Nyxie Pyro

Chapter 5

     It must've close to midnight when we started again. we had slept for at least 10 hours and needed to make up for our lost time.The moon was high in the sky, the rain stopped, the flashlight was on, and it was silent. All I heard was our calm breathing and our footsteps breaking into the gravel trail and mud, and every now and then a low whine from Luna. When we woke up, we hadn't been hungry, so we decided to make a goal. No stopping to eat until we got to a town. Tammy and Ricky agreed, but I don't think Luna would of she could talk. We followed the trail that had led us to our shack. Eventually, we walked out into a clearing. On the other side of the vast clearing we could see treetops, much like the ones we've already passed. We trekked across the grassy field, entertained by the twinkling stars. I started thinking about what we would do once we got to a town. I had been planning the journey for weeks, but I mostly planned the escape, not what we would do once we got to our destination. I suppose if the next town wasn't what we were looking for we could keep going until the next one. But eventually we would have to settle somewhere. But how? We barely had any money or things. And we had a dog to feed. Speaking of dog to feed, I mentioned feeding Luna to Tammy and we all stopped and settled in the grass to feed Luna. Her now dirty tail wagged. She didn't need night vision to know she was getting food. By now we were all running low on food. We definitely needed to buy food as soon as we could. I passed the remnants of my food to Luna, who hungrily scarfed down the bits of food. After she finished, she rolled over in the grass and stared at me, as if telling me to scratch her belly. I scooted over and rubbed her belly. Luna finally got calm and we all got sleepy again. "No!" Ricky suddenly yelled, jumping up. "What!" I yelled as I jumped up off the ground, then fell back on my butt with a thump. My heart was pounding as the breath got knocked out of me. Then he started laughing. Or giggling. It sounded more like a girly squeal. Tammy laughed out loud at the odd noise coming from Ricky. "What the hell was that?" She giggled, much more manly than the sound still coming from Ricky. He fell to the ground full of laughter, eventually overcome, our humor pulled us down too. Tammy dropped the flashlight and it lit up Ricky's face making us laugh even harder. We all laughed until our sides hurt, replaying the awful noise in our minds. Luna sat confused by Tammy, until we finally caught our breath. Tammy coughed and laughed and finally we went silent. "I don't understand what was so funny," Tammy said. "You know what, me neither." We both stared at Ricky waiting for an answer to our unasked question. "Well," he whispered, "When I yelled, it was just to get Nyxie up." He laughed as I slugged him in the arm playfully. "But then she yelled and fell over, and I started laughing like a little girl. Then y'all started laughing at my girly laugh. Now we are here and Luna looks very confused." We all looked at Luna as she tilted her head to the side, one ear flapping up. We all laughed one more time before we pushed ourselves up from the ground and started walking again. A smile plastered on our faces. We finally made it to the other side of the clearing and breaking through the trees. The silence was comfortable and I felt no need to disrupt it.
*****
We walked for a long time, and I had no guess to what time it was. All I knew was that it had to be before sunrise (about 6:30) and AT LEAST midnight. We all walked, our eyes getting heavy, our feet getting tired, and our will to keep moving fading. I was almost sleep walking when the sun finally peeked out from the clouds. "Guys look!" I yelled. We all looked up in awe at the sunrise. The clouds faded from black, to purple, to swirls of red and pink, and ending with pure gold which was the sun. It was beautiful, the warm colors all mixed together to make the sunrise. The suns glow illuminated the ground and I stared in awe. Eventually we kept walking, once again, and got out of the trees. But unfortunately next was a hill. A huge, wide, tall, grassy hill. It's shape resembled a moon. Round and curved. Ricky groaned and Tammy grabbed his hand to pull him along. Behind Tammy I could see a slight grin slide onto Ricky's face as he sighed dramatically. "But Tammy! It's a hill. A big hill. And I'm not very optimistic!" He plopped on the ground and this time I groaned. Ricky and Tammy's teasing was going to slow us down. But I could spare a minute. For them.
"I think your going to have to carry me."
Tammy snorted. "I hope your kidding!"
