So I've managed to get a little more done (: this bit is dedicated to Kristina as not only is she an awesome person and a wizard, I'm pretty sure she's the only one reading this story haha (: This is to say thanks for her enccouragement (: and if anyone else is reading - thankyou too <3
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The further we went, the stranger things appeared to be. Houses had been abandoned with doors left wide open, and inside things had been knocked over, broken, destroyed. I wondered if the owners had left by choice, fleeing at the first sign of lights in the sky, to take their families far away from here, or if they had been dragged out of their houses screaming, by creatures with guns and no patience.
Eric must’ve noticed me looking nervous as he came up beside me, putting a hand on my arm.
“We’re close now, won’t be long before we get to them.”
“I know,” I smiled “I was thinking about other things I suppose. All the people who used to be around here.”
“Come on.” He led me gently behind the building opposite the school.
“Joshua,” Skylar breathed. “He works over there, in the book shop.” She had already begun to march out into the road before Kate grabbed her by the sleeve of her jumper.
“Hold on,” Sam cautioned, peering around the street nervously. “If we go to the book shop first, with Skylar, we can get a good vantage point to enter the school.”
We all nodded and followed Skylar across the street in a loose cluster, trying to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible. The whole area was so deserted it seemed there was no single living thing around, so I found it hard to believe Joshua would still be in the shop. However, this thought led me to wondering if my brother would still be at the school or if he’d been taken already. I started to tremble. Alana took my hand and we made it to the door way of ‘Jackson’s Books’.
Skylar had lost no hope; she swung open the door and began calling Joshua’s name, and when he didn’t reply, she only moved towards the back of the shop, shouting louder. I exchanged a look with Alana, wondering how to deal with this situation; at what point did we tell Skylar that it was time to give up?
Then we heard the sound of wood scraping across the floor and the door to the back room slowly opened. A head appeared on the other side, with dark brown hair, almost shoulder length.
“Sky?” he hesitated before swiftly moving out of the room and gripping Skylar’s waist fiercely.
“Joshua!” she grinned. “I knew you’d still be here!”
“When I couldn’t get in touch with you I thought you’d been taken.” He looked away from her, clearly distressed. “So we hid out in the back room, blocked the door and tried to wait them out. Looks like they’re not going anywhere though.”
“I was taken! They took me into the shopping centre but I escaped with these people,” she paused, “who’s we?”
A girl appeared in the same doorway Joshua had come from, standing behind the chest of draws that had obviously been the door jam. She had electric blue hair and a lip ring. She was quivering furiously.
“Only Maisie and me made it to the back.” Joshua explained, before Skylar captured his mouth with a kiss, relieved at their reunion.
“Let’s get over to the school before we miss our chance.” Eric cut in. The two of us were already moving towards the exit, anxious to find out the whereabouts of our siblings. Maisie hesitantly moved towards Skylar who took her hand and began to move with us.
Sam disappeared into the back room, emerging moments later with a torch and some rope, whilst Skylar introduced us all to Joshua as her new friends
. “Just supplies,” Sam said, gesturing to his new found bounty. “Anything I could find; you don’t know what we might need.” Then he went to check the street for any signs of movement outside, our whole group gathered behind him, waiting as we tried to figure out our next move.
