What A Long Hard Life Bless' Story
Chapter 7: A Place To Stay
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The two of them travelled for about another year, walking and stopping and travelling some more, until one day. They were walking as usual, moving onto the next city, when they heard a voice call them. "Psst! Hey, over here!" it hissed Bless and Shade turned to their right to see a light blue female hedgehog with long scruffy quills, hiding behind a pile of rubble, she looked like she was about the same age as Shade. She waved to them and beckoned for them to come over to her.
The cautiously walked over to her. "Hi… my name's Heather… do you two need a place to stay?" she said kindly.
"How do we know you aren't going to call GUN on us." Shade said, folding his arms, he was ready to run though.
"No way… I'm not going to do that… come down here with me." she said and crouched down, crawling under a large piece of rubble, and seemed to disappear into darkness. Bless and Shade looked at each other then followed too.
Once they got into the gap, they realised there was a tunnel leading to an underground building, it looked like it used to be the basement of a once standing building. "Whoa… what is this place?" Shade asked.
"A small group of us live down here… because we can't afford to live in one of the safe houses…" the Heather explained. "I'm here because my parents are dead… I guess you two are without parents too."
The two of them nodded sadly. "Well, hopefully you'll have a better life here. Do either or you have any skills that could help our little community?" she asked politely.
"I'm good at stealing supplies." Shade boasted. Heather looked down to Bless,
"How about you?"
"I'm immortal!" she said sweetly. Shade's eyes widened, he started to look nervous.
"Well… that… could come in handy…" Heather said, breaking the awkward silence between them. "Would you like to tell me your names?" she asked politely. Shade liked this girl, she was very nice.
"I'm Shade, and this is Bless." Shade said, pointing to Bless as he introduced her. "So… do we get a room of some sort?"
"Yes… there are a few rooms left… there's a few of us living here, there's no one over the age of eighteen though… we're all teenagers or kids." Heather explained.
"What happens when we turn into adults then?" Shade asked worriedly.
"Nothing… you just stay… no one's really gotten older yet though… we only found this two months ago." she said and showed them to their room. It had an area of about 3 metres squared, so it was just big enough for them to have a few belongings and to lie down and sleep.
"Thanks." Shade said to her. He dropped his few belongings down onto the floor, on top of the few pillows that were in the corner. He had a few coins of money, they had found a few Mobians worth of change over the years, a small plastic bottle and one slice of bread in a packet that once had a full loaf of bread and the gun.
Heather noticed the weapon that came from his pocket. Shade noticed her uneasy look. "Oh… don't worry… I've never used it… nor threatened to use it… well… I did once, it was our only means of survival… though I never pulled the trigger." he explained.
"Okay… please… don't use it in here…" she pleaded.
"Of course I won't… it's more of like… a charm to us… it was the gun that was used to kill our mum." Shade said sadly. Heather looked at the two of them sympathetically.
"Shade… I'm hungry…" Bless whined, Shade pointed to the last piece of bread on the floor in it's packet.
"It's gone a little stale, but it's all I have." Shade said, Bless went to eat it. "Will we get any food… or do we have to go and find it ourselves?" Shade asked Heather.
"We have supplies… but you must contribute to it… you know… help us." Heather said.
"Fair enough." he said, and smiled at her. "So… who else is living here… just…. Friends?" he asked curiously.
"Yep… just friends… all girls… we're glad we found you." she said, winking and she left.
"Wow… I bet they are glad to have a strong guy like me on the team instead of just girls…" Shade said, sounding proud, he looked down at Bless who was still nibbling on the bread. "I wonder if they have a clock… I'd really like to know what the time is… not known it for over a year now!" he said and went out to find something that could give him the time.
Bless was now all alone, she picked up one of the pillows, it wasn't the comfiest pillow she'd ever felt in her life, but it was the most comfortable she'd felt even since she and Shade were alone. She put it on the floor, lay her head down and fell asleep, she couldn't help herself, it was too cosy.
However falling asleep only meant one thing, Shadow! He was stood there again, a sinister look on his face. "You may have found a safe place to stay… but you'll get caught eventually… it's inevitable!" he growled.
"No it's not! We haven't heard from GUN in over a year! They must have forgotten about us!" Bless said with confidence.
"But they'll come back for you one day, I assure you of that. It's never over for us! We may get out little breaks from GUN… but they're always going to come back one day with better weapons and better plans and better trained soldiers! They are going to catch you…"
"And you think they'll find us down here?" Bless said, sounding unconvinced.
"You're a little too confident girl… you're too much like me… you may have my strengths… but you also have me weaknesses, remember that." he reminded her.
"And… what are those strengths and weaknesses?" she asked.
"Work it out yourself… you're old enough to realise what's good about you and what's not!" he sneered. "Like this one… advantage, ability to use chaos control, disadvantage, it easily tires you out and… you may not even know how to use it, because I'm not here to teach you." he said mischievously.
"So… I have powers like you… but I'll never know how to use them because you're not here? You bastard! All another reason to hate you!" she screamed.
"Quiet! You'll wake your new neighbours…" Shadow said, his voice fading away, Bless knew what this meant.
He eyes shot open and she sat upright to see Shade burst through the door. "Bless! What's wrong, why were you screaming?" he said in a panic.
"I was… sleeping…" Bless said nervously.
"Oh… that explains everything." Shade said, sighing, she knew she always had these nightmares but never knew what they were about. "Do you want me to stay?" Shade asked.
"Can I come with you?" Bless asked.
"What… to do boring work and stuff?" Shade said, but Bless knew he was lying. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Fine… come on…" Shade sighed, Bless got up and they went to see Heather in her room.
