Annihilation

Last Chance

Back to the waiting game, Yoongi and I spent our days playing card games, bickering over our favorite music and in the woods hunting for food so that we were able to stay longer. We became close, so many days passing with just the two of us that sometimes I imagined it'd stay this way and that somehow we'd make that okay.

Yoongi had been out longer than usual, out to hunt at first light. It was now dusk and I started to worry, both of us having agreed to return by sunset every day.

He always increased the sound of his step so that I knew he was coming. I stood at the kitchen counter, preparing a can of vegetables and splitting it in two small bowls. We were down to our last bit of food, going as long as we could without eating and having just enough to sustain us until the next meal.

The exasperated sigh he released upon opening the door told me that it was another day of scarcity. It was rare that we came upon a live animal nowadays, only the occasional squirrel or rabbit to share.

He kicked off his boots and slouched onto the couch just as I came in with our dinner, looking down at the small bowl with an expression of defeat and setting his bowl on the table.

"Alena, we need to move on from here." He turned his attention to me, my face halfway hidden in my bowl.

It only took minutes to eat, so I scarfed down my food before replying. "Let's give it a few more days." I negotiated. I was still holding on to the possibility that the rest of them would show up on the doorstep just as Yoongi had.

"We only have a little food left. I know you want to wait for them but it's been weeks." His sternness grew as I argued against him.

"Sure, if you don't include the fact that it stormed all last week. That probably got in the way so they had to take shelter for a while." I retorted.

He grabbed his bowl, setting it in his lap and reaching for the maps we kept folded underneath the table, placing them on top. "Listen, I respect you and what you want, but I need to keep you safe, and you aren't safe if we don't have food." He conveyed his insistence through his gaze.

I wanted nothing more than to protest, a small pout on my lips as I took a deep breath, a huff that showed my disappointment.

"Hey, we'll need to go back to the stream for water one more time before we do anything else. So we'll have tomorrow at least." He made an attempt at easing my dismay, but the chances of tomorrow being any different felt miniscule.

When I didn't speak he sifted through and opened a couple of the maps, staring at them before spreading them across the coffee table. "We'll be smart about it. I think we have two options. We can go to the closest major city, Richmond, but big cities have rarely been good places to find safety for us. With either choice we'd be going to a decent sized city. It's just that Richmond is bigger, but it's possible that the others would also think to go there since it's the capital." He unfolded the map another time so that it displayed both Virginia and North Carolina. "But I think it's more likely that they'd go to Chapel Hill."

I leaned over to get a better look at the map, touching the city and home of the university where Shelby taught, tracing my finger up across the border to our location.

"It's over one hundred and fifty miles, but it's the one place we all talked about going next." He shared. "Namjoon thought we should keep moving south if we had to leave the prison. He said if we were ever headed toward North Carolina we should go to Chapel Hill to let you look for any sign of Shelby. We could take the bike as far as we can, maybe find more gas and food along the way. If we run out we'll continue on foot." He raised his brows, seeking my approval as he explained.