Drake's P.O.V

I lay in my own pool of blood, right beside the cave entrance of my former master, the Gaiaphage. "It" had cast me out, declared me worthless after I failed to bring it back the Petard alive. The Gaiaphage had mentioned something about Petard being some sort of avatar and as more of a threat. But either way, he was still alive. I couldn't remember what happened after that, since I was thrown against the wall and forced out of the cave.

That bastard of a god..

Of all the things I did for him, he casts me out? Brittany Pig wasn't appearing anymore, and I guessed that the Gaiaphage killed her. The only good thing was that I was myself again.

I cough out a small amount of blood as it drips from my dry lips. I try and lift myself off the desert ground as the sun starts to go down off into the distance. It was getting colder. My body ached like hell, and for some reason I was bleeding internally.

"I don't need anyone," I bitterly decide to myself.

I'll kill everyone in this damned FAYZ, and rule it myself. I don't need some stupid god to help me.

I try and limp forwards as I stretch out my whip hand, making a loud crack as I whip it against the ground. I had one particular goal I needed to finish before the day ended. And believe me, I was going to accomplish it.

I was going to kill that bitch, Astrid.

Astrid's P.O.V

I wandered away from Perdido Beach, having no idea where I was going. Right now, I just wanted to be alone. My only intention was to get away from everyone, especially Sam.

I carried a small bag over my shoulder, which carried a few necessities, including a machete. I had no idea if I was going to use it or not, but I knew I had to carry at least one weapon with me if I was going to survive on my own.

I felt...empty.

For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like myself at all. I didn't care about solving solutions or figuring out scientific problems that only I would know. The only thing I wanted right now was my little brother. My sweet, innocent, little Petey.

I just wish everything was back to the way it was. When I lived with my parents and Petey was still alive.

I bite my lip, and desperately try to hold in my tears.

Sam didn't understand. I know he wanted to comfort me, but he'll never understand. He doesn't know what it's like to care for a younger sibling. Having that sibling look up to you, and love you. Even if Petey didn't show it, I know he did. He trusted me to take care of him, and I failed.

I slowly start to make my way towards the forest, which was close to the desert. I figured it would be the most reasonable place for me to go, since it provided shelter and shade.

As I enter, I'm instantly engulfed in darkness as the shade of the trees tower over me. I make my way through the trees, glancing at my surroundings to try and find a spot I could set camp.

When I find a spot between two sets of trees, I lay my bag down and sit down against the grass. I open the bag and search through my belongings to find several matches I brought with me to start a fire. Before I light the matches, I search for a few branches among the forest floor that have dropped off trees.

Once I'm satisfied with the amount of branches, I bring them back to my spot and set them on the ground next to me. I light a match on the branches and watch as the fire begins to grow.

I sigh and sit back against one of the trees as I stare at the bright fire. My mind flips back to the memories I had with Sam and the rest of our friends. I don't know whether or not if I was going to go back to Perdido Beach at this point. I decided I had to, but I would wait until the time was right.

My gaze averts to my long blonde hair, which was cascading down my cheek and falling to my waist. I debated about cutting it or not, since it got in the way most of the time. I reached into the bag and grabbed the machete, holding it in my hands. My mother had always loved my hair, that was the main reason why I didn't really want to cut it. In case I ever saw her again.

But I knew she would probably be more concerned over the fact I killed my younger brother.

I dropped the machete and began to silently sob. I cry out and lean against the ground, curling up into a ball. I hug my knees to my chest as my lip quivers. My crying becomes more louder, so I bury my face onto my knees to try and silence myself. Anyone could be out here. And I figured they would most likely be a threat.

"I'm so sorry, Petey..I'm sorry," I whisper, and try to wipe the tears from my face.

As I stop crying, I continue to lay on the floor, staring at particularly nothing. My eyes were probably red from crying so much, but the soft breeze in the air soothed it a bit. My breathing slowed as my body began to relax. My eyes slowly fluttered close as I started to silently fall asleep.

Crying had always made me sleepy.

Sleeping had always been easier for me since I always slept next to Sam. He had always held me and whispered sweet nothings into my ear. I missed him, really. I don't know why I distanced myself from him. I was just, so upset over Petey.

When I thought I was about to fall asleep, I suddenly heard a crack from a branch a several feet away.

I gasp and instantly open my eyes. I sit up and look around at my surroundings, which was hard, since darkness covered the entire forest. I guessed that it was probably night. The fire only dimmed my area, but the rest was covered in blackness.

I shiver and stare into the darkness, expecting a monster to pop out and devour me. Or worse, it could be Drake.

"Who's there..?" I silently call out, realizing my voice was laced with fear.

I feel my breathing getting heavier as I stand up and walk several steps back.

The crackling of branches stops, but now I hear movement among the trees and bushes. I feel my heart stop as the noise gets closer. I was going to die..

