Sunshine streams through my eyelids, waking me up. It was only dawn but I could feel the air getting warmer by the second. I awoke to the sound of Cameron’s shallow breathing beside me; he was all cleaned up and smelt strangely like rosemary. I couldn’t exactly remember falling asleep last night, after Cameron had left to have an icy bath, I just rested on the log until the fire had slowly faded and disappeared; I expect Cameron had found me and carried me back to his sleeping back.
My body was pressed tightly against his as this bag was made for one but it kind of comforted me, being so close. I rested my head against him and was still, I could feel his chest rising and falling. Cameron’s eyes were shut and his mouth hanging slightly open; it gave him a very serene look, like he was so peaceful.
I just sat there for hours in silence until the sun was high up in the sky, indicating that I should get things moving and cook some breakfast. Quietly getting up and removing myself for Cameron’s tight grasp, I prepare breakfast for everyone, carrots and grapes, my favourite; not the best combination but it’s good enough for the rest of us. I go in search for some leaves in the forest, I scale trees until I find some big and clean enough to be suitable as plates; we obviously didn’t pack any cutlery as it’s not necessary and that is what hands are for, aren’t they?
When everyone is ready and prepared, I arouse Jesse, he smacks my hands away from his face, he was definitely not a morning person, Jesse preferred to stay up the night and sleep in the morning.
“Wakey Wakey Jessica” I stifle my laughs as he mumbles so cuss words at me, he hates being called Jessica, it’s one of his only weaknesses.
One by one, his eyelids pop open and he kills me with his looks, I am probably the most annoying sister anyone one could ever have. It takes a while for Jesse to get up so by the time he is actually all packed up again and eating, I have already woken up all the kids.
The group eat in silence, all the kids have solemn faces and some of their eyes are red from crying, no one even notices grandpa.
“So...” I say, breaking the intense silence “I suggest we keep moving, up the mountains”. Most of the kids just ignore my small talk but a few nod in my direction. All the adults agree.
Once we’ve all eaten until our stomachs were almost exploding, we quickly pack up our sleeping bags and all our belongings. Jesse is yawning, still tired, no wonder he is, all he does is stay up until midnight. Luckily for me, Cameron seems to be in good moods in the morning. He greets me with a smile.
“Hey Thorny”
“Stop calling me that!” I shove him and he stumbles and lands his butt straight in the wet snow, making it look like he had peed himself. “Told you not to mess with me” I stick my tongue out and rush to give Bethany a morning hug.
Joseph as it turns out, didn’t break his leg but just badly twisted/ sprained it. Jesse reckons he won’t be able to walk for a week but he’ll be fine after that, this was such a relief to hear, I didn’t want to lug around the kid for six weeks, it would drastically slow down the whole group. Jesse was the only one who volunteered to carry him, he was the strongest after all if you exclude Grandpa but he was still half asleep most of the morning, I guess hating mornings run in the family for boys.
“So where are we going?” I ask all the elders in the group while the kids are doing some last-minute checking to make sure they haven’t forgotten anything.
“I don’t know... We should head towards the mountains and seek shelter then eventually we could try to get over to Canada, I don’t know if that’s possible though, I bet those robots are heavily guarding the borde-“Jesse is suddenly cut off by Cameron.
“They don’t” we all turn to look at him curiously while Grandpa is still eyeing him as if he’s some kind of axe murderer about to kill. He smiles nervously. “Oh I just heard about it during my travels...” We then all turn our attention away from him.
“Well we better get going then kids” Grandpa scolds us jokingly and ruffles Jesse’s hair before quietly whispering in my ear “I still don’t trust that kid, Cameron, there’s something very odd about that boy...” and before I can make a comeback, he rushes forward to the head of the group.
The snow had been falling very heavily over the past few days but we were lucky to have a snowless day the day we left the town, the day of the bombings, the day that I will remember every day for the rest of my life. The snow around where we had taken shelter on was all trodden and muddy but as we headed into unfamiliar territory, the snow slowly became a large blanket of white. It was still dangerously cold and I made sure that everyone had wrapped up warmly as I didn’t want to have to deal with a case of frost bite or hypothermia.
We were probably outside town territories by now, I had never been so deep in the woods; the ground increasingly became steeper and harder to walk up to. The trees loomed over our head, covering much of the sunlight that would warm us. The trees were spread out so evenly, their thin, wispy branches swept out towards us like bony fingers.
It was terrifying, I clung tightly to Cameron’s coat, almost choking him but he didn’t mind; he stood strong and kept at the front of the group with the slim black gun in his hands, Jesse had handed it to him because he was the only one besides himself who he could trust with it and he knew that Cameron would sacrifice his own life to save me. Jesse had offered me a gun but I refused it, I couldn’t touch the thing without shaking furiously so I thought it was safer that I didn’t possess the weapon.
For hours on end we trekked through the endless forest until my calves burnt like they were on fire; by lunch time I felt like a weak piece of lettuce, I couldn’t go any further and collapsed to my knees on the wet snow, making the whole of my lower body soggy and wet.
“Lunch break everyone!” Jesse shouted to the group. They all sat down and sighed with relief, I wasn’t the only one who wanted a rest so I did them all a favour. We all went off into our own groups, the kids split of into two, Jesse and Grandpa walked off while Cameron laid a picnic blanket on the snow. We were all spread out evenly over the area with only several tries scattered around us. It was fairly quiet except you could hear the sounds of the wind howling and the lively forest full of busy animals.
My hands shivered as I reached into Cameron’s backpack and took out two turkey sandwiches, my mouth craved for the juicy flavour of the meat and my throat yearned for some liquid to go slithering down it. I handed Cameron the larger portion of sandwiches and I gulped down my whole tank of water until there was literally nothing left. So much better...
We ate in silence but I somehow had wedge next to Cameron, eventually laying my head on his lap while he stroked my hair with one hand and ate with the other. I looked towards the forest as I stuffed my mouth full of food.
Then I saw a pair of eyes, yellow eyes. It became bigger until I could see a face, furry and white. The creature rose until it stood more than six feet tall. I knew what it was.
“Bear! Bear!” I screamed, the animal roared at the alarm in my voice and came running full speed towards us, its eyes set on me. I closed my eyes and waited for impact but I forced them back open again, Cameron jumped straight in front of me. No! The bear was going to hurt him!
“Nooooo!”
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Lost But Not Forgotten (NaNoWriMo 2013)
Science FictionApril Thorne is a normal teenage girl. But she lives in a very extraordinary world. Earth has been at war with human-thirsty A.I for more than 5 years and it has caused unimaginable destruction. With the human species very nearly extinct, April...