Traded In

Chapter One: It Begins

It had been four months since we had made contact with the new group of humans.

I could have said that nothing had changed since then, but that would've be an obvious lie, because meeting them had changed everything. I remember the news like it was yesterday. The excitement of the crowd, the pulsing of my veins, the erratic beating inside my ribcage, it was all so fresh in my memory. The moment forever embedded within me, tying down my hopes into reality and making them scar me new visions. All of these emotions were due to this one incredible miracle, which fell from the sky…figuratively and literally.

Her name is Wanda, or so I've heard.

Funny how a soul was the one giving humanity its hope for survival; honestly though, I don't care if it's a human, a soul, a giraffe, or a garden gnome helping us. All that matters anymore is that there is a cure, and slowly but surely we're getting closer to bringing our species together once again. Sure it's dangerous, but we've managed to pull through so far. Everything is going to be okay now.

I hope.

I can hear Crater shushing me from across the bushes. I hadn't noticed that my feet were crushing a nest of twigs, that is until I also heard the crunching sound that echoed throughout the shrubbery. 'Oh! Sorry' I mouth to him silently, and try my best not to make any more noise than I need to as I relocate myself. He rolls his eyes, his mouth a worried line on his nearly perfect face, while he moves the group closer through the low terrain; finally when he believes we've reached a good safe point, he raises his hand and signals us to examine the hot spot. A grocery store.

From afar it looks normal, its neon sign glowing faintly in the sunset painted atmosphere, an empty parking lot, and food filled interior finish the tranquil picture. An average looking man at the cash register takes his time looking through a paper on his desk; he turns them this way and that as if it was just another day's work. All the while we wait, our bodies hunched over, aching in pain. I feel a large bead of sweat slide through the side of my face and plop to the floor. It's barely audible, but Crater shushes me again anyways; I swear the boy could hear a cactus go through photosynthesis if he tried hard enough! Finally what we've been waiting so patiently for happens. The man in the registers exits the store and disappears around the corner to the shed.

"Go!" Crater whispers, I and another girl sprint to our feet and make a B-line towards the door; as our feet touch the pavement, our strides become longer and quicker, but also more cautious. The last thing we want is for the clerk to find us mid-raid.

He didn't even bother to lock the entrance, but then again, none of them do. There's no reason for them to suspect one another for stealing. They're supposedly too good for that.

This is the hardest part for me; my fingers are stumbling clumsily through the bag of chips as I shove them into my backpack. I try to get as much as I can without thinking, and with the anxiety that boils inside I start to forget all of the requests the rest of the group gave me before I left. Did so-and-so ask for Doritos or Lays? What's-her-face wanted Milky Way right?

I turn my head to the girl beside me and notice that she's stuffing her bag as mindlessly as I am. Suddenly, I don't feel as guilty as I know I should, and keep shoving what I can until the bag is full and heavy in my arms. Our zippers sound in unison as we close them, and now I can see Crater waving his hand frantically at us, begging us to finish quickly.

"He doesn't have to tell me twice" I mumble and with that we head out into the trees and far from that so called civilization.

"WOOOOOOOOHOOOO ALRIGHT MAMA!" Ash yells at the top of his lungs. He flails the bag of Cheetos over his head as if it were an Olympic gold medal. He forces the bag open, spilling Cheetos all over the car in the process, and starts to fill his mouth with the orange goodness. "Oh thank you God" he achieves to say in between bites. His hand brings up the beaded necklace around his neck to his mouth, and he fills it with cheese as he kisses it. I grin from ear to ear, and from where I'm sitting I can see a smile start to make its way onto Crater's face too.

"`Ey! Watch where you're aiming those stupid Cheetos of yours! You stained my shorts, do you know how long it's going to be before I can go and get another pair? `Eh? Do you?"

Lava's shouts boom through the car equally as loud as Ash's do. Those two were always the first to get loud whenever it was safe to. It seemed as if the quiet was always too much for them, and in many ways I was glad they always broke the ice.

"Whazch du prebblem? We cun jist get Burns to helchs us!"

"You t`ink we can use Burns whenever we want ah? He's busy you know, it's - -aw cover your damn mouth you pig!"

This only made Ash chew more obnoxiously and get closer to Lava's face. In return she started to yell something in Spanish I couldn't understand, until she got sick of him that is, and began to hit him with her sneaker.

"Yeah get him! Get him!" I egged her on.