I was going to die, without ever seeing Sam again.

The noise stops and the creature jumps out from the bush.

As I glance closer at the animal, I discover that it's only a harmless rabbit.

I breathe a sigh of relief. My heavy sigh scares the rabbit, and it jumps away to safety. I slightly feel disappointment when I realize I could of caught it and ate it. I was starving. I silently curse myself and turn towards the fire.

"Hello, beautiful." A voice says from behind me.

Drake.

I freeze, recognizing that voice. But before I even have time to turn around, his whip is around my mouth, silencing me.

I scream bloody murder through his whip as I struggle against him.

"Shut up, you bitch." He hisses against my ear.

I try and kick and punch, but he merely chuckles. I'm probably not even hurting him. However, I don't know why, but I could almost hear pain laced with his chuckle. My eyes widen as I realize he's hurt.

He throws me against the ground and cracks his whip against his side.

I try and crawl away, reaching my hand for the machete.

"I'm going to enjoy killing you," He narrows his eyes at me, before grabbing the machete in his hands. He kicks me, and I get thrown back into a tree.

I whimper in pain and bite my lip from crying out. I'm not going to give Drake the satisfaction of hearing my cry. As he raises the machete, I roll away and try to run from him.

However, his whip strikes out and hits my side. I gasp and fall onto the ground, holding my bleeding hip.

"Help!" I scream out, but he quickly silences me by getting on top of my body and pressing his hand over my mouth.

I squirm underneath him, but he makes me stop by smacking his hand across my face, hard.

I bite my lip and allow tears to fall down my cheek as my face begins to sting with pain. I turn the other way to not let him see me cry. Right now I just want to hide myself.

He leans down and kisses my neck, and softly inhales.

"Sweet dreams, beautiful." He raises the machete. However, before he has time to hit me with it, I instantly slam my knee up against his crotch.

He gives out a surprised grunt of pain, and I shove him off me. I grab the machete and sit myself on top of him. I'm suddenly surprised by the way I'm overpowering him. But that surprise instantly goes away as I stare at him.

He's definitely hurt. Now I know why he's so weak. By the way he winces each time he breathes, and some of his clothing was covered in blood. What happened to him?

"Get off me, bitch." He seethes.

He tries to push me off, but I swing the machete hard against his shoulder.

He cries out in pain, and I nearly regret hitting him. I have never hurt a person before, and it seemed so wrong doing it. But I quickly convinced myself that this wasn't a person, this was Drake. He was a monster.

"You killed my brother," I feel more tears falling down my cheeks. "I hate you, I hate you!" I smack his face, but he clearly seems unfazed.

"No, moron. You killed him," He hisses at me.

"I killed him so you couldn't have him, I thought-" I cut off my sentence as I realize he's right. I thought the FAYZ wall would collapse, and we would all be free. But I was wrong. For the first time, I was wrong.

I helplessly stare at the ground.

"You thought what?" He gives his usual shark-like grin. "That the FAYZ would end and everyone could live happily ever after? That you could live with your parents without your little retarded brother following you around all the time? You probably wanted him dead. You got sick of taking care of that autistic little turd-"

"Shut up!" I scream at him. "Shut up, you horrible monster!" I'm slightly surprised by the hatred and anger in my voice. I've never been this angry before. I wasn't acting like myself at all. I always thought anger and violence should be a last resort to everything.

I raise the machete once again, but he quickly pushes me off and fights me for the machete. We are sent rolling down the forest floor, smacking and tugging each other for the machete.

He finally catches the machete in his hand. I crawl away from him and glance away, waiting for him to strike me. When he doesn't, I stare back at him to see him on his knees with the machete still in his grip.

He's coughing and letting out groans of pain. Each time he coughs, blood lands onto the floor.

He's bleeding internally..

As he coughs, I reach for my bag and grab out a strand of rope that I had brought with me. I figured it would be handy. Before he had time to react, I jumped on his side and grabbed his hand and his whip hand, making sure I tied the rope tight around them. His whip felt like a snake, and I shivered as I touched it.

He grunted in anger and wiggled his whip around the rope, slicing my hand.

I clutched my hand in pain, and pulled on the rope that held his two hands together. He tried to lunge for me, but I tripped him as I dodged his attack. He landed on the floor, screaming in frustration.

"I'm going to take you back to Sam. Where's he'll decide your fate," I say, knowing that his fate meant death. I expect Brittany to appear any minute, but when she wasn't, I silently wondered why she wasn't.

"You say that like it's so easy," He scoffs.

"Look at you, Drake. You can't even hardly move. You couldn't even defend yourself against me," I say, glaring at him.

"Guess you don't want to find your brother then.." I glares back at me, and for a second I don't even think I hear him.

"What?" I whisper. Petey's alive..?

