Perseverance ( completed! )

Paralizing

Oh. It's so obvious. They went to the government building located in the center of town. Wanna know how I know? That's exactly where I would go if I wasn't trying to find my mother.

Those government buildings have all of the people that control our implants, trackers, anything technology related. But now wasn't the time to think about that. Now was the time to get out, while we still could.

"Let's hurry," I muttered gently, opening the door quickly and leading Buddy out, Liam following in suit.

With the map in hand, we began walking west. It was going to be hard to know when to turn, when not to, because she only told us to head west. So the first thing we needed to do was get out of the town. Which was extremely large. We were in over our heads, but we simply kept walking. For the first hour or two, it wasn't that bad. Because everyone was gone. But as people began to get back, realizing it was pointless to try and get the government to do something, we began to get worried. You could practically feel the tension in the air. The calm before the storm. Buddy whimpered gently by my feet, sticking extremely close to my feet. So he was feeling it too. Makes sense, actually.

When we came across houses that blocked our way going west, we had to go through or around, and pray no one was in them. And even if they were, we prayed we didn't get caught.

Now, about this radiation crap, I never did very well in school, so I had no idea what this means except that the energy that the sun decided to spew at us over energized anything technology related, therefore making it unusable. If radiation didn't continue to spew out of the sun, then it is possible that more could be made, but it would take a long time.

And I only know this because I had to do a powerpoint on it in my biology class, and how it would affect life.

Even so, I only knew how to put the pieces together because Liam flat out told me it was radiation, then I recognized all the symptoms.

Anyway, back to reality.

And just in time, too.

"Gabe," Liam whispered urgently toward me, pointing across and slightly down the sidewalk on the opposite side of us.

A gang?

There were about four men, and five women. And all of them were wearing purple bandanas. Gangs in these parts were very rare, because most of the time people in gangs just didn't mix well with technology, and there was too much security in these parts. But no technology, means no security. As you may have gathered, we depend heavily on technology. Too heavily.
Swallowing roughly, I drew my hand through my hair, looking up at Liam with a nervous expression.

Liam gently grabbed my arm, pulling me forward and into one of the houses, having no time to check if anyone was in there or not.
But, surprise was present in both of us as the house actually opened. This door was an old fashioned one, that didn't require technology to open. Uh-oh. We just picked one of the worst houses to hide in. One that they could actually be successful in opening.

"Go lock the back."

I did as I was told, fast walking to the back of the house, which was confusing at first because I had to go through the kitchen, before locking the back door. I pulled down the slate, followed by drawing the curtain down. Maybe they would be less lightly to break in this way.

I picked up Buddy so his nails wouldn't be heard on the tilted floor, and walked quickly back over to Liam who was shoving a couch in front of the door.

Once done, he covered his lips with his pointer finger, signaling silence. I nodded to signal that I understood. But our silence was useless as we heard someone running down the stairs. Our heads whipped over in that direction, and I set Buddy down on the couch behind us, standing in front of the puppy.