A Life To Remember. A Life To Forget

Chapter Two

The wind is soft but strong, my hair flowing behind me and sometimes in my face. "I could stay here forever," I think to myself. I'm at my favorite place when I need time to myself, I found this place when I was thirteen and have come back since then. It is on the very top of the highest hill in the camp and there is a beautiful old Oak tree that has been here forever. I climb to the top and just stare. All I can see are the very tops of the walls that keep the camp protected from the city.

I can see some decaying ruins of what must have been office buildings or shopping malls. I wonder what It must have been like to live in the city when it was full of life and not dead and rotting away. "Hey, Raven! The longer you stay up there the faster you are going to become a bird!" That remark startled me, and I nearly fell out of the tree. I catch my balance and look down to see who is yelling at me. It is my friend who is my only friend.

Bryce Browder is his name. He is nineteen years old and I have known him my whole life. He's pretty good-looking, but I never had feelings for him. He has soft dark brown hair, green eyes and he is 5'8. "Come on down, let's go hunt for food to feed our families for the next couple of weeks!" "Alright!" I yell back. As I am climbing down I place my foot wrong and I fall from the tree before I knew it Bryce had caught me.

I look up at him to say thank you, he responds back with a respectful smile and then sets me down. Bryce and I walk through the camp's streets, Bryce just walks on by but I look around at everyone else and wonder what they are thinking. Do they believe there are others out there? Do they wish the government never existed? We all wear the same style of clothes. If you are a woman you usually wear a bonnet, a dress and an apron over the dress, the men dress like lumberjacks, the children dress for playing around.

Overalls, Shirts, shorts, and sneakers. For my age group we usually wear leather pants or black pants, belts to hold our weapons in place, boots, the girls will usually have their hair up, skinny black pants and a tank top. The boys usually wear black army pants, with soldier boots, with short sleeve shirts. I wear both, I have my naturally wavy hair down, black tank top, green pants and my brown soldier boots I have a belt but I left that at my house. Bryce usually wears the same thing a hoodie, black pants, and black boots. "What do you think we will catch?"

Bryce starts up a conversation to kill the time while we walk back to my house. "I don't know. I was hoping to catch at least a couple of rabbits, but by seeing your machete you may be expecting to capture something bigger than a couple of rabbits." I notice that Bryce is wearing his belt which is holding one of his many prized weapons that he got from his father before he passed away a couple of years ago. "Yeah, I'm feeling pretty lucky today Ravy." "Really Ravy?"

"It's the nickname I gave you the day we met." "Anyway, where is your belt? Tell me you did not leave it with Johnny again!" "No!" I barked defensively. "I left it in the shed with the other weapons". Everyone is presented with a job when they turn a certain age.

The mothers will stay home with the children, fathers work on farming or help manage money at the business their fathers might work at. When you turn into a Scavenger. You go and hunt for food for your family and train the become a warrior. Bryce and I and the other kids who are of age are warriors. When you turn sixteen you become this. This is when you present your weapon of choice and train to fight anything that might come and attack the camp and go and hunt food for your family's just like the Scavengers and you might help aid them with it.

In a couple of days, Bryce and I and the other Warriors will be going to the town hall to get our missions. At the end of being a Warrior, you get assigned to a group and your group has to go out in the city and find out any information the government might be hiding from us, finally we make it back to my house.

I run inside to find my belt I found it where it would usually be, right next to my bedside table. I put it on and grab my blood-red butterfly knife, my GLOCK 17 black gun, and some extra ammo. I meet Bryce by the shed where the weapons my dad used to use when he was my age. I open the shed door and inside there are extra boxes of ammo, five different types of handguns, a rifle, an ax, and a machete.

Bryce takes whatever he wants and attached it to his belt but with me, I only need my weapon, my brown bow with brown and white arrows. "Jeez, I don't understand why you love your bow so much Ravy? Why do you also take another handgun?" Bryce asks as he rolls his eyes. "My weapon is the only thing I can actually keep me safe and I like the way of holding it makes me feel." "Alright suit yourself" as He grabs more ammo and a throwing knife I also take one.