The Blast

Chapter One: The Blast

He hurried to wake them up, he didn't have a lot of time. Earlier that spring morning a nuclear plant had leaked and caused a nuclear blast, threateningly near a small town called Arlington, which was surrounded by forest. Thankfully the radio in his room had warned him of the dangers, and he quickly got dressed to wake the others. Cruze was fifteen years old, with sandy hair and bright blue eyes. He was well built and his biceps could be seen bulging out of his shirt sleeves, due to the fact that he has been working as one of the towns hunters for a couple of months now. Dragging the heavy corpses of animals he had killed to feed his town. Since Arlington was located in the middle of nowhere, the townsfolk had to provide for their own food. None of their food was imported from anywhere, it was all native to the forests around Arlington. As he quickly told the others of the frightening news, he knew they would have to come up with a plan and quickly. The radio broadcast had stated that the effects had already affected multiple people and a few were already dead. He knew that every second, the radiation was spreading. A couple of minutes later the four of them were seated around an old, wooden, oval table for an emergency meeting. Riley was the first to talk, which was surprising because she usually the quiet one of the bunch. She was a shy girl with brown hair that came across one of her eyes with light freckles on her face and hazel eyes.
As Cruze explained we have roughly 15 minutes until the radiation reaches us. In that time we have to figure out a plan to escape Arlington and search for a town out of reach of the radiation zone." Riley explained.
"We should probably start packing, we only need the essentials, we can't bring too much or else it will weigh us down. I say we meet back in roughly ten minutes back here, with everything we need. Hurry" Wyatt suggested.
"Okay," everyone said in unison.
" Wait this doesn't seem right, we're just going to leave everyone else to die and rot away?" Avery asked
"It's to late for them now, we can't save them, the radiation is spreading too fast." Cruze replied.
"And plus I bet some of them are smart enough to do what we're doing right now. They'll be some survivors at least." Wyatt added trying to reassure Avery.
"Yea I guess so, all we can do now is hope their are some survivors" Avery agreed
So the four of them parted ways to start packing for their adventure. None of them knew what to expect other than that they would be surrounded by forest. So they only brought things they could use in most situations.

Avery was the oldest of the bunch, she was 17 years old with blonde hair. She went to her room and started packing the necessities: clothes, toiletries etc. Avery loved art, especially drawing. She knew that Wyatt said to only bring what they would need but she couldn't help herself. She stuffed her favourite drawings, some paper and her pack of pencils in her bag. She also brought a couple of other things she thought might be useful and also decided to bring her She also decided to bring her bow and her quiver that contained a dozen arrows. One summer her dad had taught her how to use a bow and arrow, at the time she thought this skill would be utterly useless. But she knew it would come in handy.

Riley who was 16 years old rushed up to her room knowing that she would have trouble packing since she was so indecisive. She stuffed a bunch of money in her backpack she had been saving from working at the local restaurant as a cook. Some clothes and a big warm coat, knowing that they might not have access to heat and would eventually help her when the nights got cold. She also decided to bring the medical bag her father had given her as a gift since she was studying to become a nurse at Arlington's general hospital.

Wyatt, a 17-year-old guy with short brown hair and green eyes had been tasked with collecting and storing food for their journey, which he thought was stupid because he thought Riley should be the one packing since she was usually the one who cooked dinner for them and plus she worked at the diner in Arlington. He had no way of knowing how many days it would take to find another town a safe distance away from the radiation. So he packed enough food he could in the tiny cooler, which in total would last them roughly three days. Thankfully Avery had gone to town the day before to stock up the fridge.  After Wyatt was done deciding what to bring for them to eat, which took him a painfully long time, he packed it all up in a small blue cooler he had found in the garage.  He then went upstairs to get packed, which didn't take him long. Then just as he was about to go downstairs, out of the corner of his eye he saw an old journal and pencil on his dresser. Without thinking he stuffed it in his bag and left the room to go meet the others.

Cruze was in charge of gathering equipment for the journey, it was relativity easy since it reminded him of packing for a camping trip. Which his family did every summer until he started learning how to hunt which occupied most of his time since there were so many mouths to feed in their tiny town. He found most of the items rather downstairs in the basement or in the garage. He also packed his Remington model 870 12-gauge shotgun. He had bought it just before he started hunting, and he quite liked it since it was useful for hunting small game like rabbits and squirrels.  He then did a mental checklist of everything they had and then headed downstairs to meet up with the others. A minute later they were all standing around the table once again where they made sure they had everything and were just about to walk to the garage where the Jeep was when... suddenly they heard the screams...

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