TreeTops

Chapter 5

"Oh, yes!" I said, laughing to the point of tears.

"Tell me more funny stories! You're great Jay." Said Aaron, smiling.

"I think we've had enough stories," I said, smiling at him. "Tell me about you, Aaron."

"Oh, well... I'm not sure." He said.

"Please!" I begged.

"Fine, fine!" He said. "When I finally 18, I obviously got chosen for- What's that sound?"

We heard banging outside, and then the rushing of people, crying and screaming, I stood up out of my stool and peered out of the window.

"Bombing!" Shouted Aaron, as he pulled me back behind the counter, we ducked down.

"What's going on!?" I screamed.

"It's a bombing! TreeTops does this when they are bored. They enjoy war!" He replied.

"What?" A bomb landed right on the bakery in front of us. I grabbed onto Aaron's arm for reassurance and he nodded at me, we stood up, hand in hand, and bolted, through the bombs, by this time my hat had fallen off and my clothes were dirty, but that didn't matter anymore. We ran for the tubes.

"OPEN IT JAY!" He shouted.

I placed my finger on the fingerprint scanner and it opened we ran into the cramped space.

"Wher-e a-re you going today Jay Danielle." Said the robotic voice, glitching as bombs neared us.

"TreeTops!" Shouted Aaron.

"I CAN'T GO THERE! IM BANNED!" I screamed at him. "WE WILL EXPLODE WHEN WE GET TO THE TOP."

"WHAT!?" Aaron said. "TRANSPORT FLOOR!"

The tube stopped, and then bolted downward. As we zoomed past The Branches, I saw Noah, lifeless, lying on the floor. Dead. He must have been hit. It didn't matter to me that much, I had only known him a day.

The tube finally stopped, requesting for my print again. I printed and we stepped out.

"Oh my god," I said, as I stared out onto the dock. The ocean, the outside world. Outside of The Tree. "It's the real world!"

"I know," Aaron said, overtook by how beautiful the water was. "Duck!"

He pulled me down behind a crate, as a truck zoomed past us, the hovering blue lights underneath it moving it from one place to another, a hover-car.

"What do we do now?" I whispered.

"We board a ship," Aaron replied. "Branch 7 is destroyed. We can't go back." He paused again. "You saw Noah, right?"

I didn't say anything at first but then he nudged me. "Yes," I finally said. "He's dead."

Aaron shook his head. "Okay, look, when a ship comes into the docks, we board it. We're going to The States."

After the 5th civil war the 'United States of America', the 'United States' became The States. America is no longer United. In fact, they dropped the name America altogether, like The Tree dropped Britain.

"Are you crazy?!" I said, shaking my head at him, "Besides, I've only just met you, how can I trust you?"

"You're right, you can't exactly trust me... But you can trust that I want to help you...?" He said as if he didn't even know what he was talking about.

I laughed. "Okay. Fine, we'll board."

"You must be tired.. here," He said as he set out his jacket on the floor for me to lie on, I wanted to accept his kind gesture because I was tired out of my mind, but I could bring myself to it.

"No, it's fine," I said as I tried to lift his jacket up.

"Just sleep, I will wake you when the ship comes in." He said.

I sighed and laid down onto the jacket, it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world but it was better than nothing, it was also incredibly kind for him to give up his own warmth for my comfort. Soon, I felt my eyes drooping, then suddenly, Aaron was trying to wake me up.

"Jay, Jay!" He said, shaking me.

"Huh?" I said, startled.

"You sleep like a rock. Come on!" He pulled me up, I saw a great ship pulling in, it looked amazing.

You may be thinking of a ship that sails through the water. But this ship sails through the air. No, it's not an aeroplane, it's a sky-ship, only the richest people use them. It looked exactly like a regular ship, but it wasn't.

As it pulled I felt a small aching in my foot, realising I still had my heals on. I gave up and pulled them off, chucked them next to the crate, and smiled at Aaron. "You better not have a foot fetish."

He laughed and shook his head, then finally pulling my towards the docked ship. "Right, obviously we have to sneak into the bottom deck, but we can't get caught."

"I have an idea," I said. "I can distract them while you run into the ship, setting off the alarm, the transporters will scramble, then I will run onto the ship while they are running around trying to fix things, and we will then finally turn off the alarm."

"And how will you distract them?" Aaron said, raising his eyebrows.

"Ew, no, I'll pretend I got lost etc," I said, scowling at the thought of what he was thinking.

"Okay, okay. Let's go."

As Aaron ran toward the ship, I ran toward the disgusting men huddled up in a group smoking, when I was starting to get close to them I started to notice the stench coming off of them.

I put on my best Branches accent, old British. "Oi- I'm sorry kind sirs', but you don' happ'n to know where I am?"

"O, 'ello there hunny," Said the oldest man there. "Whas happen?"

I felt a little uncomfortable because he was clearly drunk, I but I continued my mission anyway.

"Bom-" The alarm went off, the men swung around.

As they were distracted I ran towards the ship, jumping on as Aaron grabbed my hand. "Turn the alarm off!"

Aaron switched off the alarm. The men outside stopped panicking and actually didn't seem to notice I was gone.. Or they didn't care.