The End to our Beginning

3

Hey guys! So I know I said these would be slow updates but I want to get at least 10 or 15 chapters out before slowing my pace. Hope y'all are enjoying the story so far!

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Oaklynn's P.O.V.

I stood there for what felt like hours watching the bombs fall over the interstate, getting closer to where I was by the second. I couldn't move. My feet were paralyzed. Every bombed that dropped was another tear that slipped from my eyes. All of these people were dying, no they were being murdered.

All of a sudden I realized I was being pulled. The man who was with the woman I spoke to, I assume to be her husband, was dragging me into the woods. The woman only lagged slightly behind due to her having to drag two young children while carrying her toddler. 

"Please stay here with them. I need to grab some stuff from out car or else we might all starve to death. Theres no way we're getting the car back-" he's cut off by his wife whose trying to soothe her crying baby.

"No! There's not way! They're bombing the interstate, Craig!" she's tearing up now "I will not lose you!" He walks over to her trying to calm her down.

"You're not going to lose me. I need to look out for our family Lily. I promise you I will be back soon." He says kissing her cheek. Without another word he runs back towards the interstate. The two little girls sit on a rock nearby and Lily struggles to soothe her crying baby. I can tell she's panicking.

"Here let me take him" I offer. I'd always been good with babies since I basically raised my sisters Naomi and Perrie. She looked a bit hesitant but ended up walking over and placing the child in my arms. He looked up to me, his crying slowing. I started to make goofy faces at him and he giggled slightly. 

Lily sat on the rock next her girls and rubbed her temples. The girls picked at the grass. "It's been longer than a minute....where the hell is he." she whispered to herself, panic clear in her voice. 

"Here I'll go check." I say, handing to babbling toddler back to her. He starts to say momma over and over while she pushes his blonde hair from his eyes.

"Are you sure?" She asks feeling slightly guilty. I nod and start walking through the woods. I could hear the bombs dropping from where we were but as I walked up towards the road the sounds become more clear. 

I slowly emerge from my cover in the woods, looking up and seeing absolute destruction. 

Oh god. 

Everything is ruined. Cars are sprawled all over, fires cover what seems to be every inch of the small interstate, and all the cries have stopped. It's just silence. Dark and silence. I emerge slowly, fearing that if I walk another inch i'll be blown up along with the hundreds of families on the highway. As I take another step my foot hits something hard or..... squishy? I can't tell but I glance down to see what it is.

A foot. I stumble backwards, almost falling right on my ass and then run away as quickly as my feet could take me.  The shoe on the foot was the same exact one the man was wearing and I can't stop my sobs from escaping as I run even further. That man saved my life and now I can never repay him. I don't know what i'm going to tell his poor family.

I hear noises around me, they sound like people. Maybe they're hurt? 

I stop when I see the rock but there's no one there anymore. I even notice the grass pulled up around the edges so I know it's the right rock. 

Glancing around my surroundings quickly, I notice foot prints so I start to follow them. As I follow the foot prints I notice they become more distant from one another and then they stop, I notice dragging marks in the dirt. When I look up trying to see if I spot Lily or her children, I notice a person. They were wobbling around, almost as if they were drunk or something.

"Hey!" I yell, trying to draw their attention. Maybe they saw where Lily and the kissed ran off to. I wonder why they would just leave me.

The person doesn't respond so I yell again, louder this time. "Hello?!" 

I guess that one got his attention. The what seems to be male figure turns around and I squint trying to make out a face. He's far a way but I can tell his pace is quickening towards me. Maybe he did see them, maybe he's panicking just as much as I am right now. 

I squint harder trying to make out his face but it's pretty dark besides some lanterns around from people camping. When I finally do I see he has multiple gashes on the side of his face. There's blood dripping from his clothing and tears in his white shirt and grey pants. 

"Hey are you hurt?" I say walking towards him and his pace quickens even more. When I get close enough to the man I try to find the words to ask him if he had seen a woman and her children but before I can he knocks me down, sending me flying backwards.

"What the fuck!" I yell opening my eyes. The man was snarling at me and trying to get at my face. I was barely holding him up with my tiny arms propping his chest up. 

"Get off of me!" I yell again noticing he was now drooling all over my face and making biting motions with his teeth. His face was way worse up close, the cuts looked at least 3 or 4 inches deep and his eyes were a deep yellow. I kicked my legs as hard as I could finally kneeing that crazy son of a bitch right in the torso and finally kicking him off of me.

I sat up quickly and stumbled getting up. He got up too so I took my nude heel off and chucked it at his face as hard as I could, quickly running it the opposite direction. 

My green, knee length dress was now ripped and covered in mud and twigs. As I ran through the woods, I made myself come up with a mental plan to get to safety and hopefully away from all this shit going on. 

I was going to run to the highway Lily was talking about when I first approached her. The sun was starting to come up now, making it easier to see. I could just follow the signs until I reached St. Paul, No biggie. The walk was only around two hours at this point due to me getting pretty far into my drive so if I just kept on i'd be there in no time.

My running has now turned into fast walking due to the pinecones pricking my feet every two seconds. As I walk I hear more moaning in the distance and I quicken my pace again, hoping not to run into another crazy person. Lily's words play in my mind from earlier, are these the people she was talking about? Were these the people slaughtering innocent families in their homes? 

My mind goes to my mom....and my sisters....my brother........Nate.........Gray. Are they okay or have they gone crazy too? I think to myself, worry seeping into my mind. 

I'm sure they're fine, I tell myself trying to ease my worry. Worrying won't do any good. My moms smart and I know she'd always keep my sisters safe. My brothers an ex-marine so he has nothing to worry about, he could kick anyone's ass. The thought of anyone trying to fight my big brother causes me to laugh a little.

Nate's safe as far as I know but I still feel pretty uneasy about the way I left things. Him being disloyal to me seems so far in the past and unimportant. I just want to know that he's safe.

I think of Gray and his phone call earlier. He seemed really worried which would've made sense if we actually spoke to one another but why would he be calling to check up on me? It seemed like he was trying to warn me about the interstate so maybe he knew something I didn't. Hopefully I'll see him in St. Paul and he can clear everything up. I'm sure it's nothing.

I'm sure all of this is nothing.