Letters and Metaphors ~ Phan

Angels in the Rubble

Here we go, part 2. I have nothing to say except enjoy, and I hope this all works out!

Just to let you know, I change the point of view (POV) during the story from here, because it gets a bit boring reading and writing from the same POV.

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When I woke up, I was buried in dirt and rubble from the house. My photo was okay, however, as I had clasped it to my chest in the blast. There were cuts all over me, but I didn't care. With great difficulty, I pushed up the light debris and shakily got to my feet. I limped up to the bunker. The doors had been blasted off and what was left of my remaining family was torn apart. I couldn't even try to hold back my tears as I looked over the helpless pile of destroyed bodies. The bomb must have landed just inside the bunker, as that too was completely ruined. I turned away and walked out onto the street. I had nobody, and nowhere to go. My angels were gone and all that was left of my house was rubble. I looked down at the photo. It was a picture of me and my family, all stood on the beach. My sister had her armbands on and she was in my mother's tanned arms. My father and grandparents were stood, smiling. I was at the front, grinning with an ice lolly in my hand. After a few minutes, a hand came down and touched my shoulder.

"You alone?" A voice asked.

I turned to face the body the voice had come from, only to see two boys.

"Uh, yes, I am. M-my family has b-been k-killed." I replied, stuttering with fear. What would these boys do? Hurt me? Take my photo? Take..me?

The boy with his hand on my shoulder put his hand down and beckoned me to start walking. We did.

"We're alone as well. Escaped from our homes last night. We know someone who can help us. I'm Phil, by the way." this boy was much older than me, and his black hair slightly covered his cerulean eyes, "That's Dan. He's not extremely chatty around girls so-"

The other boy, a brown haired one who was about my age looked dsgusted.

"I do talk to girls! I just..don't...bother!"

"Yeah, sure Dan. So what's your name?"

Phil looked over at me, my clothes filthy from the explosion.

"I'm Anna, just turned 14 about a month ago." I was confused as to why they needed to know my age, but as long as they got me to safety, nothing could be bad about this.

We continued to walk. We stopped at a shop to get some supplies for our journey. I then realised that I had no money. I took this time I had while the others got things to think how I'd ended up in this position. These boys came to me pretty much straight away and I'm already at the shop out of town. I was a bit confused, but as long as I can survive I'm okay. They soon returned, nothing in their hands.

"Why aren't you carrying anything?" I qeustioned, struggling to keep up with their quickening pace.

"Backpack. Nicked. This is how it's gonna have to be." Dan informed me, and we were soon sprinting, an angry shopkeeper chasing us.

We just ran, using all of our energy to get away from this psycho shopkeeper. He started to gain on us a little. We came to a fence. Phil hopped over with ease as he was much taller and older. I tried to get over, but I couldn't. Neither could Dan. We shot each other glances and both ran off in the same direction. We shot round a corner and found a small wall we could climb over. We did so and ended up in the field Phil had managed to climb into over the fence. It was a corn field. Perfect! The shopkeeper clambered over the wall just as I tackled Dan to the ground.

"What the-" he hissed

"Shut up!!" I whispered, "Crawl to Phil. The guy won't see us. Come on."

I scampered in a zig zag to throw the shopkeeper off course, tossing some stones far away to attract him to somewhere else. We reached Phil and we all crawled back over the fence, Phil boosting me and Dan up and climbing over himself.

"We have to carry on down here. Quickly. I know somewhere we can stay. We've got you some stuff too, Anna." Phil ushered us all down a mddy path that led up to a forest.

Phil stayed silent as we meandered onwards. Dan began our conversation.

"So when's your birthday?"

"15th June. Yours?"

"11th of June. We're 4 days apart! Cool. So what's that?"

He pointed a finger at my photograph and I showed him.

"It's a photo of me and my family from about 3 years ago. Everybody except my dad is dead. Unless my dad has been killed, but I don't know as he's fighting in the war."

"I was abandoned when I was 12. Phil came and found me. He was 16 then. We've been on the streets for 2 years now. It's a dangerous thing to be doing, but we're holding on. We've been looking for someone else to join us so we could, you know, do more. Get money and stuff, you know?"

"So what are you planning to do for the rest of your lives? Because you could get a house or apartment somewhere."

"We're trying to find somewhere that doesn't have so many bombs and danger. We've come from Kent. We only left to get away from people who were looking for us. But that doesn't matter. Phil knows a guy who can help us."

We reached the border of the deepest forest I'd ever seen. We headed straight in and came across some empty space. Instantly, Phil threw his stuff down and unpacked his bag.

"I've got 3 tents. I'll put them up and you two go and get stuff for a fire. We can cook some of the stuff we got earlier." Phil instructed.

Dan and I set off together. I had no idea what counted as good firewood, and Dan could tell as my face looked extremely puzzled.

"Make sure," he started, "That you get only dry sticks of different sizes."

We spent 10 minutes gathering a decent amount of wood and returned to our camp. The tents were all up and Phil had begun cutting down large branches covered in leaves with a knife. I had no idea what he was doing until he explained that we needed a pretty good disguise, and he was pretty good at doing that. I knelt down in the middle of the circle of tents and Dan showed me how to start a fire.

"Start with the little twigs and set them alight. Then keep adding larger sized ones slowly. You don't want to suffocate the fire. Air is vital in fires. Try and get the sticks to stand like a tipi. It helps you add more on."

~A few hours later~

Dan's POV

We finished up with the food we had and poured some water on the fire. Phil stepped on the final ambers and we all went into our tents. I struggled to sleep. I just thought about how this had all began. Phil had been kicked out and I had been abandoned. It was friendship at first sight. I tried to sleep but I just couldn't. This had never happened before. I decided to go and see Anna. I crept out of my tent, quiet as possible and tiptoed into her tent. I nudged her awake.

"What on earth?" she couldn't see me.

"Hey, it's me, Dan." I whispered, "I couldn't sleep."

Anna sat up. She patted the ground next to her, asking for me to sit down, and I did.

"What's on your mind?" she asked. She sounded like she actually cared, which is a first.

"Bloody sirens." Sirens had begun sounding.

"Want to stay in here? I don't mind."

"Err okay. I'll just-"

I suddenly felt a blanket being thrown at my face. Then there were muffled giggles. This girl was the nicest girl I'd ever met, even if she did throw things at me and had the cutest laugh - wait, what? Oh god. I'd never felt like this before. I thought I was falling in...love! I began to panic, looking around for a family. I began to whimper a bit, and I was so worried, I stood up, only to blank out and pass out on the ground. Great timing, as searchlights were the last thing I saw when I drifted to unconsciousness..

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Hope that was a good part 2! Thought I'd leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger just to make it a bit more exciting. I would really appreciate it if you'd stick around for this so I can get some more confidence in writing stuff. Tysm <3