[A/N] Just another random idea that popped into my head. Inspiration, or whatever you want to call it. Here goes...
I didn't really remember the last time we stopped for supplies. Why bother to carry all that extra stuff around when nature has its own fridge wide open for those who observe? Chase and I, we definitely observed. We were one of the few survivors of the great disaster, and how did we survive? By observing, and luck. A ton of luck. I didn't really understand why us, but hey, who was I to complain? I'm still alive, aren't I? Sorry, let me introduce myself. My name's Flannery, with bright red hair that makes me look like a match stick, and I'm one of the precious few who survived. I used to enjoy all of life's advantages, going to plays, friends, whatever you can think of. Now all I can enjoy is being alive, oh, and our explorations. Chase and I love to explore foreign places, and I don't remember how many countries we've come across that got hit bad by the disaster. Our town... blood, explotions, everywhere. I just saw it and ran. Chase was in his basement at the time, there was no warning. His parents were upstairs at the time, they died. He's around seventeen (he tries to keep his age a secret, I think it's because he's the boy and wants to be 'big' and 'tough'), I'm eighteen. The other day we'd come to a lake, oh, it was the best feeling to get your head completely underwater: and get out of the sweltering heat. Chase and I are like brother and sister, that's it. Maybe someday... but not anytime soon. Although according to the world's 'Number One' scientist (I think he's the only scientist who hasn't gone into hiding) , we have to try and repopulate the cities. When word reached me, I rolled my eyes, and thought no way. Chase and I have been out exploring for around a month now, and the reckage is unbelievable. It all started with one little terrorist attack in the USA, and it just turned... uncontrollable. President guards were dropping like flies, and the president himself went crazy and ran away to live in some cave (I blame meds). Then bombs started dropping... everywhere. Not just in the States, either.
"Flame, look at this," Chase called me Flame when we were little (because he couldn't pronounce Flannery), and the name just stuck. Everyone but proffessor-type-people call me it. Chase was holding up some round metal object. My first instinct was to swat it out of his hand, because it looked a lot like a mine, but I didn't. "What is it?" He asked me. Okay, let me explain something: Chase is forever taking things apart to figure out how they work, and the tiniest piece pf technology facinates him. But he seriously lacks common sense, and he never traveled in the same circles as everybody.
"I think it's a mine," I told him, because I really did.
"We're in the middle of a forest, who in their right mind would plant a mine out here?"
"That's the thing, the disaster happened because nobody was in their right mind."
"Good point," he began pulling at the disk, seeing if it would pry open. All of a sudden, an arrow popped out of the top, spun around a few times, then settled in one direction. "Do we follow it?" he asked, I always was the outdoorsy one, and had a good sense of direction.
"Yeah," I said with a shrug, "I was going to go that way anyway."
He held it while we onward walked. I had to kick big rocks out of the way, and hold branches aside, because Chase wasn't paying any attention at all to where we were going. He was just trying to find what else the metal thing would do.
After walking for quite a while, Chase gasped and dropped the thing on the ground.
"What's up?" I asked in alarm, he was shaking his hands throughout the air and swearing.
"It turned -freaking- on fire... burning." He said between a few words he wouldn't of dared to say if the disaster had occured. The arrow had gone back in the thing, and now it was spinning. I debated between trying to stop it and running away. And Chase's hands were blistering.
Wait... no, it wasn't spinning... it was digging. As I watched it, it already had a big mound of dirt around it.
"Chase, what the hell did you do?" I screamed at him. [A/N What's with the weird quotation marks? -_-]
"I pressed… a damn… button," he said between more swears, I debated on whether to yell at him or not, but his hands did look like they hurt, a lot.
"Well, I'm definitely not going in after that button." Even in his pain, he snorted at my words.
"So... what do you think it's doing?"
"Uh... not really sure," I said, "But what happens if it doesn't stop? Disaster Number 2?"
"Then we all really be dead, there's no way you can survive a mass lava overflow."
"No shit, sherlock," I used one of my favorite phrases, "But seriously, what do we do?"
"Well," he said, looking at the contraption, which had now sprouted spikes,"I don't think it's wise to go in after it by hand."
"Thanks for that, Captain Obvious."
Suddenly smoke started rising from the metal thing, and I cautiously peered into the hole... and started sneezing. I barely caught myself, and I would've fallen if I hadn't.
A deep voice rose from somewhere around inside the smoke, "What business do you have with the Hidden Paw?"
[A/N] Of course, I burnt my hand halfway between writing this, so I can only type one-handed. Forgive spelling errors for this reason.