"Where is he?" I shout at him. When he doesn't answer, I turn him over and smack his bleeding shoulder, hard.

He hisses through clenched teeth and lunges for me, but I quickly shove him back down. He looks as if he wants to carve my skull and beat me to death with the machete. I shudder and can't even imagine the sick thoughts that must be going through his head right now.

He curses at me, but I ignore him as I scream at him. "Where is he? Where's my Petey!"

"I won't tell you unless you untie me," He sneers.

"Do you really think I'm that much of an idiot? They don't call me Astrid the Genius for nothing. If I untie you, you'll kill me. And what's the use of finding Petey if I'm dead?" I cross my arms.

He mutters a curse under his breath, realizing I'm right.

"Tell me," I try and say in a threatening voice, although it comes out more pleading.

"Why should I tell you anything?" He spats.

I helplessly shrink back from him. I don't have anything to use. I can't kill him, he's immortal. I can't cut off his whip hand, either. He'll just grow it back in minutes.

"Aww, did little Astrid the Genius run out of ideas?" He mocks.

"I won't take you back to Sam, then. I'll..help you. Whatever you want, just please tell me where my brother is!" I beg, on the verge of tears.

"I don't need your help," He glares at me.

I sigh, deciding not to think of anything else. Instead, I just tug on the rope and drag him behind me. "I'll take you back to Sam, then." I coldly say.

He lets out a frustrated grunt, and for a second I think he's going to say something, but he doesn't.

Drake's P.O.V

As Astrid pulls me out of the forest and into the desert, I try and pull on the rope, doing anything I can to get away from her. I curse out loud and drop on my knees a few times. To my surprise, she remains calm, which pisses me off even more.

This bitch.

I never would've thought she had the guts to strike me with the machete like that. Or tie my hands with rope. She's definitely changed..

She isn't the same scared girl I had once patronized back at Coates with her retarded brother.

I had thought about telling her where her stupid brother is, but then how the hell would I know if she'd still take me back to Sam? I decided I wasn't going to tell her. She was never going to know where her brother was.

I laughed like a madman as I continued to curse her name out loud. She ignored me, as usual.

However, my laugh got cut off by my coughing. I dropped down on my knees and weakly coughed out blood, feeling my body getting weaker and weaker. I groan in pain and press my forehead against the cool sandy floor of the desert. My whole body ached, and some strands of my hair were falling off.

What did the Gaiaphage do to me?

"Drake," I hear Astrid call my name. She seems worried, but nevertheless she's still using that same angry tone.

"Get up," She walks towards me, and I nearly want to jump up and strangle her. I hate being this weak.

"Fuck you," I manage to mutter, before getting up on my feet and continuing to limp forward.

I hear her give out a silent sigh as she pulls on the rope and leads me forward.

Into the darkness of the desert.

Astrid's P.O.V

I'm tired. Physically and mentally. I just want to get back to Perdido Beach so I can rest. My legs ache from walking so far, and I can't imagine how Drake feels. I hear him cough every once in a while. He's not insulting me anymore, which is good. He's not saying anything. He's getting slower and slower, that each time I have to tug on the rope for him to keep up.

I try not to pity him.

He doesn't deserve it. After all the things he's done, all the people he's hurt. He deserves to die.

I feel a soft tug against the rope, indicating he either stopped, or he's falling behind. I pull on the rope, trying to move him forward, but he still doesn't. I turn around and stare at him for a few seconds. He stopped moving, and seems to be staring at the floor.

I try to say something, however, his body collapses and falls down the sandy hill. I let go of the rope to avoid being dragged down the hill with him. I see him fall, fall, until he finally hits the floor below.

I slowly slide down the hill to reach him. When I do, a pool of blood is forming around his body, and several strands of his light hair were falling out.

Then I realize. He has radiation in his body.

The Gaiaphage put radiation inside of him.

I walk towards him and get down on my knees to sit close to him. I softly tug on his shoulder as he gives out moans of pain.

"Drake, get up." I say.

He slightly lifts his head up from the floor to glare at me for a few seconds. However, his head weakly collapses back onto the floor. "I can't get up, you stupid bitch." He mutters.

I ignore his insult, helplessly watching as he moans again. I have never seen Drake this vulnerable before. It's almost unreal.

Was Drake actually dying? No. It can't be. He was immortal, wasn't he?

I slowly watch as his eyes close and he falls into a state of unconsciousness.

I stand back up and stare at my surroundings. The desert was empty, except for a small cabin that sat in the distance. I was guessing that it was a mile away from where we were. If it was abandoned, then maybe we could take shelter there. But, Drake was in no position to be moving anytime soon, and I was too tired to carry him all the way there.

For once, I didn't know what to do.

As soon as I was just about to give up and just lay on the desert floor, a car's headlights came into our view. The engine of the car was surprisingly silent, and as the car came completely into view, I noticed it was a black hummer.

