Children's Games: A Story of Modern Punishment

Chapter 27 - Emilia

~Emilia~

Jonny spoke without taking his eyes off the steering as they circled over the crash site. He had earmuffs on and talked to Emilia through a headset that they all shared as it was a lot noisier inside the cockpit. Regardless, he still had to shout in order for her to hear.

They were travelling to an abandoned settlement in South Carolina, renamed to Graveyard. About a year ago it had been attacked brutally by 'Eden', to recruit other survivors and demand conformity. Half of the settlement were killed while the other half escaped and travelled north to hide in Sanctuary, the New York settlement. A plane was travelling from Sanctuary to Home in order to spread the news about the new threat, as Home was the biggest settlement and represented the current governing body. Within hours of them leaving Sanctuary, they were shot down and later found to have crashed in Jacksonville. The reports were unclear about what had happened, but claimed that both attacking and escaping aircraft had crashed.

This was the first time that Eden was more than just ominous transmissions, aiming to threaten and inspire at the same time. From then on, Eden travelled from settlement to settlement, stealing away small groups of people, terrorising the remaining survivors, and inciting war. Their religious outlook on the matter was what incited the nickname Salem.

"They're not real religious people. They're just fake bastards looking to increase their claims by bringing The Bible into it. Bloody sacrilegious twats more than anything else," Jonny mumbled.

They finally landed on the doorstep of the undocumented battle between the two sides of the United States of America. The burnt trees were starting to grow back, the metal was infected with rust where the paint was peeling, and there was litter everywhere. The crash site in Jacksonville was in a stretch of nature behind a row of residential plots right on the beach. As they stepped out of the plane into the light rain, Emilia could hear the sea from where she stood and smell the salt in the air as the waves crashed nearby. The two planes both crashed pretty close to each other, their wings torn off upon impact and their cockpits littered with blackened bones and nature trying to grow through. They were in a thick grove of trees which offered some shelter from the rain, but it was still heavy enough to flood the small valley that separated the two planes.

"So... what are we doing here?" Hendrix whispered. His golden hair was darkening as it dampened, his hood not large enough to cover his extensively long hair.

"Just to look at it with fresh eyes." Jonny took the lead to be the first one to step off of the ramp and wander towards their investigation, his boots squelching through the mud as he went.

Emilia swallowed her nervousness and reminded herself that none of them had been there before and had only ever heard of the reports and maybe seen some pictures. Jonny had made an effort not to give them any information that might influence their impressions of the place. But it brought on a sense of uneasiness, none of them knowing exactly what they were looking for.

"Also," Jonny continued when he heard the others following him, "The people that came here first to sus out the crash weren't people in our Unit, and their report was incredibly fucking vague just to make it difficult for everyone. Before you ask, Loic, they died the other day so we can't ask them."

Loic shut his mouth and shrugged his hood over his head and shoulders. "I wasn't going to ask, Captain," he mumbled.

"Let's have a look around. It damn right might be useless, but even this rubbish here might have someone's name on it. We've got to start somewhere." So, they set to work.

Emilia approached one of the planes. She was used to being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it by Dominik. She quickly found that Jonny wasn't too much of a helicopter commander, and just cared about getting to the results. It was refreshing being trusted to trust her gut.