Maybe

Chapter 6

We woke up at the break of dawn the next day and we were still in the same position. I noticed that my joints weren't stiff from the cold, which was already an upside to the whole team situation.

"Morning." Ethan said in a groggy morning voice

"Morning." I said

Ethan let me loose from his arms and I crawled out of the fort and into the crisp morning air. My stomach growled and I walked over to my dwindling food stash. I picked up two cans of beans from the top of the pile and walked over to start a fire. I had hope that the heavy fog would conceal most of the smoke and I didn't feel like eating cold beans again. I gathered a few twigs from the perimeter of my camp and reached into my backpack for my fire starting supplies. I pulled out a pencil sharpener, flint, and steel. I went to work on grinding my sticks in the pencil sharpener to make kindling and when I had enough I set a fire using the flint and steel. By the time Ethan crawled out of the fort, I had a full blown fire.

"Wow! How did you start it that fast?" He asked in astonishment

"Practice makes perfect." I said

He came to sit next to me on the single log next to the fire and I handed him his can of beans. After roasting them for a while, we ate our breakfast, thankful to have full bellies for once. I stamped out the fire and we discussed where we should go to get water.

"We need to find some sort of stream or lake or something." I said

"I don't know, the only streams I have found have been pretty contaminated. They are definitely not safe to drink." He said

"Don't worry about that part, we just need to find the water." I said confident in my abilities to make clean water

After about 2 hours of walking, we made it to the stream Ethan was talking about. Well, the water was definitely disgusting, but we filled up every container that we could find anyway. After filling up our water bottles we made the trek back to our camp. I immediately sat down, with Ethan beside me, by the fire to figure out how to purify the water.

"Have you done this before?" He asked

"Yeah, but I haven't for a while. I used to be a Girl Scout and we learned this stuff all the time." I answered

It was way too bright out to light a fire now; the advantage of the fog had left us. The last time that I had drunk anything was about 3 days ago and I couldn't wait until morning to light a fire. I remembered something from outdoor survival education in Girl Scouts about purifying water, but I had never tried it. I reached into my backpack and pulled out charcoal and a thin scrap of material. I filled the material with a layer of charcoal, sand, rocks, sand, and more rocks. I placed an empty water bottle under the material to catch the clean water and began the process as Ethan watched mesmerized.

"Hey, can you pour the water in here?" I pointed to the material

"Um, sure?" He said as he picked up the dirty water bottles

He poured the water over the sand and gravel and pure clean water flowed into the water bottle.

"What? That is insane!" He said

We continued to fill up all of our water bottles and drink until we couldn't hold any more water.
I felt for the first time, happy. I was happy to have water, happy to be alive, and happy to have Ethan. As we sat that night around the unlit campfire eating our dinner of beans, a thought occurred to me.

"Hey Ethan?" I asked

"Yeah?" He asked turning to face me
"We have to find a new place to make camp tomorrow." I said

"What? Why? What's wrong with this place?" He asked

"We are too exposed here, I want to find maybe a safe house or something. We have to be somewhere that isn't so easy to get attacked." I said

"Ok, well I guess that makes sense. I don't want another run in with a walker." He said

"Me neither. So it's settled, we will leave tomorrow at dawn and look for a house." I said

"Sounds good." He said as he smiled at me

After our unappetizing dinner, we crawled into our makeshift fort. We automatically turned to face opposite directions. I awoke in the middle of the night freezing. I was shaking and my teeth were chattering. I heard Ethan wake up and shift positions.

"Olivia? Are you ok?" Ethan asked

"Yeah I'm fine, I'm just really cold." I said through clenched teeth

Ethan automatically turned around and instructed me to do the same. Again I was in the same position as he might before, wrapped in his arms, my head resting on his chest. I found myself falling asleep immediately after.