Injured Feet & Rickety Hearts {Book 1 Completed}

//Chapter 4//

I followed Alby in silence as we left the creaky house, down the rotting spiral stairs and out the rickety door. I was immediately hit with the fresh smell of grass and upturned dirt. As I first expected we were in the big house I saw before I made a dash for it.

"Hold your questions until after the tour, it will take too long if your yabbering in my ear the whole way... this here is the homestead, we hold our meetings in there and house our sick and injured. We all sleep outside because the homestead doesn't have enough beds, Except the keepers, they sleep in the homestead too. Behind it is the bathrooms and over here next to it is the slammer, you miss behave you get thrown in here for the night. Come with me"

I just listened as I followed behind Alby, I didn't feel like asking him questions anyway, I'll ask someone else. But there was one thing I was very curious about, my guardian? He said something about a guardian, were they going to be cool? Not bitchy like him? I hope so. Why did I even need one in the first place? I can care for myself.

It almost startled me just how calm I was compared to yesterday. It was like I was so confused that I couldn't function properly, react how I should be. what is going on?

We trudged along the north wall as he pointed out things and explained everything to me, speaking in that same tone that made it look like he'd rather be anywhere else then helping me.

"over there are the gardens, we grow our own food and the water is pumped up through the ground with pipes seeing as it never rains here. Down in the South-East corner is the blood house, we raise our animals and slaughter them, next to the pens is the barn. That's where they go before Frypan deals with them. Over there in the South-West corner are the deadheads, the Baggers burry the bodies out there, other than that people just hang out there"

I was already filled with questions, where do the pipes come from? Who put them there? why doesn't it rain here? Why did he refer to Frypan as a person? Baggers? Why would people hang out somewhere people are buried? What's killing people to have the need for graves?

I shuddered as I stared at the Deadheads, a sickly Ombre of dying trees as they slowly got thicker and healthier as they went further back into the corner. The trees swayed gently in the weak breeze and as I looked over at the barn Alby started chatting again.

"That cement plate in the middle is called the Box, every week the creators send up a small amount of supplies and every month they send up a new Greenie, this month that was you. The building next to that is off limits, you don't go in there, That's the runners concern"

Runners? What the bloody hell is a runner? All these strange words that I don't understand, there confusing me. And the creators? Who on earth are they? Are they the people who put us here? built these walls? made the pipes and sent me here? Did they take my memory?

"We don't know much about anything, we don't know why we're here or who sent us, only that we have to work together. Everyone has their job. Sloppers, Med-jacks, Builders, Brick-nicks, slicers, cooks, track-hoes, baggers and runners. You will do a trial of each job, one a day until a meeting is called to decide your job."

I nodded to him when he looked over his shoulder to see if I was still following. Ok, I have no idea what a slopper is, a builder is obvious, a brick-nick sounds like someone else who builds stuff, Slicers? Are they like people who help the cook? Track-hoes... gardeners maybe? Baggers I have no clue and runners I have no clue. That's all I can work out on my own.

I felt a little at ease to know I wasn't the only one sent up without memory of where I came from, these creators they were talking about, they sent us here? And no one knew why? there was one more question I was desperate to find out... what were outside those doors? I saw corridor's after corridors but nothing that gave off what it was.