I still own nothing!

Walking, walking, and even more walking. That's what my day revolved around now. I walked to join the survivors, I walked to a valley of dead animals, and now I was walking towards a settlement. At least this place could offer something useful. Hassan, Suleiman, and Ali were busy shouting in Arabic at the settlement. I assumed they were yelling things like: 'Hello? Anyone there? Would you like to convert to Chrislam?', but whatever it was got no answer. Fry added her voice to the collection and asked if there was anyone out there, but still there was no response.

Even from a distance the place looked abandoned. There were big metal buildings everywhere, and tarp sheds here and there. The tarps were tattered and ripped, and doors hung open on the buildings. Litter was strewn about randomly, and tables and lawn chairs were tipped over and scattered about. Metal barrels were tipped and tilted and leaned against walls, and other strange metal containers could be found laying around. I slowed and picked up a small doll, it was ragged and dirty, but more sad than anything. I clenched my fist around it, squishing the stuffing inside it. The area around me was so desolate, and I felt a strange feeling of deja vu wash over me at the ghost town appearance. It was like I had seen something like this once, a place abandoned and run down, devoid of life. Flashes of my childhood nightmares reminded me that I had dreamed of a place like this, but that didn't feel entirely right. I didn't just dream something so lonely, did I?

I wandered around the buildings, tossing the doll on one of the tables. I ran my hand along the metal surface of the buildings, burning the pads of my fingers. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn't even realize the slight pain. I knew I wasn't related to my parents by blood, but there was no way I could remember something from before I was three. That's how old I was when they found me, three years old, asleep on their doorstep with nothing but a piece of paper with my name on it. The dreams were just nightmares that every little kid got, there was nothing special about them. Of course dreaming about empty villages and burning homes wasn't exactly normal, but I grew out of them. The only one that stayed with me through the years was the dream about the graveyard. It was always so vivid, the miles of tombstones and the strange woman who was always talking to me, telling me secrets. I never remembered what she said, but I always remembered the orange sky and the dirt beneath my feet. It was so realistic that whenever I woke up I still believed I was there. When I was younger, I liked to pretend she was my real mother, that deep down I remembered her, but that was just a fool's hope. I had two wonderful parents, and I didn't need some imaginary woman to be my mother. I tried to shake off these stupid memories, I just had strange dreams, they were probably just indigestion messing with my head.

"There was water here," I heard Imam say. My head snapped over to him at the mention of water so fast it could have snapped my neck. I trotted over to where he was and watched as he tinkered with a piece of tubing running under a tarp.

I was just standing there, hovering around him when he followed the tube to a big, solar powered thing-a-majig. By this point everyone was present except Fry, and Imam's boys were talking again. I really wished they could speak English, it would make understanding them so much easier. Then they wouldn't be misunderstood, and I wouldn't have to constantly guess what they are talking about. Like if they were talking about cats, I like cats, we could talk about cats together! Or how to perfect a roundhouse kick, I could participate in a conversation like that too.

Imam mentioned something to Johns about what the boys were saying, and then pointed something out about the strange contraption and the source of the water. They started discussing ways to fix it, and I just backed off and stood off to the side. I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, not really sure what to do with myself. The kids talked to each other in a language I didn't know, and I really didn't want to talk to Johns. Not like I had anything to add the their conversation anyway.

I took off in search of Fry, but I didn't see her out in the open. I took a closer look at the buildings and noticed that an area that looked blocked off before, was now opened. I approached it cautiously, hearing the slight tick of a working mechanism. I poked my head into the dark room and couldn't see anything in the darkness for a moment. My eyes soon adjusted and I saw Fry staring at what looked like my sixth grade science project. It was a model of some planets, only this one lit up and spun better than mine did. I took a deep breath and literally felt years of dust assault my nose. I sneezed, and it wasn't one of those dainty, lady-like sneezes either. It was the grand, mac-daddy of all sneeze kind, and it scared the crap out of Fry. She whipped around, her hand over her heart as she glared at me.

"You scared me," she stated. I waited for something else, but it never came. I looked her over, and she stared back, but she didn't say it!

"Well bless you. Oh! Thank you Fry!" I exclaimed, way overly exuberant. Speaking for both myself and Fry.

"Why would I bless you?"

"Its only polite!"

She gave me a funny look before walking past me. "We should go find the others."

I guess her parents never taught her manners! It wasn't anything major that she didn't say anything, and it didn't offend me, but I still found it strange. At home if you sneezed in public, at least three people would bless you. She acted like she had never heard of something like that before.

I had just walked out of that dark building when Fry took off running. She was whooping and cheering and flinging her arms about as she went. "Hello Mecca!" she shouted, her hat falling off and landing in the sand. I walked slowly after her, convinced he had just snapped and was hallucinating. But hey, I was wrong, and I'll admit to that. I followed after her and saw what she was looking at, I guess she wasn't crazy. Fry stood in front of what looked like the love child of a space shuttle and an airplane. It was about the size of a crop-duster, and not the farting kind. The front was bulky, and it had a large wing that was set back farther than I thought it should have been. It didn't look very aerodynamic, but maybe space vehicles didn't have to. There were two big engine-propeller something or others on each side of a door that had dropped into a ramp. Inside there was a bench on each side, and two chairs up front by the windows. The dashboard though, that was a confusing piece of machinery right there. There were a ton of buttons, some switches, and even a few levers. Some were red, some were blue, and some were green. I'm positive that Dr. Sues would have a field day with this. One switch, two switch, red switch, blue switch! Or from there to here, and here to there, lots of buttons everywhere! I snorted a little as I thought about that, it would be amusing to hear a children's poem about a spaceship dashboard.

Fry walked past me and into the baby ship. She rifled through a bunch of compartments on it, flicking some of the switches and pressing buttons. She ended up with her head in the floor of the little ship, the floor panel on the ground next to her. She made a few grunts every once in awhile and her body jerked as she pulled on something, but other than that she didn't move. I watched her with interest for a while, but my attention was fading fast. Eventually she pulled body back out of there and closed the panel.

"No juice, looks like its been laid up for years, but we might be able to adapt it to-"

"Shut up," Johns cut Fry off. He was looking off into the distance, and if my sense of direction was right, he was looking towards the crash site. Everyone was dead silent, watching Johns and waiting to hear an explanation for his rude behavior. "Sorry, I thought I heard somethin'"

"Like what?"

"Gunshots"

This chapter is pretty short, but I really wanted to crank out another chapter before I go to sleep! Your reviews make me happy, so please continue to shower me with praise! Haha, no... but I do like your feed back! And to all who asked, no, Chara will not be very powerful, I just didn't want her to be completely helpless. I did go a little overboard with the martial arts, but what can I say? I couldn't choose just one!