No Escape From Reality

How Are You?

(I have irish slang in here. So remember: Sound means "cool" and "reliable" and stuff like that!:p)

It's been two months. Yes, two months. That's how long we've been here. I've had to rest most of the time because of my ankle, but I'm okay now. Cry and I are out, hunting for food. The food hall we used for supplies has finally run out. We were told that there was another food hall nearby, but we don't know how dangerous the area is, or if it's occupied. I hear the crackle of our walkie talkies. "Hello? (Y/n)?" I hear Pewds' voice say. "What's up?" I reply. He chuckles and says, "Shawn says if you can find any chocolate, bring it back for him." I laugh. Cry looks at me weirdly, too occupied to listen to what Pewds said. "Shawn wants chocolate," I giggle. He nods. We walk on, noticing a small café on our right. "It won't have many supplies, but it still might have some," I say, biting my lip. My stomach growls. Cry laughs. "Well, you can eat whatever you want when we get it." I look at him. "That means I get first dibs!?" I say excitedly. He nods. "Yes, milady." We laugh and jog over to the café. It looks familiar. "Ug, there's a huge pile of wood and shit, can we skip this one?" I say. Cry shakes his head. "If I'm correct, there is definitely food in there." I don't complain. Shawn's been getting skinny. I need to train him with my axe, but I can't with him on a empty stomach. Cry borrows my axe to clear away the rubble. I look around, to see if there's anything useful. I spot a shovel about 10 yards away. I can run there in back without him noticing. I prepare myself, as if I'm running in a race. I dash as fast as I could to the shovel, grab it, and run back. Unfortunately, I trip and faceplant into the shovel.Cry looks up from his work, notices me and he's by my side in minutes. I've taught myself not to cry when I get injured. I get up, ignoring the pain coming from my nose. "Dammit (Y/n)! Can you not get injured for once?" Cry says, sighing. I shrug. He looks at my nose. "I don't think it's broken, just bruised." I wipe my nose with my hand and see blood. I curse. The walkers might smell it. "We better get in fast." I say. Cry takes the shovel and starts working on the rubble. It takes about ten minutes to clear it all away. When we walk in, I smell rotten flesh. In the corner of the room, there was a dead Witch. "Haven't seen one of them in a while," Cry says. It reminds me of the time a Boomer from the same game wandered near our camp. Luckily we were able to kill it before it attracted any walkers. "I think I've been here before," I say. Cry nods. "We have. This is the place we found Clementine." I think for a moment. "Then, if i'm correct, there is food..." I rush to the bathroom, "In here." I go to the last stall. I look at all the blank tiles and I try to remember how many tiles across and down it was to get the food. I think it was.... four? I try it but the tile was wedged in tight. I go to grab my walkie talkie to get Clementine, but when I pull it out, it's broken. Gosh Damn me and my clumsiness! "Um, Cry?" I say timidly.

"Yeah?"
"Can I borrow your walkie talkie?"

"Why? You have your own."

"Well about that.."

"Yes?"
"It's kinda broken."
I hear him sigh and come over to the stall I was in. "Don't break mine." I take it from him. "Hello?" I say into the mic. "Yep?" I hear Toby's voice. "Can I speak to Clem?" I say. I hear him shout her name and her voice comes on. "Yeah Cry?" she says. "Oh, it's (Y/n)," I say to her. "Remember when we found you and you had that secret stash of food in the tiles?" "Yeah?" "What was the number again?" It goes quiet for a moment and she says, "Five!" I thank her and give back the walkie talkie to Cry. I count the tiles and remove the tile. In it was a feast. I take off my backpack and empty the stash into my bag, making sure I have chocolate. I take out a pack of toffees and eat them, savouring the taste. Cry laughs at me. "Ready?" My mouth was full so I just nod. We make our way out of the café and back to camp.

