Thick black smoke was billowing from shambles of former buildings and destroyed cars by the cracked road, choking the once blue sky with its dark suffocating ash.
Ear-splitting screams of innocent people, men, women, and children alike, rang through the city like sirens.
Bullets were flying from seemingly everywhere through the air, shattering everything in sight.
Including Jack's desperate hope for survival.
"Hey Sean!"
Sean was startled from his memories by his friend Robin, who was watching him curiously from the doorway of his makeshift office, which was the cockpit of a plane.
Sean took over a decommissioned plane found at the airport as their base since his own home was far away, it was easy to defend, and had a working bathroom.
"You thinking of that day again?" Robin questioned gently, his robin egg blue eyes shining with sympathy.
"Yeah, I always am nowadays." Sean sighed wearily, not wanting to dwell on the misery from the past.
While it had been two years since everything went to hell in a hand basket, the memory of the first day of war was still fresh in his mind.
"What's up?" The Irishman continued in a brighter tone as he got up from his seat, using a hand to brush stray strands of brown hair out of his face.
"We're running low on food again, we need to send a scavenger group back out." Robin informed him grimly.
"We just went out there last week! Besides, what about the other gangs?" Sean countered warily.
"Look, it's day time. None of the other gangs should be walking around." Robin assured him.
"What about the Sanguinem Cohors?" Sean hissed nervously.
Despite being leader of his own strong gang, there was only one other group he feared, as did everyone else trapped in LA.
The Sanguinem Cohors, otherwise known as the Blood Gang.
Their leader Mark was notoriously known for killing anyone who abandoned the gang, proved to be a threat to the members, was weak, an enemy, or just looked at him the wrong way.
His right hand man was Nathan Sharp, better known as Natemare since he would do Mark's dirty work and was fond of torture.
Amy, Mark's girlfriend, acted as the spy in the group to make sure no one was conspiring against her man or was planning to leave.
Ethan was the thief that could use his former gymnastics skills to get anywhere he wanted, including other gangs' bases.
Lastly, there was Tyler, also called Stone Face Tyler since his expression was always neutral.
Even when he gets hit.
Sean's own team consisted of Felix the weapons specialist, Signe, who was Sean's girlfriend and team chef, PJ the inventor and head scavenger, Robin the manager of rationing, and Sean who led the team and made the scavenger routes.
Marzia was with Felix until she had gotten sniped in the head by an unknown assailant during their informal wedding.
There was also Edgar and Maya, but they were mainly kept for emotional support and because Sean loved dogs.
"Fine. I'll go with Felix and PJ, you stay here with Signe and the pugs." Sean directed reluctantly.
Robin nodded before disappearing from the room to execute his orders.
Jack couldn't help but think about the first day everything went to hell when he was here with his friends to escape Europe, which is where the war had started.
They thought they'd be safe.
They were wrong.
While he didn't know what had caused the sudden violence outbreak, he knew that he and his team would survive.
He would make sure of it.
Jack packed a small drawstring bag with a protein bar, bottle of water, and flashlight before joining his colleagues by the door.
"Hey Irish potato." Felix greeted Sean teasingly.
"Shut up Swedish meatball." Sean retorted playfully with a slight eye roll.
"What kind of stereotypical food am I?" PJ interjected with an amused smirk.
"Hmm, definitely a British dick." Sean answered jokingly, earning laughter from Felix while PJ pretended to look offended.
"Boys boys, stop fighting!" Signe called out to them from one of the back seats where she was snuggling with Maya in her lap.
"Yes dear." Sean murmured in dramatic compliance like how husbands would respond to wives on tv.
"Don't die!" PJ yelled to Signe as he left the plane by jumping out to land on a bounce castle he had found and blown up himself, Sean and Felix following suite.
PJ always told everyone to not die, either if he was leaving or if someone else was since he considered it good luck.
"Where to?" Robin prompted Sean.
"We could go through downtown, or we could head uptown." Sean stated.
"I'm pretty sure downtown's been cleaned out." Felix spoke up.
"Yeah, but uptown is dangerously close to Blood Gang territory." Robin cut in.
Where should the trio go?
Uptown
Or
Downtown
I love doing this audience participation stuff, you guys always have good reasoning and it's fun to see what you all have to say!
