The Seven

Chapter 8: The Trees

Cam woke up to a violent thud and the sound of glass breaking. He immediately got out of his sleeping bag, grabbed a gun, and rushed into the kitchen to see a broken bowl and milk all over the floor.

"Sorry to startle you Cam! I dropped my bowl of cereal." Cosmic said.

Cam then noticed everyone sitting around the table, fully dressed, as he stood there shirtless holding a gun, probably looking like a psycho. He lowered his weapon and chuckled a little bit.

"Sorry to interrupt. Just a madman with a gun. Let me go get dressed." He said, embarrassed as he just made a bit of a fool of himself. "No, you did what you were supposed to do in response to that sound." Recently it seemed as if his thoughts had been arguing with each other.

"Put a shirt on, cochise!" Nathan laughed.

Cam saluted and walked back to Christine's room. He got dressed and started packing all of his things.

As he strapped on his gun belt, he saw himself in the mirror. He looked himself up and down. He looked dirty, distressed, and tired. He was a 19 year old boy who stared death in the face almost everyday. This isn't what he should be doing. He should be having a good time with his friends in a cabin. Or maybe even working his hellish job back home. He should be relaxing with his friends on a trip to the mountain instead of trying to shield them from certain demise. He could feel himself begin to break on the inside. He walked out to the kitchen to escape his thoughts.

Cam entered upon everyone scarfing down the food in front of them, they looked like animals the way they ate. However it was understandable, they hadn't had good food like this since they came up to this wretched place. Cam poured himself a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and joined his friends at the table.

They were all freshly dressed and washed. Their clean faces beamed at him and he felt at ease. The boys had scavenged Chris' wardrobe for clothes. Nathan wore a black shirt underneath his green coat from before, and was talking to Rick who found an orange top and a thick black coat that reached his knees.

Cosmic had white overalls on, and a white t-shirt underneath, her tightly curled hair in two buns. She polished her flamethrower, whilst shovelling raw fruit loops in her mouth, fully refreshed. Sena was in all black, and had her long brown hair tied into a ponytail, the guns on the holsters attached to her black jeans were fully loaded. She had on Christine's long brown boots and was currently studying the map.

Sipping tea calmly whilst looking outside of the window was Claire, in a pale blue puffer coat. Her ripped jeans were swapped for Christine's clean ones and she held a black bag full of supplies. Harley joined her, in her washed off-shoulder pink jumper and skirt and white long socks. She now had on chunky black boots and dragged her baseball bat with her. Claire tied her laces for her sister.

"Alright guys, this is it. We're going to the radio tower today. We may just get out of here by sundown if we're lucky." Cam said optimistically.

"When should we get going?" Rick asked.

Nathan interrupted before Cam could get a word in. "Right after breakfast, no time to lose obviously."

Cam smiled, which was unusual these days. "Nathan's right. No time to lose."

They all chowed down their breakfast, and then they were more ready than ever to get off this damned mountain.

Nathan eyed his new grenades and Sena glanced at him, knowing how weird he must feel. "At least you have new ones!" She chipped in.

He nodded slowly. "This was like a huge comforting break. I almost don't want to leave this place- it's like a safehouse completely."