***

As soon as we walk back into camp we feel everyone staring at us. Everyone knew we were gone out for food. If we don't be careful, someone will snatch the bag before we can give it to Jamie. "Look sad," I whisper to Cry. "How can I? I have a mask," he says to me, making me laugh. Everyone stares at me. I instantly stop, trying to look sad. We make it to the kitchen area. Jamie looks at us seriously. I nod. He nods back solemnly and heads into a tent. We follow. When we walk in he loses his seriousness and acts like his usual self. "So, what did you find?" he asks. "Actual food this time?" I laugh. Last time we didn't find anything. We felt bad having to walk back empty-handed and we found a live bird. I was with Toby at the time and he shot it with a crossbow. "What? Meat is meat." he said to me. We just said it was chicken. I smile. "Yep, real food this time." I reach for my bag and open it up. Before I empty it I hide two chocolate bars in my secret pocket. It was only between me and Cry. If anyone knew that I had one and didn't share I would be killed. It's an unspoken rule, "All food items must be returned to the kitchen or execution." But the bastards in charge of camp would just say natural causes. Or a walker or some other video game creature sneaked it's way in, when in reality your "friends" would have snuck into your tent at night and would have slit your throat and shot a bullet in your head. And it doesn't help that we, meaning Cry, Toby, Me and Pewds, have to stop a machine. We have like a "protected" status. It just makes people hate us more. The only people who don't hate us are Jamie, My family and most fans of the Youtubers. I empty the bag to reveal veg, fruit and other snacks. "I could only find hot dogs, so not much meat for a few days unless we go hunting." I say. Jamie smirks. "Well, I don't think people will keep fooling over "chicken"," he says sarcastically. "Well it's all we got." I say, gritting my teeth. Cry sees the tension between us. "Look, we've got to survive, so meat is meat, okay? Plus we've got a deal going, remember that Jamie." Jamie grits his teeth. "Fine. I'm just saying, they're not going to fall for "chicken" every time." Ugh, Jamie can be sound, but he can really get on my nerves. He takes his pick, a few apples here, a bag of crisps there. He puts them in his bag and puts the rest of the food in the safe. Yep, we have to put food in a safe nowadays. That's how bad it's gotten. I seriously don't know where they get everything, neither does everyone else, but I'm thankful it's there. I cover the zip to my secret pocket on my bag with a scrap of material to make it look like it was just a hole and leave the tent. Cry follows. I walk on until I bump into our camp leader, Lilly. Another campmate, Kenny, fights all the time with her. I respect both of them though. Kenny has a son and wife to take care of and Lilly's dad died before we met. All I know is that Kenny and Lilly were part of a group before ours. "Oh, Hey Lilly." I say, smiling. I smile at everyone nowadays. It makes most people happy. She smiles back briefly. "Did you get any food?" she asks urgently. I gesture towards the tent. "Have a look yourself." She goes into the tent for a moment and comes back out. I can see her trying to hide a huge smile, so it was a small smile. "That's great! Not a lot of meat though, but we could easily find a substitute." she hugs me, which scares the shit outta me. Since when was Lilly a huggy person? She pulls away. "(Y/n), I just want to say, thanks, for everything." I smile at her. "It's okay, I need to help the camp." I walk back to my tent. Cry lingers back to talk to Lilly. I climb into my tent to see Shawn curled up sleeping. Well, he should be, it's like eight o'clock in the morning. "Hey Shawn, wake up, I got you and I a chocolate bar,"he wakes up, looking at me tiredly. I hand him a Aero Mint bar. He wrinkles his nose. "I don't like them! I like that one," he says pointing at the Bounty bar. (A/N If no one knows those chocolate bars an Aero Mint is a mint choc bar filled with BUBBLES ^O^ and a Bounty is a choc bar with coconut filling.) I laugh, thinking it's a joke. "Since when did you like Bounty?" I ask him. He takes a huge bite and says, "I've always have. Don't you know me well enough?" Now, if this was just my best friend, I would have laughed, but this was Shawn. This comment hurt me so bad that I didn't want any chocolate. "I'll share it with the lads." Shawn laughs at me and my irish slang. I leave Shawn and head for Pewds' tents. "Hey Pewds-" I walk into Pewds tent to see Pewds shirtless. I back away as fast as I can. