Surviving the S.T.R.I.P. (ON HOLD)

Chapter Six

Gwen

I walked out onto the Strip and looked around, stunned. I knew it would be bad, but I never thought it would be this brutal! Blood was splattered everywhere. The amount of rain that fell earlier made the entire ground an enormous mud puddle, but there almost seemed to be more blood in the puddles than anything.

I stood in the middle of an open field with no trees nearby. The closest thing I could use to hide was a rock three feet away—not very big, either. A line of trees stood about 1200 yards away, and I knew I couldn't go that far without fighting. Nevertheless, I ran as fast as I could toward the trees.

I was about halfway there when I tripped over something. I fell to ground and looked to see that a boy laying in the mud, covered in blood was grabbing hold of my ankle. He was obviously very close to his last breath, and I doubted that he could've even stood up on his own, but he still used the strength that he had to say, "I'm not going down without at least one kill."

I started kicking as hard as I could just to escape his grasp, but he had a knife in hand, ready to stab. I was petrified. I kicked harder and harder, but his hold on me only grew stronger. He lifted the arm up with the knife in hand. I looked away. This was it. But the stab never came.

I peeked over my shoulder and saw the guy dead on the ground, face pale as snow with a knife stuck in his left eye. My eyes widened and I looked up to see the girl who slaughtered him. I turned around and tried to get up, but a second knife came flying and pinned my pant leg to the earth. So it wasn't going to be a crazy half-dead guy who kills me; it was going to be a crazy knife-throwing girl.

"What’s that face? I'm not gonna kill you! What do you think I am? A mass killer? I was only trying to protect you. Ever heard of girl power?”

I looked up and stared at the girl, who smiled like a freak. "Umm... Girl power? Does that count in the Strip?"

The girl rolled her eyes and pulled the knife out of my pants, and then from the boy's eye. Next, she grabbed my arm and helped me up. "C'mon, we better get out of here before more stupid boys come trying to kill us."

We started running towards the trees again, this time unhindered by anyone. We decided to climb up the mountain and get close to some water so that we could find food for tomorrow. Both of us had eaten big lunches and didn't feel like searching for food, so we just found a small hidden clearing and decided to hang out there for the night.

"So, what's your name?" I asked, surprised that I hadn't already asked that in the 2 and a half hours that I was hanging out with her.

"Beverly. I really like it. It sounds bold and strong kind of." She smiled at me before asking, "What's yours?"

"Gwen." It was silent for a few seconds before I asked a question that bugged me all day.

"Why'd you save me earlier today?" She gave me a weird look, like she didn't understand my question. I elaborated. "Like, you could have let me be attacked, probably die, but you didn't. Out of all the other people, you chose to help me. Why?"

Beverly sighed, and had a look of pure sadness in her eye. "Well, I kind of had a best friend. I was supposed to meet up with her and work with her the whole time in the Strip. Right when we got out of the rooms, I looked around for her but as soon as I saw her, it was too late. She was already surrounded by 10 guys all taunting her, obviously about to kill her. I was running, gonna go try to save her, but then a guy came up. Dark hair, tall, muscular, amazing," she blushed as she talked about this boy. "Anyway, he takes this huge stick and basically whacks all the guys! Then he takes a knife from one of the already down guys, and kills off the rest. I was amazed that someone would do that. But when all of the guys were dead," her eyes were filled with tears now, "Becca was dead. He throat was already slit. The boy ran away, and I'd do anything to tell him thanks."