Bottom of the food chain M.C (a.u)

Chapter 1

There weren't many women left. Most had been to weak, or had died from the sicknesses that swept across the country after the first few years of war. No one new for sure what the sickness was, but almost all the women had died from it, while the men had survived.
Not that I was a women, I was barely 16, still just a girl. When the first attacks were launched I was only 4. I had grown up in this world, and had survived. The war had gone on for 10 years, 10 treacherous years. We had no clean water, little to no food, and no shelter. The bomb shelters were destroyed and the military didn't give two shits if we were safe or not.
What was even worse was that the women that were still alive were used as toys for the men. I always had protection from my dad and brothers so it never happened to me. . But my family was dead now, they had been caught in the crossfire between the black gang and the raven gang. Now there was no army, but that didn't mean there weren't people that would take advantage of the weak
And all women were considered weak.
Are society was messed up Ganges controlled the towns and the towns were controlled by well, we weren't sure what, all we knew was that those people were 100 times worse than the gangs.

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I woke up sweating and slightly panting from the dream more like nightmare I had just woken up from. It was about my dad we had just reached Memphis when the gangs started to attack each other. It was complete chaos and there was no where to hid. But my dad managed to find a small opening that led under one of the gangs trailers. I was the only one small enough to fit through the opening, but my dad refused to let me out to come with them. My dad new that they were goners, but he also new that he had to at least had to try to get one of us out of this alive. It had been 4 years since that day and I was the only one to survive.

I started panicking, not knowing where I was at, until I remembered that I had snuck into this old abandoned garage. At least I thought it was a garage. I haven't slept in days and although I didn't like to sleep because of the nightmares I new I had to stop and rest. It was just day break once I had calmed down enough to actually pay attention to my surroundings and decided I should keep moving before anyone comes across me.

I gathered my stuff even though I had practically nothing. All I kept was my old run down book sack with two sets of clothes, a water bottle that was almost empty, a can of soup, and my bear from when I was little. I also had my dads necklace which had his initials L.M engraved into it. He always used to wear it, and he gave it to me before he put me under the building.

I needed to stop thinking about this or else I was going to break down and I can't show the slightest bit of weakness. If I do I'll have a target on my back. As I walked out of the "garage" I checked to make sure no one was there then started down the gravel road glancing around ever so often to make sure that I wasn't being followed.

After walking for about an hour I came across a old gas station that had managed to not be completely destroyed after everything that had happened. I took out my knife and warily approached the store, not making a sound, just in case someone was in their.

As I stepped through the doors I could see that most of the food was gone other than some granola bars and a bag of beef jerky. I put my knife back in my belt and then shoved the food in my bag.

As I was about to exit the store I heard a man with a deep raspy voice say "let's check the gas station there could be something left if were lucky" as soon as he said that I made a beeline for the back of the store, praying for a back door. As I searched the back I found none. What gas station doesn't have a back door I thought as I tried to come up with a place to hide.

After a few seconds I heard them walking closer and quickly ducked down so that I was out of sight. Just as one of the men was about to go down the isle I was in I got on my back and slid under the empty shelf, I had put my book sack behind another shelf so they couldn't find it. I held my breath while clutching my necklace in hopes that they wouldn't find me.

When their shoes got to where I was they stopped walking. My breath hitched as he man slowly turned around and said " Hey Johnny I think I found something". Just as I thought he had found me, I heard the crinkling sound of plastic and saw the man walk out of my isle.

I released the breath I was holding in and released the necklace from my grip.
I then heard the the same man I heard in the beginning say " whoo-e you found a chocolate bar you lucky ass". I'm not sure how I didn't see it when I first came in, but I thanked God that he didn't find me,

After a long while of the men going through the store the sounds of rustling and footsteps slowly grew fainter and fainter until I could no longer hear anything other than my breathing. After about 15 minutes I slowly got out from under the shelf and made sure that they were really gone. I decided to jog instead of walking to get to the next store or town, because of the lost time.
As I jogged I thought about how close I had been to being a deadman or should I say deadwomen.