"C'mon! Get up Ricky!" Tammy said, using all of her strength to try and pull him up, but failing. She laughed as the started tugging him up the hill. Ricky looked around in amazement.
"How are the hills moving?" He asked dumbly.
She laughed again. "I don't know!"
I smiled, happy we were moving along, and happy that they were happy. As we climbed up the hill we saw a tip of something. A man made something.
"Hey guys, am I seeing things or is that a church?"
Luna barked in excitement as I walked a couple steps up and focused on the building, it was in fact a church. An abandoned church. "Yes!" I yelled to Ricky and we all started climbing faster. Once we reached the top we could see the whole town. It was old, scuffed up, ghostly, and beautiful. With the sunrise and the metal gate around the front, it kind of looked like a sort of safe haven. We all screamed in joy and ran towards the gates opening. Me and Tammy took off but with Ricky's injured leg, he hobbled along. We both looked at each other and giggled as we went back to pull Ricky along. Luna nudged him on. But in my mind I was already there. Looking in through windows at clothing and food! And maybe use the bathroom. Oh my goodness, I hadn't used the bathroom since I slept outside and snuck off to use nature. I groaned, now that I though about it I really needed to pee.
I wonder if the others had snuck off like me on our trip. Finally after what seemed like eternity we walked through the rusted gates. A bad feeling rolled through me as Ricky yelled out "Hello?" no one answered. I didn't know why but I had a bad feeling, like someone else was here, like I could feel their eyes on me. I spun around but I saw no one. Tammy and Ricky walked across the street with Luna padding behind them. I walked up to a store and walked inside. The town was a ghost town. No one was in the store and dust coated most things in the store. I walked past the pretty dresses to the bathrooms. I opened the girls bathroom door and the water was on. I didn't think it would be. Maybe someone was still paying the bills after leaving? After I used the bathroom, I washed my hands, and dried them off on my hoodie. When I walked out I went straight to the racks of clothes. As bad as it was, I needed to take some stuff. I walked over to the wall and got a backpack and started putting clothes in. I grabbed a couple sundresses, one went down to my knees and was a deep navy. The top was lace, the waist fit, and the skirt was flowy and soft. This could be my 'I'm not an orphan' dress if we ever see people. The other was a pastel yellow. The strings tied around the next and the whole dress flowed down to my knees. This would be perfect for a comfy day. Next I got to the practical clothing. I held shorts and shirts up to me, then looked down at my dirty red hoodie and worn black leggings. I definitely needed an outfit to wear now. I grabbed some jean shorts and a solid flowy baby blue shirt and went to change. The outfit fit well enough and could last a while. I got a couple more shirts and shorts along with some new leggings. I threw my old clothes away, sadly letting go of my 'BASIC' shirt. However, I couldn't part with my hoodie, and retied it around my waist. I walked outside and across the street to the corner mart, where Tammy and Ricky were. When I walked inside Tammy and Ricky looked up guiltily from their open bag of cheetos. I laughed. "There's a clothing store across the street", I said waving my hand down my outfit and to my backpack full of clothes. They shook their heads up and down, stuffing their faces with cheetos.
"Guys, are those not expired?"
They both looked up and finally stopped eating. Ricky spun the bag around and read the date. "Nope! Still good for about a week!"
They tossed a Cheeto to Luna and returned to eating and I rolled my eyes. I walked through the store and grabbed the most filling foods I could find. Breakfast bars, protein bars, granola, peanut butter, but the bread was old and molded. I put all the good food in my backpack. If it wasn't for me we'd probably be eating cheetos for the rest of the trip. I wondered how far the next town was. Once Tammy and Ricky finished the FAMILY sized bag of cheetos, we all started snacking. Cookies, little cakes, chips, candy, and all the other luxuries we could never have. We ate most of the food that wasn't expired. Once we were all stuffed we went outside and looked for a place to sleep. Even though this wasn't our final destination, it was still a town and we could sleep. Finally, I found an old hotel. All the doors to get in the place were unlocked so we didn't feel very guilty. We decided on room 1. As we walked over to the door I heard some weird noises. And again I had the weird feeling someone was watching me. Ricky turned the handle and we all tumbled in, our arms full of snacks and Luna barked.
"Who are you?"