Shade knocked and waited for the reply. "Come in." Heather said from inside, so Shade opened the door, gently pushed Bless inside and followed her in.
"Oh… you have your sister with you this time." She said. "What was wrong just now?" she asked.
Bless just looked to the floor, not wanting to talk about it. "It's nothing serious." Shade explained to Heather. "She wanted to come with me… it must be lonely in that little room."
"Where are your friends right now?" Bless asked her.
"They're out getting supplies…"
"Will they be okay… are you sure they won't need help?" Shade asked.
"No… they're completely fine." Heather smiled. Then they heard a few bangs near the entrance, it sounded like they'd come back with the supplies. "Here they are now… I'll introduce you two to them." she said and led them out of the room and to the exit.
That's where Shade and Bless saw three girls carrying crates of supplies, but they weren't what Shade had expected. They had big muscles and were wearing masculine clothes, unlike Heather who was very feminine. Shade was speechless. "I see… why you wouldn't need help…" he said nervously, feeling uncomfortable around these girls, they seemed more manly than himself.
The three girls were also hedgehogs, they all looked very similar, their fur all shades of yellow. "Shade, Bless, this is Amber, Saffron and Topaz!" she said, "Triplets, as you may have noticed."
"Yeah… hi…" Shade said anxiously.
Later that evening at about 6pm, which Shade was glad to know, he'd not known the time in so long, they sat down to a meal. Shade and Bless were mesmerised by the variety! They'd gone from eating just bread to eating meat, vegetables and bread! They ate it thankfully, spooning up every last crumb on the plate, chewing the juicy meat and soaking up the last drops of gravy with their bread. "Thank you!" they both said at the end, finally feeling full for the first time in ages.
"You're welcome." Heather giggled. "I'm guessing you'll love breakfast tomorrow!"
Shade and Bless looked at each other in excitement, they wondered what amazing food they would have for breakfast. "You need to eat a lot… you've probably lost a lot of weight since you left home."
"Oh yes…" Shade said. "So… now what do we do to pass them time?" he asked.
"Just hang out… I'll tell you if you're needed for anything." Heather said, she got up from the table and picked up the empty plates, she then left with them.
"Wait… Heather… don't you want help with those!" Shade said urgently and chased after her. This left Bless alone with the triplets, in an awkward silence. Not liking the atmosphere between them, she got up and went back to her room.
Shade was in the small kitchen with Heather, helping her with the washing up. "So… how old are you two?" she asked Shade.
"Oh… I'm sixteen, nearly seventeen.… and Bless is twelve." Shade told her. "What about you?" he asked her.
"Just turned seventeen… how long until you turn seventeen?" she asked him.
"Well… if I've kept track of the days correctly… two weeks." he said, sounding unsure. "Do you know the date?" he asked nervously.
"November 5th." she giggled.
"WHAT! That means… I'm already seventeen… damn… I didn't do that good a job at keeping track."
"That's good then… looks like we're the same age." Heather said, giggling at Shade's mistake.
"Yeah…" he said, sounding slightly disappointed. "Oh well… at least I'm older now." he said, smiling at Heather.
Bless was waiting for Shade to come back to the room, she was bored and had nothing to do. For all this time, she and him would talk to pass the time, but now he was busy. She also needed the toilet, but didn't know where the bathroom was, and she didn't want to go peeping around to look for one in case she went somewhere she wasn't supposed to. "I can wait until Shade comes back." she told herself. But half an hour passed, and no sign of him. "Come on Shade…" she groaned, crossing her legs. She got up, she would go and find him, but had second thoughts, she didn't fully know her way around the place, so she sat back down again.
Another half an hour passed and Bless wished she hadn't asked for that second glass of juice at tea time. She looked at the new clock that was put in their room, Shade had insisted that it was put there. It was nearly eight o'clock at night. "Why is he doing this to me… I really have to go…" he groaned, she got up and ran out of the door to go and look for Shade.
She found the dining room and looked in the kitchen, no one was there. Then she ran to look in Heathers room, thinking Shade would be there. She knocked on the door. "Come in!" came both Shade and Heather's voices.
Bless flung the door open in hurry. He was there. "Aww… Bless… didn't you know where I was?" Shade asked, getting up and leading her inside the room to come and sit down with them. She sat down in discomfort.
"I was waiting for you to come back to our room Shade…" Bless said sadly.
"Aww… well, next time if I don't come back, I'll be here." Shade said. "Is there something wrong… you don't look very well." he said, looking at Bless.
"I'm… ok…" she lied. Shade took her by the hand and brought her outside the room. Now that they were in private, Bless told the truth. "I really need to go… but I don't know where the toilets are." Bless said urgently.
"Oh… me neither… I'll ask Heather." Shade said.
"No… then she'll know I have to go…" Bless whined. "And it's embarrassing enough telling you…"
"Then… how will we know?" Shade said folding his arms. Bless sighed in defeat. "I'll go and ask her then." he said. Bless stood outside waiting desperately. After a few seconds, Shade and Heather came out, Heather was going to show them to the toilets.
"I'm so sorry… I should have shown you to them when you first arrived… I know… to avoid confusion again… how about I give you two a tour now?" she said.
"No… show us to the toilets first!" Bless yelled.
"Of course… after that." Heather said and led the two of them to the toilets.
Bless ran inside and didn't come out for a few minutes. She came out looking relived, but embarrassed. "So… how about that tour now?" Heather said.
"Sure." Shade said, Bless tagged along with them, but only because she had to, she wasn't liking this very much.
Lucy Labrador
