Chapter Three

APOV:

I had to irrigate the fields today with dad, Freedom, Isaiah, Jamie, Mel, Jared, Jeb and various other members of the caves. As I was working Mae walks in pulling a wagon with two coolers and cups on it. She was obviously in charge of drinks for everyone today.

"Okay, everyone, take a ten minute break then back to work!" barks Jeb before walking towards Mae. Everyone else follows his lead talking amongst themselves. As I was walking over Freedom comes up beside me with a grin.

"Where's Alice at today?" asks Freedom. It was no secret that Freedom liked Alice, even Alice knew it and had told him on more than one occasion that she wasn't interested. That was because she liked Isaiah, of course Freedom didn't seem to know that—or he was in denial, I didn't know for sure.

"I believe she's in the kitchen today," I say as we approach Mae. Freedom gets a drink before walking away. Then it was my turn.

"Lemonade or water?" asks Mae as she picks up a cup.

"Surprise me," I say with a grin. Mae smiles before pouring lemonade into my cup and hands it to me. "Thanks."

"So how's field work today?" asks Mae looking at the field. We were almost done with this field, but still had more to go.

"It's way too hot to be doing field work today. The heat had everyone in a bad mood. Fights keep breaking out over nothing and Jeb keeps saying he's going to get his shot gun out if we can't get along," I say in exasperation.

"I don't think it's ever been this hot," says Mae grabbing my cup from me and taking a drink of it before handing it back to me. "Thanks," say says with a cheeky grin.

"Brandt said it's global warming. I'm not exactly sure what that means but apparently there's this huge hole in the ozone from people polluting the air and stuff. Anyway, ozone layer is what shields the earth from the worst of the sun's rays and without it the earth has been getting hotter and hotter every year. He also said the oceans are getting deeper and places on the coasts are losing land," I explain.

"Thank you teacher," says Mae sarcastically, but she also had a grin on her face. She was so beautiful. It was no surprise that the other guys our age always looked at her with appreciation. In turn Jared would often shoot daggers at the boys who he found staring at her. Even I have been a recipient of Jared's glares, but I didn't care. I only cared about Mae.

"So I think tonight is soccer, want to be on my team?" I ask.

"How can you be so sure I'll get on your team?" asks Mae.

"It's my turn to be team captain. Alice is the other team captain," I say with a grin.

"Sure, but if Alice picks me first don't be disappointed," says Mae as she refills my cup before taking a drink and handing it to me. I grin and take a drink just before Jeb calls everyone back to work. "I have to go to the kitchen now." With that said Mae pulls the wagon away.

By the end of the day I had a black eye because Brandt got mad and punched me when I had dumped his water bucket on accident. But in my defense I couldn't see over the bags of fertilizer I was trying to carry. Dad had gotten mad and Brandt ended up with a broken nose for all of his trouble.

When we walked into the cafeteria that evening for dinner mom was shocked to see the bruise forming around my eye and down the side of my face. "Oh my god what happened?!" screeches mom as she walks over to me and inspects my face.

"Brandt got pissed off and punched him for accidentally dumping his water bucket," says Ian as mom leads me back to the kitchen where the freezer was. Thanks to all of the generators we were able to get fridges and freezers to store some of the perishables.

"I'm fine mom," I say as she pulls an ice pack out of the freezer and lays in against the bruise still forming on my face.

"This is not fine, Aiden," says mom sternly. "He could have broken you jaw, or worse."

"Well dad broke his nose, so I think we're even," I say as I hold the ice pack myself. "Everyone was sort of in a bad mood today anyway. It was bound to happen."

"You're just a kid though," says mom obviously still having a mini panic attack.

"I'm almost an adult," I say puffing out my chest. Mom laughs and nudges me playfully before kissing my cheek and walking towards the cafeteria. It didn't take long to find our usual group sitting at one of our usual tables. After getting our trays we walk over to the table and I sit between Alice and Mae.

"What happened to your face?!" asks Mae suddenly concerned.

