Spoon Boy

Self Destruction Lets Enemies Win

 I would shoulder this weight by myself. 

Note to self: shouldering a weight by yourself is never a good idea on a wounded shoulder.

Truth be told I didn't tell them how much my wound was agitating me until it became too much to bear. Which happened to be one step out of the house, turns out when you stay up most the night your body doesn't really have a chance to heal. Who would've thought? Sure it had healed a great deal while I was hospitalized, but when it seems like everyone with a gun is aiming for the exact same shoulder it doesn't feel exactly swell. 

In the end, we went back inside and made a sling out of one of the parents' older looking t-shirts. I apologized profusely for holding us back but they brushed it off saying it could happen to anyone. On our way, we walked past the destroyed hospital. It was here that a thought had practically slapped me in the face.

"Hey guys, where are our bags? You know the ones that had our weapons inside." 

"We did have them when we left the base, right?" Easton questioned 

"No, they told us to leave them on our bunks," I groaned 

"So...does that mean..." Ari started 

"We'll have to break into our old base." I finished 

Now, this situation was not desired. In fact, this situation is so undesired I could have just left my spoon at the base and change the title to 'Fist Boy'. But that title is even more undesirable for obvious, inappropriate, reasons. So off we went to the store. 

Of course, none of the stores in town were open due to the recent and destructive tornado that swept through the area. So we walked northeast for couple hours before deciding it would be good to take a break and buy what we could with what we had. In total, we had around thirty-five dollars to spend before we would run out. The store was called 'One-Stop', it was one of those stores that had everything from groceries to hardware tools. 

Inside the store was nothing special, in fact, it looked like it had been put up years before the homeless uprising. Water stained ceiling tiles lined the top of the store and white walls with faded murals lined the sides of the store. Luminescent lights provided a white glow to the store, though one light was flickering near the back left corner.  It wasn't a big store with it being about the size of your average Trader Joes. That alone made me suspicious about whether they would have what we need, but in the end, they surprisingly did.

Buying an entire outfit would cost more than we have, we could buy a black long sleeve shirt since it is more important to keep your core warm. The legs will stay warm by moving (the muscles at least). Talking it over we decided on a plan, sure it's a dumb one but it's a plan. In order to make ourselves blend into the darkness of the night when we sneak in, we decided to buy a heck load of black spray paint (on sale for $1.50, what a deal!) As you can probably guess by now, instead of buying clothes we are spray painting ourselves pitch black. I would just like to point out that this was Mia's idea and not mine. 

One thing I didn't think about was the weird looks that we would get from the cashier, but why would they not give us one. I mean it's not like four sixteen-year-olds are buying one black t-shirt and twenty cans of spray paint every day. It's important to note that we only bought a singular shirt, we decided to switch off on who has the shirt. This way we wouldn't have to steal and become even more wanted than we already were. In the end, the total was $34. 89, which meant we had eleven cents to get by. 

"My wallet should be in my bag, once we get it we should have plenty of money to get a bus to where we need to go," I noted as we walked out of the store.