Adrean awoke from his rock hard bed as the overseer, Demetria , rang the breakfast bell. Adrean sat up as all the other settlers left the sleeping quarters and opened his locker at the foot of his bed to put on his favorite black jacket. he wentto Aurora's
assigned bed. " Aurora," he said, " wake up". No answer. He didn't have time to deal with her. She would just lose some of her lunch time. Whatever. This happened almost every day to Adrean. Some days she would get up but others... Not eventhe
emergency alarm could get her up. Today Adrean didn't feel like dealing with her so he just left the quarters and headed for the cafeteria. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night because he had over heard Demetria and the head of the settlementsecurity,
Rory, talking about a group of nearby gunners who were most likely to attack and he had spent the whole night thinking about it. Adrean had lived in the settlement for almost 16 years and not ONCE was there an attack. Aurora had came to the settlement
when she was about 4. She came with her dad who was the head of security before Rory. Her dad had later died in a raider attack trying to keep them from getting in to the armory. Adrean entered the cafeteria and, of course, most of
/the other people had already sat down and started eating. He grabbed a tray and went to see what the chef had cooked for today. " Breakfast: Roasted radroach meat, Lunch: roasted radroach meat, diner: roasted radroach meat!" He read angrily. " What
/the devil?! The menu hasn't changed since last week!" Adrean grabbed a bottle of Nuka Cola Cherry, his favorite, and went to sit down at his table. About five minutes later Aurora showed up, walking into the cafeteria with the same old empty leather
/bag strapped around her shoulder ,and the same old blonde curly hair, and the same old leather shirt, and the same old ragged muddy jeans. She grabbed a purified water and took a red plastic plate and came to sit next to Adrean. " Why do you have
/a plate, Aurora? You didn't even grab anything to eat!" Adrean told her. She pulled out a sweet roll from her back pocket and raised it up to show him. " I bought it from the caravan that always comes through the settlement to drop off supplies,"
/she explained. " OH MY DEVIL! YOU HAVE TO SPLIT IT WITH ME! I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING AURORA, ANYTHING!" Adrean begged. " anything?" Aurora asked as she smirked. " YES AURORA! I'LL EVEN LET YOU BORROW MY GROGNAK THE BARBARIAN COMIC!" He exclaimed. "
/Borrow? I don't think that would be fair. I mean- you aren't BORROWING my sweet roll, are you? No. Your TAKING it." The sweet cinnamon smell rushed up Adreans nose. He would give ANYTHING to actually eat something delicious for once, but his favorite,
/action packed, collector's edition comic? "Fine..." He sighed. " I'll give it to you at the end of today. Deal?" " Deal," Aurora agreed as she handed him half of her sweet roll.
After eating his sweet roll and finishing his Nuka Cola, Adrean and Aurora both headed out to work. They both were engineers for the settlement. Demetria had ordered them to make a " Drinking Buddy" protectron for the cafeteria so the settlers
would be more happy. The protectron would be shaped like a barrel with arms and legs and would hold ice cold Gwinnett Ale, Nuka Cola, or any drink that a settler wanted to freeze and at the same time would be protecting the settlers and making sure
/they didn't violate the rules. It was a lot of work. It would most likely take all the engineers 2 more months or so to get done. Well... 2 months if Zeke, the laziest engineer, would actually work instead of asking people to " cover for him" while
/he just snuck around were ever he wanted to go and did whatever he wanted to do. They walked into the workshop and were suprised to find out that they had beaten Hazel, the fourth engineer, to the workshop. " Huh. That's weird," Aurora said, " I
didn't
/see Hazel in the cafeteria today and I thought she must have skipped breakfast to come here, but..." Usually Hazel was first to the workshop. " And Zeke isn't here either," Aurora said. " Well that's a surprise." Adrean said sarcastically. They came
/to an agreement to wait and see if they showed up. Aurora wanted to go look for them but they couldn't waste anytime. They had to get the drinking buddy done for the overseer. About 15 minutes later Hazel or Zeke hadn't shown up when Demetria opened
/the door to the workshop. " Has either one of you seen Zeke or Hazel anywhere?" Demetria asked. " If I can't find them soon enough I'll have to send out a security patrol to find them." She explained. Adrean got butterflies in his stomach. What if
/they ran off? Or even worse...What if they were kidnapped- or even KILLED- by the gunners the overseer was talking about? " Nope," Aurora answered, " I haven't seen them since yesterday when we were all heading off for dinner." " Did they end up
/coming to the cafeteria, " Demetria asked Aurora. " Actually- no, I don't remember seeing them," Aurora answered. " The last time I saw Hazel was when she said she was going to skip dinner and go on a walk with Zeke," Adrean said. Then he realized-
/what if she meant OUT of the settlement walls? What if the gunners had killed Hazel and Zeke? " uh oh..." Demetria said under her breath, " I'll have to send out a security patrol...Ok well thanks. I'll be sure to keep and eye out for them" Demetria
/said as she left the room. Adrean got a weird feeling. A feeling he had never felt before. Something bad was going to happen. Something that would change his life.