Nuked

Chapter 2

                Isabella was not in the sports isle with Nicolas and Hadyel. Isabella was looking through the one section that caught her eyes: the hunting sports section. She ran up to a pocket size survival kit. 

          "This'll definitely come in handy." she thought out loud as she slipped it into her pocket. She then grabbed some other random survival kits and dashed off to find the others. "Kartre!" she called. "Kartre, where are you?!" she ran and checked the freezer isles. Nobody was there. She ran over to the registers. As she searched for the people in her group, she thought of an idea. Some of the other survivors she might meet would probably do anything for money. As she ran up to one of the counter to open up a cash register, she encountered an unholy sight. Lying there was the gruesome dead, bloody body of a ten-year-old boy, and right next to it there was an enormous dog. It's oversized yellow fangs stuck out of it's jaws, and it stank like chemicals. It's neck stretched out to about eight feet long. It had no fur, and it looked very abnormal because instead of skin, this creature had scales. The scales were tiny and they had a terribly ugly purplish-pinkish colour to them. The hound had a deafening snore, almost as if  there was an actual real-life dragon in the room. Isabella's instincts made her run off almost immediately, and as quietly as she could. She ran swiftly, refusing to look back at the creature, to scared to even pay attention to her surroundings. 

          CRASH! She bumped into something soft and warm. She looked up, and it was Kartre. 

          "Oh, thank God, it's you, Kartre!" she exclaimed. "I've been looking all over for you! Here!" she tossed one of the survival kits over to Kartre. He turned to the back of it and read the instructions.

          "Not for ages 14 and under..." he read aloud. "Well, that sucks! I'm only turning thirteen in like three months." he sighed. Isabella smiled sweetly. 

          "It's totally okay, Kartre, ya rule follower!" Isabella cheerfully said. "The world is ours now, so the rules are all ours to make!"  Her heart began to race unsteadily as she remembered the horrible hound and how she planned to tell the others. "Oh! I almost forgot. Come here, I kind of want to show you something really important." she grabbed his hand and trotted over to where she first encountered that horrible beast.

          Kartre let out a loud sigh. "Isabella, dead bodies are not that important. We now live in a dead world. We'll be seeing those, like, all the time." he said. Isabella shook her head. 

          "No. Th-that's not what I was going to show you." she said. "On my way searching for you, I approached a dog with pink scales instead of fur, huge yellow fangs, and a dragon-like voice. It was sleeping right here a minute ago!" she started to freak out. She could feel the thick sweat and tears dripping down her face. She then walked into a circle, talking to herself.

          "Isabella?" said Kartre. "Are you okay? I don't think I really believe you on that dog thing... You know, people go crazy when big things happen in their lives..." 

          Isabella marched over to him, got up in his face and yelled, "If it weren't real, then why did you almost get killed by a mutant rattlesnake?! That must've been soooo fake! Yeah, how you were crying and hugging us when we killed it! Oh, darling, you must've thought of it to be so fake! Kartre, sometimes I can't believe I even like you... As a friend, ya dummy!" she gave him a hard slap and sprinted away as fast as her legs could carry her. And, again, she was so lost in thought she didn't pay attention to her surroundings.

         CRASH! This time, she crashed into something hard. She looked up to see what it was. There was a massive hound staring down at her. "Nice doggy..." she whimpered. The dog lifted her up in it's humongous jaws. 

          "Eek!" she shrieked. "Somebody! Help me! Gah!!!" at once everybody heard the noise. All except for Kartre ran over to the scene. They all froze and stared wide-eyed at the dog. "Uh, guys? Are you going to help me or not?!" screamed Isabella. 

Hadyel picked up one of the survival kits Isabella had dropped. She dug through and found a knife. She tried to jabb it into the creature's neck, but it's scales we're quite hard when Hadyel was weak. The dog glared down at the puny twelve-year-old girl. 

          "I'm going to attempt to choke the beast." said Hadyel. "I have no other choice but to lodge myself into it's throat. My death will help save you guys' life." She gripped the wriggling dog's neck and started to climb. She felt something grabbed her and bring her back down. She saw Nicolas staring deeply into her eyes.

          "No. I won't let you." he said. "It's to dangerous... I don't want you to die." Suddenly, there was a loud gunshot heard nearby. The dog threw Isabella out of it's teeth, having her crash hard into a shelf, the dog limped and turned around. Everyone saw Kartre. He had a rifle in his hands. The dog opened it's mighty mouth, but Kartre was smart, so he shot it into the hound's throat, as he did with the snake. The dog howled fiercely as rose red blood came and bubbled out of it's mouth. The beast gurgled andfell to the ground, twitched a few times, then lay still.

          "Dang," whispered Hadyel. "that was quick."

          Isabella ran over to Kartre and gave him a big hug. "Thank you." she said. "S-sorry I was so rude to you before. I just really, really got mad because you didn't believe me. I was wrong to slap you."

          "And I was wrong not to believe you." said Kartre. 

          "Ugh. keep it PG in here." Hadyel ran out of the scene, Nicolas chasing after her. Isabella and Kartre's lips were about to touch when something, or someone, threw an apple core at him. He looked up to see what it was. She saw a twelve-year-old girl sitting on the very top of one of the shelves. She was wearing a hoodie that said, "Hot Witch", she had airpods in, and she and a big poofy afro. 

          "Mya?!" shouted Kartre. Out of anyone in the world, it would be Mya who would have survived all of this? 

          Mya laughed, "Oh, my God. Kartre and Isabella are kissing. Poor Hadyel. She may have a crush, but her crush loves someone else? Haha, I'm dying right now." she said. "Kartre and Isabella sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" she then threw a laughing fit. Kartre looked shocked. 

          "Wait, Hadyel likes me?" he asked. 

          "Of course she likes you, idiot!" said Mya.

          "If I had a penny for every time I've been called that..." Kartre mumbled to himself.

          Mya continued. "She only pretends to hate you, just so you won't know how she actually feels about you. She loves you, honey!" Mya then had another laughing fit. "May you kiss the bride!" she said in an obnoxious goofy voice. She leaped off of the shelf, and right by their side. "I was watching you, like, ever since ya went into the store. Hey, and I was wondering if I can join your little apocalypse party. I can, right? I mean, I got some skills to help y'all." Kartre hesitated for a brief moment, the nodded. Well, that was some mistake he'd just made. Now the evil/jerk/bully was on their team. Now they all had to venture with her , of all people, by their side. Oh, he even knew she was Hadyel's arch nemesis. Well, Kartre thought that he might possibly be the leader of the group, so maybe he could command them to stop teasing and arguing with each other? Or maybe nobody would even listen. Did Hadyel really love him? Is that why she was rude to him, and at recess obviously tried to impress him? Well, maybe it actually was kind of obvious, but, still, nobody really noticed. Maybe he would ask Hadyel out, and if she said yes that might mean she really did love him. He only knew that the mystery had to be unrevealed.