The car drove straight towards us, and stopped inches before reaching us. My heart suddenly began to beat out of my chest. I couldn't see the people who were sitting inside the driver's seat or the passenger's seat because of the dark tinted windows. My instant worry was that it was someone from Perdido Beach sent from Caine.

However, if it was, it was completely strange. If they were from Perdido Beach, why were they out so far in the middle of the desert? It didn't make any sense.

The car's engine didn't turn off, but a girl, probably around my age stepped out of the passenger's seat and cocked a handgun at us. Her hair was a strawberry blonde color, and she had several freckles across her cheeks and her nose. Her skin was a pasty pale white color.

"Who are you two?" She questioned, still cautiously keeping the handgun at her side.

I opened my mouth to speak, but instead closed it. If she were from Perdido Beach, shouldn't she know who I was? Especially the infamous monster that was laying on the desert floor a few inches away from me?

However, if she did in fact know who we were, I can't imagine how awkward that would be. Everyone in the entire FAYZ knew that me and Drake were enemies, and that we hated each other with a passion. Anyone would find it strange if they saw me with Drake alone in the middle of the desert.

"Oh, my gosh. No, wait. I know who you are. You're Astrid. Sam's girlfriend, right?" The girl lowered her gun and blinked at me.

I felt the sudden urge to smile at her. I don't know why, but I found it amusing that everyone knew me as Sam's girlfriend, and nothing else.

"Yes. Well I was," I sheepishly admitted. Honestly, I had absolutely no idea whether me and Sam were officially broken up or not. Since neither of us really made it official that we were done.

"Oh," She had the slightest sparkle of sympathy in her eyes. Then, her gun instantly went back up as soon as her eyes averted to Drake, who was currently unconscious on the floor.

"T-that's…him! The monster. Drake," She spat with contempt, anger and fear laced in her voice. However, there was confusion as well.

"What are you two doing here? Did he hurt you?" She stared at my face, which had a slight bruise on my left cheek from Drake smacking me. And my clothes had dried blood on them, from when Drake whipped me before.

"You're safe now. You don't have to worry about him anymore," The girl reassured me, while glaring hatred at Drake.

"He isn't going to hurt anyone. He's injured." I decided to say, if that wasn't obvious enough. Seeing Drake bleeding to death on the floor.

"Good," The girl smirked, before turning her head towards the black hummer.

"Thomas! Get out here!" She yelled at the person who was in the driver's seat, whom immediately got out of the car and walked up to her. He was around my age again, with dark hair and brown eyes. He seemed rather quiet and unspoken, since he refused to make eye contact with either of us.

The girl turned her attention back to me, a smile appearing on her face. She seemed rather intimidating, despite her kindness. "I'm Christy. It's nice to meet you, Astrid." She greeted.

"It's nice to meet you too," I silently replied back.

"Take care of the monster, Thomas." Christy coldly ordered the quiet boy.

He silently nodded and made his way over to Drake.

I turned my attention towards Christy, who seemed to have a spark of evilness in her eyes whenever Drake was mentioned. "If you're going to try and kill him, it's a waste. He's immortal." I decided to explain.

And anyway, if Drake wasn't immortal anymore, I couldn't have them kill him off. I needed to take him back to Sam. It was actually half-relieved and half-upset that Thomas and Christy showed up. Without them, we could've possibly frozen to death in the middle of the desert. But I also would've still had control over Drake. Now, I was completely helpless.

"I know that. I'm not going to kill him. We're going to take him back to our place, and we're going to torture him. I want to see that monster beg for mercy. I want to see him break down and cry. He's going to pay for what he did…" Christy glares.

I give out a hopeless sigh. Drake must've done something terrible to this girl, or one of her relatives. She obviously wanted to inflict pain on him. Seeing her bloodthirsty eyes, I had slight pity what was going to come in store for Drake. But in reality, I guess Drake was receiving karma. He tortured many other kids as well.

As me and Christy stand beside the hummer, we watch as Thomas proceeds to place his arms around Drake's underarms to drag him across the desert floor and into the trunk of the black hummer.

He shuts the trunk door close, and gets back into the driver's seat. Christy climbs into the passenger's seat while I climb into one of the back seats inside the hummer. The car pulls away from the sand, and back onto the one way road that led us out or deeper into the desert.

I bite my lip as they both stay silent inside the car and drive to their place, who knows where. I silently feel nervous in the situation that I put myself in. I just wanted to be back with Sam and the others, safe.

But I feared that it would be a long time before I reached safety ever again.

A/N:

Well, I hope you guys like this first chapter. If you didn't know already, this is set right at the end of Plague when Astrid leaves Sam. It starts at the very beginning of Fear and the story will continue from there on. So, tell me what you think so far and please leave some Reviews guys! I would appreciate it if you did :)