Phonetic

There's No Logic Behind a Logical Person

Foxtrot.

It takes a few hours for Uriah to finally open his eyes, and even when he does, they close again immediately and don't stir for a few more minutes, just to keep me waiting tensely on my toes.

I tear into the beef, still raw after being over the fire for an hour. It mostly just tastes of dirt and ash - dry like trying to eat sand until you reach the middle where blood fills my mouth. I swirl it around in repulsion, reluctant to swallow for a short while until I process that it's eat or starve.

Good job there's a seemingly endless supply of cows just lying around for miles. Maybe staying out here whilst the bloodbath continues in the city isn't such a bad idea? Although staying in one place, especially still so close to the city, is a titanic risk. With the top five continuously murdering, they'll be more acute by the kill, and will have no problem finding us very soon.

I wonder who else has left the city, I muse, flicking through the alphabet gathering what I know of each of them and attributes that might lead them to stray. I hope India has. By God, she'd be lost in such a scape. The countryside would suit her so much better, where she'll run - not away - just run for the fun of it.

I hope splitting was the right thing to do. My immediate thought when we were informed of the situation was that friends would stick like they're chained to each other. Us, being like sisters, would be inseparable. But, if what the Crazies said about there only being one in end is true, then one of us will have to kill each other. Or one of us would die, somehow.

I didn't want it to ever come down to the point where she would have to kill me. When I said if I saw her she'd have to kill me, I know she would never, so I made the very, very empty threat that I would her. I've never seen India quite look so astonished, and it's an expression I don't think I'll ever recover from. Imagine your older sister saying if she ever saw you again, she'll kill you. What was between India and I was a lot more complicated than sisterhood as well. It was a dependency; she kept me innocent, to some degree. She always saw the more light-hearted side of things, and was very naive to the reality we were gradually all coming to come to grips with. She never understood that the Crazies were crazy, and that being fuelled like machines with Valens was definitely not normal. But she reminded me that we're just children, and children need that sparkle of fun.

I, on the other hand, could be seen maybe more as a mother than a sister. She's the youngest, only just being sixteen, and myself being eighteen meant I lean towards the other end. She was very lonely, and didn't learn to how speak for a long time. India... often saw things that weren't really there as well. Would carry out entire conversations with thin air and watch blank spaces as if they were filled with motion, and this isolated her. It never really bothered me, and I played with her and more or less taught her to read since she couldn't keep with our classes.

It wasn't easy for her of all people, but it's not what I imagine is considered a great life on the outside. Aside from all the injections and testing to see its effects, we were taught how to fight and shoot, because our original purpose was to be improved human beings, and the best use for such a thing would be war. What kind of influence would Valens have over a sniper? Improved eyesight and other senses, better reaction time, adaptability. Over a ground soldier? Improved speed and strength plus all the bonuses that come with using a gun. Imagine if soldiers learnt how to dodge bullets, for example.

We were just the experiments.

And then we had the learn to read, write, add, multiply, divide. All the basics were taught to us by the Crazies and for the ones who could keep up, beyond. So we were only there for one purpose, so why would they really need to teach us anything apart from your everyday use general knowledge? I was one of the rare few who continued on with the advanced classes because I wanted to be something more than just a drug-fuelled guinea-pig. Echo and I were always two who depended almost wholly and utterly on our intelligence for everything. When we were eventually hit with the reality that we couldn't keep up with the top four, we developed our own ways, just like with avoiding bullets.