has a bad gut feeling. So he has his hand always near his knife.

"Michael, do me a favor and come back," he says and looks around.

Michael immediately turns around and runs back to him.

"What is going on?" Michael asks as he reaches him.

"Just a bad feeling. Let's leave the city center and look for stuff in the outskirts. Okay?" he looks down.

Michael nods and stays next to him the entire way to the outskirts.

After a while, Michael speaks up: "Why aren't you with your friends?"

"We got separated in a city and I got injured. So I couldn't follow them. And now I just have to find them," Ranboo explains to him.

"Oh. Was it bad?" Michael asks.

"What do you mean?"

"The injury."

Ranboo nods: "Yeah. It was. But it's fine now."

Michael nods and stops. "Can we take a break?"

"Yeah of course," Ranboo says and sits down on the curb. He places his backpack on the floor in front of him careful not to damage the crossbow.

"What is that?" Michael asks while pointing at the crossbow.

"It's a crossbow. It shoots bolts and works pretty good to kill the monsters," Ranboo explains.

"That's cool," Michael says. "Can I have a weapon as well?" he then asks.

Ranboo gets caught off guard by that question. It's logical, that the kid wants to have a weapon to defend himself. But giving Michael a weapon at, what is he 5? That's not a good idea. So he shakes his head. "Not yet."

Michael lets his head hang a bit but nods. "So you protect me all the time?"

"I will. Just like I promised you yesterday," Ranboo answers.

"Okay," Michael says and takes a bottle of water out of his backpack.

After half an hour, they continue their way to the outskirts of the city. The wind is blowing leaves off the trees and rustling through the ones already on the ground. It's getting colder. Ranboo makes a mental note to look for clothing stores once they reach the outskirts. Michael definitely needs some winter clothes, and he also needs a new jacket himself.

"Michael? What are the rules for going inside stores and malls?" Ranboo asks.

"Stay close to you. Don't run off. And don't make loud noises," Michael repeats the rules Ranboo told him.

Ranboo nods. "Exactly." He looks if there are any helpful stores in sight. The bad feeling that something is off had left his body a while ago, so why not look for useful stuff here?

He eventually finds a small shopping center and takes out his knife. Michael immediately grabs his free hand. Ranboo didn't tell him to do that, but it's probably for the better. Because he doesn't want to lose someone else. It might be selfish, but being alone, like totally alone, with no one to talk to alone really sucks. And he knows his chances to find the others are getting lower every day. But he doesn't want to give up, the pendant laying on his chest reminding him not to. If he were a person who curses he would curse on the situation. Like Tommy always does.