"I'm driving you morons! You want me to crash?" Carter finally spoke up from the driver's seat, but the grin was still stuck on his face. "That'd be a stupid way to die don't you think? The only humans to die of a car crash in the middle of an alien invasion!"

"Better I say! That way, while I'm dying I'll stick my butt in the air, so it's the first thing the Seekers will see when they come get us!"

Despite ourselves we laughed at his stupid joke, mainly because we knew he would actually do it.

"Ooh yeah!" Lava's face shined almost as if there was a light bulb inside her skull "We should paint 'KISS THIS' on the back of your pants!"

My imagination pictured the look on the Seekers face as they got a look at the gruesome car crash, and then at Ash's posterior shooting up in their direction with those words written on them. The image made me choke on the Snickers I was eating, which only made the group laugh more.

Back at camp though, they didn't find it as hilarious.

"You took a long time" Russell said when we got there.

His usual deep voice went an octave lower, as he crossed his muscular arms in front of his broad chest. His bald head shined brightly, the result of a ray of sunshine shining down from a small crack on the cave roof. From the corner of my eye I can see Ash biting his lower lip with great intensity, a sure sign that he had noticed it too and was keeping himself from bursting out into laughter.

"I know I know" Crater was the first to say, he stepped forward so I wasn't the one getting Russ' glare anymore. I let out a silent sigh of relief.

"It's just that the cashier took a longer time getting out than we had expected. We would've made a faster exit if we could have, you know that."

"I was almost going to send reinforcements to go looking for you."

"What? Reinforcements? What are we fifth graders?" Crater didn't give Russell a chance to reply "Russ you know how I get on raids, you know that you can trust me. I wouldn't put my team in danger."

"Well you can never be too careful nowadays Crater. Remember that the number of Seekers has doubled recently because of - -what's been going on."

I heard Lava shift uncomfortably behind me.

"I know I know" Crater repeated, but his face had twisted into a somber expression now, his dust colored eyes focusing on an invisible spot.

"Heeeeeyyyy no problem. You should have seen Crater out there coach! He was 'Swoosh' and 'Bizaaaooo' 'Cha-ching!'" Ash chipped in.

Russell gave him one of his famous skeptical looks. I let out the last inch of breath I was holding in, because now the situation felt a lot less tense. Everything always eased itself just right here.

"What have I told you about using onomatopoeia as verbs Ash?" Russell's thick eyebrows went up, his gotee moving slightly upward along with them.

"But coach it was awesome! I swear his ears were mad crazy!" Ash's long, black hair swished this way and that as he talked excitedly. I hated the way it fell back into place like silk, without a single bump, or curl. "Oh and I've never seen Charcoal run so fast! You should've seen the way her and Lava got in there and cleaned the top shelves!" He faced me now and beamed. "And leaving that note was genius! You sounded just like a soul in the writing; it was a great cover up!"

I tried my best not to blush at his compliment, and instead we bumped fists. I had written several notes before the raid began, I knew things were going to get hectic, and thought it best if we left little letters here, and there if we were to take more supplies than souls usually do. It was a letter of apology of sorts, a soul explaining why they couldn't drop by and say hello, and why they needed to take so many items in such a short amount of time. I also added something about being sorry for making the worker go through the trouble of checking the inventory themselves; since I knew they did item checks instead of trading cash. I would then sign the notes using fake pen names like Smiles Upwards or Swims Gracefully, anything I could think up of really. The souls never appeared to notice the difference.

"Thinking like a human, acting like a soul" Ash grinned.

Lava punched his arm playfully "Ah shuddup"

"Ow! It's true!"

"Alright, that's enough you two" Russell smiled "now go get yourselves inside, and let me close the entrance in peace. The last thing I need is a headache."

We made our way in, shuffling in a single line absent mindedly, even though we knew we didn't need to. Russell looked back at us and caught a glimpse of Ash's pants. They had 'KISS THIS' written in bright red marker on the back of them. "I'm not even going to ask" Russell grumbled under his breath as he began to close the entrance.

He could already feel the headache forming within his temple.

A/N: Hello there, I just wanted to add that this is my first fanfic, and I'm very excited about it. I hope that you will like this story as it progresses, and don't feel afraid to review! Tell me what you like, dislike, want me to change, or even if you have a good idea you might want to share. I'll take each of your comments into consideration. (Sorry for the many line breakers in this Ch by the way!;; I know they're a tad distracting.)

Fair warning though! This is a Doc x OC fanfic! Enjoy!