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry I should've knocked-" "How can you knock on a tent?" Pewds comes out with a shirt on. Awh, he looked kinda good shirtless. I laugh. "Yeah, I guess so. Can we go into your tent for a minute?" I say. "Yeah sure!" he says, climbing into the tent. I go in to see Pewds kick a t-shirt off the sleeping bag. "Sorry it's, uh, dirty I wasn't expecting, uh, visitors," he blushes. He looks cute when he blushes. "Haha no problem, I just have something to share," I say, opening my bag. When I take out the chocolate, Pewds looks like he's about to scream. I clamp my hand around his mouth just incase he does. "Don't. Say. A. Word." I say seriously. Pewds, not used to seeing me being serious, shuts up immediately. I remove my hand and open the wrapper. "Where did you get it!?" he whisper-shouts at me. "We hit a gold mine. I don't think they'd miss a chocolate bar." I break off a few squares and throw them to Pewds. He catches them and pops them into his mouth. "Awh, I'm in heaven," he says. I break off a few squares for me and put the chocolate bar away. Pewds gives me the puppy dog eyes. "No, I'm saving some for Toby and Cry." I get up hug Pewds. "Bye!" I wave, and make my way to their tents. Clem stays with Toby. They also give me the same reaction as Pewds, but they don't say anything because its, well, chocolate. I walk in the direction of my tent until a sack goes over my head and someone grabs my arms. I try to kick my kidnapper but I fail. I start to scream, but it results with him pulling the sack off my head and putting tape over my mouth. I'm certain I can hear running footsteps but I'm not sure. My captor throws me onto his/her shoulder and starts jogging. "Nick, we got the girl, some guy came to help her but Ellis knocked him out," the captor's voice says. "Okay Coach, the man might be helpful too," A man's voice, probably Nick's, says. We seem to be jogging towards... something. "Hey Rochelle! Let us in!" "Coach" says. "Rochelle" opens (I'm guessing) a door and I'm thrown on the floor. The sack is removed and I see my captors. I'm placed on a chair and my hands are untied. I use this valuable time to attack the man who's tying me with my fingernails. He was wearing a white suit with a blue shirt. I leave three long scratch marks on his face. He re-ties my hands. A woman, probably Rochelle, comes over with a health kit. She wraps a bandage over his face. "Thanks Rochelle," he says. "No prob Nick," she instantly replies. Another man gets another chair and places it beside me. "Hey Coach! Bring in the other guy." he shouts. "Coach" carries in a man with a Tobuscus shirt on. I smile, but then realises he is the one with the fricking crossbow! Gosh Dammit! Only Cry and Pewds, with their axe and a crowbar, can save us. Great. I hear muffled "Do you know who I am!?" coming from his face-sack before it's removed. "Okay, answer the questions and you'll be okay. Who are you and what is happening in your camp?" Nick asks me. In response I spit in his face. He slaps me. Toby wiggles his eyebrows at me. It was part of our secret language. I sigh. "My name is Poppy Clearwater," I say, trying to sound careless, "And this is Jack Browning, my boyfriend." Toby blushes. Wiggling eyebrows means make up a name and backstory. We did it originally for fun to trick newcomers but it looks like it came in useful. So he had no idea what I was gonna say. "Well, Poppy," this Nick says, "Do you know these people?" he holds up a picture of Cry, Pewds, Me and Toby. I guess they didn't recognise us. The pictures were taken before the place went to shit.Since then I cut my hair into a while Toby had a thin scar running from his upper lip to just under his eye from the time we got attacked by a Bro. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you," I say smartly. Nick grabs my face roughly. "Look you little runt, you'll tell us where these people are and how to get to them." Coach comes into the room. "Hey Nick, why don't you leave them? We did just pretty much kidnap them needlessly." Nick gives him a glare, and Coach raises his hands defensively. "Just saying, that if they knew that we aren't threats, they'd help us, you know?" he leaves the room. Nick sighs. "I guess he's right." he leaves the room, leaving me and Toby still tied up to the chair. "So, boyfriend?" Toby wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and bursts out laughing at my reaction. "Joking! Joking!" he says, unable to control his laughter. I laugh with him. "Do they really think we'll tell them and trust them when they literally threw a sack over our heads and ran off with us?" I say. Toby shrugs. "I guess so. But they want to go home too. Because we both know "those" people are the only ones that can help." I'm confused that he said "those people" until I realise. They are probably listening to our conversation. I wriggle uncomfortably. I hear the door creak and see the woman- Rochelle was it?- with a tray of something.She loosens our restraints enough so we could move our arms. She then takes two plates off the tray and gives it to us. I eye it suspiciously. "It's just chicken soup, thought you might be hungry." She says, before leaving the room. Toby, being oblivious to the fact that it might be suspicious, digs in straight away. I would too, my body being as skinny as it is, but I don't trust some strange girl. I go against all my instincts to cram it into my mouth.Toby looks at me. "Honestly (Y/n), it's good, not poisoned or drugged." I shake my head and just watch Toby eat. When he finishes, Rochelle comes in to take the bowl. She looks at me surprisingly. "Not hungry?" I shake my head. "Well, I'll leave it in here then, incase you get hungry," she says. She leaves. I think we'll be here for a while.