We See the Same Sunset

3

Clouds of dust billow from the jeeps' speed and Nikola is running before she knows it, dragging Soren by the hand.

"Who—" Soren nearly stumbles headfirst into the ground and Nikola steadies him with a hand on his chest, not stopping their breakneck pace. "Who are they?"

"Scavengers!" Nikola's eyes locked on the broken structures behind the school. "We have to get to shelter!"

They were the people who killed that man, she's sure of it. Surrounded him on every corner and shot him, until he could no longer touch or move. Was this all a game to them? Nikola can't think of a reason why they needed five jeeps to catch two people and it only makes her run faster.

But Nikola isn't as strong as she used to be. After living in the bunker for months, her body shrunk in on itself, until she could count her individual rib bones. The bunker was never meant for long-term living. The scientists said that all the bunkers was the temporary shelter, before they all moved to the main shelter, where they could rebuild civilization. However, the main shelter had never been completed.

Years of malnutrition are taking a toll on her body and already this distance makes her winded. But Nikola is nothing, if determined to live. For Soren...for Kit...

Bullets whizz past them, as they run. They can't run forever, she knows that, but what could she use to slow them down? Did they want supplies? Her mind flashes to their things, where she knows that they can't afford to lose anything else. Even her rifle means nothing in this pursuit.

They come across the building shambles, where parts of a wooden floor still remains. Nikola lets go of Soren's hand and shoves him forward, even though he's huffing too hard to keep moving. "Go! I'll slow them down!"

Soren's mouth opens with a wordless protest, but Nikola screams at him, batting away his hands. "GO!"

His eyes widen, fear and resolute determination mixed in the grey-blue. His face crumbles, as Soren spins on his heel, sprinting toward the structures. The pounding on the wooden floor is Nikola's only sign that Soren is getting further away, but she can't shake the feeling that she had failed him somehow.

This must have been the last thing his mother had said to him, before she died.

Nikola can see those jeeps in the distance, slowly gaining size, as their screams of laughter echo in the air. There's some kind of signal mixed in the whooping because the jeeps spread out after a loud screech. She hides herself behind a fallen wall, readying the rifle in her hands. If anything happened, Nikola doubts her three bullets would do much against them, but it's a reassuring presence.

Will they shoot her on sight? Or will they break her down first, before sending a bullet through her skull? Or worse...will they capture her and make her watch them kill Soren?

Her finger tenses on the trigger. Will she be strong enough to send Soren to a quick mercy first?

Nikola needs to bargain with the scavengers—long enough to let Soren run far away—and if push came to shove, she would sacrifice herself in his place. What would they do, if they found out that she was a soldier before? Would they hang her corpse as a trophy at their camp?

Her hand trembles, but she peeks out from behind the wall. The gunshots have stopped, but that doesn't bring good omens. Nikola had seen this trick before: trying to lull the target into a false sense of security, before luring them out and gunning them down.

But then, she hears a loud thunderous crackling sound that comes from Soren's direction and his scream that accompanies it. The wooden creaks, as more of it snaps, until it's lost in the crumbling fall.

"Soren!" There's no other thought in her mind and Nikola runs out into the open. She knows the risks, but she has to get to that boy before anything would happen to him. She won't let him die!

Gunshots ricochet off the walls and one scrapes the side of her face in the bounce back. Nikola feels the dull pain, but doesn't stop, weaving in between the walls and throwing any classroom remains behind her. They might slow down a jeep and the scavengers would need to go on foot. But bullets don't need feet to travel.

Then, she sees a giant crack in the wooden floor that opened up. Soren's backpack is hanging on a shard of broken wood, but she can't tell if Soren is hanging from it, or has already fallen into the cavern. Her hand is outreached for it when a bullet tears through her calf and Nikola falls forward with a choked scream.

Nikola doesn't stop to clutch her leg, even when she sees the bloodied bullet a few inches away from her. Using her hands, she drags herself forward, feeling the wetness seep through her pants leg. The pain is blindingly unbearable, but she tells herself that Soren's dead body will hurt the most.

One of the gunmen shouts something in a language Nikola doesn't understand, but she only has a few seconds to make everything count. Turning back for a split second, she readies her rifle and takes aim—and pierces the torso of a scavenger who is twenty feet away from her. The woman's body crumples, dropping the rifle in her hands.

She tries to shoot again, but the pain in her leg grows like a devouring fire, distracting her senses, so her two bullets are wasted on empty air. The scavengers have now surrounded her, hiding behind the same walls she had hidden behind earlier. More of this foreign language echoes in the air, but Nikola isn't going to stay to find out whether they're good or not.

With her leg twinging at every slight movement, Nikola is a sitting target. She was already outnumbered to begin with, but now with her rifle out of commission, she is vulnerable. All she needs to know is whether Soren is alright. Throwing aside the rifle, Nikola reaches forward for Soren's backpack.

A thunderous gunshot echoes in front of Nikola, as a spray of warm blood splatters onto her face. Her scream is caught in her throat, as she misses the backpack and pitches forward into the abyss.  

A/N: Oho, the action's just getting started.