DISCONTINUED ---- Oh, Joy

Chapter Two

Takat blinks open her eyes sleepily, getting up and stretching. A purr escapes her mouth through the sharp canines, satisfied with the squirrel she caught last night. She jumps off the branch she was sleeping on and lands softly on the forest floor, heading off towards the camp her owner, Hellila, is being held captive in. Takat's previous owner died, so she found the only living owner candidate in a 3 mile radius - Hellila, who was half-dead on a school rooftop. She still breathed, though, so that's why Takat stayed. She even smelled clean, compared to the traces of other survivors found beforehand. And she helped Takat get food, even a surplus of food occassionally. But that's occasionally.

Anyways, she climbs up a tree on the edge of the camp's clearing and rests on a branch, yellow tail flicking back and forth. The sun has barely risen, but she can still easily see Lila and pick out the zipper in the tents' fabric. Laylan is curled on a log, somehow comfortable enough to sleep. Sunlight begins to cross into the camp, and she wakes up. Takat watches amusedly as she grumbles and almost trips over the firepit, turning around and tripping over the other log. The soft snores coming from inside the tents give the information that the inhabitants are all sleeping, Laylan the only one awake.

She heads into an empty tent and comes out a few minutes later, fully awake and changed into a new outfit, a dark grey hoodie with seemingly cargo shorts, except with the light fabric of regular shorts, above her sneakers. Her hair has been brushed and set loose, the straight pieces falling across her shoulders. Lila, still tied to the tree, begins to stir. Laylan notices her and sighs, thinking to herself, What have the others done now? She walks over and pulls out a pocketknife from one of the pockets in her shorts, flicking it open. Takat watches, dangerously not too concerned of what her intentions could be.

Lila's eyes flicker open, black eyes obscured by her white hair, and she tries to use her hand to push it aside before reminded the events of the night before. Her eyes snap open fully as she spots Laylan's approaching figure through her curtain of hair, and she shakes her head to get her hair out of the way.

—

"Who are you?" the girl asks me, as I try to recall her name from the introductions earlier. That's it!

"Laylan!" She raises an eyebrow at me.

"Sorry. I am Hellila Rose. But you're Laylan!"

"Yeah, I'm Laylan. Urani told you my name?" I nod. "Do you always introduce yourself with your full name?" I pause to process this, having not realized I do that along with the fact that I have introduced myself to a total of 4 people in my entire lifetime. Or remembered lifetime. First was Takat, then Marin a while later, then Quine (or was it Tambe), now Laylan.

"Yes, I guess I do. By the way, can you lower that knife? Unless you are going to do something good with it, like go stab a rabbit for me to eat because I haven't eaten anything since Sunday." To solidify my point, my stomach growls.

"How many days ago was that? We don't keep track of dates anymore." Laylan seems genuinely interested.

"I'm not sure, but that was when I lost my phone to the creek." I admit.

"You know, I'm pretty sure the last electronic ran out of battery last year or so. What you're saying is that you haven't eaten since last year?" She seems much more laid back than I expected her to be, and more accepting of what she's told.

"Actually, I think it was a few days ago. I did find a bunch of solar-powered battery packs, so that helped a lot." Laylan nods, walking behind me while talking once more.

"Do you still have some of those battery packs?"

"Yep! They're in my backpack." I motion with my feet to the bag in front of me and stretch out my legs to grab it and pull it closer, opening the zipper with my toes. The ropes around my wrists begin to loosen slightly, but I use my feet to take out a battery pack anyways. Once Laylan finishes with my bindings, I hand her the battery, letting her examine it while stretching. Ah, there's nothing like sitting in the same position for 9 hours to get you relaxed and with no muscle cramps at all.

"You want some breakfast? I can get you some of our leftover dinner, although it will be cold." She asks. I throw my hands in the air. "Finally! Someone here is food-considerate!"

"I'll take that as a yes, then."

—

After a nice chat over breakfast with Laylan, we get dressed for the day with the clothes in our bags, putting on shoes and tying up hair. That is, Laylan puts on her shoes. I didn't wake up with shoes, and I find it uncomfortable wearing them, as I've already gotten used to walking barefoot by the time I discovered a shoe store. Even the dead leaves are less uncomfortable to step on, and I only use socks occasionally.

Laylan has a simple ponytail, and my hairstyle doesn't allow much room for tying, so I settle for braiding the shoulder-length two front pieces, the back a bob cut reaching just past my ears. The natural red has been growing out, taking up maybe half of my whole hair color, the rest being white. Apparently, I dyed my hair before I woke up.

We finished getting ready, the sun's position indicating it to be 8 o'clock, few clouds in sight. I walked a few trees away to relieve my bladder, still in but not quite in view of the clearing. I went into the clearing to find the group awake and arguing, Laylan sipping some water in a thermos on the side. I walked up to her and tapped her on the shoulder, startling her.

"Hey, Lila! I didn't see you there. What are you up to?" I pointed at the argument.

"What are they doing?"

"They found you missing from the tree and started arguing about things like 'Oh, how could she leave us like this?' and 'I knew she was untrustworthy!' and more. But you're here right now, and they don't seem to have realized that. The funny thing is, I don't think it has occurred to any of them that I might have released you. By the way, why do you bring your bag everywhere you go?" Laylan asked curiously.

"A habit, I guess. I don't usually stay in the same area for more than one night."

"Then it's probably your camps we've been crossing everywhere. I'm pretty sure you've already heard this," She adds when the argument's volume rises a level. "But do you want to join our camp? Each of us have roles, and you seem like you could help us in the hunting department." I pause to consider this, having had no time to yesterday when Alexander asked me the same thing.

After a moment, I open my mouth to respond when a silky yellow cat jumps out of the trees and lands on my head, sliding down to my shoulders. I smile and rub Takat's head, making her purr into my cheek before jumping back down and sitting while licking her paw. However, the appearance of Takat draws the attention of the arguing group, and they storm forward, finally noticing me and Laylan. Marin opens her mouth, ready to release a torrent of words likely not suitable for this book.

—

Long story short, it's been around a month of life all together and the plan is to pass the Oregon-California border tomorrow. We discuss more about the recently proposed idea by Alia, which is to look for more survivors, over a dinner of freshly caught deer. After that, we head to bed, Laylan always the one to first fall asleep in the middle of dinner.