"Dad said that Brandt punched him today while they were irrigating the field," says Alice nonchalantly enough for Mae, but I could hear the concern she felt towards me.

"Well dad took care of it so no worries," I say with a grin trying to ease both of them.

"Let me see," says Mae gently touching my face and turning it so that she can get a better look at my bruise. "It looks really bad already. I'm sure it'll be worse tomorrow."

"I'll live right?" I say feigning worry. I watch Mae's expression soften as she nods.

"You should make a full recovery," says Mae. Mae was always saying that she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, and Doc tried to teach her everything he knew so that when he could no longer be a doctor Mae could take his place.

He was always coming up with old medical journals for her and mom would look for books for her when she went on Raids. She was going to make a fine doctor some day. Suddenly Isaiah walks over to our table and sits across from Alice who blushes.

"Hey Allie, Mae…Aiden," says Isaiah smiling at Alice who was blushing even more. Ever since she'd had that dream she couldn't be near Isaiah without blushing.

"Hey Isaiah," says Mae cheerfully.

"Are you guys playing soccer today?" asks Isaiah.

"Yeah. It's mine and Alice's turn to be captains," I say before taking a bite of my sandwich.

"Awesome. So Allie, will you pick me to be on your team?" asks Isaiah suggestively causing me to growl. Alice of course heard me and begins to glare at me.

"Sounds good," says Alice with a grin.

"Awesome," says Isaiah winking at Alice before walking away. Then Freedom walks over and takes Isaiah's seat.

"What did he want?" asks Freedom.

"To be Alice's team today," I say causing Freedom's mouth to fall open in surprise followed by a pout.

"Fine, can I be on yours Aid?" asks Freedom. I nod and Freedom grins. He obviously wanted an excuse to fight with Isaiah. They were always fighting over Alice, even though it was no competition since Isaiah already won Alice's heart.

"So how was kitchen work Alice?" asks Freedom turning his attention to Alice who was eating.

"Boring. I had to make bread," says Alice with a sigh.

"Tomorrow we have school all day," says Freedom.

"Yeah, mom's teaching tomorrow. I think we might get a test too," says Alice disdainfully before taking a bite of her food.

"You act like it's the end of the world or something. At least we get an education," says Mae.

"If you haven't noticed it is the end of the world," says Freedom. "Those soul things are still out there taking over the world. We're lucky we haven't been found yet." Freedom's mom wasn't a big fan of the souls, no one was, and most of the people here spoke their minds about the souls. We knew that our mom was one of them, so it always got to Alice and I a little bit, but we had gotten used to it over the years. Alice could actually tell when a soul wasn't in full control of a body and we'd take them to Doc to have the soul extracted and taken to a different planet. Thanks to Alice we had a high success rate. Once the body was awake we would try to help them regain their memories and then they could meet other humans and pick a permanent residence with one of the other groups of humans or stay with us.

Jeb still worked hard to increase the size of the caves and sometimes we would get lucky and find another air pocket. We even came across a spring with water that was safe to drink and tasted better than our other water. We really did have quite the life down here.

After dinner everyone who wanted to play soccer went to the game room and Jeb announced that Alice and I would be captains. Then he flipped a coin and I won so I could pick first. "Mae," I say and she walks over to me.

"Isaiah," says Alice.

"Freedom."

"Mom."

"Dad…" and so on we went until we had two teams.

"Let the games begin," says Alice with a grin as Jeb tosses the ball between us.

End Chapter

A/N: Thanks for reading. Sorry if it's not all that great, I wasn't really feeling this chapter so I was winging it. Next chapter will probably be the soccer game. I updated my profile so now you can find me on facebook, myspace, youtube, and some other sights I have accounts on. There's also my e-mail if you need to ask me anything. If I remember I'll add my AIM screen name so that you can IM me sometime if you feel inclined to. =D I love making friends so there you go. I'll try to be faster next time. Thanks for all of the great reviews! Sayonara! =]